A/N: Hello! I'm back!
I know I said this would be up by January, but I also assumed that I would have time to write between December and January, which didn't quite work out.
Well, here is the second installment in the Agitato universe, featuring Alex, his American ghosts, some new characters, and an international crisis. Just another day in the life of a semi-legal MI6 operative, right?
No matter what anyone else said, Alex Rider was not getting off that plane.
It'll be fun, they said.
Go to America, they said.
It's your civic duty, they said.
Well, what they - which referred to K Unit, Danielle, Tom, and Clara- neglected to consider was that in late November, Washington D.C. was miserable.
The passengers who had already disembarked were standing around waiting for luggage delivery with their hands jammed into their coat pockets and feet restlessly stomping against the ground. Clouds of vapor puffed in front of their lips as the air chilled their breath.
Alex slid down in his seat.
Maybe no one would notice if he just -
"Excuse me, sir?"
Crap.
Alex reluctantly glanced over at the flight attendant, who hovered over him with a vacant look of polite concern. She bleached her hair - it was drying, ends splitting - and, from the pale skin around one of the fingers on her left hand, had recently divorced. Perhaps it was the best decision not to aggravate her, even if he ended up freezing to death before his ride arrived.
"Sorry," he said with as polite a tone as he could muster. "I'm a bit tired."
"The turbulence was murder," she replied, moving out of his way as he stood up into the aisle and pulled his suitcase down from the overhead compartment.
"Yeah. Can't be avoided, though, can it?" He yanked up his backpack from under the seat in front of his and stacked it on his suitcase before wheeling both down the aisle.
"Baggage claim is inside if you don't want to wait in the cold."
He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at her. "This is all I've got."
Her eyebrows quirked. "Short trip?"
"No," he replied honestly. "I don't have much stuff."
"Well, have fun."
"Thanks."
His suitcase clattered down the stairs behind him and grated over the tarmac. It had wheels, but they had broken somewhere between London and Berlin. Alex stifled a yawn as he wedged open the door into Dulles Airport; he was tired - no, exhausted. He felt dead on his feet, and on top of flights in three time zones, his stomach was beginning to hurt. The bullet wound was acting up.
Maybe it was because of the cold.
You've endured worse, he thought, but automatically dismissed the denial.
The problem with being an internationally famous spy in (almost) top physical and mental condition was that he couldn't distract himself from reality.
He couldn't even try.
He wasn't cold, he thought bitterly as he hurried inside towards customs, the file of papers he had filled out clenched in his fist.
He just didn't want to be in America.
He didn't particularly want to be anywhere at all.
"Sir?" asked the man at the first customs desk. "Papers?"
Alex silently handed over the wrinkled ones in his hand. The man glanced them over and turned to his computer, entering some information onto a virtual form. Then a window popped up over the form and, after a few seconds, the operator turned back to Alex.
"Says here you're cleared."
"Thanks," Alex said. The nice thing about working for an international intelligence agency was not standing in line. Honestly, that was the only nice thing. Alex picked up his suitcase and cut through the rest of the customs line, getting jealous glances from the other international passengers, and entered the pickup terminal.
With a heavy sigh, Alex scanned the sparse crowd inside for anyone who looked like a Mr. Randal Blakemore from the Central Intelligence Agency, but no one particularly stood out.
He sat down on one of the plastic chairs and checked his phone.
He had four new messages from Danielle, his foster-something-sister, each a different picture of Ben Daniels' DIY renovations. From the apparent state of the kitchen plumbing, Alex guessed that Ben, aka Fox, would be calling a plumber soon if his wife didn't beat him to it.
Alex quickly texted Danielle. Nice. I'm waiting in the airport.
Despite the fact that it was around two in the morning back in England, her reply came a few seconds later. Great!
He smiled.
