Snakehead

now—surely—sending out a distress signal to MI6. It had to be. Inside Alex knew that without this one hope, if he didn’t believe that despite everything he still had the advantage, he would have been paralyzed with fear. Major Yu’s plan for him was the most evil thing he had ever heard…turning him from a human being into a bag of spare parts. Ash had certainly been right about the snakehead, and maybe Alex should have listened to his warnings. These people were death itself.
    And yet…
    Alex had been locked up at Yu’s house throughout the night and for much of the morning. It was now almost midday. How long had it been since he had begun sending the signal? Fifteen hours at the very least. Maybe longer. MI6 would have received the signal in Bangkok. It would take them time to reach Australia. He had nothing to worry about. MI6 would be tracking him even now, watching him every inch of the way as he moved to the east.
    But still Alex had to force himself to ignore the little voice in his ear. They should have been here already. They had decided not to bother. After all, he had called them once before when he was a prisoner in the academy in Point Blanc. That time, the panic button had been concealed in a CD player. He had pressed it, and they had done nothing. Was it happening a second time?
    No. Don’t go there. They would come.
    He had no idea where they were heading, and the pilot’s body was effectively blocking out the compass and any of the other controls that might have given him a clue. He had assumed at first that they would stick to the coast. After all, the plane had no wheels. It had to land on water. But for the last hour, they had been flying inland, and only the position of the sun gave him any sense of his direction. He looked out the window, past the blur of the propeller. The landscape was flat and rocky, covered in scrub. A brilliant blue river snaked down like a great crack in the surface of the world. Wherever this was, it was huge and empty. There was no sign of any roads. No houses. Nothing.
    He tried to make out more of the pilot’s features, but the man’s eyes were fixed on the controls as if he were making a deliberate effort to ignore his passenger. He pulled on the joystick, and Alex leaned to one side as the plane dipped. Now he saw a canopy of green…a band of rain forest. Yu had spoken of the Australian jungle. Was this what he had meant?
    The plane dipped down. Alex had been in rain forests before and recognized the extraordinary chaos of leaves and vines, a thousand different shades and sizes, each one of them endlessly fighting for a place in the sun. Surely there would be nowhere for them to land here? But then they flew over the edge of the canopy, and Alex saw a clearing and a river that swelled suddenly into a lake with a cluster of buildings around the edge and a jetty reaching out to welcome them.
    “We’re landing,” the pilot said—for no obvious reason. It was the first time he had spoken throughout the flight.
    Alex felt his stomach shrink and his ears popped as they circled and began their descent. The sound of the engines rose as they neared the surface of the water. They touched down, sending spray in two directions. An osprey, frightened by the sudden arrival, leapt out of the undergrowth in a panic of beating wings. The pilot brought the plane around and they headed smoothly toward the jetty.
    Two men had come out. They were both muscular, black, unsmiling, dressed in dirty jeans and string vests. They were Aboriginal. One of them was carrying a rifle, slung over his bare shoulder. The pilot cut the engines and opened the door. He had unhooked a paddle from the side of the cockpit and used it to steer the plane the last few yards. The two men helped tie it to the jetty. One of them opened the door and released Alex from his seat. Nobody spoke. That was perhaps more unnerving than anything else.
    Alex took a look around him. The compound was clean and well ordered, with lawns that had recently been mown and neat flower beds. All the buildings were made of wood, painted white, with low roofs stretching out over long verandas. There were four houses, square and compact with open shutters and fans turning behind. Each of them had a balcony on the second floor with views down to the lake. One of the buildings was an office and administration center connected to a metal radio tower with two satellite dishes. There was a water tower and an electrical