Alex Rider & the World Cup
Author's note: Yes, yes, I did say I'd upload day or two ago but just show me where can I find a writer who can stay strictly in his/her deadline. I had a little trouble with the main subject here since it's impossible to find any information of it what so ever. I think it's not one of my best chapters but strangely I like it :D ... Oh, and next chapter is also already on its way but this time I give you no promises, maybe that way I manage to keep that one week between updates.
Disclaimer: I Do not own Alex Rider books but surprisingly in this chapter there's only little to point to them, I'm proud to say. All stange characters and their acting is what comes from my pen, though so I do own them. Good to own something.
Oh, right, I get no money from writing this. Unless some of you would like to give we a little sponsoring so I could buy myself a laptop so uploading would be a lot easier? :)
Chapter 9: The Bomb
Alex stared at a little box taped to bottom of the seat in front of him while it only blinked a red light at him. A screen was set on fifteen minutes but the count hadn't begun yet. Carefully he pulled the tape out and put the whole thing under his shirt, not happy doing this but he definitely would not cause a panic and show everyone he was not your everyday teenager.
He made his way through the noisy crowd covering the bomb with his arms careful not to let it get hit by anything. When he was on a safer ground he squatted laying the bomb on his tights. He put his back to his ear. "So what's the situation with the man I told you about?"
"I forwarded his features to the team and they're searching for him. You don't need to worry about it."
"I rather didn't but this bomb on my lap makes it kind of hard," Alex couldn't keep the sarcasm out; it was his way to keep the nervousness from creeping on him. A knife-sharp silence fell on the line. "That's true," the agent tried to keep his voice calm but Alex could hear a hint of nervousness when he continued. "Do nothing; I'll call the bomb squad so we can leave them to handle it."
Alex let his eyes roll because the man wasn't able to see it but a sigh was kept tightly inside. "We can't do that, what if they're keeping an eye on outside? They'll know we've found one or more of their bombs and simply blow them up. And you and your team need to keep those places or we have a chance of losing them, and they'd know your faces so they could just come and kill you afterwards. Now, you can call the bomb squad but give them my cell number so they can call me. I'll bring this sweetie apart." What was with this man? How was he able to be a head of a team if he was making so fast decisions? Or was it all because of Alex's age, even after all the trouble he'd gone through to give a trustworthy impression of himself.
De Lange stayed quiet for a long while. "Ok, I call them. You take care not to cause panic with the thing. Find some quiet place, and some tools." Alex agreed and when the line was cut he hid the bomb to the closest toilet taping it under a sink using the tape already on it, hoping it would hold.
He returned to Tom. "Mind showing me what you have inside your bag?" he asked earning a deep frown. "Sure but what're you doing, did Jack want something special?"
"No, she was only preaching me about not calling her when we reached the hotel," Alex lied feeling a sting of conscience that all thinking had kept him so busy that the call after landing had gotten forgotten. "I just want to check if you have something useful with you. Someone fell down in stairs and I help him building something to support his leg."
Unlike Alex Tom took all kind of things with him, it had been a right choice to ask - a little risky but a good one all together. There was a metallic comb, a plastic container with a sandwich which taken its soft composure and a knife Tom had bought on their run around a block for its nice design despite Alex trying to convince him differently saying it would be taken away on airport, now he was silently thanking Tom for not listening him.
There was also other scrap – including a traveller's sewing set which came as a surprise to Alex – but these were only ones Alex could think some use of. His gadgets were of no help in this task. He thanked Tom rushing back to the toilet to wait for the call.
"Were you the one asking for help with handling some sweetie?"
"Yes I do, actually. I have collected some things so I can use them as tools. I have faith to be able to work some miracles with them. The bomb is quite a small one, its size's about a hand and most of the cover is taken by a digital screen showing it'll take fifteen minutes to blow up after being activated."
"Um, good… Now do you have something to open screws carefully? Okay, tell me when to go on." At first Alex thought he'd use the knife on this task but the word carefully made him change his mind and he grabbed the comb, it was strong enough and wouldn't suddenly slip off the screw and cause harm.
He put the back of the comb on one screw and started to move it in a circle, there were four basic screws one in each corner so working them with a comb took some time. After it was done he was glad to get more done. "What's next? There are several coloured wires here, guess this won't be as easy as choose between red and blue, huh," he joked and managed to make a small nervous laugh come of the woman he was talking with.
"Strangely enough many bomb builders stay loyal to the classic; often it eventually comes to that question."
"Really, then which colour is most often left uncut?"
"We can check that out for you later, now please tell me what other there is inside."
The bomb looked similar to computer's circuit but lot smaller and that's why it looked even more dangerous to stop anything. It made him feel like any move would launch another one, no doubt it was always better to know what you were doing when there were wires and electronics meddled in. There were three metal cubes linked to each other and one cube had a SIM-card on top of it. He told the woman what he saw.
"Then let's start with the SIM, do you have something with a sharp side with you? Well, use that knife to lift the card carefully so it won't send any signals. At the worst the bomb might explode."
