Jack is such a missed opportunity. Ian Rider is a spy, gone more often than not and he needs a nanny - does he pick someone reliable with an established background and portfolio to handle such things who he can trust to look after his kid and cook real meals for him or does he pick a Uni student with no formal training and just hope she works out? Alex would have been young enough when Jack first came that he would have latched onto anyone. Not quite to the age where “you’re not my Mom” is anything more than something said in anger to hurt instead of a declaration of war like it would be for 14 year old Alex
Young enough for Alex to trustand maybe those accents she would make them play weren’t so innocent. Maybe her obliviousness isn’t so sincere - “did you notice?” is such a fun game it makes Alex feel smart for seeing stuff that Jack missed. Maybe “What’s his deal?” Isn’t just a silly story time game they play in public trying to guess all kinds of fun facts about people by what they’re wearing and doing (Ian started this game with him but Jack makes it funwhen she adds in silly little stories about their lives). Maybe her cooking skills were a joke for a reason - make Alex do it. Make him more independent, more adaptable, more easily able to slip into any role because “It’s just play pretend, Alex. Let’s see if we can convince them we’re brother and sister?”
This totally plays into my head cannon that Ian Rider does not exist.
So I head cannon that the man who raised Alex was not “Ian Rider” Ian was a cover for a bank agent. That’s why Alex knew literally nothing about his parents other than what could be pulled from a Bio in a report.
Ok so there are two ways that could happen and what I mean by what I said.
So 1) Ian Rider, the MI6 agent (or he doesn’t work for the bank, maybe in some other inelegance organization) exists and is the brother of John, but either died before he could raise Alex OR was not told that Alex survived and either died in the mean time or is still alive out there somewhere and can be another adult in Alex’s life at some point.
Or 2) Ian Rider is a complete fiction (not just a agent taking the name of the actual Ian Rider) made for the purpose of acquiring an asset and training the asset to adequate usefulness.
Also if that’s not bad enough, the guy who raised Alex may or may not be dead. It was a closed casket funeral. So we don’t know.
Honestly, I don’t know what would mess Alex up more. Finding out your dead uncle is not your uncle (but is still dead) OR finding out your dead uncle is not dead and not your uncle OR finding out your dead uncle is alive and the guy you thought was your uncle wasn’t and is alive too.
Bless. Ian Rider was born the moment John Rider died is my favorite theory. It explains the lack of photographs or stories about their childhood, smooths away the fact that Ash wasn’t familiar with him. Explains why SCORPIA didn’t automatically doubt John Rider for having a brother working for MI6. Ian never talked about John because he didn’t know him.
And then there’s the story of Alex running into him again (The man called uncle indeed). A chance encounter that only his luck could manage and he sees Ian there with his “family” - a daughter likely 7, around the time Jack came and Ian was gone more often. And it clicks that his “missions” were visits to his real family, the games were more training than anything else, it all adds up even if it does take longer for the anger and betray to fade into the cold horror of just how many strings had been pulled to get him to where he is now.
Summary: The conversation between Alex and Yassen on the rooftop after Yassen has killed Herod Sayle, but from Yassen’s point of view
A/N: The sections in italics have been taken directly from Stormbreaker I wanted to keep their conversation the same but add in Yassen’s thoughts from his point of view.
“You’re Yassen Gregorovich,” Alex said.
Yassen nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“Why did you kill him?”
“Those were my instructions.” A lie. “He had become an embarrassment. It was better this way.” That part at least was true.
“Not better for him.”
Yassen shrugged, but was very impressed with the fact that Alex was a) not visibly distressed by the sight of Herod Sayle being murdered before his eyes, and b) not intimidated by Yassen enough to stop his sassy comebacks. In many ways, he was just like his father and the thought made a pang of some unidentifiable emotion run through him.
“What about me?”
He ran his eyes over Alex. “I have no instructions concerning you.” Another lie. His instructions had been explicitly clear. ‘KILL ALEX RIDER’. He remembered the words that he had read on his computer screen just a few hours ago.
“You’re not going to shoot me too?”
No. Absolutely not. Yassen would never kill Alex, or allow him to be killed if he could stop it.
“Do I have any need to?”
There was a pause as Alex seemed to consider the question.
“You killed Ian rider. He was my uncle.”
Yassen’s expression didn’t change but he was surprised. Ian Rider was dead. That must be how the boy had been unlucky enough to end up getting involved. And Alex thought that he had been the one to pull the trigger. It wasn’t true; no amount of money would have been high enough to make him kill Ian, just like he had defied his orders to kill the youngest Rider to cross his path.
His mind worked quickly. He didn’t know who had killed Ian Rider, but right now that didn’t matter. Right now the only thing that mattered was the fourteen year old boy standing in front of him, and preventing him from going on another mission.
He shrugged again. “I kill a lot of people.”
It wasn’t a lie, but it was also definitely not an admission or contradiction to the assassination that he was being accused of.
“One day I’ll kill you.”
That broke his heart. The pang of emotion that he had felt earlier now rushed through him like a tidal wave, and although Yassen Gregorovich was unable to identify it specifically, he knew all of the words that could have been used to describe how he was feeling. Sadness, hurt, remorse, heartbreak, sorrow, lamentation, dejection, grief. He was feeling more emotions than he had felt in years, and it took every bit of his strength and training to keep his face neutral.
Hunter’s son was standing here, full of, admittedly well concealed, rage and grief that was wrongly being directed at him. In another life, Yassen would have been like an uncle to Alex, but here they were, locked on opposite sides of a war that neither of them had wanted to be dragged into. There are always casualties in war, and they were just two more statistics to be added to the final count.
If he could stop Alex from being used by MI6 in the future, their paths would likely not cross again. Yassen Gregorovich decided that it was a price worth paying if it meant that Alex would be safe and out of MI6’s grasp. Alex Rider could hate him for killing his uncle, but if it meant that Alex would find the closure that Yassen was sure that he needed to stay away from MI6, then his own feelings were irrelevant.
“A lot of people have tried. Believe me, it would be better if we didn’t meet again. Go back to school. Go back to your life. And the next time they ask you, say no. Killing is for grown-ups and you’re still a child.”
It was the same advice that John Rider had given him once. He didn’t look back as he turned and walked over to the helicopter. His face had crumpled the second that he had turned away, and climbing in and strapping himself to the seat, he took a couple of seconds to regain his composure. By the time he looked up at the controls, his face was back to being a blank, emotionless mask. He started the helicopter and then, just before he flew away, he raised a hand at Alex who was standing motionless on the rooftop staring at him. The boy raised a hand in return, and then Yassen flew away. Looking back at the rooftop one final time before flying away, he saw that Alex Rider had gone, leaving the lifeless body of Herod Sayle behind.
Scorpia would not be pleased that he had disobeyed their orders; he had left Alex Rider alive and unharmed, but he would be able to deal with them. He knew that they would be pleased that Sayle was dead - he had become an embarrassment and it was better that he was dealt with once and for all. No, they would not kill him, and Yassen would be able to work on the question that was, even now, gnawing away in his brain. Who had killed Ian Rider? It might take him a while, but it was a question that he would find out the answer to, and then, maybe, he would be able to reconcile with Alex.
Alex squinted in the light of the setting sun as he waited for Tom and James to join him outside the school gates, so that they could walk home together. Unusually, this term their timetables weren’t the same, so while Alex had been struggling to concentrate through Macbeth in English (seriously, whose idea was it to do Shakespeare as the last lesson of the day?), Tom and James had been in PE, slogging around the fields doing cross country. All of them were sporty, but none of them liked cross country, especially when it had been raining all day and the fields were muddy and slippery. And, in the middle of January, it was always muddy and slippery.
“Are you Alex?”
The sun shining into his eyes meant that he hadn’t seen the group of men walking towards him until it was too late.
“Who are you?” Alex didn’t like the way that they had closed in on him. They were inching closer to him with every second that passed. He was outnumbered and soon he would be completely surrounded; even now, he wouldn’t be able to slip away without them being able to reach out and grab him. He definitely wasn’t going to confirm that he was who they thought he was.
“Your uncle sent us. He asked us to pick you up from school.”
That immediately sent more alarm bells ringing. Firstly, Ian was away on yet another business trip so it would have been Jack sending someone (and not ten someones!) to pick him up. Secondly, Alex was sure that anyone Ian asked to pick him up from school would have referred to him as ‘Ian’ not ‘your uncle’; they would have known that Ian hated being called that, wouldn’t they? Thirdly, Alex had never met them before and he thought it extremely unlikely that Ian would send a group of complete strangers to pick him up. And fourth, he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but something didn’t seem quite right. There were too many things that didn’t add up.
“I’m not allowed to go with strangers,” Alex said hesitantly, although even as he said it he became aware of the fact that he was completely surrounded now. He also realised that he had basically confirmed that he was who they were looking for. He could have kicked himself! The men had formed an almost solid circular wall around him; he was trapped. And he wouldn’t be able to take all of them in a fight. “Maybe I should just wait in reception while you-”
“-No,” the only man out of the whole group who had spoken so far cut in. “Your uncle said it was urgent. You have to come with us.”
Five. They were trying to rush him and not give him time to think. This was really very not good. Whatever happened, Alex knew that he mustn’t get in the car with them.
“I’ve just remembered, I need to talk to one of my teachers about some work I didn’t understand,” he said, backing away towards the school, but the men remained static and Alex walked straight into the man standing directly behind him.
“You can ask tomorrow,” the man said, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the car.
“Hey! Get off!” Alex shouted. Maybe if he made enough noise, one of the adults in the school would hear and help him. It was the end of the day and there should still have been quite a few students and parents milling around but, inexplicably, Alex was on his own. A hand was clamped over his mouth before he could scream or shout though, and he was bundled into the backseat of the car.
“I’m sorry, Alex. We need to get you somewhere safe. And quickly.”
“What do you mean ‘safe’? Safe from what?” Alex shouted, even as he heard the doors lock and the car drive away with a squeal of the tires. “I don’t feel safe.”
He looked out of the window just in time to see Tom and James’s shocked faces as the car drove past. Alex mouthed ‘help’ and hoped his friends would understand. They stared at the car for another second before running back towards the school. The school had CCTV cameras; surely they would call the police and be able to give them a description of the car that he had been shoved into.
“We’ll explain properly when we arrive at the safe house. Your uncle is meeting us there.”
“What about Jack?”
“He’ll be there too.”
Well that settled it. Whoever these people were, they definitely hadn’t been sent by Ian or Jack. If only phones were allowed at school, he could have texted or called someone to say he needed help. But he was stuck in this car with three grown up men, with no way of telling anyone that he was in trouble and, he reflected glumly, they would have no way of tracking where he had been taken either. His only source of hope came from the fact that Tom and James had seen him. They knew that he had been kidnapped. Only that and the fact that, if it came down to it, Alex could possibly escape from the three men in the car with him with some well-timed karate strikes, were the only things stopping him from completely freaking out. There was a second car in front of them and a third one behind… if they managed to get him to wherever they planned to take him, Alex would be horribly outnumbered again and he wouldn’t be able to take out all ten of the men before the element of surprise wore off. This was really, really bad. He had to escape before they arrived at their destination.
They were heading out of the city and Alex was looking out of the blacked-out window, trying to work out how he could escape when the car in front of them suddenly went out of control and crashed. The men in the car with Alex immediately became uneasy, looking around and shouting.
Then Alex registered that there had been the sound like the crack of a whip, there was a hole in the glass of the windshield and the car had suddenly sped up. The driver was slumped against the window. Was he unconscious? What was happening? The driver’s hand slipped off of the steering wheel, pulling it around as it fell. The car turned violently and Alex was thrown against the door.
“Quick, with me,” the man in the back with him shouted, grabbing Alex’s arm before throwing his door open.
“I’m not going with you!” Alex shouted, pulling his arm away.
But the man had tumbled out of the door before he’d waited for Alex’s reply. Alex quickly looked out of the back window and saw the man rolling along the road, only narrowly avoiding being run over by the car behind them. He looked back around just in time to see the passenger in the front seat dive out of the car too. That just left Alex and the driver who was unconscious or something, and whose foot was jammed on the accelerator, in the car.
Alex dove forwards, leaning through the gap in the two front seats and grabbing hold of the steering wheel. He stared in horror at the cars coming towards them. They were on the wrong side of the road! And he had no way of getting over to the right side, thanks to the railing that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and now separated the lanes of traffic.
He tried desperately to pull the man’s leg off of the accelerator but it was no use. The angle was too awkward and he wasn’t quite tall enough to reach properly from where he was. If he wasn’t also steering, he might have been able to manage it… but right now there was nothing he could do other than try to avoid the oncoming cars.
He glanced in the rear view mirror and saw a motorbike coming up behind him. Whoever they were, they were catching up to the car incredibly quickly. Were they coming to try and help him? Was it the police? Alex desperately hoped that the answer was ‘yes’, although it looked like the bike was just going to drive right past him.
And it did; the motorbike sailed straight past the car, but, Alex noticed, there was no sign of the driver as it overtook him. At the same moment, there was a thud as though something heavy had dropped onto the roof of the car, and the motorbike crashed into a road sign. Everything was happening far too quickly for him to keep up. Just focus on the road.
Almost instantly, that became impossible. A man with piercing blue eyes thudded down onto the bonnet, blocking his view out of the windshield.
“Open the door please, Alex.”
Alex screamed.
“Get out of the way! I can’t see! And I don’t know who you are.”
“Ian asked me to keep an eye on you.”
“That’s what they said! Move! I can’t see!”
“Alex,” the man began but was cut off by more holes appearing in the windscreen.
Then Alex understood. They were bullet holes! What?!? No! Surely he was wrong! People couldn’t be shooting at them, could they?
“Hold on.” The man just seemed mildly irritated rather than concerned or scared, and Alex saw him pull out his own gun! And then he started shooting.
“Alex, open the door please,” the man asked again.
Why was he so calm? Why did he have a gun? Why were people shooting at them in the first place? Why had he been kidnapped? And was this man really on his side? Had Ian really sent him?
“Get out of the way! I can’t see!” Alex shouted again. Right now, his main concern was that he would crash into another car simply because he couldn’t see out of the window. He swerved sharply to avoid a car that suddenly appeared in front of them. Car horns were blaring all around him, as though the drivers thought Alex was both responsible for, and could do anything about his current predicament.
“Alex. Please open the door.” There were more gunshots. “I can’t help you unless you open the door. Ian asked me to look out for you.”
“Why?”
“This would be a much easier conversation to have not through the windscreen of a car, Alex.”
“Just get out of the way!”
The man was shooting his gun at the car behind them again. At the people who had taken him from school and who were now shooting at him!
“Alex! The door! Now!”
Everything seemed to happen very quickly but in slow motion after that. Something in Alex decided that he trusted this man… well, maybe not completely, but more than the other people. Maybe it was because he was shooting against the people who had kidnapped him from school. Maybe it was because ‘Ian’ had sent him not ‘his uncle’. Whatever it was, Alex reached forwards and managed to open the car door. What he didn’t see was that there was a car coming towards him and it crashed into the door, ripping it off of its hinges and sending it hurtling into the windshield of the car behind them. The sudden rush of air almost threw him back into the seat, but he managed to hang onto the steering wheel and keep the car under some semblance of control.
Now that he had leant further forwards to open the door, Alex was in a better position to attempt to move the driver’s foot off of the accelerator, and managed to get it onto the break. The car slowed so violently that Alex was almost thrown through to the front of the car, but he managed to stop himself when his legs and hips slammed into the passenger seat. Then, and Alex had no idea how it had happened (after all, he hadn’t seen the car lose control after the door went through the windshield), the car that had been chasing behind them almost seemed to have jumped over the top of them and was now rolling down the road in front of them. Finally, the man on the bonnet had pulled the driver out of the drivers’ seat, swung himself through the gap where the door had been, and took control of the car.
Alex sank back into the seats, trying to catch his breath, and looked out of the rear window. The road was in complete and utter carnage. Had he made a mistake in trusting this man? Only time would tell. For now, all Alex could do was sit back and let the man drive them wherever he intended to take him.
“Are you alright, Alex?” the man asked, glancing in the rear view mirror. “Excellent driving. And impeccable timing in opening the door.”
It was taking Alex all of his strength to keep his composure and not freak out. The realisation of everything that had just happened was catching up with him and he could hardly believe it was real.
“Where are you taking me?” he demanded instead of answering the man’s question.
“Past this barricade of bad guys. Then I’ll stop and deal with them. And then I’ll take you to a safe house where Ian will meet us.”
“They said that too,” Alex muttered. He had barely finished speaking before they entered the tunnel and a sudden thunderous hammering sound reverberated through the car. Alex looked out of the window and saw flashes of light. It took a few seconds for his brain to comprehend that machine guns were being fired at the car! Just as quickly as it had started, it stopped; they were through the tunnel and the man was stopping the car with a squeal of the brakes.
“Get out of the car, Alex,” the man said, opening the door for him and guiding him to the front of the car. “And stay here in front of the bonnet. I’ll be back in a minute.” He headed back towards the tunnel and the ‘barricade of bad guys’, his own gun ready to fire in his hands.
Well, Alex certainly wasn’t going to stick around here. Whatever was going on, he wanted nothing to do with it. He took off at a run. He ran without knowing where he was going, but the main thing was putting as much distance as he could between himself and all of the men with guns. After a few minutes, he realised with relief that he knew where he was. There was a café just a couple of roads away where he and Jack went semi-regularly and he knew the staff. They would help him.
When the staff saw him, they knew that something was wrong and sat him down with a hot chocolate and a piece of cake. He briefly explained a little of what had happened - he didn’t really want to think about it too much - and they called the police. Alex found that he was too high on adrenaline to either eat the cake or drink the hot chocolate that they had given him.
He was sitting at a table in the corner, waiting for the police to arrive, his legs bouncing and heart still hammering in his chest. He could hear everything that was happening, like he suddenly had super hearing. The almost constant tinkling of the bell above the door as the customers came and went. The shrill hissing of the coffee machine. The chatter of the customers. The clink as someone put their mug back on its saucer. The sound of footsteps. How much time had passed since he had been standing outside of school waiting for James and Tom? How long would it take the police to arrive?
“Hi Alex,” a man said, sitting down in the seat opposite him. He looked up and gasped. It was the man from the bonnet of the car. Alex gulped. “Maybe I didn’t make it very clear, but we need to stick together for a little while.”
