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.
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