"Oh, great." Somehow he managed to lift one side of the card so he could use his finger nails to lift it off. His guide told him that now whoever planted the bomb would not be able to activate it up from distance even if he happened to find out it was taken. Right now their biggest worry was that Alex would blow the bomb while taking it apart.
"There should wires from the box that had the card on it; they should go to different parts of the bomb. You can cut them, they hold no real meaning other than keeping sure the signals move, cutting them shouldn't cause you any danger." Alex took the knife and cut the wires the woman told him to. It felt like committing a suicide since the wires were about the third of all wires. When that was done he sighed in relief. Now his job had been made safer though it was still far from it.
"There should be a round centre that has a ball-like thing in middle of it. It's a stabiliser and you need to be careful when we make it harmless, be sure not to shake it, the ball's better not to move. It's the most important part of the bomb, after it's been taken care of, there's need only for some safe measures." Alex halted at this piece of advice when he'd been about to keep going on with his job.
"There's nothing like that in this, everything's as angular as it can be. And I have no way to see through metal sides if there's a ball inside or not." A panic was starting built up in him. If the woman was giving him inaccurate advice then what were the chances she'd tell him to do something that would lead in no good, for him or anyone else near the toilet. While we're at it I might add that his usual problem, the suspicion, was lifting its head whispering theories into his ear how the woman could be part of the Messengers of Hunhau. Just who could he trust in a foreign country, except Tom from whom he tried to keep all this as a secret?
The woman was still talking but Alex couldn't understand the words she was using, only thing his brains would register was that all those long rows of words were meant to calm him down but had no effect. Finally his own thoughts were what brought him back to his senses: if this woman wanted to kill him, she would have made him make a wrong move from the start and explained her colleagues how you could never guess how a teenager understands what you're telling him, her co-workers would have agreed without a second thought.
He forced his concentration back to the small box lying on an ugly green-yellow plastic floor before him. Somehow the nauseating background made it look even more threatening. He grabbed the knife tighter leading it to a black wire the woman was describing him. "I can still see two boxes that worry me, they are as connected as in beginning. Between them are several wires and my instinct tells me to just cut those wires and get this over with," he said when she'd been quiet for a while.
"Don't. When you know nothing of bombs there's no point trusting whatever senses you think you have. Just do as I say and you'll be fine." Her tone was so annoying that it only made Alex even more eager to do his own decisions and leave her advice side. It was clear she Alex had been through during past year and of course that made him look like some over-curious kid who had gotten himself in trouble worse than he'd expected.
But the fact was Alex had already been a long time away from Tom and he would probably soon start to wonder where Alex had disappeared to. He'd most likely go looking for him if he took too long. "I'm in a bit of hurry here and this bomb does look quite a simple now, don't you have any shortcuts to clear it?" he was getting really annoyed there yet the woman snorted to the phone. "There are no shortcuts in bringing apart a bomb. Tell me is there a wire going around the whole bomb."
"Nope, nothing like that."
"That's strange, I have two basic bomb maps here and it matches neither of them."
"If you ask me, this looks like some hook-up of couple building directions you might find on Internet if you search long enough. That's why I doubt there are any trap wires in a creation of this quality. They wouldn't know which wires to put down without detonating the whole thing while on it. This is maybe the safest bomb to build and bring apart"
"Just shut up will you? I don't want your opinions."
Alex knew he was being childish in a wrong situation but he still put the phone down taking all wires his instinct told him to cut taking them all out at once. He'd learned from movies how one uncut wire could cause the signals messing up and make the bomb blow up. He used all his strength to cut so nothing like that was possible to happen.
The bomb made a small beep and started whirring. It did for while, then there was nothing. "Do a beep and a whirring noise tell you something about a bomb?" he asked unsure. The tenseness was strong enough to move through the phone lines, the storm was coming. "I told you not to do a thing unless I tell you to! Does it tell me something, you ask? Why don't you just check the numbers on a screen and decide that by yourself too when you see the numbers counting down?" she shrieked at him.
Alex was little hesitant when he took the cover and turned it to look at the numbers. His eyes widened when he saw them: 1 and 5 followed by two zeros just like it should be. A conceited smile broke on his face. "They're still the same," he told her, her screaming stopped. "They are?" she asked and after Alex had confirmed this fact she started to stammer. "Th-then it's, it's not working anymore. You, you brought, you actually brought it apart."
"Thanks for you, without your help I could have done something wrong." He was grinning ear to ear when he stuffed the phone back into his pocket and collected everything from the floor. When he left the toilet a first thing he saw was a cleaning sign, De Lange was leaning to a wall behind it. He'd been acting as a customer waiting the cleaning to end so he could get in. That way he'd taken care that no one would go in.
Alex gave the bomb parts to him. "Could you take care of these for me? I need to go back to my seat before my friend realises something's not right in here. Tell me when you find that man. I want to know where we are going with him."
"Actually," De Lange looked little guilty. "We got him already, Nebel and Mansel took him elsewhere to question. We didn't want to disturb your dangerous job so we agreed we shouldn't tell you about it."
Alex put his hand on his face. "Take me there, I just need to go to my friend for a while, then we can go."
