Alex Rider: Luck of the Goddess

Don't Blow Up the Boat, Don't Blow Up the Boat

It was a beautiful boat, massive in size and yet somehow sleek and delicate, perching on the water as if it weighed nothing at all. Apart from the tinted windows, the whole thing was a dazzling white with silver railings polished until they gleamed. There was a main deck with outdoor seating, sun loungers and a shaded area with doors opening into the main saloon. An upper deck contained the bridge and the captain's quarters and a range of aerials and satellite dishes mounted on the roof. There were at least two lower decks with the smallest portholes – crew quarters – closest to the sea.

The wind had dropped and an Italian flag – green, white and red – hung limply at the back. A gangplank sloped down to the side of the harbour. It was the only way in and out. Two guards, both dressed in jeans and T-shirts with sunglasses, stood on the aft deck, guarding it. One was completely bald, with a head that reminded Alex of a punctured football. He was in his late forties. The other was younger – around twenty five or six, skinny and endlessly fidgeting, much like Alex's compaignon at the moment. They had been standing there for hours.

Alex had positioned himself and Simon in another café, a little further down from the one where he had met Mrs Jones, directly opposite the quay where Quicksilver was moored. After he had left the harbour office, he had gone back to the hotel and changed into darker clothes, which would help him with what lay ahead. It might be cold later in the evening, so he put on a crumpled jacket and a long-sleeved shirt. There was no safe in the room so he had brought his passport and wallet with him. They were in his inside pocket. He also had his phone and his laptop in his backpack. He had a nasty feeling he was going to need them.

After that hemet with Simon, it wasn't hard to spot him flying along the South of France skyline on a winged horse. He led Simon to the cafe they were out now, filling him in as they waited for night to fall. The sky had changed from red to mauve to the deepest blue. Suddenly it was night. Simon was clearly anxious and fidgeting, but Alex was the exact opposite. He was calm and collected, analyizing in a way that made a child run down Simon's spin. Alex had been sitting where he was for a long time, watching the boat, trying to see who was on board. Apart from the guards, there was nothing; no movement at all. But watching the two of them, he knew that they weren't ordinary security men. They weren't there simply to nod politely at the public and keep them moving along. Alex knew it at once from the way they stood, their blank expressions, their empty eyes. The younger man was pale with the sort of vacant, hungry look that reminded him of Colin Maguire, the bully he had taken out in San Francisco. Some sort of skin rash had eaten away at the corner of his mouth and his eyes and if he lay still, it would be quite easy to mistake him for someone who had recently died. The other man was in charge. He looked ferocious. As well as being completely bald, he had very dark, angry eyes and a nose that seemed to have been pushed back into his face. His T-shirt was stretched out over a bodybuilder's chest and there was a tattoo – a bright red flame – on the back of his right hand.

These gangsters were all the same. Alex had met them at Herod Sayle's computer manufacturing plant in Port Tallon, then again at Sarov's hideaway in Skeleton Key, and on Flamingo Bay, the Caribbean island where Nikolei Drevin had planned to launch his rocket into outer space. Some things never changed. Rich, powerful men surrounded themselves with people who would protect them at any cost. Pay the guards enough money and point them in the right direction and they would kill anyone without a second thought. This yacht belonged to the Grimaldi brothers – Giovanni and Eduardo. Alex remembered what Colonel Manzour had told him about them. They were ex-Mafia and ex-Scorpia. It was possible that they had killed their own father. Alex smiled grimly: two more charmers to add to the long line of people he had come up against, not to mention all the monsters. Well, if they had taken Jack, they had made a big mistake. He wasn't going to let them stand in his way. Not even the Scorpian monster herself could stop Alex.