Before Alex could say anything, he heard the tinkle of the little bell above the door again and knew, without looking but by the way one of the waitresses had moved forwards and nodded in his direction, that the police had arrived. Worse than that, he knew that something bad was about to happen. He was right. As quick as lightning, the man had grabbed his wrists and pulled them into handcuffs behind his back. Alex cried out in shock as he was pulled out of his seat. He was spun around so that he faced the café, his back held against the man’s chest. One of the man’s arms pinned Alex to him… the other was holding the gun again. He fired a couple of warning shots into the wall. Alex flinched. His breathing was rapid and shallow. A few of the customers screamed. Alex’s heart was pounding. He was terrified. The knot of anxiety and dread twisted in his stomach again. Why was this happening?
“Easy. Easy,” one of the police officers - a kind looking woman - said. “Let the kid go.”
“The kid is my hostage. If anyone follows us, I’ll shoot.”
He pulled Alex backwards through the kitchen of the tiny café and out the back into the loading area. A fancy sports car was waiting for them there. The man shoved Alex in and was about to climb in himself when the officer who had spoken inside arrived at the back door.
“…getting into a-”
There was another gunshot. Alex only just registered that this time the man had shot the policewoman! The officer collapsed to the ground and the man crouched beside her, saying something that Alex couldn’t hear. Then he got up and climbed into the car. He strapped both Alex and himself in and then drove off.
“You… you shot the police!”
“They would not be able to keep you safe.”
“That’s their job!”
“Not against these people.”
“Who are you?”
“I am a friend of Ian’s.”
That stunned Alex into silence. Ian didn’t really have many friends and he definitely didn’t have friends who had guns! So this man was lying. He had to be. And that meant that Alex had to try and escape. He took a few deep breaths and focused his mind on his immediate problems.
The first one to deal with was the handcuffs. Luckily, thanks to Ian’s childhood obsession with learning magic tricks (Alex had found his old stuff once and Ian had insisted on demonstrating and getting him to have a go), he had a plan. One of Ian’s favourite tricks had involved escaping from handcuffs and he had taught Alex the secret to picking the lock. He was still wearing his school backpack and there was a random paperclip that he’d put on one of the straps after fidgeting with it in class once. He could use that to pick the lock and get out of the cuffs!
It was quite awkward getting the right angle as the bag as well as the cuffs restricted his movement andhe had to make sure that the man didn’t see what he was doing, but Alex soon managed to grab hold of the strap. The paperclip wasn’t there! Was it on the other side? …No. It must have fallen off at some point during everything that had happened that afternoon! Alex ran his hands over the straps another couple of times to make absolutely sure that the paperclip was gone. It was. Then he remembered that there was another one on one of the zips where the little handle had fallen off. That would be even more awkward to get, but Alex persevered; he would not let this man take him without putting up a fight.
After what felt like an eternity, although the clock on the dashboard told him that it had only been a few minutes, Alex finally had the paperclip in his hands. Unlocking the cuffs would be child’s play compared to what he had just had to do to get it!
In just a few seconds, the cuffs fell away from his wrists and Alex unclipped his seatbelt, grabbed the door handle and threw himself out of the car. Except he didn’t fall. The man had moved impossibly quickly and grabbed the handle of his backpack with one hand.
“Alex!”
But Alex had already worked his arms free of the straps and thudded onto the road, his arms protecting his face and rolling over and over as he slowed down. Thankfully the speed limit on the road they were on was much slower than the one before so he hadn’t leapt out of a car going sixty miles per hour, unlike the men who had taken him from school. He had barely come to a stop when he heard the screech of tires as the car stopped. Then there was the peculiar whirring, whining sound of the gears in the engine as the car reversed back down the road towards him at speed. Alex looked up and saw trees lining the road. He ran. Hopefully he would be able to lose himself amongst them, especially in the dark of twilight that had fallen as night had began to properly draw in.
He was through the tree line before the car had reached him again but Alex didn’t stop to look behind him. He ran, stumbling over tree roots and other debris in the dark. His school shoes weren’t designed for running through woods, and he slipped twice on the muddy ground, only just managing to keep himself upright. He risked a glance around. The sight that met his eyes was not comforting. The man had followed him through the trees and was catching up to him. He didn’t even look like he was running! And if Alex had seen him, he had almost certainly seen Alex. He was already running as fast as he could. His heart was pounding. He was sweating. His school uniform, complete with blazer, shirt and tie, was also not designed for running in, but that was the least of his worries. Alex ignored his discomfort and focused on one thing; he had to get away.
Could he climb a tree to escape? The man would know where he was but he wouldn’t be able to make him climb back down. Then he remembered the gun. The man could just shoot him and if he fell from too high a height… okay, climbing a tree was not an option.
Before he could make a decision, he was tackled to the muddy ground.
“Get off me!” he shouted, trying to get the man off of his back.
“I’m trying to keep you safe, Alex,” the man growled, wrenching Alex’s hands behind his back. The cold metal of handcuffs closed around his wrists again and his stomach dropped like a stone. He had lost count of the number of times he had felt that sensation that afternoon.
“It doesn’t feel like it! I don’t feel safe.”
“Whether you feel safe or not, you are much safer with me than you are without me.”
Throughout the brief confrontation, and even with his hands cuffed behind his back, Alex had been struggling, trying to get away, but it was no good. The muddy ground was too slippery for his school shoes to get enough purchase to get back to his feet. He was stuck. The man’s grip on his arm was too strong to break free from but that didn’t stop Alex from dragging his feet and struggling as much as he could once he had been pulled upright. And he realised with a touch of panic that he had managed to lose the paperclip… there would be no getting out of the cuffs this time unless he found something else that he could use to pick the lock. He doubted that there would be anything in the car that he could use; this man seemed to know what he was doing in taking him. Alex had caught him by surprise once. He doubted that he would get a second opportunity.
“If you don’t stop struggling, I will just carry you back to the car.”
But Alex did not stop struggling - he didn’t want to go with this man! - but he was good to his word and after a couple more seconds hoisted Alex up over his shoulder as easily as though he were as light as a feather. He was able to walk as quickly as if he weren’t carrying Alex and he soon saw how the man had managed to catch up to him so quickly.
“Just let me go!” Alex was wriggling and struggling as much as he could, not that the man seemed to notice. With his hands cuffed behind his back, there wasn’t much else that he could do to try and break free. The way he was being held meant that he couldn’t even kick the man! The man did not reply.
They soon reached the car again and this time Alex was strapped into the back seat in such a way that he couldn’t move his hands. As the man closed the door, Alex saw him flick the switch to turn on the child lock. Even if Alex did manage to get free of the cuffs again, he would not be able to get out of the car without climbing through to the front. There would be no escape this time. His stomach felt like it was tying itself in knots and his mind was racing to the worst case scenarios. What was going to happen to him?
After driving for a while longer (from where Alex was sitting, he couldn’t see the clock on the dashboard anymore, so he wasn’t sure exactly how long it had been, although the sun had set completely and they were driving in the dark, so Alex guessed that it must be at least 5pm), the man pulled into a residential estate. He turned onto a side road and Alex briefly saw the road name in the beam of the headlights; Kingfisher Avenue. Alex didn’t recognise the name. He had absolutely no idea where they were. The man clicked a button on a little remote. The feeling of dread increased as Alex realised what the remote was; it must be for a garage. The man would be able to pull up inside and close the door before he let Alex out of the car… there wouldn’t be the slightest opportunity to escape.
The man turned the car onto a drive and Alex saw that he had been right. The garage door was open, like a mouth ready to swallow them. He heard the whine of the motor as the garage door closed behind them, sealing them in.
“Now,” the man said, turning around in his seat, “I can either uncuff you when we get inside the house or, if you are going to cause problems, I can leave your hands in the cuffs.”
“I’ll behave,” Alex lied.
The man just smiled and nodded before getting out of the car, helping Alex out and leading him into the house. Alex got a horrible feeling that the man knew that he was lying. And the fact that the man didn’t seem bothered by the prospect of him trying to escape again was not a cheering one. If the man didn’t care, he must be sure that the house was secure. Not that it would stop Alex from looking and trying, but he knew that this would be an incredibly hard battle to win, although it would be fractionally easier if his hands were free.
Alex watched as the man locked the door to the house before unlocking his handcuffs. It was one of those doors which needed an actual key to unlock it, rather than being able to turn a knob, and the man took it and put it in his pocket. Unless Alex found a way to pick the lock or steal the key from under the man’s nose, the door was not going to be an option. A quick glance around the house didn’t seem very promising either. There weren’t any obvious ways to get out now that the door was locked and there was something off about the house. It felt just slightly too small and the view out of the windows (albeit patchy in the pools of light given off by the streetlamps) didn’t match up with the bits of the street that Alex had seen outside. After a few moments, Alex had the words to describe it. It was like a house had been built inside of a house. So if none of the windows opened onto the outside world and the door they had just come through was the only door he could leave through, the situation was worse than he could possibly have imagined.
“You could at least tell me your name,” Alex muttered sourly.
“It’s Yassen,” the man said with a smile.
“You said you were Ian’s friend but he’s never mentioned you.”
“That is… not surprising. His employers would not be happy if they found out.”
“Why would the bank care? Other than, you know, Ian being friends with a mad man who shoots police officers.”
“The police are not equipped to deal with the people who are looking for you. I am.”
“Oh yeah? Because you’re so much more powerful than literally hundreds of police officers?”
“Yes.”
“I want to talk to Ian.”
“I’m afraid you can’t at the moment. But he will be here later.”
“Where’s Jack?”
“You are the one who was in danger. I’m sure Ian will bring her later.”
Hmm. This man - Yassen, if he had given him his real name - did know that Jack was a woman, then. He must have been more thorough in his research.
“She’ll be worried that I haven’t come home from school. Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”
“By now the police will have identified that it was me who took you - there were three security cameras in and around the café. That will complicate matters for them. It is for Ian to explain to you what is going on.”
“‘Complicates matters’ how? Who are you?”
“Again, that is for Ian to explain.”
“So while we wait for him to show up you expect me just to sit quietly and ask no questions and behave like I haven’t literally been kidnapped?”
“Technically I stopped you from being kidnapped.”
“From where I’m standing, I was kidnapped twice.”
Yassen tilted his head slightly as though to say ‘fair point’. “I don’t expect you to sit here quietly, Alex. You are free to do anything you like in the house. What I cannot allow is for you to leave or contact anyone.”
“So not ‘anything’, then,” Alex countered, more bravely than he felt. “And for the record, I don’t trust you.”
“Noted.”
*Earlier that afternoon*
Hunched behind the steering wheel of his car, Ian Rider was sweating, although not from the heat. He was in Tangier, investigating a drug smuggling ring; there were reports that they had got their hands on something more dangerous than cocaine or heroin… something that would annihilate a city’s population if it was introduced into the water supply. Part of his brief was to identify their suppliers and their intended recipients, but he didn’t care about that anymore; the CIA also had an agent investigating and Ian had a new priority.
He was on his way to the airport to leave the city. He’d received an anonymous tip that the Triad was going to kidnap Alex, as revenge for his involvement in stopping their recent attempt to blackmail the British government. Ian shuddered to think what their plans for Alex would be once they had him. So he was leaving. The trouble was that once he was in the air, it would take him three hours to fly back to London, but by then, it would be too late. If he didn’t do something now, Alex would be gone.
Even as he raced to the airport, Ian rang MI6.
“What do you mean you ‘can’t spare any agents right now’?” he demanded angrily.
“We do not know where this… suggestion that Alex might be targeted has come from. It could be a distraction to divert resources to enable something else to happen. We will alert the police but unless more substantial evidence is provided, I cannot authorise anything further. I also cannot authorise you to leave Tangier.” Blunt was certainly living up to his name today. When he and John had first met the man, they had joked about how well his name suited him. Today, Ian wished he was anything but.
“Well I’m already on my way to the airport and you are not stopping me,” Ian snapped. “And this is the Triad, Mr Blunt. They’ll take out the police easily and they won’t care about the number of casualties.”
“Unless you can provide more evidence, Rider, I cannot justify moving resources.”
“What about Alex?”
“As I said, we will alert the police. And we will monitor the situation.”
Ian heard the click as Blunt ended the call. He swore. Of course Blunt wouldn’t take a threat on Alex seriously. Making a snap decision, Ian pulled out the secure phone that MI6 didn’t know about and made another call.
“You’re in London at the moment, aren’t you?” he said as soon as the call was answered.
“I am.”
“I need you to pick Alex up from school. I got an anonymous tip that the Triad is going to make a move on him and Blunt won’t do anything.” Ian reached the air field and was climbing into his waiting helicopter. “I’m flying home but it’ll be three hours before I get there and by then it’ll be too late.”
“I’m leaving now. I’ll take him to safe house three.”
“Thank you, Yas.”
Ian felt the tension in his stomach ease ever so slightly knowing that Yassen was on his way. It felt like hours passed as he sat behind the controls waiting, the seconds ticking by impossibly slowly, until he was given permission to take off. Ian ran through his final pre-flight checks, making sure that everything was in order, and then manipulated the controls and rose into the air.
He tried to focus on the flight, on only the instruments that were important to keep him safely in the air. He tried not to keep looking at the clock. It didn’t work. It felt like time was distorting and his journey was taking so much longer than it should have done. It was like time was taunting him. What felt like half an hour was apparently only five minutes, according to the clock. Why was it taking so long?
He was less than half way through his agonisingly long journey, flying over Spain, when he received a message from Yassen letting him know that he had Alex at the safe house. He breathed out a sigh of relief. Alex was safe.
The rest of the journey passed relatively quickly after that. Now that he knew that Alex was safe, time couldn’t taunt him with how slowly it was passing. His imagination couldn’t run wild with what the Triad could possibly be doing to Alex, either, and Ian was able to breathe without the constricting band of anxiety crushing his chest. Soon enough, the familiar skyline of London appeared ahead of him. His radio crackled back into life and he received his instructions and flight path for landing in Liverpool Street.
Great, Ian thought. The conversation with Air Traffic Control had reminded him that a conversation with Blunt was in his imminent future, and that was exactly what he didn’t want, especially after contravening his direct orders. But he confirmed the directions back to Air Traffic Control and soon touched down on the helipad on the roof of the MI6 offices. John Crawley, the ‘Personnel Manager’ was waiting for him. If he hadn’t already known from Yassen that Alex was safe, this would have confirmed to him that the Triad had, indeed, made a move on Alex.
“Mr Blunt and Mrs Jones need to speak to you,” Crawley said, his face impassive.
“What’s wrong? Is Alex okay?” He had to play his part, at least until he had decided what to do. Or Yassen decided for him.
Crawley didn’t answer but led him to the lift.
“John? What’s happened to Alex? Is it the Triad?”
“I don’t know anything, Ian. I’m sorry. All I know is that they wanted to see you as soon as you arrived.”
The lift doors opened. They didn’t have far to travel down, but they travelled in silence.
“I hope Alex is okay,” Crawley said as Ian walked out of the lift.
Ian nodded before steeling himself to walk into Alan Blunt’s office. Although he expected that this meeting would be to tell him that Alex had been kidnapped, there was always the chance that Blunt would throw a curveball and he needed to be prepared for that. He knocked on the door and entered without waiting for permission.
“What’s happened to Alex?” he asked before he’d even closed the door.
“Please, sit down Ian,” Mrs Jones said.
Neither she nor her boss looked entirely comfortable. Ian thought he could see the tiniest hint of something, remorse maybe, on Blunt’s face. Perhaps the man did have a heart then, buried somewhere deep beneath the surface.
“I’m afraid Alex was taken,” Blunt said as soon as Ian had sat down. “We were monitoring the CCTV outside the school. A group of ten men ambushed him and dragged him into a car. We have identified two of them as being known members of the Triad and are working on identifying the others.”
Ian let out a slow breath.
“Unfortunately,” Mrs Jones said, picking up the narrative, “someone else was involved too.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were following the cars on CCTV and putting together a team to intercept them and pick Alex up. However, someone else beat us to it. He took out all of the Triad members in the cars and then drove off with Alex.”
“Who took him?”
“Yassen Gregorovich.” Ian swore softly under his breath.
“Has he made any demands?”
“There’s been no communication from him yet. After Gregorovich drove away with Alex, they disappeared for a few minutes between cameras but we were then alerted by an emergency call to the police that Alex had shown up in a nearby café. He’d managed to escape but Gregorovich arrived a few minutes after Alex and took him as his hostage. We are still trying to find where he took him.”
Ian swore again. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, holding his head in his hands. At least he knew that Alex was okay. That Yassen wasn’t his enemy and that he would keep Alex safe. But Blunt and Jones did not, so Ian kept up the act for their benefit. It would not be good if they found out about his and Yassen’s friendshipassociation.
Ian stood up abruptly and began pacing the room.
“Rider-” Blunt began.
“If you’re planning on telling me to ‘calm down’, just don’t,” he snapped. It was Blunt’s fault that this was all happening anyway; if he’d listened in the first place and arranged for some agents to pick Alex up, Ian wouldn’t have had to get Yassen involved.
Just then, there was a knock on the door and Crawley stepped in.
“We’ve had a message from Gregorovich.” He hurried over to the desk, holding a laptop.
Send Ian Rider alone, unarmed and without any method of communication to the car that is waiting outside. Wire £1 million. The end of the message showed the bank details for the account Yassen wanted the money paid into.
Ian immediately put his MI6 issued phone and gun on the desk and removed his watch - the three things currently on his person that MI6 knew about and which went against Yassen’s demands. By leaving them here, they would be unable to follow him, which was exactly what he wanted.
“Rider-” Blunt began again.
“-If you are about to say anything that goes against his demands and will therefore put Alex in even more danger than he is currently in, don’t bother.” He took a deep breath. “I am going. I am going to go alone and unarmed. You will arrange the wire transfer.”
“We can’t let you go into this without backup, Rider.”
“And if you send me in with backup, Gregorovich will kill Alex.”
“And what will he do to you when you arrive wherever he’s sending you, without backup?”
“If he wanted me dead, he could have arranged that easily enough. He sent a car here. He could just have easily come himself and shot me when I left the building. He could also have come here and taken me by force. You know as well as I do that there’s nothing he can do to me there that he couldn’t have done anywhere else. Now arrange the transfer.”
Five minutes later, Ian climbed into the back of the car that was waiting for him, idling on the curb outside of the bank’s entrance. There was a blindfold on the back seat beside him. The car also had a darkened screen between the front and back seats, so Ian couldn’t see the driver although, in the darkness of the evening, Ian wouldn’t have been able to identify them anyway.
“Put it on,” the driver ordered, the instruction coming through a speaker in the upholstery on the roof of the car.
Ian quickly complied and the driver set off. He sat quietly in the back, knowing that it was quite a drive from Liverpool Street to the safe house. After they had been driving for some time, he felt the car slowing down and the jostle as they pulled onto the drive. They were here.
