“My name is Rahim,” the man said. “But now we must leave. When they find the woman is missing, they will come looking for her. Here . . . give me your shirt.” Alex didn’t know what the man was thinking, but this was no time for an argument. He stripped off his school shirt and handed it over. Rahim took out a second knife and cut the shirt to shreds, then tossed it down to the crocodiles. There were only two of them down there, fighting over what was left of the woman. The other had returned to the river, dragging part of her with it.
The pieces of Alex’s shirt fluttered down onto the riverbank. “It may fool them,” Rahim said. “It may not. Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“I have a camp.”
Alex followed Rahim off the observation platform and away from the river, heading into the bush. He was alarmed to see that Rahim was limping badly and that the back of his jacket was covered in sweat.
The man had a fever. Alex had also seen it in his eyes. He was a soldier of some sort, extremely fit. But he was also hurt. It was only willpower that was keeping him going.
Even so, they kept up a fast pace for the next fifteen minutes, finally arriving at a clearing dominated by a huge
Rahim went over to the backpack and took out a spare T-shirt. He threw it over to Alex. “Here. You can wear this.” He opened a water bottle and drank, then offered it to Alex. Alex took a swig. The water was warm and tasted of chemicals.
“You were in Scotland,” Alex said.
“Yes.” Rahim had obviously been drained by what he had just been through. The sweat was pouring down his face and he was breathing heavily, fighting against the fever. Now Alex saw that one of his legs was bleeding. It was probably bandaged underneath his pants, but the blood was seeping through.
He sat down and began to untie his shoelaces. He was wearing heavy combat boots.
“How safe are we here?” Alex asked.
“Not safe. The Kikuyu will be able to track us. Maybe McCain will think you are dead. But he is already nervous. He will not take any chances.”
“You’re hurt.” Alex handed back the water bottle. “What can I do to help you?”
“I was unlucky.” Rahim drank a second time. “I parachuted in last night.” Alex remembered hearing a plane. It had passed over the safari lodge, flying close to the ground. “I landed badly in a thornbush and cut my leg open. The wound has become infected. But I have taken antibiotics and I will recover. There is nothing you can do.”
“You’ve told me your name, but you haven’t said why you’re here.” Rahim didn’t reply, but Alex had already worked it out for himself. “You were at Kilmore Castle, so you must be interested in McCain.” Rahim nodded.
“Who are you working for?”
Rahim took a deep breath and shifted his position. The movement caused him pain. “I know who you are,” he said. “You are Alex Rider. You are a part- time operative working with the Special Operations Division of MI6. They are looking for you. They have put out the call to every intelligence department, including mine.”
“But you didn’t come here looking for me.”
“I did not expect to find you here, Alex.” Rahim smiled, and at that moment Alex saw how very young he was, perhaps only twenty-three or -four. There might be less than ten years between them. “I was sent here for one reason only. It was the same reason that I was sent to Kilmore Castle, and this is now the second time you have got in my way. I am here to kill Desmond McCain.”
“Why?” There were so many questions Alex wanted to ask, and he was aware of time ticking away.
The tribesmen could come looking for them at any time. But at least the rifle might put the odds more on their side.
Rahim took a plastic bottle out of his pocket. “I will tell you,” he said. He tipped two pills into the palm of his hand and swallowed them dry. He grimaced. “I am a spy like you, Alex. I belong to a division of the Indian secret service called RAW. It stands for Research and Analysis Wing, and it deals in counterterrorism, foreign affairs, and covert action. My own department goes further than that. Our activities often come under a single word. Revenge.”
“This is about the nuclear power station,” Alex said. “The one that McCain tried to destroy.” Rahim nodded. “The Jowada facility in Chennai. We know that he bribed a man by the name of Ravi Chandra to carry a device into the building. It was a lamentable lapse in security, but the security at Jowada was in general a disgrace. Unfortunately, we were unable to question Chandra because he died in the initial explosion. McCain took a great deal of care. There were a number of connections between him and the man who paid Chandra, but we investigated, and in the end we found a link with First Aid.
Suddenly everything made sense. Even so, we cannot prove the case against McCain, nor do we need to. Sometimes RAW deals with its enemies in a simpler and more direct way. I was sent to Scotland to kill him there, and I was checking out the castle when your car went off the road and into the lake. That was fortunate for you. And it is even more fortunate that I should be here a second time. That business with the crocodiles . . .” Rahim gave Alex the ghost of a smile. “I have never seen anything like that.”
“How were you going to kill him?” Alex asked.
“I was planning to shoot him, but as I discovered last night, that will not be as easy as I thought. He is well protected by his Kikuyus. However, I have come well prepared. I can also blow up his plane.”
“You have plastic explosive?”
“Of course.” Rahim gestured at his backpack. “McCain flies a four-seater 172 Skyhawk.”
