He could see it clearly. That was what had happened on December 26, 2004. An earthquake underneath the sea. A tsunami that had hit first Sumatra, then the coast of Somalia. More than two hundred thousand people had died.
“Exactly. The bomb will have the effect of lubricating the fault line.” Yu rested one hand on top of the other.
“This will force one of the plates to rise.” He lifted the upper hand a few inches. “The result will be a deep water wave, just one yard high. You wouldn’t think it could do much harm. But as it approaches the coastline, where the
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seabed begins to rise, the front will slow down and the rest of the water will pile up behind. By the time it hits Reef Island, a one-hundred-foot wall of water will have formed, traveling at about five hundred miles an hour . . . the speed of a jumbo jet. One cubic yard of water weighs about one ton, Alex. Imagine hundreds of cubic yards rushing in. There will be no warning. The island will be destroyed utterly. It is low-lying. There will be nowhere to hide. Every building will be smashed. Every single person on the island will be killed.”
“But the tsunami won’t stop there!” Alex exclaimed.
“What will happen to it after that?”
“That’s a very intelligent observation. No. The tsunami will unleash the same amount of energy as several thousand nuclear weapons. It will continue on its way until it hits the coast of Australia. We’ll be all right up here in Darwin, but I’m afraid a very large section of the western coast will disappear. Everything from Derby to Carnavon.
Fortunately, there’s nowhere very important or even attractive in that part of the country. Broome, Port Headland . . . few people have even heard of these places. And they’re not exactly overpopulated. I wouldn’t expect more than about ten or twenty thousand people to die. A small price to pay for a job well done.”
“But I don’t understand . . .” Alex could feel his chest tightening. “You’re going to do all this just to kill eight people?”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear what I said. Their deaths
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have to look accidental. Our job is to make the world forget that this stupid conference ever took place. And so we will provide a natural disaster on a massive scale. Who will care about the extinction of eight people when the number of deaths rises into the thousands? Who will remember a little island when an entire continent has been hit?”
“But they’ll know it was you! They’ll know it was all started with a bomb.”
“That would be true if we used a nuclear bomb. There is an international network of seismographs. The
Alex tried to make sense of what he was hearing. He had been sent to uncover a smuggling operation, and somehow instead he had stumbled into this terrible nightmare . . . another attempt by Scorpia to change the world.
He had to stop himself from glancing at his watch. Several hours had passed since he had set the hands to eleven o’clock. Surely MI6 were on their way. Why weren’t they already here?
“I expect you’re wondering whether such a relatively small bomb will really be able to cause such havoc,” Major Yu continued. “Well, there is one other thing you need to know. As luck would have it, in three days’ time, a rather special event is taking place. I’m afraid I don’t know the astronomical term for it, but what we’re talking about is
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the alignment of three celestial bodies—the sun, the moon, and the earth. And the moon is going to be particularly close. At midnight, in fact, it will be as close as it ever is.
“As a result, there will be a particularly strong gravitational pull on the earth’s surface. I’m sorry, Alex. I’m beginning to sound like a schoolteacher. Let me put it more simply. The sun will be pulling one way. The moon will be pulling the other. And for just one hour, from midnight, the tectonic plate will be at its most volatile. A single explosion will be more than enough to begin the process I have described. Royal Blue is the perfect weapon for our needs. Undetectable. Invisible. And above all, British.”
Yu fell silent, and in that moment Alex heard the drone of a plane. He looked out the window and saw it circling.
It was a seaplane, a tiny two-seater with floats instead of wheels. It could land on the sea right outside the house and tie up on the jetty that Alex had seen from his room.
He knew it had come for him.
“Where are you taking me?” he demanded.
“Ah, yes. Now we come to the rub.” Major Yu had finished eating. He sat back and suddenly the gun was in his hand, pointing at Alex. He had certainly moved quickly.
Alex hadn’t even seen him draw it. “The easiest and perhaps the most sensible thing would be to shoot you now,” he said. “In half an hour you could be at the bottom of the
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ocean, and neither Mrs. Jones nor Mr. Ethan Brooke would ever know what had happened to you.
“But I’m not going to do that. Why? For two reasons.
The first is that I really don’t want to get blood on the carpet. You may have noticed that it’s an Axminster—