Over the past six months, he had almost begun to believe that Danielle was actually his sister. They lived in the same house, had the same passion, and, to some extent, shared the same experiences. She still had his last name from that time when she needed emergency medical treatment for a virus planted by a psychotic ex-CIA agent who had it out for Alex, and before that, she worked with him at the music school they both attended. Actually, the first day they met was the day an assassin tried to shoot Alex in the middle of a crowded cafe.
He was just in America to testify. Six weeks, tops. Then he could go home and, hopefully, leave MI6 for good. Testifying was just the last step to being free from the bureaucratic mess that federal law enforcement agencies were.
"Excuse me," someone said from above him. "Are you Alex Rider?"
Alex shoved his phone into his pocket and glanced up.
A tall man stood over him dressed in faded jeans and a navy polo shirt. He had dark hair that was just beginning to grey, and lines around his eyes from staring too hard at papers or screens for answers that didn't exist.
Standing, Alex held out his hand. "Blakemore?"
"Good to meet you. How was the flight?"
"A little rough, but good."
Blakemore nodded, looking satisfied. "Excellent. I'm parked out front. Need a hand with anything?"
"I've got it." Alex hoisted his backpack up and grabbed the handle of his suitcase, walking slightly behind the American agent as they headed towards the revolving doors that led to the parking lots. All he knew was that Randal Blakemore was his host and the former partner of the rogue CIA agent that Alex was testifying against. Alex was supposed to be staying with Blakemore until the trial was over and he already had plans to spend most of his time exploring the city, envisioning a dingy federal-allotted apartment with neighbors of questionable character. Wasn't D.C. supposed to be like the London slums?
"So," Blakemore said as he pressed a button on his key fob. The lights blinked on a black Chevy SUV and the trunk popped open. Alex slung his baggage in, then climbed into the passenger seat - wait, that was a steering wheel.
Right.
He jogged around to the other side of the car and got in, hoping his mistake went unnoticed. He was supposed to be a professional, after all, and Blakemore hadn't even finished his sentence.
"So," Blakemore said again as he twisted the keys in the ignition, making the car roar to life. "Your cover."
"I'm a history major from Oxford here to intern with you on a study of ancient illuminated manuscripts from the early Renaissance period," Alex recited automatically, having committed his cover to memory during the flight across the Atlantic.
"Good. Everyone thinks I'm a recently tenured history professor at Georgetown who dabbles in archeology." Blakemore shook his head. "So, Alex, how many missions have you done?"
"I'm not sure that's relevant, sir."
"I've already read your file," Blakemore said, not unkindly. "Jones sent it over a few days ago."
Oh.
"Well, these last few months have been a bit of a wreck, which is how I ran into Troy. . ." just saying the name made Alex's newer bullet wound throb. "I thought I was done with my government, but apparently. . ."
Blakemore nodded as he merged the car onto the interstate. "Once you've worked for the feds long enough - you might have already realized this - you'll see that working in an agency is about politics as much as it's about enforcing the law."
"True that." Like the incident where Jones froze all of Danielle's accounts until Alex agreed to take on another mission.
"So, what file did Colton send you about my family?"
Alex blinked, taken aback. "What file?"
Blakemore sighed. "Figures he didn't send it over. Bastard. Our beloved head of the FBI was supposed to send over information about my family so you could prepare yourself. You know, this all has to keep up the appearance of being coordinated through the Georgetown international exchange program, which is why you're staying with me. We can't just give you some run-down apartment near K Street."
"Really." Alex had a feeling he wouldn't like where this conversation was going. He just wanted quiet, a few weeks to be in and out of the country. Nothing else.
"Yes. The kids moved around a bit so you have your own room - the younger ones were going to share anyways."
Alex glanced over at the door, seriously considering jumping out of the car. He did *not* sign up for a host family. Danielle and Tom would probably kill themselves laughing if they heard about this. "Okay."
Blakemore barked out a laugh. "You don't sound thrilled."
