Santa Venetia High School was so completely different from Brookland Comprehensive, it was like Alex had arrived on another planet. Only the reality was he was the alien interloper in perfect California. It was no bigger than his former alma mater, but the whole experience was surreal with the closely knit cliques, classifications, hazing and grading of popularity. As a newcomer, he was below the radar. His school record stated he was a slacker. He was everything this school despised with his poor grades, abysmal attendance and bad attitude. Sabina was everything he wasn't; a high flier with her perfect A grade average, excellent attendance and popular with both her friends and the teachers. Alex attitude was keep his head down, get his grades up, keep his attendance on line with Sabina's and then it was only three years to go until freedom. Eighteen was the magic age of adulthood and full independence in California.
Alex watched his fellow students and he was drawn to the other outsiders and those living outside normal society. He could easily spot the potheads, the few with more serious addictions, the runners, the dealers, the 'would-be' hoods and those like himself, who were isolated loners. He smirked to himself, as he was showing all signs of becoming a poster child for potential serial killer/psychopath as he engaged no one in conversation, wanted no friends and did not participate in team anything. This was all confirmed by his tri-weekly appointments with both a psychologist and the school counsellor as the Pleasures had made it known he was suffering from PTSD, survivor's guilt and severe depression with the cover story of the terrorist incident on the International School in Cairo in July. He was himself watched by the support staff and the teachers, as he was an 'at risk' teenager. They monitored him for any signs of self-harm.
He ate his lunch every day not tasting it. He went to the bathroom afterward, followed by the hall monitor to see if he was regurgitating the awful crud, which achieved the impossible of being worse than army food served at Brecon.
It was Thursday afternoon and he was sat in Calculus, absently scratching his arms underneath the long sleeves of his baseball shirt and looking at his feet. When the teacher interrupted his daydreaming. "Mr. Rider report to the nurses office."
He put his head on the desk, so it was intervention time. Being a silent, loner was not OK here. He thought he'd be unnoticed, if he kept his grades up, did his assignments and had perfect attendance. No, here they expected him to be a fully functioning member of society. What would they suggest? More therapy? Taking up a hobby? He then thought of the worst case scenario, his placement with the Pleasure's would be assessed as failing, what then? Probably Military School paid for by the f-ing CIA. He slowly put his stuff in his bag, collected his hall pass and sauntered to his doom.
...
The crisp brown leaves were blowing on the cool north wind, collecting into piles along the edge of the sidewalk. Yassen Gregorovich was on stake out, hidden behind the drapes in a house he had broken into, whose owners were on sabbatical in New Zealand. On their return they would find not one thing out of place after the Russian's extended stay. He observed the agents who were watching little Alex. The CIA field team were sloppy. He had followed each of them home, he knew about their wives and families, their hobbies and friends. All this was keeping him occupied while he worried about Hunter's son. A fifteen year old who was in need of help and guidance, but who shunned everyone in an attempt to protect them and to protect himself from further hurt.
The assassin had been out of the loop for just over a year. A year when Scorpia had tried their best to destroy Alex Rider. Julia Rothman had been too blinded by her need for revenge against a man dead fourteen years to see what an asset Alex would have made, a boy who hated MI6 with a passion, only to be forced back to them again and again.
Cossack was not immune to revenge though. He had thought himself above such things since he murdered Sharkovshy at his dacha in 1986. The event that transformed from Yasha Gregorovich fully into Cossack, the killer for hire. He had tracked down the facility holding Zeljan Kursk and rather than dirty his own hands he had passed the man's location onto Mossad, who wished to repay the former chairman of Scorpia back in full for his liquidation of Levi Kroll. Kroll had always been a Mossad mole as the Israeli's wanted an inside man in the freelance organisation who worked for anyone doing anything as long as the price was right.
Not that his escape from British custody had made the news on a local, national or international level. In fact the British had only reluctantly informed their allies of the breach of security protocols only 72 hours after his escape. In those three days he had made it from Stranraer to the Republic of Ireland to a safehouse in Connemara. From there he consolidated his assets, did some necessary reconnaissance, finding only Dr. Three still working. From there he had travelled by freight container to Spain and visited a very discrete clinic for some facial alterations.
The decision to transfer eight very dangerous detainees from Gibraltar to Scotland's had gone like clockwork until they had arrived in a windswept Ullapool. The crossing to the uninhabited island in the outer Hebrides had been truly abysmal. Within half an hour the wind had switched around and the sea swell pitched the small boat about like it was a child's bath toy. Yassen like the other prisoners had been chained hand and foot, only he had two fragments of wire hidden in his mouth. The boat lurched to the side and it appeared to the guards that their silent charge, who had been barfing his lunch into the murky depths, had gracelessly lost his footing and joined his lunch in the briny deep.
The weather had prevented the boat returning until the morning two days later, the prison cut off by the storm and by a policy of strict radio silence, news of the prisoners was carried by word only. They guards had thought him dead. It had been remarkably easy to pick up the pieces of his carefully hidden safe houses, bank accounts in Panama the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, his stashes of cash and equipment and to follow little Alex's trail of destruction, right back to the annoying journalist and his family. Yassen had watched Alex and Sabina interact. He had been surprised by their fraternal relationship, rather than the romantic one he expected. He had read the reports regarding the downfall of Mrs. Rothman and Zeljan Kurst. Dr. Three had been most scathing of their mishandling of Alex Rider. The wily Chinese doctor had been outvoted when he suggested handling Alex carefully, to withdraw him to be fully assessed and removed from operations to heal. Both had wanted revenge on the boy, who had been a pawn of Alan Blunt from the start, blackmailed into espionage work. With proper care, time to heal and grow up, the boy would have been a future director in the making. No wonder the other directors wanted Hunter's son dead.