Alpha Force: Blood Money Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  Also by Chris Ryan

  About the Author

  Alpha Force: Blood Money

  Prologue: The Kidney Man

  Chapter 1: Snake

  Chapter 2: Business As Usual

  Chapter 3: Bride Burning

  Chapter 4: A Kidney for Sale

  Chapter 5: Friendship

  Chapter 6: Organ Thieves

  Chapter 7: Trilok

  Chapter 8: Kidnap Watch

  Chapter 9: Gone

  Chapter 10: Prisoner

  Chapter 11: On the Trail

  Chapter 12: Chennai

  Chapter 13: Conspiracy

  Chapter 14: Undercover

  Chapter 15: The Clinic

  Chapter 16: The Donor

  Chapter 17: Clue

  Chapter 18: Tests

  Chapter 19: Cruel City

  Chapter 20: Men In Power

  Chapter 21: Monsoon

  Chapter 22: Into the Morgue

  Chapter 23: The Courier

  Chapter 24: The End Of the Line

  Chapter 25: Backup

  Chapter 26: Eye Bank

  Chapter 27: Closing In

  Chapter 28: Contact

  Chapter 29: Evidence

  Chapter 30: Time Running Out

  Chapter 31: Three-Thirty

  Chapter 32: Passengers

  Chapter 33: Cornered

  Chapter 34: End Of a Long Day

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN 9781407050041

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  ALPHA FORCE: BLOOD MONEY

  978 0 0994 8014 3 from January 2007

  A RED FOX BOOK 0 099 48014 X

  First published in Great Britain by Red Fox,

  an imprint of Random House Children’s Books

  This edition published 2005

  3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4

  Copyright © Chris Ryan, 2005

  The right of Chris Ryan to be identified as the author of this work has

  been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,

  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the

  prior permission of the publishers.

  Papers used by Random House Children’s Books are natural, recyclable

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  Red Fox Books are published by Random House Children’s Books,

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  THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009

  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire

  Meet the team:

  Alex – A quiet lad from Northumbria, Alex leads the team in survival skills. His dad is in the SAS and Alex is determined to follow in his footsteps, whatever it takes. He who dares . . .

  Li – Expert in martial arts and free-climbing, Li can get to grips with most situations . . .

  Paulo – The laid-back Argentinian is a mechanical genius, and with his medical skills he can patch up injuries as well as motors . . .

  Hex – An ace hacker, Hex is first rate at code-breaking and can bypass most security systems . . .

  Amber – Her top navigational skills mean the team are rarely lost. Rarely lost for words either, rich-girl Amber can show some serious attitude . . .

  With plenty of hard work and training, together they are Alpha Force – an elite squad of young people dedicated to combating injustice throughout the world.

  In Blood Money Alpha Force are in southern India racing against time to save a young kidnap victim . . .

  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk/alphaforce

  Also available in the Alpha Force series:

  SURVIVAL

  RAT-CATCHER

  DESERT PURSUIT

  HOSTAGE

  RED CENTRE

  HUNTED

  Coming soon:

  FAULT LINE

  About the Author

  CHRIS RYAN joined the SAS in 1984 and has been involved in numerous operations with the Regiment. During the first Gulf War he was the only member of an eight-man team to escape from Iraq, three colleagues being killed and four captured. It was the longest escape and evasion in the history of the SAS. For this he was awarded the Military Medal. He wrote about his remarkable escape in the adult bestseller The One Who Got Away (1995), which was also adapted for screen.

  He left the SAS in 1994 and is now the author of many bestselling thrillers for adults, as well as the Alpha Force series for younger readers. His work in security takes him around the world and he has also appeared in a number of television series, including Hunting Chris Ryan, in which his escape and evasion skills were demonstrated to the max, and Pushed to the Limit, in which Chris put ordinary British families through a series of challenges. On Sky TV he also appeared in Terror Alert, demonstrating his skills in a range of different scenarios.

  ALPHA FORCE: BLOOD MONEYChris RyanREDFOX

  PROLOGUE:

  THE KIDNEY MAN

  Tagore Trilok followed the manservant down the dark corridor. The servant’s leather sandals squeaked faintly, but otherwise his feet made no sound on the plush red carpet. They were in a mansion on the outskirts of Chennai, southern India, the home of a rich man. The walls were dark mahogany panels. A golden cobra stood on a chest, looming out of the rich-coloured wood, its hood spread like a threat. The ceiling fan above beat a moving shadow on the cobra like swaying palm fronds. Trilok reckoned the snake must be solid gold.

  Above the sound of the servant’s sandals, another noise was growing louder. Once Trilok had noticed it, he couldn’t hear anything else but the wet, liquid gurgle. He shuddered.

  It was the sound of a man’s blood being pumped out of his body and around a machine.