"I just-"
"It's fine. My oldest is in college. Catie, my second, is holding down the fort. You know the drill; long hours for me, my wife's had to go back to work with the recession, et cetera." his fingers drummed against the wheel as he turned off the interstate.
Alex couldn't think of anything else to do but nod, even though he had no idea what Blakemore was talking about.
"Catie knows what I do - we had to tell her, my wife and I, after an incident a few years back. However," Blakemore turned, fixing Alex with a vaguely threatening glare, "There's no reason she has to know why you're here. She thinks you're just an exchange student, and I'd appreciate it if you kept it that way."
"Wasn't planning on telling anyone," he muttered.
"Right."
Now that the car had left the highway, Alex couldn't stop staring at the rural subdivisions that were rapidly springing up from the grounds. Houses quickly turned into neighborhoods that sprawled almost as far as he could see.
"This is where most of the government workers live," Blakemore said by way of explanation. "Easy commute."
Ah. That made sense.
Alex expected the car to turn down any one of the several roads branching off from the main one, but the subdivision began to thin out and disappeared altogether after a man-made pond. The tires thumped as the road changed from smooth, new pavement to older asphalt that was riddled with cracks. Trees began to appear, gaining height as they on.
"So," Blakemore said. "The trial starts in two days. Are you familiar with our court system?"
"Somewhat," Alex replied. "Isn't it based on English law?"
"Yes. Do you know anything about federal courts?"
"Not yours."
"Good, because they operate completely differently from normal ones. Especially in your case. You're nineteen, right?"
"Yes."
"Okay. They won't expect you to know very much about how the trial works beyond the basic proceedings and sequencing. There's a file with information you should know about the federal court system and a dossier on the defense attorney. The lady's got a reputation for dishonest work, and I wouldn't put it past her to try and pull something with your testimony. Especially with Galen involved."
Alex frowned, not recognizing the name. "Galen?"
"Galen Troy. Never heard his name?"
"No. I only met him twice, and the second time he was trying to kill me so we couldn't exactly chat." Shaking his head, Alex let out a heavy sigh. Nightmares from the theater bomb had continued to plague his sleep and every time he woke, the recently healed wound in his stomach throbbed.
Blakemore gave him a quick glance, his steely eyes softening. "That fire was on the news. Your sister got caught inside, right?"
"She got out through the back door."
"Well, she's lucky."
"Yeah." Alex paused for a beat. "We all are."
Suddenly, the car slowed down with a jerk as Blakemore turned the wheel left to its full extent, swinging the vehicle around onto a narrow street that intersected with the main road at a sharp angle. Alex instinctively grabbed onto the passenger door as he prepared himself for the collision -
But the car drove on.
He let his hand slide off the door, mentally berating himself for being so on edge and knowing that getting a grip on himself was imperative to surviving the next month and a half. Whatever happened to the 'inner calm' that had allowed his fourteen-year-old self to infiltrate an international terrorist organization or escape from the icy Alps on an ironing board? He shook his head slightly, pushing his hair back. Now he felt like that calm had become a raging storm, and distracting himself was the only way to keep it out.
"How much can I say at the trial?" he asked Blakemore. "In case something we did was acceptable for SAS protocol that's not in American law."
"That would merit a full explanation, which would be cleared in the interest of ending this thing as fast as we can," Blakemore replied, his fingers tapping against the steering wheel. "Tell me about Galen."
Alex thought for a moment, then started to speak, sequencing the events as best as he could. He told everything from infiltrating Troy's hotel room to the last thing he remembered before -embarrassingly- passing out as the theater burned down around him. He talked about Raoul August, the infamous drug lord who was giving drugs to minors in return for prostitution. August was in jail, finally, thanks to Danielle. And, finally, he told Blakemore about the aftermath of the catastrophe: Ben Daniels, who had the lower part of his right leg pulverized by a staged car wreck; Danielle, who tripped over a spotlight fleeing the theater and got her entire left leg caught in the glassy shards, who also had two steel pins in her wrist; and the civilians who were killed or maimed during the explosion. It had been a massive disaster; renovations were only now beginning because the entire foundation of the old building was riddled with cracks from the shock waves.
