Anthony Horowitz - Skeleton Key

There was a book of matches on the table with the words THE SNACKYARD printed on the cover. Alex picked it up and turned it over in his fingers. The matches were warm. He was surprised the sun hadn’t set them alight. A waiter in black and white, complete with bow tie, came over to take the order. Alex glanced at the menu. He had never thought it possible to have so much choice for breakfast. At the next table a man was eating his way through a stack of pancakes with bacon, hash browns and scrambled eggs. Alex was hungry but the sight took away his own appetite.

“I’ll just have some orange juice and toast,” he said.

“Wholemeal or granary?”

“Granary. With butter and jam-”

“You mean jelly!” Troy paused until the waiter had gone. “No American kid asks for jam.” She scowled. “You ask for that at Santiago Airport and we’ll be in jail-or worse-before you can blink.”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Alex began.

“You don’t think, you get killed. Worse, you get us killed.” She shook her head. “I still say this is a bad idea.”

“How’s Lucky?” Turner asked.

Alex’s head spun. What was he talking about? Then he remembered. Lucky was the Labrador dog that the Gardiner family was supposed to have back in Los Angeles. “He’s fine,” Alex said. “He’s being looked after by Mrs Beach.” She was the woman who lived next door.

But Turner wasn’t impressed. “Not fast enough,” he said. “If you have to stop to think about it, the enemy will know you’re telling a lie. You have to talk about your dog and your neighbours as if you’ve known them all your life.”

It wasn’t fair, of course. Turner and Troy hadn’t prepared him. He hadn’t realized the test had already begun. In fact, this was the third time Alex had gone undercover with a new identity. He had been Felix Lester when he had been sent to Cornwall, and Alex Friend, the son of a multimillionaire, in the French Alps. Both times he had managed to play the part successfully and he knew that he could do it again now as Alex Gardiner.

“So how long have you been with the CIA?” Alex asked.

“That’s classified information,” Turner replied. He saw the look on Alex’s face and softened. “All my life,” he said. “I was in the marines. It’s what I always wanted to do, even when I was a kid… younger than you. I want to die for my country. That’s my dream.”

“We shouldn’t be talking about ourselves,” Belinda said angrily. “We’re meant to be a family. So let’s talk about the family!”

“All right, Mom,” Alex muttered.

They asked him a few more questions about Los Angeles while they waited for the food to arrive. Alex answered on autopilot. He watched a couple of teenagers go past on skateboards and wished he could join them. That was what a fourteen year old should be doing in the Miami sunshine. Not playing spy games with two sour-faced adults who had already decided they weren’t going to give him a chance.

The food came. Turner and Troy had both ordered fruit salad and cappuccino-decaffeinated with skimmed milk. Alex guessed they were watching their weight. His own toast came-with grape jelly. The butter was whipped and white and seemed to disappear when it was spread.

“So who is the Salesman?” Alex asked.

“You don’t need to know that,” Turner replied.

Alex decided he’d had enough. He put down his knife. “All right,” he said. “You’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t want to work with me. Well, that’s fine, because I don’t want to work with you either. And for what it’s worth, nobody would ever believe you were my parents because no parents would ever behave like you two!”

“Alex-” Troy began.

“Forget it! I’m going back to London. And if your Mr Byrne asks why, you can tell him I didn’t like the jelly so I went home to get some jam.”

He stood up. Troy was on her feet at the same time. Alex glanced at Turner. He was looking uncertain too. He guessed that they would have been glad to see the back of him. But at the same time, they were afraid of their boss.

“Sit down, Alex,” Troy said. She shrugged. “OK. We were out of line. We didn’t mean to give you a hard time.”

Alex met her eyes. He slowly sat down again.

“It’s just gonna take us a bit of time to get used to the situation,” Troy went on. “Turner and me… we’ve worked together before… but we don’t know you.”

Turner nodded. “You get killed, how’s that gonna make us feel?”

“I was told there wasn’t going to be any danger,” Alex said. “Anyway, I can look after myself.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Alex opened his mouth to speak, then stopped himself. There was no point arguing with these people. They’d already made up their minds, and anyway, they were the sort who were always right. He’d met teachers just like them. But at least he’d achieved something now. The two special agents had decided to loosen up.

“You want to know about the Salesman?” Troy began. “He’s a crook. He’s based here in Miami. He’s a nasty piece of work.”

“He’s Mexican,” Turner added. “From Mexico City.”

“So what does he do?”

“He does just what his name says. He sells things. Drugs. Weapons. False identities. Information.” Troy ticked off the list on her fingers. “If you need something and it’s against the law, the Salesman will supply it. At a price, of course.”

“I thought you were investigating Sarov.”

“We are.” Turner hesitated. “The Salesman may have sold something to Sarov. That’s the connection.”

“What did he sell?”

“We don’t know for sure.” Turner was looking increasingly nervous. “We just know that two of the Salesman’s agents flew into Skeleton Key recently. They flew in but they didn’t fly out again. We’ve been trying to find out what Sarov was buying.”

“What’s all this got to do with the Russian president?” Alex still wasn’t sure he was being told the truth.

“We won’t know that until we know what it was that Sarov bought,” Troy said, as if explaining something to a six year old.

“I’ve been working undercover with the Salesman for a while now,” Turner went on. “I’m buying drugs. Half a million dollars’ worth of cocaine, being flown in from Colombia. At least, that’s what he thinks.” Turner smiled. “We have a pretty good relationship. He trusts me. And today just happens to be the Salesman’s birthday, so he invited me to go for a drink on his boat.”

Alex looked across to the sea. “Which one is it?”

“That one.” Turner pointed at a boat moored at the end of a jetty about fifty metres away. Alex drew a breath.

It was one of the most beautiful boats he had ever seen. Not sleek, white and fibreglass like so many of the cruisers he had seen moored around Miami. Not even modern. She was called Mayfair Lady and was an Edwardian classic motor yacht, eighty years old, like something out of a black and white film. The boat was one hundred and twenty feet long with a single funnel rising over its centre. The main saloon was at deck level, just behind the bridge. A sweeping line of fifteen or more portholes suggested cabins and dining rooms below. The boat was cream with natural wood trimmings, a wooden deck and brass lamps under the canopies. A tall, slender mast rose up at the front with a radar, the boat’s one visible connection with the twenty-first century. Mayfair Lady didn’t belong in Miami. She belonged in a museum. And every boat that came near her was somehow ugly by comparison.

“It’s a nice boat,” Alex said. “The Salesman must be doing well.”

“The Salesman should be in jail,” Troy muttered. She had seen the admiring Look in Alex’s eyes and didn’t approve. “And one day that’s where we’re going to put him.”