“Get out and knock on the door,” the driver instructed.
When Ian took the blindfold off, he saw that they were in the garage. Yassen’s car was already there. He went over to the door and knocked. Yassen answered and let him in.
“What happened to you?” Ian whispered as he took in the mud caked onto Yassen’s clothes. He wanted to double check that MI6 had held up their end of the bargain without Alex overhearing, but Yassen’s appearance had momentarily distracted him from his original opening question.
“Your nephew,” Yassen replied with a smile. “He is quite the escape artist.”
Ian smiled. Alex was certainly proficient in the art of causing trouble and had managed to escape from Yassen! That was quite an accomplishment for a twelve year old without any proper training. “Have they sent the money?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Keep it for Alex,” Yassen said with a smile. “I don’t need it and, anyway, he’s the only reason I have it.”
Ian smiled back. “See. You do have a heart!”
“Tell anyone and you’re dead,” Yassen joked back.
“As if I would!” Ian retorted, mock offended. “Alex?” he called, and a very dishevelled looking Alex came out of the living room. His blazer and trousers were muddy and ripped, and his school shoes were scuffed too. “Are you okay?” he asked, pulling him into a hug.
“Yeah I’m okay,” Alex said, before whispering into his ear. “Is that man really your friend?”
“Yes, he is.”
Alex seemed puzzled by this. He looked from Ian to Yassen and back again. “Umm. You do know he has a gun, right.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“And he shot a policewoman.”
“You shot a policewoman?” Ian asked incredulously.
Yassen just shrugged. “She would have followed us. And it went straight through the muscle. No bones or arteries.”
Ian sighed. He supposed it would have been too much to hope for no one innocent to get hurt, but a through and through bullet wound was a much milder injury than it could have been. He focused his attention back on Alex. “You’re filthy. What happened to your uniform?”
“He tackled me in the woods,” Alex said, glaring pointedly at Yassen.
“You dove out of the car.”
“You handcuffed me and dragged me out of the café.”
“You ran away from the car when I told you to stay put.”
“You kidnapped me.”
“I stopped you from being kidnapped.”
Ian had listened to their back and forth in silence but now he spoke. “Why don’t you tell me everything that happened?” he suggested, leading Alex over to the sofa and sitting down.
After Alex had finished telling his story, during which neither Ian nor Yassen had interrupted (although Ian had been delighted when he found out precisely how Alex had managed to escape from Yassen - clearly those ‘childhood magic tricks’ had been worthwhile lessons to pass onto his nephew, as had subtly ensuring that Alex had an accessible paperclip on him at all times), he looked at Ian. “Can I have a hot chocolate?” he asked with a cheeky grin. “And Yassen said you’d explain.”
“Yes you can have a hot chocolate,” Ian replied with a smile. “And explain what?”
“Why those people kidnapped me. Why Yassen has a gun. Why you’re friends with him.”
“Ah,” Ian said, knowing that this had to have been coming but dreading it all the same. “They all have very big and complicated answers, Al… I’ll explain as much as I can, but first I’ll make your hot chocolate.” He looked at Yassen who had taken a seat on another sofa. “You want one?”
“I’ll have a coffee, thanks.”
Alex followed him into the kitchen and watched curiously as he flicked the kettle on and then got a saucepan out of a cupboard and the milk out of the fridge.
“Have you been here before?”
“Yes.”
Alex nodded as though he had expected the answer. Then he examined Ian for a moment, as if he were deciding whether or not to ask another question. “Are you a spy?” he blurted out.
Ian nearly dropped the bottle of milk that he was pouring into a saucepan.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, I got kidnapped today. Twice. And you’re here instead of the police when I’m supposedto be a hostage. You’re friends with my hostage taker and he has a gun. And the secrets. And you’re away a lot. And you get hurt a lot. This house… also you practically dropped the milk when I asked.”
Ian thought for a moment. Alex was only twelve - that was far too young to know what he did for a living. But, at the same time, he’d already worked it out. And it wasn’t like keeping him in the dark had kept him safe today… maybe it was time to tell him… enough to be able to keep him safe, or safer, anyway. If he knew, at least he wouldn’t get taken by surprise like he had been today. And he would know what types of people he was up against if anyone tried anything. He sighed.
“Okay, Alex. When I’ve made our drinks, I’ll tell you.”
“So you are a spy?” Alex asked again, this time with a triumphant tone to his voice. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Go and sit with Yassen.”
Alex begrudgingly walked back into the living room. Ian stood at the hob, stirring the milk until it was heated through and then adding the chocolate to melt.
He took it off of the heat and made Yassen’s coffee while the hot chocolate thickened up a bit. Then he poured it between two mugs, added some squirty cream that he found in the fridge, some mini marshmallows and grated a little more chocolate on top. Was he making them overly decadent to give himself a few more precious seconds to work out what he was going to tell Alex, and how? Yes… but it was going to be an extremely fine balance between telling him enough of the truth to answer all of his questions and not traumatise him… without just an ‘I’ll tell you when you’re older’ answer for everything.
“Oh yeah that’s an ‘I’m a spy and now I have to tell you about it’ level hot chocolate,” Alex said with a grin as he walked back into the lounge. Sometimes he reminded Ian of John so much that it hurt.
He set the tray down. A glance at Yassen told him that the assassin was very much looking forward to seeing him squirm under Alex’s questioning. That was something else that John had passed on.
“Okay,” he said once he had handed out the drinks and sat down on the sofa. “To answer your question in short; yes, I am a spy.”
“That’s much cooler than being a banker.”
“Being a spy isn’t like Bond, Alex,” Ian said with a soft smile.
“So what is it like?”
Ian thought for a moment. “Well, there’s a lot of paperwork that they never show Bond doing.”
“That’s not an answer!”
“Yes it is. In films like Bond, the spies jump from one mission to the next. It’s all excitement and adventure and action. But in real life, a lot more happens behind a desk. Yes there are missions, but they aren’t all explosions and high speed chases.”
Alex looked at him quizzically for a moment. Ian could tell that he wasn’t satisfied with his answer and was deciding whether to press the point or move on.
“So what was today about?”
“The people who took you from school are part of an organisation called the Triad. I stopped them from doing something bad that they wanted to do a little while ago, so they decided to kidnap you.”
“To get back at you?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” Alex sipped his hot chocolate. “And you asked Yassen to stop them?”
“I asked Yassen to pick you up from school and look after you.”
“Why him? Do you work together?”
“I trust him. I trusted that he would protect you. And my boss said he wouldn’t do anything without more evidence and I wasn’t in the country, so Yassen was the only other person who was close enough to help.”
“So you don’t work together?” Alex asked suspiciously.
“Not officially, no.”
“What does that mean? ‘Not officially’.”
“It means that our bosses don’t know that we sometimes work together when we happen to be in the same place.”
“Or that you’re friends?”
“That’s right.”
“So they wouldn’t like it if they found out?”
“Not really, no.”
Alex seemed to ponder this as he drank some more of his hot chocolate. Ian really hoped that Alex wouldn’t continue with this line of questioning much longer. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could continue to sidestep what Yassen did for a living. If twelve was too young to find out that he was a spy, it was definitely too young to find out that he was friends with an assassin, and that he trusted him with his life.
“Is that why you said that I was your hostage when you took me from the café?” Alex asked, turning to face Yassen.
“Yes.”
“So people wouldn’t think that Ian asked you to get me?”
“Yes.”
“How did you find me in the café? I mean, you weren’t following me when I left.”
“I put a tracker on you,” Yassen said nonchalantly.
Alex’s mouth gaped open.
“It was a precautionary measure. Other members of the Triad could have taken you while I was dealing with the ones who took you from school,” Yassen explained. “I needed to know where you were.”
“Huh. So getting out of the car and running through the woods was pointless too?”
“Yes. Although I… did not expect you to get out of the handcuffs and jump from a moving vehicle.”
“Yeah, well from where I was sitting, it was a better option than going with you.”
“Evidently.”
Alex turned to face Ian again. “How long have you been a spy, Ian?”
“About seventeen years.”
Ian could sense the new direction that the conversation was going and he didn’t like it. A few seconds ago, he would have been delighted to think they were moving away from Yassen, but he realised with sickening horror that they were barrelling towards John and Helen… and that was an even worse conversation… the truth about their deaths… Scorpia… and that circled back to Yassen anyway! A glance at Yassen told him that the assassin was just as uncomfortable with the almost certain line of questioning that was to come.
“So… when my mum and dad died, you were a spy?”
“Yes.”
“Did they know?”
“Yes, they knew that I was a spy.”
“Why don’t you talk about them?”
Ian sighed and took a deep breath. “Because it makes me sad, Alex. Your mum and dad were the closest people I had in my life. They were my best friends. Even now, I look at something and think your dad would like it. Or I see something and I know it would have made your mum laugh. Or I say a stupid joke but your dad isn’t around to hear it and laugh with me. I see plays advertised at the theatre and I think we should buy tickets but then I remember that they aren’t here to go with me anymore. And it makes me angry. Because they had so much to look forward to. They had you and their whole lives to be with you as a family and it got taken away.”
Alex looked at him quizzically again but Ian couldn’t work out what he was thinking this time.
“Does Jack know?”
The sudden jump away from John and Helen took Ian by surprise. Maybe Alex had sensed his unease. Maybe he understood that once that conversation started, there would be no coming back from it. Maybe he wondered whether he was ready to hear it. Whatever the reason, Ian was glad that they weren’t going to have that conversation today.
“That I’m a spy?”
Alex nodded.
“No. She doesn’t.”
Alex nodded as though he had expected the answer.
“So… what happens now?”
“Well, we need to go home soon. But first we need to talk about what’s going to happen next. I don’t know if my bosses will want to talk to you, Alex, to get your version of events. If they do, I want you to tell them that Yassen brought you straight here from the café.”
“Tell them I kept you handcuffed and blindfolded in a room and that you didn’t see anything,” Yassen added.
Alex nodded as he took in all of this information. “And, I guess don’t tell them that you told me that Ian sent you?”
“Best not,” Ian agreed. “They would probably think that he was lying to you to get you to go with him, but it’ll be best not to tell them anyway.”
“Okay. So he shot the people who took me from school. Then I ran away and he grabbed me from the café, and brought me here.”
“You’ve got it.”
“I’ve got some more questions.”
“I’m sure you do, but I’m afraid they’re going to have to wait, Alex,” Ian said, ruffling Alex’s mud splattered hair. “We have to get home and I have to let my boss know that we’re both okay.”
“What are you going to tell them?”
“Not much,” Ian admitted. “That I arrived and Yassen confirmed he got everything he asked for. Then he got you out of one of the rooms, and drove us home.”
Alex examined him. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
“Not exactly like this, no. But I have lied about Yassen before. Now finish up your hot chocolate and we’ll get you cleaned up a bit.”
Alex did as he was told and Ian wiped away his hot chocolate moustache before they got ready to leave. Ian was grateful that he’d had the foresight to keep a spare school uniform in the safe house. There would have been no way that it could go unnoticed that Alex was covered in mud when he hadn’t been at the café. Finally, Ian took a paperclip from the desk and put it back onto the zip of Alex’s backpack; MI6’s analysts would certainly be eagle-eyed enough to pick up such a tiny change in detail if they happened (or were instructed) to look.
“Here, put these on,” Yassen said when they stepped into the garage, holding out two blindfolds.
“Whyare we being blindfolded and handcuffed again?” Alex asked. “We already know where we are.”
“My bosses will be on the lookout for us,” Ian explained. “If they find the car on CCTV and see that we aren’t blindfolded, they’ll know something’s up.”
“Oh. Makes sense.”
Newly handcuffed and blindfolded again, Yassen helped them both into the car. None of them said much on the journey. Ian knew that he and Yassen would need to talk soon, but it could wait until Alex wasn’t around. His nephew might now know that he’s a spy but he definitely didn’t need to know much more than that. Not for a while at least.
“I’ll drop you off on the other side of the river,” Yassen said after they had been driving quietly for a while. Ian would have guessed that they were nearly home and what Yassen had just said confirmed it.
“Thanks, Yas.”
The car came to a stop and Yassen opened the door to let them out. He pressed the key for their handcuffs into Ian’s hand and drove off again before he had time to uncuff himself. He quickly unlocked Alex’s too and they began the short walk home.
When they arrived at the house, Ian saw that Yassen had been right not to drop them off at the door. There were two agents waiting outside, and he had spotted several others in unmarked vehicles just on their short walk. Presumably others had been stationed along the other access roads to the house; if Yassen had driven up to the house, they would have closed in and attempted to capture him. MI6 would have gotten involved in a high speed pursuit across London and Yassen would have gotten away. That was the more likely outcome of the two, anyway.
One of the agents opened the front door to let them in and Jack almost ran to greet them. She had been going frantic with worry, and pulled Alex into her arms before he’d got both feet inside the house. In the busyness of the moment while both Alex and Jack were distracted, one of the agents told Ian that they’d be remaining on guard and would let Blunt know that they had arrived home, but that he was to ring the office as soon as he could.
He waited until Alex was in bed and Jack had gone to have a bath with a glass of wine to calm down before he picked up the phone.
“We’re home,” Ian said once the phone was answered.
Ian heard Crawley breathe a sigh of relief at the other end of the line. Although the agents on guard had already let Blunt know that he and Alex were home, Ian knew that Crawley wouldn’t have been able to relax until he heard from him himself. “What happened?”
“Not much. He checked me for bugs and confirmed that he’d received the money. Then he brought Alex and let me check that he was okay, blindfolded and cuffed me and shoved us back into the car. When he let us out, he just put the key for the cuffs in my hand and drove off. By the time I’d unlocked mine and taken my blindfold off, he was gone, so I unlocked Alex’s cuffs and took off his blindfold and then we walked home. He dropped us off on the other side of the river. Presumably he guessed that there would be agents waiting at the house.”
“How’s Alex?”
“Shaken and he’s got a few bruises. But he’s okay.”
“We’ll need a statement from him.”
“Not tonight, John. He’s already in bed and he’s been through enough for today.”
“Bring him to the police station on Kings Road tomorrow at 10am. We’ll debrief him there.”
The next morning was sunny with barely a breeze disturbing the frosty tree branches. A glance out of the window told Ian that there were still agents guarding the house. That eased the knot of anxiety in his stomach a little; he might know that the ‘threat’ from Yassen was actually non-existent, but the threat from the Triad was still very real and there was every possibility that they would try to get to Alex again.
Crawley had already informed the school what had happened yesterday and that Alex wouldn’t be in today, so Ian let him sleep in for a while - they didn’t have to be at the police station until 10:00, and it would only take ten minutes to get there. He, on the other hand, had been up at the crack of dawn and had already been debriefed by Blunt and Jones.
Alex made his way downstairs just before 8:30. He picked at his breakfast but Ian knew he hadn’t really eaten anything. He hadn’t been able to eat much either. Neither had Jack. They sat quietly at the dining room table, the ticking of the clock on the wall the only thing breaking the silence before Alex headed upstairs to get ready. By 9:30, Alex had showered and dressed and they were ready to leave. At 9:45, Ava, the agent who had been stationed inside the house, walked into the dining room.
“It’s time to go. There’s a car waiting outside.”
Ian grabbed his and Alex’s winter coats off of the rack in the hall - both of them had been designed by Smithers and there was a bulletproof layer hidden inside each of them, not that Alex knew about it - and they both also put on hats, gloves and scarves before stepping out into the frosty January air. Alex grumbled that they were wrapping up so well when they were going by car, but he did as he was told anyway. Ian was glad of that - their woolly hats had also been a present from Smithers; they too were bulletproof, and he wanted Alex to have as much protection as possible. Only his and Alex’s legs were completely exposed, but Ian still hurried Alex to the safety of the armoured car as quickly as he could. Jack was reluctantly staying home and waved them off from the doorway.
They climbed into the car, and Ian recognised their driver. Wayne Fairclough was one of MI6’s top evasive drivers. Ian would have pitied anyone who tried to make a move on them while they were driving today if it hadn’t meant that they were targeting Alex. And at least MI6 were now taking the threat seriously.
They pulled up outside of the police station and Ian counted five agents posing as innocuous citizens as he got out of the car. Even with the agents and the bulletproof clothing, Ian felt horribly exposed as he walked behind Alex, protecting his nephew’s back, as they walked inside.
“Good morning. You must be Ian and Alex?” Crawley asked when they entered the police station.
“Yes,” Ian said and Alex nodded.
“If you’d both like to follow me.” Crawley led them through to an office on the ground floor. “Can I get either of you a drink? Tea? Coffee? A glass of water?”
“Could I have a coffee please?” Ian asked as he sat down on the sofa beside Alex. “Milk, no sugar,” he added, as though Crawley didn’t know how he liked his coffee.
“Of course. Would you like anything, Alex?”
“No thank you,” Alex said quietly.
“Okay. Let me know if I can get you anything at any point.”
Crawley left to get Ian’s coffee, leaving the two of them alone for a couple of minutes. Despite not being in an interrogation room, Alex was obviously uncomfortable. Perhaps the prospect of lying about what had happened the day before was getting to him. Or maybe he was just intimidated by being in the police station.
“It’s okay, Alex,” Ian murmured soothingly. “They just want to find out what happened yesterday.” He had deliberately interpreted Alex’s nerves as the latter of the two options, knowing that there were cameras in the offices; he wouldn’t put it past Blunt to be watching them even now, before the ‘interview’ began.
Crawley soon returned with his coffee and a cup of tea for himself.
“Okay, are you ready to start?” he asked Alex.
Alex nodded.
“I’m going to turn on the camera, just so we’ve got a record of our conversation.”
Alex nodded again.
“Before we start, I want to reassure you that you aren’t in any trouble, Alex. We just need to get a statement from you for our reports. So, can you tell me what happened yesterday, Alex?”
“I was leaving school,” Alex began nervously. “I was waiting outside for my friends to join me because we walk home together and a group of men came up and surrounded me. They said I had to go with them… that Ian had sent them. I didn’t believe them and I didn’t want to go with them but they dragged me into a car.”
“Do you remember how many men there were?”
“Umm… there were three in the car with me - the driver and a passenger in the front and someone in the back with me.”
Alex closed his eyes and scrunched his face up as though he were trying to remember. Ian saw his fingers twitching too as he mentally counted the men who had surrounded him. Alex really was very good at this; he’d told Ian yesterday that there were ten men, and he knew from his conversation with Blunt and Jones that he had counted correctly. Ian wondered whether Alex’s nerves were, at least in part, an act too.
