Mrs. Stellenbosch was standing outside.
He barely had time to register the shock of seeing her. He tried to bring up a hand to protect himself, to twist his body into position for a karate kick. But it was already too late. Her arm shot out, the heel of her hand driving into his face. It was like being hit by a brick wall. Alex felt every bone in his body rattle. White light exploded behind his eyes. Then he was out.
HOW TO RULE THE WORLD
‚OPEN YOUR EYES ALEX. Dr. Grief wishes to speak to you.'
The words came from across an ocean. Alex groaned and tried to lift his head. He was sitting down, his arms pinned behind his back. The whole side of his face felt bruised and swollen, and the taste of blood was in his mouth. He opened his eyes and waited for the room to come into focus. Mrs. Stellenbosch was standing in front of him, her fist curled loosely in her other hand. Alex remembered the force of the blow that had knocked him out. His whole head was throbbing, and he ran his tongue over his teeth to see if any were missing. It was fortunate he had rolled with the punch. Otherwise she might have broken his neck.
Dr. Grief was sitting in his golden chair, watching Alex with what might have been curiosity or distaste or perhaps a little of both. There was nobody else in the room. It was still snowing outside, and a small fire burned in the hearth. The flames weren’t as red as Dr. Grief’s eyes.
‚You have put us to a great deal of inconvenience,' he said.
Alex straightened his head. He tried to move his hands, but they had been chained together behind the chair.
‚Your name is not Alex Friend. You are not the son of Sir David Friend. Your name is Alex Rider, and you are employed by the British secret service.' Dr. Grief was simply stating facts.
There was no emotion in his voice.
‚We have microphones concealed in the cells,' Mrs. Stellenbosch explained. ‚Sometimes it is useful for us to hear the conversations between our young guests. Everything you said was overheard by the guard who summoned me.'
‚You have wasted our time and our money,' Dr. Grief continued. ‚For that you will be punished. It is not a punishment you will survive.'
The words were cold and absolute, and Alex felt the fear that they triggered. It coursed through his bloodstream, closing in on his heart. He took a deep breath, forcing himself back under control. He had signaled MI6. They would be on their way to Point Blanc. They might appear any minute now. He just had to play for time.
‚You can’t do anything to me,' he said.
Mrs. Stellenbosch lashed out, and he was almost thrown backward as the back of her hand sliced into the side of his head. Only the chair kept him upright. ‚When you speak to the director, you will refer to him as ‘Dr. Grief,’ ' she said.
Alex looked around again, his eyes watering. ‚You can’t do anything to me, Dr. Grief,' he said. ‚I know everything. I know about Project Gemini. And I’ve already told London what I know. If you do anything to me, they’ll kill you. They’re on their way here now.'
Dr. Grief smiled, and in that single moment Alex knew that nothing he said would change what was about to happen to him. The man was too confident. He was like a poker player who had not only managed to see all the cards but had also stolen the four aces for himself.
‚It may well be that your friends are on their way,' he said. ‚But I do not think you have told them anything. We have been through your luggage and found the transmitting device concealed in the Discman. I note also that it is an ingenious electric saw. But as for the transmitter, it can send out a signal but not a message. How you learned about the Gemini Project is of no interest to me. I assume you overheard the name while eavesdropping at a door.
We should have been more careful—but for British intelligence to send in a child … that was something we could not expect.
‚Let us assume that your friends do come calling. They will find nothing wrong. You yourself will have disappeared. I shall tell them that you ran away. I will say that my men are looking for you even now, but that I very much fear you have died a cold and lingering death on the mountainside. Nobody will guess what I have done here. The Gemini Project will succeed. It has already succeeded. And even if your friends do take it upon themselves to kill me, it will make no difference. I cannot be killed, Alex. The world is already mine.'
‚You mean, it belongs to the kids you’ve hired to act as doubles,' Alex said.
‚Hired?' Dr. Grief muttered a few words to Mrs. Stellenbosch in a harsh, guttural language.
Alex assumed it must be Afrikaans. Her thick lips parted and she laughed, showing heavy, discolored teeth. ‚Is that what you think?' Dr. Grief asked. ‚Is that what you believe?'
‚I’ve seen them…'
‚You don’t know what you’ve seen. You have no understanding of my genius! Your little mind couldn’t begin to encompass what I have achieved.' Dr. Grief was breathing heavily. He seemed to come to a decision. ‚It is rare enough for me to come face-to-face with the enemy,' he said. ‚It has always been my frustration that I will never be able to communicate to the world the brilliance of what I have done. Well, since I have you here—a captive audience, so to speak—I shall allow myself the luxury of describing the Gemini Project. And when you go, screaming, to your death, you will understand that there was never any hope for you. That you could not hope to come up against a man like me and win. Perhaps that will make it easier for you.'
‚I will smoke, if you don’t mind, Doctor,' Mrs. Stellenbosch said. She took out her cigars and lit one. Smoke danced in front of her eyes.
‚I am, as I am sure you are aware, South African,' Dr. Grief began. ‚The animals in the hall and in this room are all souvenirs of my time there, shot on safari. I still miss the country. It is the most beautiful place on this planet.
‚What you may not know, however, is that for many years I was one of South Africa’s foremost biochemists. I was head of the biology department at the University of Johannesburg. I later ran the Cyclops Institute for Genetic Research in Pretoria. But the height of my career came in the 1960s when, although I was still in my twenties, John Vorster, the president of South Africa, appointed me minister of science.'
‚You’ve already said you’re going to kill me,' Alex said, ‚but I didn’t think that meant you were going to bore me to death.'
Mrs. Stellenbosch coughed on her cigar and advanced on Alex, her fist clenched. But Dr.
Grief stopped her. ‚Let the boy have his little joke,' he said. ‚There will be pain enough for him later.'
The assistant director glowered at Alex, but returned to her seat. Dr. Grief went on. ‚I am telling you this, Alex, only because it will help you understand. You perhaps know nothing about South Africa. English schoolchildren are, I have found, the laziest and most ignorant in the world. All that will soon change! But let me tell you a little bit about my country, as it was when I was young.
‚The white people of South Africa ruled everything. Under the laws that came to be known to the world as apartheid, black people were not allowed to live near white people. They could not marry white people. They could not share whites’ toilets, restaurants, sports arenas, or bars.
They had to carry passes. They were treated like animals.'
‚It was horrible,' Alex said.
‚It was wonderful!' Mrs. Stellenbosch murmured.
‚It was indeed perfect,' Dr. Grief agreed. ‚But as the years passed, I became aware that it would also be short-lived. The uprising at Soweto, the growing resistance, and the way the entire world—including your own stinking country—ganged up on us … I knew that white South Africa was doomed, and I even foresaw the day when power would be handed over to a man like Nelson Mandela.'
‚A criminal!' Mrs. Stellenbosch added. Smoke was dribbling out of her nostrils.
Alex said nothing. It was clear enough that both Dr. Grief and his assistant were mad. Just how mad they were was becoming clearer with every word they spoke.