  The servant opened the doors at the end of the corridor – big double doors. The bedroom was large, another rich haven of mahogany, with yellow silk at the windows. There was a solid bed, decorated with intricate carvings and littered with brocaded cushions. In the bed was a small figure, as dark and still as the mahogany around him.

  This was the client.

  He seemed to be sleeping, but Trilok’s eyes were drawn to the dialysis machine – a white un
it just over a metre high, with a screen and knobs and dials. It was such a bleak piece of laboratory equipment, out of place in the finely furnished room. Tubes ran from it and under the silk bedcovers. Trilok knew they went into a hole in the man’s abdomen. The tubes were dark – dark with the blood that was flowing out of the man’s veins. It passed through all the filters and machinery inside that white metal tower and eventually returned to his body. His kidneys had failed, and every drop of blood had to flow through that metal vampire. It sucked out the impurities that his body could no longer remove.

  The machine hummed and churned like a fridge. No matter how often he saw it, the process put a chill in Trilok’s heart. And he saw it often. All his clients depended on these cold machines. They wanted him to find them a kidney so that they could have a transplant and live a normal life again.

  The man in the bed stirred and opened his eyes.

  The servant spoke. ‘Sahib, Mr Trilok to see you.’

  The man sat up carefully, so as not to dislodge the tubes. ‘About time, Mr Trilok. You were supposed to come this morning.’ Although he looked weak his voice had an edge of anger. He dismissed the servant with a wave of his hand.

  When they were alone, Trilok said, ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t keep our earlier appointment, Mr Gopal. How are you?’

  The man snapped back at him, ‘How do you think? Look at me.’

  Trilok swallowed. Sometimes the clients were abrupt. Particularly the high-caste ones. Trilok smiled apologetically; tried to look gracious. ‘Hopefully I can help you, Mr Gopal.’

  Gopal shifted position in the bed, his eyes rolling as though he had already tired of the meeting. ‘I don’t want empty promises, Trilok. This won’t be easy. I’ve already had a kidney transplant but it was unsuccessful. I want another but the doctors say it could take years to find a match because the first transplant ruined my immune system.’ He moved again, his eyes screwed up with pain. When they opened again, Trilok noticed that the brown irises were surrounded by yellowed whites. His clients always looked like this. The pollutants built up in their bodies and seeped into their eyes like a stain.

  Trilok answered patiently, ‘I will do my best, sahib. But it’s more difficult. Your immune system is more sensitive since the first transplant was rejected. Now not as many people will match you.’

  Gopal waved his hand, like he did when he was dismissing the servant. ‘That’s why I’m paying you to find one. And do it quickly. I can’t wait for years. I’m an important man. I can’t live like this. Look at me. I’m tied to this machine. I have to keep still for hours. I’m in pain.’

  Trilok started thinking aloud. ‘I can start by calling some moneylenders; they go around the villages and they know who can’t pay their debts. Usually somebody is willing to sell—’

  Gopal cut him off. ‘I don’t care what you have to do. Just get me a kidney. I don’t care where you get it, so long as it’s a live donor. A nice, healthy live donor. No dead bodies, do you hear? Don’t try to cheat me – I know transplants from dead bodies don’t take so well.’

  Trilok nodded. ‘Absolutely, sahib. I only deal in live donors.’

  Gopal lay back and stared at the ceiling, his small head and shoulders almost engulfed by the embroidered cushions. ‘I have rung for my man. He will see you out. Wait there until he comes. I don’t want you wandering about the house.’ He closed his eyes.

  The only sound in the room was the gentle beat of the ceiling fan and the wet pulse of the machine as it sucked Gopal’s blood out of him and pumped it back in.

  Trilok looked out of the window. Outside, the vast lawn was bathed in brilliant sunshine. Two sprinkler hoses snaked across the emerald grass, throwing long bright arcs of water from side to side like whips.

  1

  SNAKE

  The snake slithered out of the upturned pot. Its head was a pale brown arrow covered in prehistoric scales. The coils of its body followed swiftly, slithering out like a falling rope. A cobra, released from captivity into a crowd of parents and children and teenaged aid volunteers enjoying a simple festival at the village shrine.

  A cobra. The five volunteers froze in horror. Alex, Li, Paulo, Hex and Amber – Alpha Force – were highly trained in the arts of survival; they knew how deadly the cobra was. Would the noisy crowd scare the snake away? Or would it strike? There were bare legs just metres away from its questing tongue. Children squatted on the ground, drawing pictures in the earth with their fingers and laughing. They were easy targets. Who would the snake go for?

  Normally Alpha Force would have taken charge: told everyone to keep absolutely still, or cleared the area. But the snake had been released deliberately. A man in straw-coloured shorts and a crumpled shirt had stepped forward with an earthenware water pot. The crowd had cleared around him and he’d lowered it gently to the ground, put it on its side and removed the plug so that the snake could slide out onto the sun-baked ground. And when the snake came out the spectators smiled and welcomed it.