“Maybe there were eight or nine in total,” he said after a few moments.
Crawley nodded. “And what happened when you were in the car?”
“They were driving me down the road when something happened. There were three cars; one in front, I was in the middle one and another one behind. The car in front of us crashed suddenly. And then… I don’t really know what happened. Our car sped up and the man in the back and the front passenger both jumped out. They tried to get me to jump out too but we were going so fast… The driver was unconscious or something and we were on the wrong side of the road so I grabbed the steering wheel and tried to avoid all of the cars driving towards us. I couldn’t get his foot off of the accelerator so we just kept going.” Alex’s voice had become more panicked as he recounted the events of the day before, and Ian leaned across and held his hand. Alex glanced at him and Ian smiled supportively.
Crawley poured Alex a glass of water from the jug on the table behind him and nodded again, encouraging Alex to continue. He took a sip of the water before he did.
“A man jumped off of his motorbike and landed on the bonnet of the car. He started shooting at the people who took me from school… like, he had a gun and just started shooting it! And he kept telling me to open the door so that he could help me.”
“Did you open the door?”
“Eventually?”
“Why did you open the door for him?”
“I don’t know. He was shooting at the people who took me from school. I guess I just figured that meant that he was on my side.”
“And what happened after that?”
“Umm,” Alex said, pausing to think. “It all happened very quickly… oh he drove through the tunnel and … and people with machine guns fired at the car. Then we stopped on the other side. He told me to wait in the car but I didn’t want to and I ran until I saw a café. They called the police but then
It was an unusually sunny day for the beginning of March. Ian almost found himself relaxing as he drove through the English countryside towards London and home, despite the fact that he still had to write his report before his mission was complete. He might not have discovered the exact virus that Herod Sayle intended to unleash with his Stormbreaker computers, but that didn’t matter now. Ian had found the computer code and added a kill switch; when the system was activated to release the virus, it would shut down, locking the virus safely away until the computers were recalled and it could be disposed of by MI6. He’d also been able to add his laptop as a remote source writer. Even if his code was discovered and removed, he’d be able to add it back in. And, provided the traffic when he arrived in London was no worse than usual, he would be home in time to have dinner with Alex and Jack and still write his report before the end of the day.
As he pulled onto the drive and grabbed his bags out of the boot, Ian took a deep breath and smiled. The clean air of Cornwall, with the ever present smell of sea salt in the air, had been nice, but the smell of the pine tree hedge, which really needed a trim before the birds started their breeding season (he didn’t remember it being so overgrown when he’d left for Sayle Enterprises), intermingled with the cherry blossom and the flowers that were just beginning to bloom was home. And, like the icing on a cake, he was home in time for dinner, just as he had hoped he would be. Often, he got home so late at night that he ended up skulking into the house silently so that he didn’t disturb Alex and Jack as they slept. He might even suggest they got a takeaway for dinner if Jack hadn’t started cooking yet. He unlocked the door and stepped into the hallway and saw Jack just leaving the kitchen, holding two steaming mugs in her hands.
“Hi Jack,” he greeted jovially.
Smash!The two mugs dropped to the floor, spilling tea everywhere. Jack’s jaw almost seemed to join them, her mouth open wide, as though she were in shock. All of the colour drained from her face in the time it took Ian to blink just once.
“Everything alright?” Ian asked, dropping his bags in the doorway and rushing forwards to help her, pieces of the ceramic crushing beneath his boots. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
Jack just stared at him, eyes wide and barely breathing.
“Jack?” Alex called from upstairs. “You good?”
She didn’t reply but continued to stare at him in what, if Ian didn’t know better, he would have called disbelief. Her strange reaction to his arrival stopped him from calling back up to Alex to say that he’d sort it. He couldn’t understand it - he often showed up unannounced after going on a mission, so why was she so surprised to see him?
“Jack, what’s wrong?” he asked at the same time as Alex called again. This time, Ian heard his nephew walking down the hallway from his bedroom to the stairs. Well, he could help get Jack to a chair and then they could work out what was wrong.
Alex came bounding down the stairs but came to an abrupt halt when he skidded around the corner and saw them.
“What..?” he breathed. Like Jack, Alex seemed shocked to see him.
“Alex?” Ian asked, looking back at his nephew and suddenly unsure what he had walked into. Alex, almost unconsciously it seemed, had prepared himself for a karate strike. His knees were slightly bent, lowering his centre of gravity, his arms were raised and tensed and there was a dangerous look in his eyes. And now that Ian looked at him properly, he saw that something was seriously wrong. He had been so concerned about Jack and whether she was going to faint on him that he hadn’t looked at his nephew properly when he first came down the stairs, but now he did. This was not the same boy that he had left three weeks ago. Somehow, he was older. Significantly older. And his eyes… they were so much darker than Ian had ever seen them.
“Alex?” he said again, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender.
Before Ian knew what was happening, Alex sprang into action. He crossed the space between them incredibly quickly, jumping over the shards of broken mugs like they weren’t there, and striking out with his arms and legs in such a flurry that it was all Ian could do to back away towards the lounge and block the attack.
“Get out of here, Jack!” Alex called behind him, not losing his focus on Ian or letting up with his kicks and punches.
“Alex? What-” but before he could ask what was going on Alex let out a yell of rage.
“-Who are you working for?”
“What?” Ian was beyond confused at this point. All he could try to do was calm Alex down and then work out what was going on. He was still blocking and dodging all of Alex’s attacks, but his nephew was a strong and experienced fighter. And somehow, he seemed much stronger than he had been when they had sparred almost a month ago, almost like he had done much more intensive fight training… and had used it… outside of training fights. He wasn’t allowing any opportunities for Ian to strike back (not that he particularly wanted to) and was moving with such speed and ferocity that it took Ian by surprise. It felt like he was fighting an enemy on a mission who would very happily kill him if he got the chance, rather than Alex.
“Why him? Of all people, why him?” Tears were streaming down Alex’s face but it did not stop his attack from being effective. He was focused and disciplined and didn’t even seem to have noticed the tears.
“Alex? What are you talking about?”
They were completely in the lounge now and Ian had to avoid coffee tables, sofas and chairs along with Alex’s attack. Suddenly, he was on his back. One of Alex’s strikes had knocked him down and before he could make a move to get out of the way and back to his feet, Alex had pinned him down.
“Did you really think this would work? That you could disguise yourself as him and sneak into the house unnoticed?”
What the hell was Alex talking about?
“If you wanted that to work, you’re two years too late,” Alex snarled. He might have the upper hand right now but Ian was stronger and more experienced than him. He made his move and now he was the one pinning Alex to the floor.
“What do you mean, Alex?” he asked gently. “What do you mean two years too late?”
“Ian died two years ago,” he spat out but Ian could hear the defeat and sadness in his voice too. “If you wanted to pretend to be Ian, you should have done it years ago.”
Ian froze. Why did Alex think he was dead? And that he’d died two years ago! Alex took advantage of his lapse in concentration and Ian suddenly found himself on his back again.
“Who sent you?” Alex growled.
“Nobody sent me,” Ian said truthfully, his mind racing at a hundred miles an hour trying to make sense of what Alex was saying and work out what to do.
“I will not ask again. If you tell me the truth, I might consider letting you just go to jail rather than some MI6 black site where the sun doesn’t shine.”
No. Alex had just said MI6. Why would they be coming? Alex didn’t know anything about his work, he couldn’t, but he had definitely just said MI6.
“How can I prove to you that I am Ian?”
“You can’t.”
“There must be something.”
“There is nothing you can say because I know that Ian is dead. He died two years ago. And, anyway, I didn’t know enough about him for you to be able to say anything that only I would know.”
That broke Ian’s heart but he had been an agent for long enough to be able to suppress his own feelings. He took advantage of Alex’s distraction and flipped him on his back again.
“Maybe you can’t think of anything right now, but I will prove to you that I am who I say I am.”
Before either of them could do or say anything more, Ian was grabbed from behind and pulled off of Alex. He’d been so focused on his nephew that he hadn’t heard them coming up behind him. His hands were jerked behind his back and he felt the cool metal of handcuffs closing around his wrists. Whoever they were, they had arrived at the house almost impossibly quickly.
“Is Jack okay?” Alex asked, picking himself up off of the floor and dusting himself off.
“She’s fine. Fox is with her. How are you? Who’s this?” The man was clearly a soldier. The SAS liked to use animal code names. How had Alex called soldiers, possible SAS soldiers at that, to the house, so quickly? There had been no introductions but Alex clearly knew and trusted them… more than he currently trusted Ian… what the hell was going on?
“That’s good, thanks Wolf. Yeah I’m okay. I don’t know who he is but-” Alex lent forward and whispered into the man’s ear. Ian couldn’t hear what he said to the man but he could guess, based on the sudden hardness and change in his expression and the glare that he cast in his direction.
“We will find out who you are and who sent you,” the soldier said coldly. “But you definitely chose the wrong disguise and you will pay for that.”
Ian said nothing. He was used to threats and knew that it would be no good to try and persuade them that he really was who he said he was, not at the moment, anyway. The truth would out, in the end. The main question he had was why they thought he was dead in the first place.
“Alex-”
“-Nope. You’re done,” the man called ‘Wolf’ said, interrupting him and signalling to the two soldiers who were holding his arms and stopping him from moving.
That was the only warning he got before he was swung around and marched through the house. It was not worth the fight to break free right now. He was forced out of the house and down the drive towards a car waiting on the road. Jack was nowhere to be seen.
“He’s even got the same car that Ian had.” Alex must have followed them to the door and seen his car on the driveway.
“It’s the same car, Alex!” he protested, earning him a hard shove in the back, but Ian dug his heels in and managed to turn himself around to face his nephew.
“The last time I saw the real version of that car, Ian’s car, I nearly died in it,” Alex replied quietly but there was an edge to his voice that Ian had never heard before. “It was littered with bullet holes and Ian’s blood was all over the driver’s seat, and it was crushed in a car compactor while I was still inside it. I only just got out.”
Ian was too stunned by Alex’s shocking revelation to say or do anything as he was dragged down the drive, shoved into the car and driven away. He had so many questions! How could Alex be 'remembering’ all of that? His death, when he was here and very much alive! His bullet ridden and blood stained car, when the car was on the drive! And why had Alex said that two years had passed? He’d only left for Sayle Enterprises three weeks ago! There was no way that any of that had happened but… something had happened and Ian was determined to find out what it was.
Alex watched as Snake and Eagle shoved the fake Ian into the car and drove away before he retreated back into the house. Jack was in the dining room and he folded himself into her arms. The man could have chosen any day to walk into his house looking like Ian. Any other day and Alex might have coped just a little bit better. But today? Today was the second anniversary of Ian’s death, so naturally Alex had been thinking about his uncle more than usual. And then to go downstairs and literally see him standing there! For a second, he had thought he was hallucinating or seeing Ian’s ghost before reason had kicked in.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I will be. Are you?”
“A little shaken but I’m fine. It really was just like he was walking through the door.”
“I’m just glad he’s gone now.”
“They’re taking him to Liverpool Street to question him,” Ben cut in. Alex had noticed him standing in the room, but Ben was much more like a friend to both him and Jack and neither of them minded him being there.
“Thanks Ben.”
Alex stepped back into the hall and, for the first time, surveyed the mess that had been left behind. He had been lucky to avoid all of the broken pieces of ceramic when he’d attacked the man; he’d barely noticed the smashed mugs when he’d first come down the stairs. All he had seen was Jack, deathly white and leaning against the wall looking like she was about to faint, and Ian. The fake Ian had been so close to her that he could have done anything, and all Alex had been able to think about was getting him away from her. It was only now that he saw that his favourite mug had been smashed; it was one that Ian had bought for him when they had gone to Disneyland when he was eight. It always reminded him of a time when life was simpler. When he had Ian and Jack and knew nothing about MI6. And aside from that, it was just a nice mug. He always felt incredibly British when he thought about the fact that he had a preference on mugs based on how they felt in his hands and how much tea they could hold. Like so many things from before Ian’s death, the mug was gone but, Alex couldn’t afford to dwell on that right now.
“How did you guys get here so quickly?” he asked, looking away from the carnage in the hallway and turning back to face Ben.
Alex had finally been given an emergency beacon that wasn’t just for a mission. Mrs Jones had decided that he had perhaps made too many enemies and they might try and retaliate. So when Alex had come to his senses and realised that it was a real person standing in his hallway, not a hallucination or a ghost, he’d promptly pressed his transmitter three times to signal a home invasion before he attacked.
“We were on our way to a briefing,” Ben explained. “We were only about five minutes away from you when you activated your beacon and, as we were by far the closest support to you, Mrs Jones rerouted us.”
“I’m glad it was you guys,” Alex admitted. He needed the familiar and friendly faces today.
“He even had a key!” Jack breathed.
“What?”
“He let himself in with a key.”
Alex glanced at the door and sure enough, a set of keys was hanging from the lock. He walked forwards, his legs moving of their own accord.
“How the hell did he get these?” he wondered aloud as he examined the key ring.
“What do you mean, Alex?” Ben asked gently.
“This is the exact same key ring that Ian had.” And even as he said it, he knew that it was true. There was one thing that made Alex sure. One year, Jack had taken him to the Lego store for his birthday; when they were at the tills, Alex had seen a suit-wearing Lego figurine key ring and he’d bought it for Ian. The thing that made Alex sure that this was the exact same figure that he’d given his uncle was the face. Ian had had it on his keys for a long time and the face on the little figurine had worn away. And Alex, in the ever present optimism of childhood, had decided that he’d draw a replacement on. Looking at it now, he shuddered. The face that his younger self had drawn was horrific but it was definitely the same face that he was looking at now. He took the key out of the lock and held the keys in his hand for a moment before making a decision. He stepped out of the house and unlocked the car on the driveway.
“Alex? What are you doing?”
“I just need to make sure.”
“Make sure of what?”
“Well,” he said, pausing and turning to face Jack and Ben as he tried to compose his thoughts to be able to explain. “Ian was driving when he was killed and he had to have had his keys with him. So whoever this man is, he can’t have taken the keys from the car or by breaking into MI6 and stealing them because then he’d have known that Ian was dead and used a different disguise. And nobody would have been able to replicate that awful face I drew, so they have to be the same keys! They have to be Ian’s! So why did this man choose Ian as his disguise if he knew that he’s dead? It doesn’t make sense.”
He turned and began walking towards the car again, his body growing heavier with every step. He didn’t particularly want to get into the car again - the last time he had, he’d nearly been crushed - but he had to know. He had to know how this man had Ian’s keys and an exact replica of his car but didn’t know that Ian was dead… or why he decided to use Ian’s face despite the fact.
“Alex!” Ben called, running down the drive towards him. “I know you want answers but it would be better to wait. We don’t know if the car is a trap.”
“What, like I open the door and it explodes in a ball of flames?” Alex’s mouth went dry at the thought. He’d been tricked into thinking that it’d happened to Jack once; he didn’t really want to find out what it actually felt like.
“It’s a possibility.”
Alex almost wanted to groan in frustration but he knew that Ben was right. It wasn’t worth the risk.
“I’ll check the car over and then, once I’m happy it’s safe, you can have a look, alright?”
“Thanks Ben.”
“Come on. I’ll make us all a drink, and then I’ll get to work and you can make a plan.”
“Yeah, okay,” Alex agreed with a sigh.
When they reached the door, a holdall and jacket that had been dumped on the floor caught his eye.
“Did he bring these in?” he asked, looking up at Jack. She nodded.
Alex quickly closed the front door behind them, grabbed the bag and coat and carried them into the living room. If he couldn’t examine the car, he was definitely going to have a look at these.
He emptied the contents onto the floor and began to pore over them. There was nothing in the holdall that stood out to him. It was just black t-shirts, black trousers, underwear and toiletries. Alex tried not to notice that the toiletry bag was identical to the one Ian had had… nor the fact that the man and his clothes smelt exactly the same as he remembered Ian smelling (that had been almost more of a punch to the gut than seeing someone walking around with Ian’s face), but everything he discovered lingered in his mind, floating around like irritating flies that buzzed around and refused to leave him alone. Like he was collecting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle but didn’t have enough to put the outline together, let alone complete the whole image! There was a laptop too but, seeing as he would be unable to log in to it, Alex didn’t waste any time examining it. He moved on to the jacket and in the inside pocket, he found a wallet. His fingers trembled slightly as he opened it.
Inside were the usual credit cards, loyalty cards, some loose change and a receipt from a petrol station just outside of Port Tallon. Alex checked the date and took a shaky breath. It was dated two years ago. It was from the day before Ian was killed! He put it to one side to examine properly later and a photograph in the wallet caught his eye. It was of him and Ian from their first skiing holiday. He thumbed it out of its slot and turned it over. On the back, written in Ian’s handwriting, was the date of their holiday and a sentence that made him catch his breath. A’s first solo run! Alex was sure that this was Ian’s handwriting; either this was an excellent forgery or this picture really had once been Ian’s and he’d been proud enough of Alex that he’d commemorated the occasion andkept it with him as a reminder.
He’d never considered his uncle to be a sentimental man. Hell for the last two years all he’d been told was that Ian had only been training him to take his place as an agent! But if this genuinely had been Ian’s, then there was some level of care and attachment there. And suddenly, Alex remembered the photograph that had been on Ian’s desk in his office in Liverpool Street when he broke in, back when he’d still believed that Ian was a banker. Perhaps Ian had cared for him, even if he had been training him. Both photos were reminders of skills that he’d been taught, after all. Alex was about to put the photo and wallet down when he noticed another photograph that had been hidden behind the first. It was of a man and a woman holding a baby and beaming from ear to ear. These were his parents; the baby had to be him. He gently prized this one out of the little pocket too and just stared, enraptured, for a moment. He’d never seen a photo with the three of them in it before! He could feel the indent of writing on the back of this photo too, but he stared at the photo for a little while longer before turning it over.
The note on the back of this one was in different handwriting. One that he’d never seen before but still felt like he recognised. With all our love, always x. Alex almost wanted to cry. His parents must have had this photo taken just before their move to France. And they had given Ian a photo with all of their love. If the plan had worked, they would probably never have seen each other again…
“Alex?” The call pulled him out of his train of thought.
He looked up, tears welling in his eyes, and saw Ben standing in the doorway.
“I’ve checked the car. It’s clean.”
“Thanks. Can you take me to Liverpool Street? After?”
“Well,” Ben began uncertainly.
“I want to talk to Blunt or Jones. To start with, anyway.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I am. Thanks Ben.” Alex put both the photographs back into the wallet and pocketed it before picking up the car keys again.
