Snakehead (novel)

Alex Rider lands in the South Pacific after blowing up the Ark Angel in outer space. After his recovery, he is sent to a military base in Swanbourne, Australia. One day before his departure, he goes to a barbecue with some of the soldiers but finds himself on a minefield by accident, and narrowly avoids being killed by a missile and an armed landmine. Meanwhile, the criminal organization SCORPIA, as part of their mission to assassinate eight celebrities due to host a conference to rival the G8 summit on Reef Island (an island off the north-west coast of Australia), breaks into a Ministry of Defence weapons research centre and steals a prototype bomb "Royal Blue", a more powerful and devastating version of the daisy cutter, to be used by a Snakehead run by Major Winston Yu, a board member of SCORPIA. In Australia, Ethan Brooke, head of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), coerces Alex into helping him by pairing him with agent Ash, who was his godfather and once his father's best friend, to infiltrate the Snakehead ring under Winston Yu, after two previous failed attempts. Alex then travels to Bangkok, Thailand where he meets Ash, who explains that they will take on the identities of Afghan refugees who have paid the snakehead to smuggle them into Australia. After being disguised, they go to an area in Chinatown to await contact from the snakehead.

To collect the papers necessary for them to move on to Indonesia, Alex is told by a Snakehead member, Anan Sukit, to fight in a Muay Thai boxing ring, which he wins by cheating. However, the unexpected victory incites a riot which Alex manages to escape when someone creates a diversion; Sukit is killed by the man who created the diversion. The next day, while Ash goes to the snakehead to retrieve the papers, Alex tails a suspicious-looking man who has been following him since he landed in Bangkok. The man reveals himself to be his former squadmate Ben Daniels (introduced in Stormbreaker - as Fox in the original edition and Wolf in later publications), an MI6 agent who had caused the diversion previously, and leads him to MI6, who is tracking down "Royal Blue" and Major Yu. MI6 also warns Alex that Major Yu, whom they suspect is in possession of the bomb, is actually a board member of SCORPIA. Alex agrees to help locate Royal Blue for MI6 and is given several gadgets by Smithers to use, including a seemingly broken watch with a homing beacon for MI6 to find him, three exploding Thai coins (one baht, five baht, and ten baht) and a belt equipped with jungle survival gear.

After retrieving the papers, Alex and Ash continue on to Jakarta; during the journey, Ash shares details about Alex's father, John, and Ash's botched mission in taking John out of SCORPIA, which despite being successful, led to the deaths of some MI6 agents, and himself being stabbed in the abdomen by Yassen Gregorovich. Ash was then demoted and eventually resigned from MI6, soon emigrating to Australia. In the snakehead's toy factory Unwin Toys, they are briefly apprehended by Kopassus, but Alex and Ash manage to board a container ship, the Liberian Star, but are separated; the Liberian Star is used for people smuggling by the Snakehead. Alex escapes from his container by using one of his coins and explores the ship and finds Royal Blue, hidden in a modified container, where he sets the bomb to be activated and controlled remotely by himself. However, he goes into hiding when Major Yu discovers Alex's breakout and orders a search for him. The next day, Alex escapes the ship and reaches Darwin while damaging the reefers of the ship with another coin. However, to Alex's dismay, Ash is found to have been caught, and Alex thus surrenders to Yu, who knocks him unconscious.

Alex wakes up and meets Yu over dinner, who then reveals his plan to cause a tsunami using the bomb to destroy Reef Island and stop the conference, along with destroying the west coast of Australia. The Snakehead will than gain significant money from shipping supplies to Australia via the Chada Trading Company which they own, and Unwin Toys, which will raise money to donate toys to surviving children. Alex is then taken to a hospital in the Australian rainforest where he is to be used as an unwilling donor for illegal organ transplants as part of the Snakehead's involvement in the human organ black market, to pay for his damage to SCORPIA both in the 'Invisible Sword' project and on the Liberian Star. However, Alex manages to escape, using the last coin to fashion a kayak from a seaplane's float, and establish contact with MI6 using a battery contained in his trainer on his watch.

Along with Ben Daniels, Alex is sent as part of an Australian SAS raid team to the oil rig where Royal Blue will be detonated underneath at the fault line. On the oil rig, Ben confronts Yu and his assistant, the latter of whom Ben shoots before being shot by Yu. When Alex enters the room, he discovers Yu's assistant is Ash, who before dying, confesses about being a double agent for SCORPIA following the botched mission and that he had carried out the order to kill Alex's parents, both of which Alex had already suspected due to several clues he had picked up. Yu escapes on a yacht but Alex detonates the bomb early and it goes off relatively harmlessly; the only casualty is Yu, who is killed in the resulting shock wave due to his inordinately fragile bone structure.

At the end of the novel, Alex learns that Daniels survived being shot, and that the Snakehead had been destroyed, with all outlets (including the Chada Trading company and Unwin Toys) going out of business. Jack Starbright, Alex's housekeeper, unexpectedly calls Sabina Pleasure (his old friend who moved to San Francisco after the events of Eagle Strike) over for dinner. Both discuss plans to visit a castle in Scotland. The epilogue shows Ash's decision to join SCORPIA and his involvement in the death of Alex's parents, in a plane bombing.

• Official website of the Alex Rider Series
• Official Anthony Horowitz's website
• Snakehead at Walker Books
• SnakeHead at Goodreads