  Right now, all over India, Hindus were celebrating the cobra, symbol of fertility and manifestation of Lord Shiva. However hair-raising it might look, Alpha Force had to trust that they knew what they were doing.

  Li was calmer than the others. Her parents were naturalists and had worked with a wide variety of dangerous animals. She guessed that a cobra confronted by a crowd would sidle off into the undergrowth. And then the festivities could continue safely.

  But the snake made no attempt to escape. Its tongue flicked in and out, a slender black fork tasting the air; its flinty eyes took in the colourful skirts, the dusty feet, the jangling jewellery, the laughing faces. Then suddenly it reared up, spreading its hood wide like a fan.

  Now this looked a lot more dangerous.

  Li dug her slender fingers into Paulo’s arm. The snake’s head was raised a good forty centimetres in the air, its body curled in a wide muscular arc on the ground. The back of its hood was dark brown, with black and white markings like a set of ferocious eyes.

  Beside Li, Paulo was just as tense. He knew exactly what she was thinking, because he was thinking the same. He’d grown up among animals too, on a ranch in Argentina. He knew that frightened animals had two ways of coping: run away or attack. That snake had no intention of moving away. So there was only one thing for it to do: lash out. Should he do something? Had the simple festival just gone badly wrong?

  The children squatted on their haunches, looking at the snake, their big brown eyes full of wonder. Three women dropped to their knees in front of it. They brought their hands forward as though praying – just centimetres away from the rearing body. They didn’t even look at the deadly predator, but bowed their heads.

  Their colourful shawls, one green, one blue, one pink, made easy targets. Paulo and Li instinctively drew closer together and held their breath. This was madness; it contradicted everything they knew about survival. Should they stop it now?

  The women began to rock backwards and forwards, chanting. The crowd joined in and soon everyone was softly singing a rhythmic, gentle Hindu song.

  The snake was poised above the women, only inches away from their heads. It swayed gently, its tongue flashing in and out. Its black eyes, like tiny points of obsidian, gazed inscrutably at them. The mirrors sewn into the women’s colourful robes threw flashes of light onto it as they moved and their silver bangles jingled. All of these things might provoke it to attack. But the snake did not strike.

  Alex, next to Paulo and Li, was just as horrified. He knew that the striking range of the cobra was the raised part of its body. So anyone within forty centimetres could be dead. Survival lore had been as much a part of his upbringing as maths and football. His dad was in the SAS and from an early age Alex had been fascinated by the outdoors, camping out regularly in his native Northumbria. He always had a knife at his belt and a survival kit in his pocket. He could hear his father’s voice as though he were beside him right now: If you disturb a snake, stay very still until it’s gone away. If he
was here he’d be having kittens. The praying women were at most thirty centimetres away from the cobra’s taut body. Their unprotected arms were almost touching it. Alex looked at all the bare feet, bare arms, bare legs. If he was going anywhere near hostile wildlife he wore long trousers and sturdy boots. His instincts were screaming, No, no, no.

  Hex, next to Alex, was gripping Amber’s shoulder so hard he thought he must be bruising it badly. But he couldn’t help it. If he ever got that close to a cobra he would not be kneeling in front of it humming to himself.

  None of the team dared move in case they broke the spell and it all went wrong. Now some of the children were tossing crimson flower petals at the snake, their mouths open in delight. The snake’s tongue continued to flick. Others threw uncooked rice. Amber flinched as the hard grains hit the snake’s taut body. Surely that would provoke it to strike?

  A faint breeze wafted a stream of dust over the dry, sandy earth. It collected on Alex’s pale, sweat-soaked face like a velvety dusting. It frosted Amber’s ebony skin like talcum powder; settled like fine ash in Li’s inky-black plait of hair; formed a light covering on Paulo’s springy curls; made Hex squeeze his green eyes into a squint. The snake spread its hood even further, the markings opening out like widened eyes. Its body followed the movements of the chanting crowd.

  Slowly, as the chanting and the worshipping went on, and the snake stood accepting it, Alpha Force began to realize that the snake presented no threat; they relaxed and started to enjoy the spectacle.

  Paulo, used to handling big, unpredictable animals on his parents’ ranch, was the first to go with the flow. Animals could always surprise you. You always had to be on your guard, but there was something mesmeric about the tall, dignified snake, the markings moving like a slow, hypnotic dream. A grin spread across Paulo’s handsome features. This was awesome.

  Li was more logical. This shouldn’t be happening. Perhaps the snake’s instincts to flee and to kill were cancelling each other out, so that it couldn’t move. Its stillness made her think of the state of calm she felt when doing martial arts. She could be calm, balanced and focused while delivering devastating kicks and turning like a whiplash. When she was doing gymnastics or climbing – her other great passions – she always remained cool, however demanding the move, however vast the drop beneath her. When Li concentrated like that, it was as if time stood still. To see it in the snake was wonderful. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t the freakiest thing ever.