A flood of memories hit him as he opened the car door. The crash of the claw and motion as it picked the car up and dumped into the crusher. The smell of oil and diesel as the car broke apart. The smash of the glass and the feeling as it fell down onto him and into his hair. His heart racing as he clambered desperately through the car to the rear window… Alex shuddered and took a few seconds before he forced himself to push those memories aside for now. He needed to be analytical, to examine every inch of the car and not let his emotions cloud his judgement.
He was looking around the backseats when he found it. So far, all he’d found were the usual things you’d expect to find in a car; the map as backup in case the Sat Nav failed, a first aid kit, sunglasses, de-icer, a half empty bottle of water. But in the back, tucked down the side of the rear passenger side seat, where he had always sat when he was too little to join Ian in the front or when he, Ian and Jack had all been going somewhere together, was a small plastic object. It had fallen into the gap where the plug came out of the upholstery and must have been forgotten about, until now. He pulled it out and examined it. It was his old Tamagotchi. He’d completely forgotten that he’d owned one until he looked at it, but now he remembered being so upset when he’d realised that he’d lost it. He could only have been about eight at the time and he and Jack had searched the house for hours with no success. But now he looked at it, at the scratched and half peeled stickers where he’d tried to remove them, and knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was his.
Everything that he was finding was throwing up so many more questions and providing absolutely no answers. He would just have to find them for himself. He walked back to the door where Ben and Jack were waiting.
“Okay, I’m ready,” he said to Ben before turning to Jack.
“I’ll be waiting in the car,” Ben said, and Alex knew that he was purposefully giving them some time alone.
“Are you sure about this, Alex?” she asked.
“Yes. I need answers, Jack. I need to know how he managed to get so many of Ian’s things. I need to know how I saw Ian’s car get crushed two years ago, yet it’s here without a scratch.”
“Are you sure that’s his car? It could just be the same model and they switched out the licence plates?”
“No, it’s definitely his. I found this in the gap between two of the back seats,” he said, holding up the Tamagotchi.
“Wait, is that?”
“Yes. It’s my old Tamagotchi. It’s got the same peeling stickers and everything.” He let out a sigh. “I don’t know, Jack, but this, the keys, photos that definitely came from his wallet… I just don’t understand how so many details can be correct but also not making sense, and I need to find out.”
“I know,” she said, pulling him into a hug. “I can come with you, if you want?”
“No, thanks, Jack. I’ll be okay. I don’t even know if anyone will see me but I’ve got to try. Are you going to be okay?”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said with a quick smile. “You go do what you need to do. Are you sure you don’t want me to come?”
“It’s not that I don’t want you there, Jack, but I want to keep you as far away from them as possible. I don’t want them to do anything to you, too!”
Alex and Ben drove to Liverpool Street in silence. Alex could tell that the older agent was worried about him but couldn’t think of anything to say to ease his nerves, so he said nothing. Alex was glad of that. So many thoughts were swirling around in his head that it was as much as he could do to try and process them himself, let alone hold a conversation. The whole situation was too hard to explain until he knew more, anyway. They pulled into the underground carpark and Ben led him over to one of the lifts.
“Are you sure about this, Alex?” Ben asked.
“Yes.”
“Alright,” he replied with a resigned air and swiped his card to call the lift.
Ben led him along the corridor and into Mrs Jones’s office, not that Alex needed his help. He would have been able to find his way to the office blindfolded.
“Good evening, Alex,” she greeted from her seat behind the desk.
“I need to see the file you have on my mother,” Alex said without greeting or preamble.
“I’m sorry?”
“Before my mum and dad married, Blunt had her investigated. There is a file with everything in it and I need to see it.”
“Alex, what is this about?”
“I just need to see it.”
“Why?”
“Mrs Jones,” he said as politely as he could but his patience was wearing incredibly thin. “I have done so much for you and I haven’t had so much as a penny in thanks. You have blackmailed me, manipulated me, and straight up forced me to go on suicide mission after suicide mission. I think that should give me some authority to see the file you have on my own mother, but, if it isn’t, I think the fact that I have just been attacked by a man who looks identical to my dead uncle might be. Not just that, he’s instant that he is my dead uncle and absolutely nothing about the entire situation makes sense. I’m getting answers and this is where I am starting.”
“Very well, I’ll see what I can do.”
Alex nodded and sat himself down in one of the plush grey chairs that sat against one of the walls. Sitting in the chair in front of the desk would give her power and Alex absolutely refused to do that.
“It might take some time, Alex. Perhaps-”
“-I’ll wait,” he growled. He was not going to allow her to fob him off and send him away.
“If you insist,” she said nonchalantly and began typing away at her keyboard.
Ben sat down on the seat next to him and they waited in silence while Mrs Jones worked. For all the attention she paid them, they might as well not have been there. About half an hour later, there was a knock at the door.
“I’ve got the file you requested, Mrs Jones.”
“Thank you, William.” Mrs Jones took the file from her assistant and placed it on her desk. Clearly, if Alex wanted to look at it, he would have to join her.
Alex threw himself into one of the chairs in front of her and pulled the file towards him but Mrs Jones put a hand on it, stopping him before he could open it.
“What are you looking for, Alex?”
“Who says I’m looking for anything?”
“Clearly you’ve known that this file existed for a while - I won’t ask how you knew when today is the first I’ve heard of it - but you need something today.”
“Or, perhaps, seeing my dead uncle walking around, even if it was just a disguise, has reminded me that I know practically nothing about my parents. Maybe I decided that enough is enough and I want to know more about my mother because aside from the fact that she was a nurse I know practically nothing. Maybe I just want to know where I came from.”
“Alex. I am breaking the rules by letting you see this file. Tell me the truth.”
“Is it so hard to accept that I just want to know more about my mum? I know that you won’t give me Ian’s file, or my dad’s, and even if you did, it would probably all be redacted. This just has who my mum was. What she did. Who her friends were. I just want to know more about her.”
“Very well,” Mrs Jones conceded, taking her hand away and letting Alex open the file.
Thankful that he’d managed to avoid telling her the real reason, Alex gazed down at the first sheet of paper. It just had basic background information; her height, weight, eye and hair colours. It also had her birthday, home address and where she worked. He’d known that she was a nurse. He hadn’t known that she had worked at St Dominic’s, the very same hospital where he’d been treated several times in the past. Had any of the doctors or nurses who’d treated him worked with her? Would any of them be able to tell him about her? Alex made a mental note to look into it at some point in the future and carried on reading. There was more on that first introductory page than Alex had ever known about her, and he was only just beginning to scratch the surface.
He slowly made his way through the file, keeping an eye out for anything handwritten, but learning so much about who his mum was and what she did. Finally, as he neared the end of the file, Alex found a copy of a letter that she’d written to his dad. There was so much love crammed into that small page that Alex’s heart almost felt like it was going to burst. And the handwriting matched the inscription on the back of the picture. Alex wasn’t an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but it was good enough to reassure him that the photo in 'Ian’s’ wallet had indeed been given to the real Ian by his parents a long time ago.
But what did that mean? If the wallet, or at least the photos, had been Ian’s, how had the man gotten hold of them? It was the same question with the keys and the Tamagotchi. If someone had gone to this trouble to set up a disguise, why hadn’t they realised that Ian was dead? Or, if they had, why had they decided to continue with it, knowing that he would be discovered almost immediately?
Alex’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door and someone coming in.
“Mrs Jones, I’ve got an update on the… oh hello, Alex old chap, I didn’t see you there.” Smithers had become unusually uneasy upon seeing Alex sitting in the room.
“Hello Smithers.”
Mrs Jones and Smithers exchanged tense glances, and Alex knew that what Smithers had come to say was about the man who’d broken into Alex’s home.
“Could you wait outside for a moment please, Alex?” Mrs Jones asked.
“No.”
“Alex-”
“-No, Mrs Jones. This man broke into my home. I deserve to know what you’ve found out about him.”
“Oh, very well,” she replied exasperatedly. “Please go on, Smithers.”
The gadget master cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I, um, I ran some tests…”
“And..?”
“I think it would be easier to show you.”
“Very well.” Mrs Jones stood up to follow Smithers and Alex stood up too. So did Ben.
“Alex, old chap-”
“-Forget it, Mr Smithers. I’m coming.”
The tension as the four of them walked silently to Smithers’ office was palpable.
“He isn’t wearing a facial disguise and I can’t see any signs of plastic surgery. He does just look and sound like Ian. And he’s done his research - he knows who I am and where he is. So I took the liberty of doing a DNA test to see if our mystery man is recorded anywhere on our system, and that’s where things get interesting. There was a match.” Smithers had looked increasingly uncomfortable as he’d been talking. “This is the DNA of the man you apprehended, Alex,” Smithers said, tapping away at his keyboard and bringing up the DNA string.
“Okay,” Mrs Jones said. Clearly, like Alex, she was unable to see the relevance.
“And this-” Smithers said, again tapping at his keyboard “-is the record for the DNA match on our system.” He paused for a moment. “The DNA match is for Ian Rider.”
There was silence for a few moments as everyone tried to take in what Smithers had just told them before Alex broke it.
“How can that be Ian? You told me he died two years ago!”
“I don’t know,” Smithers began but Mrs Jones interrupted.
“Ian was killed, Alex. I hate to say it but I saw his body. We did all of the necessary tests at the time. We did DNA analysis and matched fingerprints and did retinal scans. The man who died on his way back from Cornwall was Ian Rider. We knew that before we sent the police to tell you.”
“Well clearly you got it wrong! Either you’re wrong now or you were wrong then! Because they can’t both be Ian!”
“There’s something else,” Smithers said. “Obviously, we questioned the man downstairs… he’s insistent that he has just come from Cornwall… from Sayle Enterprises… but he is also acting as though it istwo years ago. Either he’s a very, very good liar or he is telling the truth and has no knowledge of the past two years.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know, Mrs Jones. That’s the thing. I just don’t know.”
“What happens now?” Ben asked.
“We need to find out the truth.”
“And how exactly are you going to do that?” Alex exclaimed. “You’ve done all of the tests! What else can you do?”
“I don’t know just yet, Alex, but we will find out.”
“No. You know what? That’s not good enough. You have ruined my life since before I was born. I am not going to stand around and watch you mess it up again. Let me talk to him.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Alex.”
Alex laughed humourlessly. “To be honest, Mrs Jones, right now I don’t care what you think. Let me question him.”
Alex was surprised both by his own assertiveness and by the fact that Mrs Jones conceded without more of a fight, but he was glad of that. He hadn’t wanted to use all of his remaining energy arguing with Mrs Jones. Although, now that he was walking along the corridor to the interrogation room where 'Ian’ was being held, with her, Ben and Smithers, his stomach began to churn. He was about to come face to face with the man who was using Ian’s face as a disguise and he didn’t like the thought of it one bit.
“We’ll be watching next door,” Ben said softly. “And if you want to leave, you can. Just get up and walk out, okay?”
Alex took a deep breath and nodded before he opened the door and walked into the interrogation room. He sat down stiffly and examined the man who sat, cuffed to the table, before him.
“Alex?” he said softly.
“Who are you?” Alex asked coldly.
“I’m Ian. I’m your uncle.”
“My uncle was killed two years ago. Who are you?”
“Alex,” the man said, manoeuvring his hands in the cuffs to try and hold Alex’s and trying to look him in the eye. But Alex pulled his hands away, clasping them in his lap and staring at them to avoid the man’s gaze. He could barely deal with being in the same room and speaking to someone who looked like Ian, let alone whatever the man was trying to achieve by physically reaching out. He supposed the answer was probably emotional manipulation if the man was a fake. And if it was Ian then it could either be that, given that his uncle had been training him for intelligence work all of his life, or, perhaps, a more genuine attempt at a connection if he had ever cared for him at all. Either way, Alex was not going to deal with it. Not right now. The man cleared his throat and pulled his hands back, seeing his reaction to the movement. Alex glanced up and saw the pain in his eyes before the man began to speak again. “I don’t know what’s happened. I don’t know how it has happened, but I promise you that I am Ian.”
“What did Jack get me for my ninth birthday?”
“What?”
“You want to prove to me that you’re Ian? Well then, I’m going to ask you some questions. What did Jack get me for my ninth birthday? You should know the answer to that. Ian was actually there for that one.”
“What happened to you?”
“Just answer the question or I will leave and I won’t come back.”
“She got you a DVD,” 'Ian’ said after a moment’s thought. “Spy Kids - it has just come out and you loved it. The three of us watched it on the sofa after your party.”
“What did Ian always say to me when we started something like climbing a mountain or when he helped me with difficult homework?”
“The first part’s the worst part,” 'Ian’ said with a sigh.
Well the man was two for two on some of the more private questions that Alex had been able to think of. Questions that he didn’t think anyone would have been able to discover the answers to before impersonating him.
“Where’s the spare key kept?”
“Behind a fake brick in the front wall of the house.”
“Ian left a map of the mine tunnels in his room in the Sayle Enterprises compound. Where?”
“How do you know that?” the man whispered, his eyes widening with shock.
“Answer the question.”
“How can you possibly know the answer to that question?” 'Ian’ breathed, his eyes filling with tears. “What the hell did you do?” he shouted at the blacked out window where Alex knew that Mrs Jones, Smithers and Ben were watching.
“Just answer the question. Where did Ian hide the map?”
'Ian’ took a deep breath before he looked Alex straight in the eye and answered. “I tucked it in the canopy at the top of the bed. Alex? How do you know that? What did they make you do?”
“Exactly what you trained me for. You must be thrilled,” Alex said coldly, standing up and walking to the door. He had his answer - this man was Ian. He could be the only person who knew where that small, seemingly insignificant piece of paper had been hidden.
“What do you mean?” Ian shouted, losing control of himself for the first time that day. “Alex! What do you mean? What did they do? Alex!”
But Alex had reached the door and closed it behind him, cutting off Ian’s shouts. He took a few deep breaths before he opened the adjoining door to join the others.
“Are you okay Alex?” Ben asked. Mrs Jones and Smithers were still watching Ian through the glass. He was the only one looking at him.
He shook his head slightly in response. “I will be,” were the words he said out loud, though.
Alex looked through the glass. It was a jarring sight. His uncle had always been calm and collected. Alex couldn’t recall him ever losing control like he was now. But the thing was, Ian wasn’t thrashing about, the metal of his cuffs cutting into his wrists and causing blood to drip down his arms and onto the table. He was sat completely still, staring at the glass with a look that Alex had never seen in his eyes before. It chilled Alex to his core and he was just grateful knowing that it wasn’t being directed at him. He was certainly glad that he wasn’t in Mrs Jones’ shoes.
“Did he get the answers right?” Mrs Jones asked, looking at Alex now.
“Yes. Every single one of them.”
“Shall I take you home, Alex?” Ben asked softly. “Let them ask him more questions and investigate a bit more?”
“No. I want to stay.”
“Alex, I don’t think-”
“-I don’t think you get a say, Mrs Jones. I’m staying.”
She examined him for a few moments. She must have decided to let him stay without putting up a fight because she nodded and left the observation room, entering the interrogation room a few seconds later
“Mrs Jones,” Ian said coldly. “I wondered when you were going to grace me with your presence.”
“Ian.”
“Where’s Blunt?”
“He’ll see you later.”
“Ah. I’m not a priority then, I see.”
“Ian. We need to know what happened.”
“Well, as I’ve already explained numerous times today, I drove home from Sayle Enterprises and went home. Except apparently two years have passed since then for everyone else, and you all think that I died. And, if I’m understanding correctly, you decided that the appropriate response to my 'death’ was to use Alex? To send him in my place instead of one of the hundreds of trained, adult agents that you could have used? Did you really think that I would have left that compound if the virus was still a threat? Obviously I couldn’t tell you exactly what I’d done over an unsecured line but in what world would I have left if there was still a threat?”
Alex took a deep breath. This was Ian and if he was telling the truth (and why would he be lying right now?) then the Stormbreakers had not been a threat when MI6 had sent him to the compound. They had used him and he’d nearly died and it would all have been for nothing if he had!
“I need to ask you some questions.”
Ian threw his hands in the air as far as the cuffs would allow and huffed in exasperation.
“I can’t tell you anything more, Mrs Jones.”
“You see, Ian,” Mrs Jones said, leaning back slightly in her chair and crossing her right leg over her left; to look at her, she could have been having a coffee with him in a café, not interrogating him. “We saw your dead body two years ago. You were driving home from Cornwall, that part’s true, but you were ambushed by Yassen Gregorovich with a machine gun and he gunned you down. I saw your body, littered with bullet holes, and you were dead. So the question is, how can you be here now?”
Ian’s eyes darkened and narrowed slightly as she said Yassen Gregorovich’s name. Something she had said did not sit well with him but Alex had no idea what it was. Was it to do with Yassen killing him or something else?
“Did Alex see?”
“Did Alex see what, Ian?”
“Did he see the body?”
“No.” Alex saw Ian slowly let out a breath in relief. “Very few people did,” Mrs Jones continued. “But we did enough tests to establish that it was Ian’s body. So, how can you be here?”
“I don’t know Mrs Jones. I only know what I’ve told you and what you’ve just told me. Now I have a question for you.” He didn’t wait for her permission before he asked. “What the hell have you done to Alex? You sent him to Cornwall but it wasn’t just that, was it? How many times have you used him? And what did he mean 'what I trained him for’?”
“That’s four questions.”
“Well then, four answers.”
“You aren’t exactly in a position to negotiate Ian, are you?”
“Who said I’m negotiating? But if you’re not going to tell me, let’s see if what I’ve guessed is an accurate summation of the truth, shall we?”
Mrs Jones gestured as if to say 'go ahead’ so Ian continued.
“When I 'died’, you decided that using Alex was a good idea. You sent him to Cornwall, straight into Herod Sayle’s hands. But, looking at him, I’d say it didn’t end there? Am I right? I’d guess that you’ve been using him for the last two years. How many missions have you sent him on?” Ian swore and ran a hand through his hair as best he could with the cuffs. “He’s fourteen years old! Did you ever stop to think about the damage you were causing?! And why the hell does he think that I was training him?”
Ian paused for a few moments, waiting to see if Mrs Jones would respond, before he spoke again. “Do you have nothing to say?”
“He has saved so many lives-”
Ian scoffed. “-Is that how you can sleep at night?” he asked incredulously. “You justify it with the lives that he saved? Well, I guess that and by saying that you were only following Blunt’s orders? Right?”
“Ian-”
“-No. I’m done. You’re going to uncuff me and I’m taking Alex home. Do you understand?”
“I don’t have the authority to release you, Ian. We still need to find out what happened before we can let you go.” She stood up and walked over to the door.
