Skeleton Key

335 Pages·2008·0.959 MB·English

by  Anthony Horowitz

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HE HAD ONLY SECONDS TO SPARE.
Alex saw the cylinders of compressed gas and dragged
one out of its wire frame. At that moment, the guard
appeared around the side of the fridge.
Alex swung the cylinder like a baseball bat, hitting
the man with incredible force in the shoulders and
neck. The guard never had a chance. He didn’t even
cry out as he was thrown off his feet and sent hurtling
forward into the open fridge.
Alex dropped the cylinder and groaned. He limped
forward and looked into the fridge. The guard had
landed in the middle of the boxes of strawberries,
crushing many of them.
He took one last look at the man who had tried to
kill him.
“Out cold,” he said.
Then he reached out and twisted the thermostat
control, sending the temperature down below zero.
Out colder.
He closed the refrigerator door and limped
painfully away.
��
BOOKS BY ANTHONY HOROWITZ
The Devil and His Boy
THE ALEX RIDER ADVENTURES:
Stormbreaker
Point Blank
Skeleton Key
Eagle Strike
Scorpia
Ark Angel
THE DIAMOND BROTHERS MYSTERIES:
Public Enemy Number Two
The Falcon’s Malteser
Three of Diamonds
South by Southeast
SKELETON KEY

A N A L E X R I D E R A D V E N T U R E
ANTHONY HOROWITZ
To BB
SPEAK
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
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New Delhi - 110 017, India
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New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
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Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in the United States of America by Philomel Books,
a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2003
Published in Great Britain by Walker Books Ltd, London
Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2004, 2006
Copyright © Anthony Horowitz, 2002
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PHILOMEL EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Horowitz, Anthony, 1955-
Skeleton Key / Anthony Horowitz.—1st American ed.
p. cm. “An Alex Rider adventure.”
Summary: Reluctant teenage spy Alex Rider, on a routine mission at
the Wimbledon tennis championships, gets caught up in Chinese gangs, illegal nuclear
weapons, and the suspect plans of his Russian host, General Sarov.
[1. Spies—Fiction. 2. Tennis—Fiction. 3. Terrorism—Fiction.
4. Orphans—Fiction. 5. England—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H7875 Sk 2003 [Fic]—dc21 2002013507
eISBN: 1-4295-3616-0
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that
it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise
circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any
responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
CONTENTS
1 IN THE DARK 1
2 MATCH POINT 18
3 BLOOD AND STRAWBERRIES 36
4 THE CRIBBER 56
5 TWO WEEKS IN THE SUN 77
6 NOT SO SPECIAL AGENTS 98
7 DEATH OF A SALESMAN 119
8 PASSPORT CONTROL 146
9 BROTHERHOOD SQUARE 162
10 THE DEVIL’S CHIMNEY 177
11 THE CRUSHER 200
12 THE HOUSE OF SLAVES 217
13 HEARTBEAT 232
14 THE NUCLEAR DUSTBIN 252
15 SECURITY NIGHTMARE 272
16 THE END OF THE WORLD 292
17 AFTER ALEX 317

1
IN THE DARK
NIGHT CAME QUICKLY to Skeleton Key.
The sun hovered briefly on the horizon, then
dipped below. At once, the clouds rolled in—first red,
then mauve, silver, green, and black, as though all the
colors in the world were being sucked into a vast melt-
ing pot. A single frigatebird soared over the man-
groves, its own colors lost in the chaos behind it. The
air was close. Rain hung waiting. There was going to
be a storm.
The single-engine Cessna Skyhawk SP circled
twice before coming in to land. It was the sort of plane
that would barely have been noticed, flying in this part
of the world. That was why it had been chosen. If any-
one had been curious enough to check the registra-
tion number, printed under the wing, they would have
learned that this plane belonged to a photographic
company based in Jamaica. This was not true. There
2 SKELETON KEY
was no company, and it was already too dark to take
photographs. But nothing had been left to chance.
There were three men in the aircraft. They were all
dark-skinned, wearing faded jeans and loose, open-
neck shirts. The pilot had long, black hair, deep
brown eyes, and a thin scar running down the side of
his face. He had met his two passengers only that af-
ternoon. They had introduced themselves as Carlo
and Marc, but he doubted that these were their real
names. He knew their journey had begun a long time
ago, somewhere in Eastern Europe. He knew this
short flight was the last leg. He knew what they were
carrying. Already, he knew too much.
He glanced down at the multifunction display in
the control board. The illuminated computer screen
was warning him about the storm that was closing
in. That didn’t worry the pilot. Low clouds and rain
gave him cover. The authorities were less vigilant dur-
ing a storm. Even so, he was nervous. He had flown
in to Cuba many times. But never here. And tonight
he would have preferred to have been going almost
anywhere else.
Cayo Esqueleto. Skeleton Key.
There it was, stretching out before him, twenty-
five miles long and six miles across at its widest point.