“Alex—”
“What do you want?” Alex recoiled away from her as she leaned over him. Then there was a click, and to his astonishment, his hands came free. She had unlocked the handcuffs! He stood up, wondering what was going on.
“Listen to me,” Vole said. The words were tumbling quickly and softly out of her yellow-painted lips. “We do not have much time. I am here to help you. I worked with your uncle—Herr Rider.” Alex stared at her in surprise. “Yes. I am on the same side as you.”
“But nobody told me—”
“It was better for you not to know.”
“But…” Alex was confused. “I saw you with the submarine. You knew what Sayle was doing…”
“There was nothing I could do. Not then. It’s too hard for me to explain. We don’t have the time to argue. You want to stop him or no?”
“I need to find a phone.”
“All the phones in the house are coded. You cannot use them. But I have a mobile in my office.”
“Then let’s go.”
Alex was still suspicious. If Nadia Vole had known so much, why hadn’t she tried to stop Sayle before? On the other hand, she had released him—and Mr. Grin would be back any minute. He had no choice but to trust her. He followed her out of the room, around the corner, and up a flight of stairs to a landing with a statue of a naked woman, some Greek goddess, in the corner. Vole paused for a moment, resting her hand against the statue’s arm.
“What is it?” Alex asked.
“I feel dizzy. You go on. It’s the first door on the left.”
Alex went past her, along the landing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her press down on the statue’s arm. The arm moved … a lever. By the time he knew he had been tricked, it was too late. He yelled out as the floor underneath him swung around on a hidden pivot. He tried to stop himself falling, but there was nothing he could do. He crashed onto his back and slid down through the floor and into a black plastic tunnel, which corkscrewed beneath him. As he went, he heard Nadia Vole laugh triumphantly, and then he was gone, desperately trying to find a hold on the sides, wondering what would be at the end of his fall.
Five seconds later he found out. The corkscrew spat him out. He fell briefly through the air and splashed into cold water. For a moment he was blinded, fighting for air. Then he rose to the surface and found himself in a huge glass tank filled with water and rocks. That was when he realized, with horror, exactly where he was.
Vole had deposited him in the tank with the giant jellyfish: Herod Sayle’s Portuguese man-of-war. It was a miracle that he hadn’t crashed right into it. He could see it in the far corner of the tank, its dreadful tentacles with their hundreds of stinging cells, twisting and spiraling in the water. There was nothing between him and it. Alex fought back the panic, forced himself to keep still. He realized that thrashing about in the water would only create the current that would bring the creature over to him. The jellyfish had no eyes. It didn’t know he was there. It wouldn’t … couldn’t attack.
But eventually it would reach him. The tank he was in was huge, at least fifteen feet deep and twenty or thirty feet long. The glass rose above the level of the water, far out of his reach. There was no way he could climb out. Looking down, through the water, he could see light. He realized he was looking into the room he had just left, Herod Sayle’s private office. There was a movement everything was vague and distorted through the rippling water—and the door opened. Two figures walked in. Alex could barely make them out, but he knew who they were. Fraulein Vole and Mr. Grin. They stood together in front of the tank. Vole was holding what looked like a mobile telephone in her hand.
“I hope you can hear me, Alex.” The German woman’s voice rang out from a speaker somewhere above his head. “I am sure you will have seen by now that there is no way out of the tank. You can tread water. Maybe for one hour, maybe for two. Others have lasted for longer. What is the record, Mr. Grin?”
“Ire naaargh aah!”
“Five and a half hours. Yes. But soon you will get tired, Alex. You will drown. Or perhaps it will be faster and you will drift into the embrace of our friend. You see him … no? It is not an embrace to be desired. It will kill you. The pain, I think, will be beyond the imagination of a child. It is a pity, Alex Rider, that M16 chose to send you here. They will not be seeing you again.”
The voice clicked off. Alex kicked in the water, keeping his head above the surface, his eyes fixed on the jellyfish. There was another blurred movement on the other side of the glass. Mr. Grin had left the room. But Vole had stayed behind. She wanted to watch him die.
Alex looked up. The tank was lit from above by a series of neon strips, but they were too high to reach. Beneath him he heard a click and a soft, whirring sound. Almost at once he became aware that something had changed. The jellyfish was moving toward him! He could see the translucent cone with its dark mauve tip heading toward him. Underneath the creature, the tentacles slowly danced.
He swallowed water and realized he had opened his mouth to cry out. Vole must have turned on some sort of artificial current. That was what was making the jellyfish move. Desperately he kicked out with his feet, moving away from it, surging through the water on his back. One tentacle floated up and draped itself over his foot. If he hadn’t been wearing sneakers, he would have been stung. Could the stinging cells penetrate his clothes? Almost certainly. His sneakers were the only protection he had.
He reached the back corner of the aquarium and paused there, one hand against the glass. He already knew that what Vole had said was true. If the jellyfish didn’t get him, tiredness would. He had to fight every second to stay afloat, and sheer terror was sapping his strength. The glass. He pushed against it, wondering if he could break it. Perhaps there was a way… He checked the distance between himself and the jellyfish, took a deep breath and dived down to the bottom of the pool. He could see Nadia Vole, watching. Although she was a blur to him, he would be crystal clear to her. She didn’t move, and Alex realized with despair that she had expected him to do just this.
He swam to the rocks and looked for one small enough to bring to the surface. But the rocks were too heavy. He found one about the size of his own head, but it refused to move. Vole hadn’t tried to stop him because she knew that all the rocks were set in concrete. Alex was running out of breath. He twisted around and pushed himself