Blakemore was silent for a few moments as the car rumbled along uneven pavement towards another neighborhood that unfolded on the horizon, and Alex realized how tired he was from travelling across time zones. His body was ready to pass out from exhaustion, not to think about trials and bombs. Years without travelling had allowed him to grow all too comfortable in England.
"I knew Galen's wife died," Blakemore said at last. "I didn't realize your people were involved."
"Wasn't my idea."
"Oh, I'm not blaming you. Galen wasn't the most stable guy beforehand, but after his wife died he really seemed to unhinge."
Before Alex could ask what that meant, Blakemore pulled the car to a stop at the very last house on a cul-de-sac, set back a good distance from the road. It looked like some of the older houses he had seen in England with a wide porch and two levels, the top one with three windows jutting out dormers. The roof was tiled with shingles that looked more like wood than fiberglass - not good for walking on, probably slick in the rain - and Alex found himself instinctively analyzing possible entry and escape routes, just in case something happened. Now he was including 'sudden fire' in his list of possible catastrophes after the theater bombing.
He blinked, trying not to think any further down paranoid paths for fear of jinxing his supposedly calm stay in America. The last thing he needed was an international scandal to finagle his way out of; MI6 couldn't do him many favors now, as he was legally an adult.
He fetched his suitcase from the trunk and started up the front path towards the stairs, following Blakemore as he unlocked the door and pulled it open with a grating noise.
The interior of the house was dark, as it was night, but the blue glow of a TV screen cast a faint shadow on the opposite wall of shelves.
"Catie?" Blakemore asked softly, his footsteps making the floor creak as he walked around the side of the couch. "Ah, they fell asleep. Catie and the twins were going to wait up for you. Your room is at the top of the stairs on the left."
"Thanks," Alex said quietly. Did Blakemore say twins? How many kids did he have? More importantly, would Alex be expected to . . . interact with them? On top of dealing with a trial and constant paranoia?
Where are the stairs? He glanced around and spotted a staircase through the doorway on his right - which, he found as he walked, led to the kitchen. He started up the stairs, trying to carry his luggage as quietly as possible as not to disturb anyone who might be sleeping. Suddenly he found that every muscle in his body ached, even though he had done nothing but sit all day, and that he really should be asleep.
At the top of the stairs, there was only one room on the left. Reaching inside, he flicked on the lights and dumped his stuff on the carpet in front of him. The walls were pale and the carpeting grey. A bed was pushed up into the far right corner with a closet in the opposite one and a nightstand, desk, and chair arranged around the edges of the floor. Alex saw a flash drive on his desk, probably the trial procedures that he needed to learn, but he was too tired to do anything else but turn the lights back off and fall into bed.
The next morning, Alex woke up with a yawn. He reached for his phone only to see that it was 3:30 in the morning by American time; definitely too early to be awake, but he didn't think he could sleep again.
Bloody time changes.
The mattress squeaked as he rolled out of bed and quietly walked over to the door, thankful for the plush carpet that muffled his footsteps.
Since he was awake, he might as well explore.
Alex wasn't sure if he trusted Randall Blakemore. The man seemed nice enough; he had a wife, kids, and a pretty decent house for a federal worker, but something about his demeanor bothered Alex. All the questions during the drive from the airport had felt more like an interrogation than an introduction, as if Blakemore was testing him, and he did work for the FBI which, if Alex remembered correctly, dealt with internal homeland security threats.
He was starting to feel like he was on another mission.
Alex slung his backpack over his shoulder and snatched the flashdrive off the desk, then opened the door and cautiously descended the stairs. The sooner he could start learning about the trial, the better.
If his testimony didn't hold up, Galen Troy would be released on account of insufficient evidence for a conviction - Alex knew that much, at least - and everyone Alex knew would be in danger.
