a time when the Russians were our enemies and still part of the Soviet Union. This wasn’t very long ago, Alex. The collapse of communism. It was only in 1989 that the Berlin Wall came down.” She stopped. “I suppose none of this means very much to you.”
“Well, it wouldn’t,” Alex said. “I was only two years old.”
“Yes, of course. But you have to understand, Sarov was a hero of the old Russia. He was made a general when he was only thirty-eight-the same year that his country invaded Afghanistan. He fought there for ten years, rising to be second in command of the Red Army. He had a son who was killed there. Sarov didn’t even go the funeral. It would have meant abandoning his men and he wouldn’t do that-not even for one day.”
Alex looked at the photograph again. He could see the hardness in the man’s eyes. It was a face without a shred of warmth.
“The war in Afghanistan ended when the Soviets withdrew in 1989,” Mrs Jones continued. “At the same time, the whole country was falling apart. Communism came to an end and Sarov left. He made no secret of the fact that he didn’t like the new Russia with its jeans and Nike trainers and McDonald’s on every street corner. He left the army, although he still calls himself General, and went to live-”
“In Skeleton Key.” Alex finished the sentence.
“Yes. He’s been there for ten years now-and this is the point, Alex. In two weeks’ time, the Russian president is planning to meet him there. There’s nothing surprising in that. The two men are old friends. They even grew up in the same part of Moscow. But the CIA are worried. They want to know what Sarov is up to. Why are the two men meeting? Old Russia and new Russia. What’s going on?”
“The CIA want to spy on Sarov.”
“Yes. It’s a simple surveillance operation. They want to send in an undercover team to take a look around before the president arrives.”
“Fine.” Alex shrugged. “But why do they need me?”
“Because Skeleton Key is a communist island,” Blunt explained. “It belongs to Cuba, one of the last places in the western world where communism still exists. Getting in and out of the place is extremely difficult. There’s an airport at Santiago. But every plane is watched. Every passenger is checked. They’re always on the lookout for American spies and anyone who is even slightly suspect is stopped and turned away.”
“And that’s why the CIA have come to us,” Mrs Jones continued. “A single man might be suspicious. A man and a woman might be a team. But a man and a woman travelling with a child…? That has to be a family!”
“That’s all they want from you, Alex,” Blunt said. “You go in with them. You stay at their hotel. You swim, snorkel and enjoy the sun. They do all the work. You’re only there as part of their cover.”
“Couldn’t they use an American boy?” Alex asked.
Blunt coughed, obviously embarrassed. “The Americans would never use one of their own young people in an exercise like this,” he said. They have a different set of rules to us.”
“You mean they’d be worried about getting him killed.”
“We wouldn’t have asked you, Alex,” Mrs Jones broke the awkward silence. “But you have to leave London. In fact, you have to leave England. We’re not trying to get you killed. We’re trying to protect you and this is the best way. Mr Blunt is right. Cayo Esqueleto is a beautiful island and you’re really very lucky to be going there. You can look on the whole thing as a free holiday.”
Alex thought it over. He looked from Alan Blunt to Mrs Jones, but of course they were giving nothing away. How many agents had sat in this room with the two of them, listening to their honeyed words? It’s a simple job. Nothing to it. You’ll be back in two weeks…
His own uncle had been one of them, sent to check on security in a computer factory on the south coast. But Ian Rider had never made it back.
Alex wanted none of it. There were still a few weeks of the summer holidays left and he wanted to see Sabina again. The two of them had talked about northern France and the Loire Valley, youth hostels and hiking. He had friends in London. Jack Starbright, his housekeeper and closest friend, had offered to take him with her when she visited her parents in Chicago. Seven weeks of normality. Was it too much to ask?
And yet, he remembered what had happened on the Cribber when the man on the jet ski had caught up with him. Alex had seen his eyes for just a few seconds but there had been no mistaking their cruelty and fanaticism. This was a man who had been prepared to chase him across the top of a twenty-foot wave in order to mow him down from behind-and he had come perilously close to succeeding. Alex knew, with a sick certainty, that the triad would try again. He had offended them… not once now, but twice. Blunt was right about that. Any hope of an ordinary summer had gone out the window.
“If I help your friends in the CIA, you can get the triad to leave me alone?” he asked.
Mrs Jones nodded. “We have contacts in the Chinese underworld. But it will take time, Alex. Whatever happens, you’re going to have to go into hiding-at least for the next couple of weeks.”
So why not do it in the sun?
Alex nodded wearily. “All right,” he said. “It seems I don’t really have a lot of choice. When do you want me to leave?”
Blunt took an envelope out of the file. “I have your air ticket here,” he said. “There’s a flight this afternoon.”
Of course, they had known he would accept.
“We will want to keep in touch with you while you’re away,” Mrs Jones muttered.
“I’ll send you a postcard,” Alex said.
“No, Alex, that’s not quite what I had in mind. Why don’t you go and have a word with Smithers?”
Smithers had an office on the eleventh floor of the building and at first Alex had to admit he was disappointed.
It was Smithers who had designed the various gadgets Alex had used on his previous missions and Alex had expected to find him somewhere in the basement, surrounded by cars and motorbikes, hi-tech weapons and men and women in white coats. But this room was boring: large, square and anonymous. It could have belonged to the chief executive of almost anything; an insurance company, perhaps, or a bank. There was a steel and glass desk with a telephone, a computer, “in” and “out” trays and an anglepoise lamp. A leather sofa stood against one wall, and on the other side of the room was a silver filing cabinet with six drawers. A picture hung on the wall behind the desk; a view of the sea. But disappointingly, there were no gadgets anywhere. Not so much as an electric pencil sharpener.
Smithers himself was behind the desk, tapping at the computer with fingers almost too big for the keys. He was one of the fattest people Alex had ever met. Today he was wearing a black three-piece suit with what looked like an old school tie perched limply on the great bulge of his stomach. Seeing Alex, he stopped typing and swivelled round in a leather chair that must have been reinforced to take his weight.
“My dear boy!” he exclaimed. “How delightful to see you. Come in, come in! How have you been keeping? I hear you had a bit of trouble, that business in France. You really must look after yourself, Alex. I’d be mortified if anything happened to you. Door!”
Alex was surprised when the door swung shut behind him.
“Voice activated,” Smithers explained. “Do, please, sit down.”
Alex sat on a second leather chair on the other side of the desk. As he did so, there was a low hum and the anglepoise lamp swivelled round and bent towards him like some sort of metallic bird taking a closer look. At the same time, the computer screen flickered and a human skeleton appeared. Alex moved a hand. The skeleton’s hand moved. With a shudder, he realized he was looking at-or rather, through-himself.
“You’re looking well,” Smithers said. “Good bone structure!”
“What…?” Alex began.
“It’s just something I’ve been working on. A simple X-ray device. Useful if anyone is wearing a gun.” Smithers pressed a button and the screen went blank. “Now, Mr Blunt tells me that you’re off to join our friends in the CIA. They’re fine operators. Very, very good-except, of course, you can never trust them and they have no sense of humour. Cayo Esqueleto, I understand…?”
He leant forward and pressed another button on the desk. Alex glanced at the painting on the wall. The waves had begun to move! At the same time, the image shifted, pulling back, and he realized that he was looking at a plasma television screen with a picture beamed by satellite from somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean. Alex found