“This is ridiculous. Let me go.” Ian’s voice was low and serious.
“I’m sorry, Ian.”
Mrs Jones walked back into the observation room where Alex and Ben had been watching.
“Alex, you should go home. Daniels can take you. No one else is going to talk to him tonight.”
“I want to stay.”
“Go home, Alex. I’ll send a car to pick you up in the morning and you can stay all day. But there is nothing else to do today. Go home and get some rest.”
Reluctantly, Alex allowed Ben to lead him out of the room and down the corridor to the lift. Only once they were in the car and on the road to Chelsea did Alex let out a deep breath that he hadn’t really realised that he’d been holding.
“Are you okay, Alex?”
“No.” He could be truthful with Ben, he knew that. “I just don’t understand, Ben. Ian was killed two years ago so how can he be here now? And if he was telling the truth… that the Stormbreakers weren’t going to be a threat after he left the compound, then everything they made me do…”
“I don’t know, Alex,” Ben said gently, pausing while he focused on the road for a moment. “I don’t know if we’ll ever know. But if he’s here, regardless of how or why, isn’t that a good thing?”
“To be honest, I don’t know, Ben. He was training me my whole life to become a spy, just like him… I don’t even know if he liked me, let alone loved me.”
“Look, Alex, obviously I never met him before but, from the brief glimpse I saw just now, I didn’t get the impression that he was training you. It didn’t look like he was just saying it for effect or to get you to believe him. It looked to me like he was telling the truth and was horrified when he realised what Blunt and Jones have made you do. All I’m saying is, let him talk to you before you make your mind up, okay? No matter what you’ve been told by Mr Blunt or Mrs Jones or anyone else, he is the only person who actually knows what his intentions were. Try and sleep on it and I’ll pick you up in the morning, alright?”
“Yeah, okay,” Alex agreed with a weary sigh and leaning his head against the window, gazing sightlessly out at the London streets. In fact he hardly noticed when Ben pulled up outside his home.
“I’ll come in with you.”
“Thanks.”
Jack had seen them pull up and was running to greet them before Alex was even out of the car.
“Oh Alex!” she whispered, pulling him into a warm hug. At least he knew that Jack loved him.
“Let’s get inside,” Ben suggested, guiding the two of them towards the front door.
Walking into the house, there were no traces of the broken mugs and spilled tea, his fight with Ian earlier, nor of his frantic search through Ian’s holdall.
“I’m sorry for just leaving you to deal with all the mess earlier, Jack.”
“You don’t have to apologise for that. Not to me,” she said, pulling him into another hug. “You went where you had to go.”
“So who was that man?” she asked a few minutes later when they were all sitting in the lounge with a cup of tea. Ben had ordered them a takeaway. Despite how late it was, they all felt like they needed one.
“It was Ian,” Alex said simply. “I don’t know how or why but it’s definitely him.”
“But he..?”
“For us he died two years ago. For him, he left Sayle Enterprises earlier today and those two years never happened. It makes absolutely no sense but he was telling the truth, I’m sure of it.”
“Wow! I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. So what happens next?”
“He’s being kept at Liverpool Street tonight,” Ben told her. “He’ll be questioned again tomorrow, I presume by Blunt this time and possibly others. Ultimately, I guess it’ll be up to Blunt what happens after that.”
“I’m going back tomorrow, Jack.” Alex felt like he should give her some warning.
“Well then, I’m coming too.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. If you’re going, I’m going.”
Alex did not sleep well that night. Nightmares of Sayle Enterprises and the maze of mine shafts and swimming through the submerged tunnel flooded his brain. Each time, he was caught or got lost or ran out of air part way. Each time, Alex woke up breathless and in a cold blooded sweat.
When the first light of morning finally broke, he went downstairs for breakfast, out of habit not because he actually felt like eating anything. One look at Jack and he guessed that she hadn’t slept much better than he had.
“Are you sure you want to go, Alex?” she asked as they both pushed their breakfast around on their plates. She’d made them both scrambled eggs on toast but neither of them had much of an appetite. The prospect of going back to Liverpool Street would have been enough on its own to stop him eating but the thought of seeing Ian again made it ten times worse.
“No. But I’m going. I’m sure that he really is Ian but I don’t know if anyone else is. And I don’t understand how he can be here. I think that’s bugging me more than anything. I mean, life wasn’t exactly great with him gone and MI6 using me as and when they liked but… oh, I don’t know, 'simple’ isn’t the right word…”
“I don’t know what the word is either, but I know what you’re saying,” Jack said, pulling him into yet another hug.
“Are you sure you want to come?”
“I could very happily spend the rest of my life with neither of us going back into that building. But I’m not going to let you go through this alone, Alex. No matter what they might try and do to me.”
“Thanks, Jack,” Alex breathed.
Sitting in the back of Ben’s car on the drive back to Liverpool Street, Alex began to question his wisdom in coming back today. His palms were clammy, his heart was pounding and at times it felt like he couldn’t breathe. At the same time, he knew that he wouldn’t have been able to just sit at home, waiting for news.
“Good morning, Alex,” Blunt greeted as they stepped out of the lift and into the corridor where Ian was being held. He had been waiting for them and the thought almost made Alex shiver. “And Miss Starbright…” Alex could tell that he was not impressed that she was here.
“She’s staying,” Alex told him.
“Very well,” he conceded and Alex did not like how quickly he had accepted it.
“We’d like you to ask him some more questions.”
“Why?”
“Just ask him some more things that only your uncle would know.”
Alex paused, feeling like he was walking into a trap. “Fine, I’ll go and ask him some more questions,” he agreed after a moment.
“We’d like you to wear an earpiece too. We have some questions that we’d like to ask him.”
Alex was surprised at this. Why was Blunt sending him in with his questions instead of going himself or sending Mrs Jones or Crawley?
“Why me?” he asked suspiciously. “What exactly are you trying to do? Find out if he is who he says is, or hope that he makes one mistake so that you can use it as your excuse to lock him up for the rest of his life?”
Blunt did not reply and Alex knew that he was not being given a choice. After a couple of moments of silence, Blunt turned and walked away down the corridor towards the room where they were holding Ian. With a glance to check that Jack and Ben were still behind him, Alex followed. The soft sound of their footsteps along the corridor was more comforting than he cared to admit, even to himself. There was an agent on guard outside the door now; he waited until Blunt, Ben and Jack had gone into the observation room before he opened it to let Alex in.
Ian was still cuffed to the table, sitting exactly as he had been the evening before. To look at him, you wouldn’t know that he’d spent the night here. Alex wasn’t even sure if he’d have slept, but Ian looked exactly the same as when Alex had first seen him yesterday afternoon.
“Morning,” he greeted stiffly, sitting down in the chair opposite his uncle.
“Is it?” Ian replied.
“Have you eaten?”
Ian laughed. “No.”
Alex turned to face the glass. “Seriously?” he asked. “When you kept me here, I was given a proper spread! And arguably, I’d done something worse than disappearing for two years.”
“We’ll organise some food to be sent in,” Mrs Jones said through his earpiece.
When he turned back to face Ian, there was something calculating in his uncle’s eyes.
“Alex? What did you do?”
“We aren’t here to talk about me.”
“You might not be, but apparently I’ve missed two whole years of your life and I’d like to know what I’ve missed,” he whispered.
“No. You really don’t,” Alex replied softly. He cleared his throat and refused to look Ian in the eyes. “Describe the room you stayed in at Sayle Enterprises. Where was it in the compound? Furniture? Pictures on the walls?”
Ian gave a resigned sigh before he began to answer.
“It was in Sayles’ house. Quite a large room - the 'blue room’ they called it - at the end of the upstairs corridor. The furniture was old mahogany; a four poster bed with a canopy draped over it, a desk with a chair, and a wardrobe. There was a Picasso on the wall next to the door to the bathroom. I put a bug on the back of the canvas so that I could check whether anyone had been in the room while I was out. The window looked out onto the fountain.”
Well those details were all correct. Alex was surprised to learn that it had been his uncle who placed the bug rather than Sayle, but didn’t comment on it.
“Tell me about the mine. What you found there.”
Ian told him. He described the graffitied entrance, the tunnel collapse, and which tunnels he’d had to use to go around it. He spoke of the submerged tunnel and how he’d used SCUBA equipment and fixed a guideline from one end to the other. How the other side of the submerged tunnel allowed him to access the hidden construction line of Sayle Enterprises.
“Do you think you’d have been able to swim the tunnel without SCUBA gear?” This was more for his own curiosity than proving to them that this was Ian.
He paused and thought for a moment. “Probably. It was quite a distance but, with the guidewire, I think so.”
“What did you have sent to the box at the post office?” Alex didn’t actually know the answer to this but it didn’t matter. Either MI6 sent him the information, or they’d be able to find out what was sent if they deemed it important enough.
“It was just some books. I worked out that Sayle was planning to use the Stormbreakers to release a virus and I was trying to work out what it might be.”
“Did you find out?”
“No,” Ian admitted. “There weren’t any samples in the compound while I was there. But I do know that it would have wiped out most of the population… which is why I neutralised the threat before I left,” he added, glaring at the window and slamming a hand onto the table, making Alex jump.
“They left it until the last minute to bring the virus in. Yassen Gregorovich brought it a couple of days before the launch.”
Ian swore softly under his breath. “Did you meet him?”
“I’ve already told you. I’m not the one answering questions.”
“Alex, please,” Ian whispered.
“Stop!” he said in a tone of voice that he hoped sounded serious. “I’m not talking about it, so you can stop asking.”
There was a knock on the door and a man walked in with a tray of food. He put it on the table and left again without saying a word. Alex examined the breakfast that had been brought for Ian. There were a couple of individually wrapped pastries, a cereal bar and a glass bottle of orange juice. Ian glanced at the tray too, but made no move to pick anything up.
“To be honest, I’m not feeling very trusting of them right now,” he said in a low growl, staring at the blacked out window again. “And even if I was, I’m not hungry.” He turned back to face Alex. “I feel sick thinking about what’s happened to you.”
“If you want me to stay, stop. You don’t have to eat but stop trying to get me to tell you what happened.” Alex took a couple of deep breaths before he continued. “Who do you play Mario Kart as?”
The sudden change of pace took Ian by surprise, but only for a second.
“Yoshi. On the Mach Bike.”
“And who am I?”
“Luigi. In the Nostalgia 1 Kart.”
“And Jack?”
“When she plays, she’s Daisy if we’re using your account and she’s unlocked. Otherwise she’s Princess Peach. But she doesn’t like playing with both of us at the same time.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re too competitive,” Ian said with a reminiscent laugh.
“Ask him what office number was his.” This time it was Blunt’s voice that came through his earpiece.
Alex asked the question.
“1504.”
“And what is outside your office window?”
“There’s the flagpole between mine and Crawley’s office? Is that what you mean?”
“It is.”
This went on for quite a while, his own questions being interspersed with ones that Blunt or Mrs Jones or someone else fed him through his earpiece. Some of them Alex also knew the answer to and others he had no idea what they were talking about, but he tried to keep his face blank either way.
“Okay. That’s it for now, Alex,” Mrs Jones said through the earpiece. “Take a break for lunch.”
Alex was glad for a break. He was exhausted.
“We’re stopping for lunch,” he said as he stood up.
“Just tell me one thing before you go.”
Alex paused, waiting for Ian to ask his question.
“Obviously you’re wearing an earpiece today, or you’ve been prepped with questions. Were you wearing one yesterday? Or given questions to ask me then, too?”
“Why does it matter?”
“It matters because if you were then they might not have involved you in any missions since… well since I 'died’. For you anyway. If you were wearing an earpiece, then you could have been fed questions about Sayles compound that another agent found out the answers to.” He ran his hands through his hair awkwardly again. “It matters because it’s the difference between you being used as an agent, and you just living your life while adults who have signed up for this and are trained are sent on missions.”
Alex turned away and walked out of the door without giving his uncle an answer. He couldn’t bear to tell him the truth but he didn’t want to li
Alex whooped and cheered as Ian deftly manoeuvred the surfboard through the barrel of the wave. He might not be old enough for Ian to let him surf by himself but, for now, he was more than happy to ride along together. Ian shifted his position to ensure that they stayed upright as Alex stuck his arm out to run his hand through the wave. After a couple of hours having fun together in the surf, Ian caught their final wave of the morning and allowed it to propel them to shore so that they could eat lunch.
“How’s your sandwich, bud?”
“Good thanks, Ian!”
Just then, something caught Ian’s eye in the surf. A hand was just visible above the breaking waves from where they sat on the sand. Knowing instinctively that something was wrong, Ian grabbed his board and stood up to get a better view. He was right. A swimmer was in trouble, being pulled out by a strong rip and panicking.
“Stay here, Alex,” he said in warning before he took off running down to the sea, his board under his arm.
If this had been a beach patrolled by lifeguards, there wouldn’t have been any need for Ian to help but, as it wasn’t, Ian knew that either he stepped in and saved the swimmer or they would drown. The world seemed to slow down as he ran towards the sea. Everything felt like distinct and separate events that could have happened hours apart rather than within a few seconds of each other. His board hitting the water. Bunny hopping through the whitewash. Jumping onto the board. Paddling furiously.
Paddle. One hand in front of the other. Scooping water. Driving himself and his board forward. Focusing on his target. It was a child. A small boy, who could only be six or seven - only a couple of years older than Alex. The tiny head bobbing up and down, intermittently sinking underwater. Eyes filled with terror every time the head surfaced and he gasped for breath. That was a common misconception about drowning. People expect screams and flailing but more often than not, the person doesn’t have time to scream. Any time spent above water is desperately drawing breath. Ian reached the little boy, probably with just seconds to spare. He reached down, grabbed his arm and pulled, hauling him up onto his board.
Alex whooped and cheered as Ian deftly manoeuvred the surfboard through the barrel of the wave. He might not be old enough for Ian to let him surf by himself but, for now, he was more than happy to ride along together. Ian shifted his position to ensure that they stayed upright as Alex stuck his arm out to run his hand through the wave. After a couple of hours having fun together in the surf, Ian caught their final wave of the morning and allowed it to propel them to shore so that they could eat lunch.
“How’s your sandwich, bud?”
“Good thanks, Ian!”
Just then, something caught Ian’s eye in the surf. A hand was just visible above the breaking waves from where they sat on the sand. Knowing instinctively that something was wrong, Ian grabbed his board and stood up to get a better view. He was right. A swimmer was in trouble, being pulled out by a strong rip and panicking.
“Stay here, Alex,” he said in warning before he took off running down to the sea, his board under his arm.
If this had been a beach patrolled by lifeguards, there wouldn’t have been any need for Ian to help but, as it wasn’t, Ian knew that either he stepped in and saved the swimmer or they would drown. The world seemed to slow down as he ran towards the sea. Everything felt like distinct and separate events that could have happened hours apart rather than within a few seconds of each other. His board hitting the water. Bunny hopping through the whitewash. Jumping onto the board. Paddling furiously.
Paddle. One hand in front of the other. Scooping water. Driving himself and his board forward. Focusing on his target. It was a child. A small boy, who could only be six or seven - only a couple of years older than Alex. The tiny head bobbing up and down, intermittently sinking underwater. Eyes filled with terror every time the head surfaced and he gasped for breath. That was a common misconception about drowning. People expect screams and flailing but more often than not, the person doesn’t have time to scream. Any time spent above water is desperately drawing breath. Ian reached the little boy, probably with just seconds to spare. He reached down, grabbed his arm and pulled, hauling him up onto his board.
“It’s alright. You’re alright,” he repeated soothingly, waiting for the boy to stop coughing and calm down a bit before bringing him back to shore. Having taken Alex out many times, Ian was used to an extra passenger and expertly caught the next wave, allowing it to propel them towards the beach.
“How’s your breathing? Did you swallow much water?” he asked when they were safely back on the shore. Ian was concerned that the young boy might have water on his lungs and then secondary drowning could be an issue. He seemed okay now, but it could take a while for symptoms to present themselves.
“Who’s looking after you?” he asked once he had made sure that the boy was alright, at the moment anyway.
“My mum’s in our house. It’s just over there,” the boy said, pointing to the terraced housing just on the other side of the road from the beach.
“You shouldn’t come down to the beach and swim by yourself,” Ian warned. “Someone should be around to help you if you get into trouble. You need to tell your mum what happened. And if you start having trouble breathing, you must get to the hospital right away, okay?”
“Okay!” the boy said cheerfully before running off up the sand towards the houses that he had pointed at, without so much as a ‘thank you’.
Ian sighed and just hoped that the little boy would listen to what he had said and wouldn’t come back to the beach alone, especially if he planned to go swimming. There might not be someone around to help him if he got into trouble another day and the thought sent a chill down Ian’s spine. He made his way along the beach to where he had left Alex eating his lunch. Only when he found where they had been sitting, Alex was gone. Their towels and bags and lunch were still there, but Alex was nowhere to be seen.
“Alex!” he shouted. His surfboard thudded to the floor, forgotten. Ian looked around desperately for the dinosaur trunks that his nephew had been wearing. The beach wasn’t packed and he could easily see that Alex wasn’t among the small knots of people on the sand and there was no sign of him in the water. The world around him was spinning. Time seemed to have stood still.
“Alex!” he shouted again, more frantically this time. Alex knew not to go near the water alone and Ian trusted that he wouldn’t have wandered off by himself either. He grew more and more anxious as he realised that his worst nightmare might be coming true. Had Alex been kidnapped? And if so, who by and why? Suddenly, one rational thought seemed to enter the vast blank space that his mind had become. Call MI6. They could begin the search. If Alex really had been kidnapped, the sooner the search began, the better. He made the phone call. He found that couldn’t really remember any of it afterwards.
Now he was sitting in one of the offices in Liverpool Street. It wasn’t Blunt or Jones’, but was one of the conference rooms that they used occasionally for larger meetings. He had been introduced to everyone in the room but he hadn’t taken in any of their names, nor what their jobs were. He was going over the events of that morning, for what felt like the hundredth time. His stomach still felt like it was tying itself in knots and he felt sick to his core. What had happened since he first returned to their spot on the beach and found that Alex was missing until now seemed to have happened in a blur. His brain hadn’t processed any of the events and, if someone had asked him, he wouldn’t have been able to say how he got from the beach to the offices. Mrs Jones had been listening to Ian’s account intently but he noticed she sat up slightly straighter as he described the child he had rescued prior to Alex’s disappearance. How that particular detail managed to pierce through the fog in his brain, he didn’t know.
After the meeting, Mrs Jones pulled Ian aside, into the privacy of her office. She pulled a photo out of her purse.
