Snakehead Quotes
"So did he wait? Or did he take his life into his own hands?"
"He was in a war zone. It was beyond anything he had ever experienced."
"You name it! You think of it as an international supermarket, Alex. But everything it sells is bad."
"His physical condition is excellent but may have been compromised by his recent injury."
"He was the last person to see your parents alive."
"They're like a family. And the fact is, a single agent, coming in from outside and operating on his own, is too obvious."
"You're about ninety miles off the coast of Australia."
"What was he letting himself into? How was he going to adapt to a country that was, in every last detail, so different from his own?"
"It was actually two cities: one very poor and one very rich, living side by side and yet with a great gulf between."
"Nobody seemed to have noticed that he was only fourteen. He was a guest. That was all that mattered."
"The city was spread out on the other side of a wide brown river that curved and twisted as far as he could see."
"It was like looking at a television screen with the color turned off."
"He realized it was going to take time to get used to the climate in Bangkok."
"There was something else about him that Alex found harder to place. A certain guarded quality in the eyes, a sense of tension."
"It seemed to be the price of winning the fight."
"He was half naked. And members of the snakehead were all around him."
"The entire arena erupted with cries of anger and outrage."
"The propellers were churning up the water. If the rats were anywhere near, they would have been chopped to pieces."
"He felt the water bottle being forced one last time between his lips and sucked in as much as he could."
"The water was warm and sluggish, covered by a layer of filth and rotting vegetation."
"He was already moving. The bullets had been aimed at his head, but he had dropped down onto the canvas and was rolling away."
"They were betting on how long a fighter could last against him."
"When it came to MI6, nothing was ever quite what it seemed."
"Recruiting you without so much as a by-your-leave! He could have talked to us first."
"You’ve changed," she said. "You’ve grown up a lot."
"The Daisy Cutter, also known as BLU-82B or the Blue Boy, is the largest conventional bomb in existence."
"That’s the trouble with the Australians. They always rush into everything without a second thought."
"We were both in disguise, as it happened, and we chatted for half an hour before we recognized each other."
"What’s this got to do with Major Yu?" Alex asked."
"They were away, shooting out through the gate and into the street beyond."
"The colonel lunged sideways and tried to reach the gun. Ash kicked it away."
"He’s quite a character. And he supplied the belt? What does it do…besides keep your pants up?"
"I don’t work for them anymore and when all is said and done, I’ve got my reputation to consider."
"Apart from his brother?" Ash shook his head. "There was no family that I knew of."
"It’s all good news," he said. "I found the arena where you were taken—or what was left of it."
"The whole square was littered with bodies. And this whole thing was meant to be bloodless!"
"Kopassus is an abbreviation of Komando Pasukan Khusus."
"It was like some trick in a movie. One minute he wasn’t there, the next he was."
"He had to admit that he had never come across a criminal organization—or a crime—quite like this."
"He had already accepted the fact that he had no hope at all of finding Ash."
"His name is Alex Rider. He works for British intelligence. He’s what you might call a teenage spy."
"I don’t want to talk about myself. And certainly not to you."
"You’ve seen the fence, and you’re thinking you can climb over it."
"We’re going to have a lot of surgery, Alex. There are some bad days ahead. But you’ll come through…I know you will."
"You can’t understand, Alex. I was so badly hurt. Yassen… I had given everything to the service. My life. My health. I wasn’t even thirty, and I was crippled. I was never going to sleep properly, never eat properly. From that day on it was just pills and pain."
"Major Yu knew about me all the time," Alex said. Even as he spoke the words, he knew they were true. The fight in Bangkok had been designed to cripple him. And on the Liberian Star, Alex had overheard Yu boasting to the captain. He had known Alex’s identity before he entered the container. He has simply been playing with him, for his own amusement.
"It was after Mdina." Ash’s voice was weak. His face was gray, and he could no longer move from the chest down. One hand was on his chest. The other lay palm upward on the floor. "You can’t understand, Alex. I was so badly hurt. Yassen…" He coughed, and blood speckled his lip. "I had given everything to the service. My life. My health. I wasn’t even thirty, and I was crippled."
"I’m not sure that Alex is surprised," Yu remarked.
"I knew you hadn’t drowned in the river," Yu said. "Something told me. And when we couldn’t find your body…" He shook his head. "I have to say, Alex, you’re very hard to kill."
"You’re finished, Major Yu," Alex said. "And you’ve failed. ASIS knows what you’re trying to do. Reef Island has been evacuated. There’s no point in setting off a tsunami. Everyone will know it was you."
"Well, as they say, Ash to ashes and dust to dust," Yu remarked. "I’m glad you heard that from him, Alex. You can take it with you to the grave."
"We've got no idea where the control room is. There are five different levels, two separate platforms. Yu could be on either."