Chapter 1
Alex' breath stopped for a while when the usual motor sound was gone and it was so quite that you could have heard dropping of a pin on the floor.
The airplane seemed to lose height, but the nose of the machine didn't bent forward, it just fell down, out of the sky like a ball who just remembered being too heavy.
After a little gasp, people started to scream and the oxygen masks were falling down from the ceiling. There was no voice or speech by a stewardess to warn or order the people.
So all Alex heard was the screaming and shouting of men and women and he looked out of the window and saw the clouds rushing by. He saw the earth coming nearer and the water.
Suddenly, there was a jerk and the motors yelled again and the plane shot forward and managed to escape the fall-down. Alex' heart stopped beating for a second and he felt kind of relieved before there was a loud explosion he heard and shrieked when he saw yellow-red flames coming out of the motor on the right side where he was sitting.
The plane was still falling toward earth, now it hand side-down, Alex was thrown to the right side and hit the wall of the plane. He heard Edward screaming behind him and looking out of the window he watched the water waves growing and growing.
He already prepared for the touch-down, when the plane's nose flew upward again and was tangent the water surface. The plane rocked a few times and lost its speed but already half of the wing was burning and people were panicking.
'Please do not panic. We succeeded an emergency landing on water. Please open the doors as soon as we tell you to do so and enter the safety boats' a female voice said loudly, one of the stewardesses.
The plane slowed down and Alex loosened the seatbelt. He tried to stay calm and helped Edward to stand up. 'Please leave your baggage here in the plane. Your life's safety goes first' the loudspeaker voice reminded and Alex walked along the corridor.
The people stood up from their seats and of course, they jostled, but nobody was seriously hurt and the plane wasn't sinking fast so they all managed to get out on the rescue boats.
It took thirty minutes until bigger boats of the water police arrived and helped to get the people out of the cold water. They entered safe land and were gathered. Police officers were giving the passengers hot coffee and a lot of people tried to call their relatives and tell what has happened.
Nobody was allowed to leave the port and no information was given about the reason of the plane crash. Edward called at home but nobody answered.
'Seemed as if they're just out' he told Alex who just nodded.
Alex stared at the water and at the burning plane. He had definitely heard an explosion but perhaps he just suffered paranoia, explainable after what he had been through.
He looked up when he heard more cars arriving. It were black cars with toned glasses and Alex wondered what this had to mean. A man stepped out and walked over to the police officer in charge.
They talked a little while and finally the police man took a microphone to tell some news.
'Is an Alex Rider under the rescued passengers?' he asked twice, three times.
Alex first didn't react, then he slowly looked up, over to Edward whose facial expression just went to zero. His head was pale and he raised his eyebrows. 'Let's go' he said and helped Alex to stand up.
They slowly walked over to the police officer and the man in a black suit and sunglasses, which reminded very much to FBI or CIA. Alex just hoped it wasn't MI5 or anything Alan Blunt had to do with.
'This is Alex Rider and I am Edward Pleasure, his legal guardian' Edward introduced.
The police officer nodded and the man in black turned to the fifteen year old boy. 'I need you to come with me' he said.
'Why?' Alex asked. He didn't want to go anywhere, he had quit his former life and was ready to start a new one.
'I cannot explain' the man answered.
'I will come with him' Edward intervened and stepped forward.
The man with sunglasses shortly looked around and it seemed as if he got orders through a small earphone.
Slowly, he pulled out a gun. 'Alex, I do not want any trouble. Do what I say and you won't be hurt' the man said and pointed his gun toward Edward.
Alex nodded, he had no choice but to do what the man said.
'It's all right' he turned to Edward. 'I have no idea what this means but tell Sabrina and her mother that I'll come as soon as I get out of here, okay?'
Edward nodded unsurely but finally agreed. The man put away his gun and Alex followed him into one of the cars. He crawled on the back seat while the man with sunglasses sat down on the co-driver's seat. He nodded to the driver, who was clothed exactly the same, black suit, black sunglasses and the drove away.
The other three cars didn't follow them and Alex turned around to see the smaller getting people. Fifteen men stepped out of the cars, Alex could only guess that the things they were carrying were sub-machine guns and there followed a volley of shots, screams, shouting, people tried to save themselves but Alex knew that the way the men looked like, it was sure that there won't be any survivors left.
He wanted to ask but he was tired. Tired of people getting killed and tired of shouting and screams, of villains, of asking, of rescuing, of helping. He only wanted to be a normal boy and he knew that either this was going to be, or he wasn't anybody anymore.
He did not ask, he closed his eye and doze off within two minutes.
He didn't know that Sabina and her mother already were dead as well, as dead as Edward.
And he did not know that although Scorpia was destroyed, there were other people.
Other people who did everything for making Alex Rider believe that his foes were dead.
As much as Yassen Gregorovich had survived the gun shot nearly a year ago.
As much as Jack Starbright has never been in that car Alex had seen blown off.
As much as the person Alex Rider has killed himself, has not been Julius Grief at all.
As much as these three people were still alive, waiting to encounter him one more time.
Please tell me what you think about this beginning ;)