Snakehead

Same game. Different rules.

Alex took a swig of the water he had stolen and slid underneath, easing the silk valance back into shape. Very little light bled through underneath. Alex prepared himself, trying to find a comfortable position. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to move a muscle once Yu entered the room.

He was suddenly struck by the craziness of his plan.

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Could he really stay here all night? How stupid would he look if Yu found him? He was briefly tempted to crawl out and find somewhere else. But it was already too late. The search would have begun, and he couldn’t risk starting again.

In fact, it was several hours before Yu came in. Alex heard the outer door open and close again. Footsteps.

Then music. Yu had turned on the stereo system. His taste was classical . . . Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance, the music they played at the Albert Hall in London every summer. He listened to the piece while he ate his dinner.

Alex heard one of the stewards deliver it to him and caught a faint scent of roast meat. The smell made him hungry. He sipped a little more water, glumly reflecting that it was all he had to last the night.

Later Yu turned on the television. Somehow he had managed to tune in to the BBC, and Alex heard the late- night news.

“Pop singer Rob Goldman was in Australia this week, just five days before the conference taking place on Reef Island, which has come to be known as Reef Encounter and which has been timed to take place at exactly the same time as the G8 summit in Rome.

“Goldman played to a sold-out audience at the Sydney Opera House and told an enthusiastic crowd that peace and an end to world poverty were possible—but that they would have to be achieved by people, not politicians.

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“Speaking from 10 Downing Street, the British prime minister said that he wished Sir Rob every success but insisted that the real work would be done in Rome. It’s a view that not many people seem to share . . .” Much later, Major Yu went to bed. Alex barely breathed as he came into the bedroom. Lying in the semi-darkness with muscles that were already aching, he heard the major undress and wash in the adjoining bathroom.

And then came the inevitable moment: the creak of wood and shifting metal springs as Yu climbed into bed, just inches above the boy he was so determined to find. Fortunately, he didn’t read before he slept. Alex heard the click of the light switch, and the last glimmer of light was extinguished. Then everything was silent.

For Alex, the night was yet another long, dreary ordeal.

He was fairly sure that Major Yu was asleep, but he couldn’t be certain, and he didn’t dare sleep himself in case the sound of his breathing or an accidental movement gave him away. All he could do was wait, listening to the hum of the engines and feeling the pitch of the ship as they drew ever closer to Australia. At least that was one consolation. Every second that he remained undiscovered brought him a little closer to safety.

But how was he to get off the Liberian Star? One exit—guarded. The decks watched. Alex didn’t like the idea of diving overboard and swimming . . . even assuming he could manage it without being crushed or 248

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drowned. And there would be a dozen or more men waiting to take a potshot at him. Well, he would just have to worry about that when the time came.

The ship plowed on through the darkness. The minutes dragged slowly past. At last a glimmer of light crept across the floor, pushing away the shadows of the night.

Yu woke up, washed, dressed, and took his breakfast in the stateroom. That was the worst part for Alex. He had barely moved for ten hours, and all his bones were aching.

Still Yu refused to leave. He was working at his desk. Alex heard the rustle of pages turning and, briefly, the rattle of computer keys. And then the steward brought a mid-morning snack, and a short while later De Wynter arrived with the news of his failure.

So Major Yu knew who he was—and had known from the start! Alex tucked that information away, hoping he would be able to make sense of it later. For now, all that mattered was that his plan had worked and the long hours of discomfort had been worth it. They were docking at Darwin. Surely any minute now, Yu would go out on deck to see dry land.

But it was another two hours before he left. Alex waited until he was quite sure that he was alone, then rolled out from underneath the bed. He glanced into the stateroom. Yu had gone, but he had left some of the cook-ies, and Alex wolfed them down. Yu might notice—but Alex was too hungry to care. At the same time, he tried to ease some feeling back into his muscles. He had to preH i d e - a n d - S e e k

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pare himself. He knew that he had just one chance to get away. They would set off to sea again in just a few hours’

time, and if he was still on board, he would be finished.

He went over to the window. The Liberian Star had already berthed at the section of the port of Darwin known as the East Arm Wharf. To his dismay, Alex realized that they were still a very long way from land. The East Arm was an artificial cement causeway stretching far out into the ocean, with the usual array of gantries, cranes, and spreaders waiting to receive the ships. It was a world apart from the docks at Jakarta. Quite apart from the blinding Australian sun, everything seemed very clean and ordered.

There were two long rows of parked cars and beyond them, a neat, modern warehouse and some gas tanks—

all of them painted white.