“Is this…” she paused and struggled to regain her composure but she didn’t need to finish her question. Ian was looking at the same child that he had rescued, although in this photo he was laughing and smiling.
“Yes,” he said, his throat tightening so that he could barely breathe.
Mrs Jones nodded and Ian could see in her eyes that she was preparing to tell him bad news.
“This is my son. Both he and my daughter disappeared six months ago. So far, there has been no trace of them.”
‘So you think that it was a setup? Distracting me so that they could get to Alex?’ Ian was surprised that his brain had made the jump to what she was insinuating. It hadn’t been working properly since Alex had disappeared. Although it seemed that he had said some of his thoughts out loud because Mrs Jones replied.
“It’s possible. I’m sorry Ian.”
It seemed as though all was lost. If Mrs Jones’ children hadn’t been found in the six months since their disappearance, what chance did they have of finding Alex too? Especially if they had been taken by the same organisation.
Seconds passed like minutes. Minutes like hours. Hours like days. Months dragged slowly by with no news of Alex. Ian lost more and more hope by the day. Years passed and life moved on around him. For Ian, the days went by as though he were in a trance. He hardly noticed the passage of time as he focused on searching for Alex. To start with, he had thrown everything he had into the search. He had used his access to systems and asked his contacts to check theirs. He had used facial recognition and scoured through hours of CCTV footage, but everything he had done had hit a brick wall. His hours of searching had unveiled nothing. Nobody he contacted could find any trace of Alex. He had been removed from active service in the field and being stuck behind a desk all day did nothing to ease his lethargy and sense of hopelessness. Going home was worse. The house was too quiet and too big for just him. Everywhere he looked, he saw Alex. And his heart broke again every single day.
Two thousand and eighty four days after Alex disappeared, Ian was walking down the street to get some milk from the corner shop. He looked up and saw a young boy walking toward him. Ian froze. He couldn’t be sure but the child in front of him looked like Alex. Well, what he thought Alex as a ten year old would look like. Ian couldn’t even speak. His throat closed up as emotions that he hadn’t even realised that he’d been bottling up for more than five and a half years flooded to the surface.
Before he could even begin to process any of the thoughts that were now swirling around his brain, he noticed that the small form in front of him was preparing for a fight. His centre of gravity was low. His arms were raised and there was something deadly behind his eyes. A flurry of arms and legs moved in well aimed strikes and kicks. Ian’s instincts kicked in and he responded with blocks but he didn’t hit back. He did not want to fight his nephew. Not like this. As the barrage of strikes continued, Ian found a fire begin to roar inside himself and realised that he had more reason to live than he had felt in years. If this was Alex and he could get him home, there was a chance that he could still save him.
Ian’s sudden change of tact from defence to attack caught Alex off guard. All it took was one well-placed elbow strike and he was out cold. Quickly, Ian gathered him up in his arms and a heaviness settled on him as he looked down at his nephew, so much bigger than he had been the last time that Ian held him in his arms. But at the same time, the grief and pain and loss that he had carried permanently since that day at the beach that felt like a lifetime ago seemed to diminish, ever so slightly.
He carried Alex over to his car, restrained him as a precaution, strapped him in and then drove to Liverpool Street. He called Mrs Jones on the way. Alex regained consciousness by the time they arrived in the underground car park and sat sullenly in the back seat, silently glaring at Ian in the rear view mirror. The crowd of people who met them was larger than Ian would have liked and he hadn’t even turned off the engine before the rear doors were opened and Alex was hauled out.
“Wait,” he pleaded but the agents didn’t listen. Alex was taken away from him again and Ian could only watch helplessly as his nephew was taken into the lift and presumably down to one of the secure holding cells below.
“Ian,” he heard a gentle voice say beside him. “We need you to tell us what happened.” It was Mrs Jones’ voice, he now realised and the understanding brought a clarity of the pain in her voice. Her children were still missing. He nodded dumbly, allowing himself to be led over to the same set of lifts, only they rose up to the sixteenth floor.
“What happened?” Mrs Jones asked when they were both seated in Alan Blunt’s office.
“I don’t know. I was walking along the street and suddenly there he was.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No. I haven’t heard him speak.”
“So what did he do?”
“He fought,” Ian said with a melancholy sigh. “Before I even had a chance to wrap my head around the fact that Alex was standing before me, he struck out and it was all I could do to block the strikes that he aimed at me.”
“And then?” Mrs Jones prompted.
“I realised that this might be my one chance and I couldn’t waste it. Up until then, I hadn’t fought back. I didn’t want to fight him. But in that instant I knew that if I didn’t fight I could lose him again. So I knocked him out.” He looked up from the spot on the carpet that he had been resolutely staring at since he had entered the room and into her face. “Can I see him? Please?”
“In a moment. But first, I have to warn you, Ian, he has been restrained. He is dangerous and we don’t know what has happened to him.”
Ian’s throat felt like it was closing in again, so he just nodded slowly. Right now, he didn’t care what happened. He needed to see Alex again. Mrs Jones led him back to the lift. The two of them were silent as the lift descended and the pressure in Ian’s ears told him that he was right - Alex was being kept in the secure cells beneath the MI6 headquarters. He allowed Mrs Jones to lead him through the security checkpoint and into the corridor beyond.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
Ian couldn’t find the words and remained silent; it was easier that way. He just nodded. Mrs Jones gave a signal that Ian didn’t see to the agent who was standing guard outside the cell who opened the door to let them in. Ian’s legs seemed to be walking of their own accord, taking him step by step into the room. As Mrs Jones had said, Alex was handcuffed to the table. His ankles were chained to the chair legs and there were straps around his chest. There was no way that he would be able to escape.
“Alex?” he asked, so softly that he wasn’t actually sure whether the word had come out or not. Alex didn’t say anything. He didn’t respond in any way, to show that he had heard or even recognised Ian. “Alex?” he said again, louder this time and this time he was certain that he had actually spoken. Again, Alex said nothing or showed any sign of responding. Ian looked desperately around for Mrs Jones, but she hadn’t come into the room with him, although he was sure that she would be waiting just outside. The cell door had been closed behind him but Ian knew that there were cameras and microphones inside so they would be able to hear any conversation that took place. And at the moment, it didn’t seem like Ian would get any conversation out of his nephew. There wasn’t even another chair in the room for him to sit at the table with him. Ian crouched down, trying to catch Alex’s eye, but it was almost as though they were glazed over. As though he were physically present in the room but mentally elsewhere.
Ian didn’t know what to do. He had Alex back. After nearly six long years, he had actually managed to get his nephew back but, at the same time, he had still failed. Alex - the Alex that he had been searching for - was long gone, it seemed. But Ian refused to give up. Even as he crouched, trying to reach his nephew, Ian knew that he would do whatever it took to both get Alex back and get revenge on whoever had taken him. He had failed John and Helen once. He could not fail them again.
“Alex,” he said for a third time, reaching his hand up to touch his cheek, but a hand appeared out of nowhere and stopped him. Looking around, Ian saw the same agent who had been standing guard. He hadn’t even heard the cell door open. “What are you doing?” he asked, trying to keep his anger under control.
“I’m sorry. You aren’t allowed to touch him.”
“What?” Ian said, standing up and looking the agent squarely in the eyes.
“Those are my orders. You may speak to him but you are not allowed to get within touching distance.”
“He’s my nephew!” It was getting harder and harder to keep his anger under control now. He wasn’t shouting, but his voice was quietly serious.
“I understand that, sir, but I have to follow my orders.” The agent was not budging from his position, so Ian decided to play what he hoped was his trump card.
“Mrs Jones,” he called out of the now open door.
“I’m sorry, Ian,” she said, appearing in the doorway. He had been right in thinking that she was waiting outside for him, then. “Until we know more, this is the way that it will have to be.”
“This is ridiculous!”
“I’m sorry. It’s too dangerous for us to allow you or anyone else to be in contact with him.”
“Are you really telling me,” Ian began, moving closer and speaking in a whisper, “that if it was William or Sofia sitting in that chair, you wouldn’t break 100 rules to try and reach them?”
“Ian, I know it’s hard. And you’re right. If it were William or Sofia sitting in that chair it would be incredibly difficult to keep my distance. But I also know that they have been away, with an unknown enemy for over six years. There’s no telling what has happened to them in that time. We already know that he is extremely dangerous. He lasted against you in hand to hand combat for minutes when you are able to incapacitate most of your opponents in seconds. Despite the restraints, he could have a weapon that could severely injure or kill you, and we cannot take that risk.”
Ian turned around to look at his nephew again and felt the anger rising in him again. He turned around and looked at Mrs Jones. “Can I at least stay and talk to him?”
She nodded. “You may. But please don’t try to touch him again.”
“This is absolutely absurd,” Ian countered, “but fine.”
Mrs Jones gave the agent a nod and he retreated back out of the room. She gave Ian a small smile and he knew that there was a lot that she was trying to say in it. He turned back around to face Alex and sat cross legged on the floor.
“I’ve missed you, Alex,” he began. Once more, he might as well not have spoken for the reaction that he got from his nephew. “You know, that day on the beach was one of the worst of my life and I’ve had a few. I won’t tell them to you, not right now anyway. I don’t even know if you know who I am or if you can hear me, but I’m not going to stop…” ‘trying to reach you’ was how he wanted to finish his sentence, but the words would not come.
Ian was silent for a moment as he contemplated what to do next. It was clear to him, now that he was thinking a little clearer, that Alex had been brainwashed or hypnotised or something. The more Ian spoke, especially about events from Alex’s childhood, the more likely it would be that something would resonate with him. That it would begin to break down whatever walls had been put up inside him. And if Ian could break through, even just a little bit, then there was a chance that he would be able to get Alex back.
“You know,” he began, a thought occurring to him, “there was one time, when you were about three, we went to a model railway village. You sat on my shoulders the whole way around and you absolutely loved it.” He chuckled slightly as he remembered the day himself. “You were absolutely fascinated by the trains going along on their tracks and hearing the whistles being blown. In fact, you loved it so much that when we had finished, you wanted to go around again. You pulled on my hair, trying to tug me back around.” Ian broke off and laughed softly, touching the top of his head, as though he could feel the pain again now, which, in a way, he could. He didn’t know if what he was saying was having any effect, but he carried on regardless. He had to try. He had to do something.
“There was another day when we went to the fair. Tom came with us too and you both had a great time playing the different games. And then at the game where you have to hook the rubber ducks, you both won a prize. You both won a little dinosaur. Yours was green with red spikes and Tom’s was red with green spikes. Do you remember Tom?” he asked, looking up into Alex’s face. It was still impassive but Ian thought that he saw a flash of recognition or something that showed that Alex might still be in there. He desperately hoped that it wasn’t just wishful thinking.
Ian’s thoughts had trailed off and he just sat, looking up into Alex’s face. It was still blank. Emotionless, as though Ian hadn’t been speaking for the last few minutes. In fact, it was as though he were completely alone in the room and to look at him, he could have been sitting at home on the sofa rather than being held restrained and captive in an enemy (at least, that’s how it probably seemed to him) cell. Ian sat on the floor for quite a while, not saying anything, but just looking up at his nephew. Eventually - it could have been less than a minute or it could have been hours, Ian couldn’t tell - someone lifted Ian up off the floor and guided him out of the room.
“Go home, Ian,” Mrs Jones said once he was outside the cell and the door had been (as it seemed to Ian) slammed closed behind him. It was an order, not a suggestion.
Ian Rider was sitting in his home in Chelsea. The sun had long since set but he had not noticed. Now motionless in the dark, and staring unseeing at the black television, he could only think of one thing. He would do everything that he could to get his nephew back.
No. It most definitely was not hail but how was Ian supposed to explain that they were being shot at… with a gun? A sniper rifle being fired from one of the rooftops above them, to be specific.
BANG
Another gunshot sounded as a second bullet ricocheted off of the car. Thankfully it was armour plated and packed with gadgets, but why did they have to target him when Alex was in the car? This was certainly one way for Alex to find out what he actually did for a living and definitely not one that he would have chosen.
BANG
“I don’t think so, Alex,” Ian replied, allowing a note of uncertainty to creep into his voice. “There was nothing on the forecast and, besides, there aren’t any storm clouds.” It was true. The weather was surprisingly sunny for November, with a clear blue sky, even if the air was still crisp and cool.
BANG
Ian had to think quickly. He didn’t really want to reveal his true job to Alex. Not when he was just thirteen. He subtly activated his emergency beacon and touched a hidden button on the right arm of his glasses, another gadget from Smithers. Among other things, when activated they gave him a command centre view of the status of the car, which was what he needed right now. A damage report. It was worse than he feared; the shooters weren’t targeting him. They were targeting the passenger side. They were aiming at Alex!
BANG
The windshield splintered and cracked.
“Ian!” Alex shrieked in alarm, shrinking back into his seat.
The cracked windshield looked worse than it actually was; Ian knew that it would be able to withstand a lot more damage before it became compromised enough to stop providing protection. And if it did get to that stage, there was a spare one that he could put into place. But it was too late to worry about exposing his true job now - if he didn’t act, they would both be too dead for it to matter. Ian gunned the engine, ignoring the side street that would be a perfect place for an ambush, and mounted the pavement to get past the line of cars waiting for the traffic lights to change from red to green. He also put the siren on so at least people would have a little bit of advanced warning, although a bullet ridden BMW would probably not be the emergency vehicle that they were expecting. Thankfully, the streets were relatively quiet for London at the moment so the danger to civilians was lower than it would have been at rush hour.
“This is Rider in vehicle 9H. Taking heavy fire. Need an escape route.”
BANG
“Ian?” Alex asked, a mixture of panic and confusion evident in his voice. As much as he hated it, Ian ignored him and focused on the road.
According to his glasses, there were three shooters on the rooftops above them. Pressing a button on his steering wheel, Ian heard a faint pop coming from underneath the car and saw the resulting explosion (not large enough to cause much damage) on a rooftop a few moments later. One target down. Still driving forward, Ian saw a couple of ominous looking jeeps blocking the road directly in front of them, aiming machine guns in their direction.
“Confirmed. Turn left.” The order came through from MI6. There was a tiny speaker in the arm of his glasses that allowed him to hear their instructions over a secure line. Ian followed their direction and wrenched the wheel, turning the car sharply left. Alex cried out at the sudden movement but it was drowned out by the barrage of bullets that hit Ian’s side of the car as they passed by the machine guns. Once they had rounded the corner, Ian floored it. He needed to get Alex to safety as quickly as possible. More bullets hit the back of the car, even as he sped off down the street.
There was an even louder bang as a much larger calibre bullet hit the roof of the car. Looking up, Ian saw that it had dented it. Not good. The armour plating was holding, but its effectiveness would decrease rapidly if the onslaught of bullets continued.
“Turn right at the junction.” That was the next instruction from MI6. So once again, Ian dragged the steering wheel, making the turn at the last possible moment, their speed never dropping below 50.
“Ian! What’s happening?” Alex shouted, but Ian ignored him. There would be time for explanations when they were safe. That was when Ian saw the missile launcher pointed in their direction. He swore, slamming on the breaks until the car came to a stop, his thumb ready on the steering wheel to activate the flares which should stop the missile from finding its target. Should. Ian had never had to use them to know how effective they were.
Time seemed to stretch on impossibly slowly as Ian waited for the inevitable. They were saved by the car’s built-in alert system. Ian had been waiting for the person in front of them to make a move, but they had only been a distraction. The real threat was coming from behind and even though he had checked his mirrors, Ian hadn’t seen them. He activated the flares and, at the same time, used the car’s omnidirectional wheels to move the car as far away as possible down a side street to their left. He had just turned the car the right way around to drive forwards when the missile hit the flares. The explosion was so loud and so close that it blasted through the rear windscreen. Whatever had been fired at them was extremely large artillery. With his ears ringing from the sound, Ian frantically brought up the replacement rear windscreen, also bulletproof, which thankfully hadn’t been damaged by what the car had been through thus far. Once the car was secure, Ian fired back two missiles of his own, the car having saved the coordinates of the threats and using satellites to update them if they moved. The slightly more distant explosions that followed a few seconds later sounded like music to his ears.
“Just hold on a moment, Alex. We’ll be safe soon,” he said, trying to comfort his nephew, but Alex didn’t reply. Stealing a glance in his direction, Ian saw that he had been knocked out, probably by the force of the explosion that had shattered the rear windscreen. That wasn’t good. He swore again.
“Give me a route to St Dominic’s.”
“On it,” was the reply and a moment later, the route came through. Setting the car to drive on auto pilot, Ian examined Alex’s condition. There was a deep gash on his head and blood was running down his cheek and dripping onto his legs and the floor. His pulse was strong and he was breathing deeply and steadily though, which reassured Ian a little. Grabbing the first aid kit from the glovebox, he cleaned and bandaged Alex’s wound and then checked him over for other injuries. There wasn’t anything obvious but Ian knew there could be more sinister injuries hiding underneath the surface…
The car swerved down a street and a hail of bullets from another machine gun hit the rear end of the car. Pressing another couple of buttons, Ian took control of the car again and sent another missile behind him. The person behind the machine gun disappeared in the flames and the gunfire came to an abrupt end.
“What the hell’s going on?” he shouted.
“We aren’t sure.” The reply came back almost instantly.“Backup is on the way.”
“Well in the meantime, I’m still coming under fire in a compromised vehicle and Alex is unconscious,” Ian snapped.
BANG
Almost proving his point, another bullet hit the car. At least they didn’t seem to be armed with anti-tank missiles. Armoured or not, just one of those would certainly be able to take the car out.
“Take this right, then the next left. Backup will meet you there. We’re working on the snipers too.”
BANG
Ian took the corner, engine screaming and wheels spinning, but he remained in control. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alex’s head lolling from side to side with the sudden movement as the car swerved. The logical part of Ian knew that he hadn’t actually been unconscious for very long but that knowledge wasn’t very comforting right now. Time seemed to be dragging on imperceptibly slowly but it had probably only been a couple of minutes since the explosion that had knocked Alex out, if that. Still, the longer he was unconscious, the more uneasy Ian felt. He took the left turn as he had been instructed and put his foot to the floor as he almost flew down the road. A small burst of relief flickered inside at the sight of many armed cars waiting for him just a few hundred meters away.
But out of the corner of his eye, Ian saw the flame as yet another gun was fired in their direction. It was another missile launcher. He swore and prepared the flares again. Time seemed to be moving jerkily now. As though he were in a time lapse and his brain could only process the scene every few seconds or so. It was not a pleasant feeling. Ian stabbed down on the flares and braced himself for the shockwave as the missile exploded above the car. He counted down the seconds until impact.
Five…
Four…
Three…
Two…
One…
He had been able to release the flares earlier this time, however the explosion still felt impossibly close. His ears were ringing again, although to Ian’s great relief, none of the windows shattered this time. He carried on through the smoke and debris, wanting to get to the backup as quickly as he could. He had to get Alex to hospital. MI6 could deal with the rest of this mess. The tires squealed in protest as he slammed on the breaks, stopping just in front of the line of waiting cars.
“Cover me!” he shouted as he opened his door. It wasn’t strictly necessary as they were already in position with guns raised and anti-missile defence set up, but Ian knew from experience that it was always better to say it unnecessarily than regret keeping your mouth closed. Two of the agents rushed forward to cover him with bulletproof shields while he ran to the passenger side and gently lifted Alex out of his seat. The bandage was no longer pristine white. The blood was seeping through. That was not a good sign.
“This way,” one of the agents shouted in his ear. “There’s a car and driver waiting for you to take you to St Dominic’s.” Well Ian would certainly kick the driver out and commandeer the car for himself. He wasn’t in a trusting mood. But then he saw Crawley behind the wheel of the car that he was being led to. They had probably organised for a friendly face to be behind the wheel knowing that he would refuse to get in the car otherwise.
Time was still skipping and jumping and one second he was walking to the car, carrying Alex in his arms and the next he was in the back seat with Alex laid out beside him while Crawley drove them to St Dominic’s. Ian grabbed the first aid kit and began checking Alex over. His pupils dilated equally when he shined a torch into them which was a good sign but there was still no sign that he was regaining consciousness. He took off the bloody dressing and replaced it with a new one. They would remove it again at the hospital anyway but he needed to be doing something. There was no way that he could just sit idly while Crawley drove. He checked Alex over for signs of any other injuries but there was nothing obvious. Ian almost wanted to scream with the amount of time that it was taking to get to the hospital but he didn’t. Screaming wouldn’t help the situation. He looked up and saw that Crawley was speaking to him. He couldn’t hear anything. He realised now that his ears were still ringing from the explosions of the flares hitting the missiles. He shook his head, as if that would help in any way, and shouted to Crawley.
“What? I can’t hear you!”
“We’re not far away now, Ian!” Crawley shouted and Ian was relieved that he heard the words this time, even if they were muffled. The fact that he could hear Crawley shouting was definitely a good sign. It meant that his hearing should return to normal once everything had settled down. Should. But right now, Ian didn’t care if his hearing waspermanently damaged. His only concern was Alex.
The next thing Ian knew was that the car had come to a screeching halt outside of the emergency entrance. In addition to the doctors and nurses who were waiting outside, there were a couple of armed SAS units. MI6 weren’t taking any chances. As he jumped out and ran around to the other side to open the door and get Alex out, he saw another couple of armoured cars that had pulled in behind them. They must have been following them, in case the car was targeted again. He picked Alex up and laid him down as gently as possible onto the waiting trolley.
“What happened?” one of the doctors asked, looking from him to Crawley and back again as they followed the trolley being wheeled into the hospital.
“He was knocked out, I think by an explosion,” Ian said, unable to hide the worry in his voice.
“How long has he been unconscious?”
“I… I don’t…”
“About ten minutes,” Crawley interjected.
Ten minutes? Was that really how little time had passed?
“Sir, please come with me,” someone - presumably a nurse - said, taking hold of Ian’s arm.
“No!” Ian said firmly. “I need to stay with Alex.”
“You need to get checked out yourself, Ian. I’ll stay with Alex. I promise you he won’t be alone. I can answer any of the questions that the doctors ask, for now.”
“They were aiming at him, John,” Ian said, grabbing Crawley’s arm to impress how important what he was saying was. “When they were aiming at the windscreen, they were firing at the passenger side.”
“I’ll make sure he’s safe, Ian. I promise you.”
“The doctors need to run some tests so, by the time we’re done, you’ll be able to stay with him,” the nurse added.
Ian knew that they were right but he hated the thought of leaving Alex right now.
“If we hurry, we might be able to get you in the bay next door.”
Ian knew that they were making special dispensation, both because this was a private hospital so they had more flexibility and because MI6 had probably phoned ahead. In an NHS hospital, the Accident and Emergency unit was split into several sections for extremely injured patients who needed critical attention down to those with much more minor afflictions. And these sections were definitely separate. So Ian allowed himself to be led behind the trolley carrying his unconscious nephew and into the bay next door.
“Tell me what happened,” the nurse prompted.
All of the staff at St Dominic’s had been required to sign a non-disclosure agreement before they started work and Ian knew that anyone involved in today’s treatment would also be required to sign the Official Secrets Act, so he told the nurse exactly what had happened.
“I’ll just need an otolaryngologist to check your ears to make sure that there’s nothing more serious going on with your hearing but you can go and sit with your nephew until they’re ready for you,” she said after she had completed all of her checks.
Ian thanked the nurse and followed her as she parted the curtain into the next cubicle. Alex was laying there, looking tiny strapped down to a spinal board and with a collar securing his neck. He knew it was just precautionary but the sight of his nephew unconscious on the board nearly choked him. The fact that he had an oxygen mask covering his face and was also hooked up to various monitors, with wires attached all over his body did not help the image either.
“The doctors are just waiting for the CT scan. They’ll check his brain and make sure that there’s nothing else going on that we can’t see.” Ian had been so focused on Alex that he hadn’t seen that Crawley was sitting on one of the chairs beside his bed.
“Thanks, John,” Ian said as he slumped into the chair beside him.
“How are you?” he asked.
“They just want to check my ears, but fine other than that,” he replied, deliberately misinterpreting the question.
“Ian,” Crawley began.
“I’ll go over it all in the debrief, John. Right now, my only concern is for Alex.”
“I understand that, Ian. Truly I do. But you won’t be any good to Alex if you’re not okay,” he said with a pointed look.
“Thanks for your concern, John, but right now I need to be with Alex. I can process and sort through everything when I know that he’s going to be okay.”
“If you’re sure. I’ll be waiting outside if you need me.”
“Thanks,” Ian said with as big a smile as he could muster, which at the moment was just the smallest twitch of the corners of his mouth. “And thanks for getting us here so quickly,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
Crawley didn’t say anything but squeezed Ian’s shoulder gently before leaving him and Alex alone. The silence in the small bay was broken only by the beeping of the machines as they monitored Alex’s vitals. Everything looked good, as far as Ian could tell. He was definitely no doctor but he had enough medical knowledge to be able to understand the readings that the machines were giving out. A couple of minutes later, the doctor came back.
“Ian,” he greeted and Ian recognised Dr Hayward. As the hospital was one favoured by MI6, the doctor had treated Ian himself numerous times after missions and they knew each other fairly well.
“How is he?”
“Everything we’ve checked so far looks okay. We’re just going to take him for a CT scan to check his brain and make sure there’s nothing going on inside, but it should just be a case of waiting for him to wake up.”
“Thank you,” Ian said, allowing himself to breathe a slight sigh of relief.
“The otolaryngologist is ready for you too, so you go and have your ears checked and Alex can have his scan.” He must have seen the hesitation in Ian’s eyes because he added “and if you’re done before us, you can come into the radiography suite and join us.”
“Okay,” Ian begrudgingly agreed, allowing Dr Hayward to lead him over to the waiting nurse.
His consultation with the otolaryngologist didn’t take very long (as he had expected), so Alex’s scan was still going on after he was released and handed his discharge letter and a pamphlet with care instructions. He made his way up to the booth where Dr Hayward was watching with the radiographers. Crawley was there too but he slipped out when he saw Ian enter the room as there wasn’t room for them both.
“Do you want a coffee, Ian?” he asked as they passed in the doorway.
“Thanks,” Ian said with a slight nod.
Ian glanced at the pictures from the scan with slight trepidation. He felt sure that it could not be good that Alex was still unconscious, although he wasn’t sure exactly how much time had passed.
“Everything looks okay at the moment,” Dr Hayward said reassuringly, seeing the look on Ian’s face.
The rest of the scan passed uneventfully and Ian walked beside the trolley as Alex was wheeled back to the bay. He was put into a private room this time, so Ian knew that it was now just a case of waiting for the scan results. That would determine the next course of action.
“Any news?” Crawley asked when he came in with two cups of coffee a short while later.
“No. Nothing yet,” Ian said as he gratefully took the large steaming cup and took a sip of the strong liquid. “What if Alex remembers?” he asked quietly, after he had sat back down in the chair beside the bed and taken hold of Alex’s hand again. The question that had been troubling him for a while now.
“How much was he conscious for?”
“Enough. He thought it was hail to start with but knew it couldn’t be when I radioed for help and he saw us being shot at.” He couldn’t say any more. It was too painful to think about right now.
“The public cover is that a film sequence was being shot in the city,” Crawley began. “Depending how much Alex remembers, the story will be that you passed the set and were then involved in a car crash. That in his unconscious state, his brain had combined the two events into one.”
Ian nodded but didn’t say anything. It would be another lie. And Alex’s life had been nothing but lies. At least, that was how it felt sometimes. Ian didn’t have time to dwell on that uncomfortable thought any longer because Alex began to stir on the bed. Ian relinquished his grip on Alex’s hand and began running his hand through his hair, as well as he could with the bandage covering his forehead, anyway.
“Alex?” he asked softly and was rewarded with a soft groan.
“I’ll get the doctor,” Crawley said and left the room.
“Don’t move, okay, Alex?” Ian said as calmly as he could. He hoped that if he sounded calm, it would keep Alex calm. “We were in an accident so the doctors just need to make sure that you’re okay.”
“Okay,” Alex replied quietly.
Crawley was back with Dr Hayward and a couple of nurses within moments and soon Alex was surrounded as they checked his vitals and the doctor asked him questions. Ian didn’t want to but he stepped back, giving them space to work. The relief that flooded through him was enormous. Alex had woken up!
“Can you tell me your name?” Dr Hayward asked.
“Alex Rider.”
“And do you know what the date is, Alex?”
“The fifteenth of November.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
Ian knew that Dr Hayward was establishing whether Alex’s mental state was impaired or not.
“We were in the car… where did Ian go?” Alex asked, suddenly panicked.
“I’m right here, Alex,” he said, quickly stepping forward so that Alex could see him. He relaxed instantly as Ian brushed a hand through his hair.
“Go on, Alex. You were in the car - do you remember what happened next?” Dr Hayward prompted.
“Umm it’s a bit fuzzy,” Alex began hesitantly. “I remember a lot of banging and loud noises.”
“It’s alright, Alex. You may find that your memory starts to come back but it’s also perfectly normal if it doesn’t. Just rest for now.” Dr Hayward took Ian by the arm and led him a little way away. “I’d like Alex to stay for observation for another few hours. He shouldn’t need to stay overnight but as he’s had a head injury, you will need to keep an eye on him for the next couple of days.”
Ian nodded. “Do you think his memory will come back?” he asked.
“It’s impossible to say. There are no certainties with head injuries; some people never regain their memories from immediately around the time where they were hurt. Others are able to remember little pieces over time, but not the whole event. Others are able to remember the whole event and this can happen quite quickly afterwards or in the months and years that follow. Unfortunately there’s no way of knowing what it’ll be like for Alex.”
Ian nodded and thanked the doctor before returning to the seat by Alex’s bedside.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“My head hurts.”
“That’s normal after a head injury,” Ian reassured him.
Just then, the door opened and Crawley beckoned him over.
“I’ll be back in a minute, okay bud?” Ian said as he stood up.
“They want you in for debrief,” Crawley said once the door closed behind them.
“No,” Ian said firmly. “They’ve got the footage from the car’s cameras and they can get the CCTV if they want another angle. I can’t add anything more than the cameras will be able to show them. Alex needs me. If they really want to talk to me, it can wait until tomorrow.”
Just then, Dr Hayward walked by and Ian caught his eye. “Is Alex allowed to eat or drink, if he wants it?”
“Yes. I’ve just received his preliminary scan results. Everything looks okay, so we can remove the spinal collar and board and get him sitting up.”
A couple of hours later, Alex was sitting up in bed and looked a lot better for having had the stiff collar and board that had prevented his spine from moving removed. He still had a bandage around his head but the wound had been stitched and was no longer bleeding. They had finished their dinner and were playing a round of the square game - they didn’t have anything other than some scrap paper and a pen so playing the silly game of connecting dots to make squares was one of the few things they could do to pass the time - when Dr Hayward came back into the room.
“How are you feeling, Alex?” he asked, examining the various monitors that Alex was still attached to.
“Better!” Alex replied brightly.
The doctor shined his torch into each of Alex’s eyes in turn.
“Everything looks fine, so you’ll be able to go once you’ve received the discharge papers,” he said, glancing at Ian. “As I explained earlier,” he continued, “you’ll need to keep an eye out over the next couple of days in case Alex’s condition changes. And Alex,” -he said looking back over to him, -“if you start feeling funny, you need to tell your uncle right away, okay?”
“Okay.”
Dr Hayward left and Ian and Alex finished their game while they waited for someone to bring Alex’s discharge papers. It wasn’t long before a cheerful looking nurse arrived with Alex’s documents.
“Here we are,” he said.
He handed Ian the letter and a few pamphlets with information for both Alex and Ian, including the signs to look out for that would suggest that his condition was deteriorating. Once he had gone, the two of them gathered up their few belongings and slowly made their way out of the room. Crawley was waiting for them.
“I’ll take you home,” he said and led them out of the hospital to the waiting car. He got into the driver’s seat while Ian and Alex both climbed into the back. Alex slept on the journey back, his head resting against Ian’s shoulder. The gentle swaying of his body as they went around corners was horribly evocative of mere hours before and it made Ian feel sick to think about it. He didn’t say much on the journey; Alex may be asleep but Ian didn’t want to risk him hearing a conversation between him and Crawley and making a connection between it and the ‘car crash’ that they had been involved in that afternoon. The car pulled up outside their home and Ian gently shook Alex awake.
“Come on, bud. Let’s get you inside?”
Alex nodded slightly and allowed Ian to guide him out of the car.
“Thanks, John,” he said before closing the car door, purposefully not allowing the agent time to say anything about a meeting tomorrow. Ian pulled his house keys out of his pocket as they walked up the garden path, and opened the front door and switched on the light in the hallway. Jack was away on holiday, visiting her parents in America, so it was just the two of them. Ian guided Alex upstairs and into bed. He fell back to sleep almost instantly. Dr Hayward had said that sleep would be good for him as it would allow his brain to heal but seeing him like this made Ian feel uncomfortable. He checked the time and resolved to check in on Alex in an hour but worry consumed him in the few minutes that he was downstairs making himself a drink. So he decided to get his laptop and set up in Alex’s room where he could keep an eye on him.
Alex didn’t stir in the couple of hours that Ian spent working in his room, using the light of his desk lamp instead of the main light. Ian had been reluctant to look at his emails and when he saw the email from Alan Blunt, he knew that his hesitation had not been baseless. The Director of Special Operations was not happy (and that was putting it mildly) that Ian had not come in for debrief but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Blunt could not understand the innate fear that Ian had felt when Alex lay unconscious in that car beside him. He could not understand the fierce need to protect him. Ian had looked after Alex since he was three months old and, although it had been incredibly difficult, he had resolved to always do his best for him. Today that meant staying in the hospital with him. Another day it would be something completely different, but Alex would always come above Blunt. Always. He had to swallow the rising feeling of guilt that it was his fault that Alex had been hurt. If Ian wasn’t an agent, Alex would never have been in danger in the first place. He span around in Alex’s desk chair and examined his sleeping nephew. Alex was okay and that was what was important. He looked so peaceful and Ian was reassured by the fact that his breathing was deep and regular. There were none of the signs that Dr Hayward had warned him to look out for, so Ian decided to pack up his laptop and go to bed. He set an alarm for a couple of hours’ time to check on Alex again.
Ian checked on his nephew multiple times through the night and each time, Alex was sleeping soundly, breathing deeply and showing no other signs that anything was wrong. Having not slept properly that night, Ian was tired when he woke up for the day but was happy in the knowledge that Alex seemed to be recovering well. Blunt had ordered Ian to go in for a debrief but he knew that he couldn’t leave Alex alone so he suggested a video call so that he wouldn’t have to leave the house. Blunt’s reply was typically brusque but he did at least agree to Ian’s request. He didn’t bother to put on a suit for the meeting but sat in his office in front of his webcam in a t-shirt and jeans. Once he had told everything that he could to Blunt and Jones, he asked the question that he really wanted the answer to.
“What have you found out?”
“Not very much,” Mrs Jones replied. She seemed to be more understanding of Ian’s actions, and he remembered that she was a mother. The fact that her children had been taken from her did not change that. “The cameras didn’t pick up any of their faces and thus far we haven’t been able to trace any of their weapons either. They had all gone by the time the SWAT teams converged on their locations,” she explained. “But we’ll keep investigating.” Ian didn’t say anything but waited for them to continue. Neither of them did.
After the call ended, Ian crept down the stairs and opened the door to Alex’s room. He was still asleep but Ian knew that it was time to wake him up now, so he sat on the edge of the bed and gently shook his arm.
“How are you feeling, Alex?”
“Okay,” Alex murmured sleepily. “A bit stiff.”
“Yeah, after being rattled around yesterday and then strapped to the board, you probably will do for a few days. Come on. You need to get up now. And hot water on those muscles will help.”
“Okay,” he groaned and sat up, stretching and yawning.
“What do you want for breakfast?”
“Pancakes?” Alex asked, suddenly much more awake and with a cheeky glint in his eye.
“Alright,” Ian replied with a chuckle. “You get up and I’ll make a start on mixing up the batter.”
That day ended up being one of the best days that they had had in ages. It was just the two of them and they were actually able to spend it together. They had fun making pancakes together and adding outrageous amounts of sugary toppings before eating them. They watched movies and played games. Ian realised with a pang that they hadn’t properly spent time together, just the two of them, in far too long. Alex was growing up quickly and if he wasn’t careful, he would miss it. They snuggled up under a blanket on the sofa after a takeaway dinner and watched another movie. Thankfully, Alex had shown no signs of any lingering head trauma and Ian realised with a sudden sadness that, provided that nothing changed overnight, he should be okay to go to school tomorrow. Then and there, Ian made the decision to keep him home tomorrow too. After all, Dr Hayward had told him to keep an eye on him for the next couple of days and Ian didn’t know when he would have another excuse to spend so much time with Alex handed to him on a plate. And it wasn’t like Alex regularly missed school. Two days now certainly wouldn’t hurt.