Troy had vowed to kill all of them - Danielle, Tom Harris, Ben Daniels and his wife, and probably the rest of K Unit.
I'll make you beg for death.
Alex entered the kitchen and blindly reached out for the light switch, flicking it on. Bright light flooded the room, and he quickly located a lamp on the breakfast bar that he could use instead lest he wake any of the Blakemores. That wouldn't be the first impression he was looking for.
"No impression would be better," he mumbled under his breath. Why hadn't anyone told him that, in addition to being the lynch pin in the prosecution's case against a psychotic murderer, he was also expected to live with people? And pretend, for an entire family, that he was studying Renaissance history? At least being a student was an excuse to stay out of the house.
Alex had just fired up his laptop when he heard the floor creak above his head.
Footsteps.
Whoever was walking around started down the stairs, each creak louder than the previous one until a girl in footie pyjamas stepped into the kitchen. Yawning, she rubbed her eyes, then flinched as she saw Alex.
He didn't even know where to begin. Hi. I'm the stranger your family is hosting. Don't mind me sitting in the dark at three a.m.
She looked just as bewildered, but hesitantly waved. "Are you Alex?" her voice was raspy.
"Yeah. Hello," he replied, subtly turning his computer, which was displaying the stipulations of conviction in American courts, away from her line of sight.
"Why are you awake?"
"Time change."
"Oh. Well, hi." she tossed her unruly hair over her shoulders and left through the opposite door - not the one to the living room, the other one on the right.
Alex shook his head. What was that about?
A few minutes later, a door creaked open somewhere through the living room. Alex glanced into the darkened room but couldn't see anything except the faint silver glow of the moon on the floorboards.
He was about to shut his computer and go investigate when, like a ghost, Randall Blakemore manifested in the doorway to the kitchen.
Blakemore's eyes widened for a second, but his face smoothed into an bland mask. "Alex. Time change?"
"Yeah."
"I was going to come get you. A call just came in for my unit to get to Capitol hill. Coming?"
Something told Alex that he didn't really have a choice.
"There's been a shooting," Blakemore said hurriedly as he yanked a thick jacket off the coat rack. "Some big-shot Arabian oil lord - war lord, more likely. You interested?"
Alex, though he hated to admit it, was slightly curious. Only slightly. Watching the American Intelligence Agencies work could potentially be informative; it was no secret that the Americans had the best intelligence ops in the world, even though they never did manage to assassinate Fidel Castro.
"Would your handler object?" Alex asked. An international intelligence scandal was the last thing he needed in his life.
"I am the handler," Blakemore replied as he opened the door. "So no."
Alex shut his laptop and took his jacket with him as he followed Blakemore out to the car. The night air was pitch-black out in the rural neighborhood, and still except for the occasional leaves rustling in the woods. Patches of ice shone on the street as they drove back towards Washington, D.C. in deadly reflections from the headlights, and Alex couldn't help but wonder how anyone was shot during a night like this. The cold would have made the gun malfunction - unless it was military grade.
He mentioned this to Blakemore, who nodded. "Yes. Chances are a civilian wasn't responsible for this."
Alex remained silent until his phone rang, vibrating in his pocket, such an odd hour for a call.
"Hello?"
"Alex," Ben Daniels' voice crackled over the line. That explained the timing. "Don't get involved."
"Involved in what?" Alex asked, knowing that he should have seen this coming. Every intelligence agency had their informants, and MI6 was no different. Of course they already knew about the assassination.
"You know what, and judging from the GPS on your phone, you're already on the way." Ben stifled a yawn that was still earsplitting through the phone. "I just got the call from Jones. She wants you to know that if you choose to work with the Americans, the Bank will deny all knowledge of you and cut you off from any resources."
"What interest does she -" Alex paused, catching Blakemore's glance. "Why does this matter?"
"The dead bloke was an influential man, Alex. He was also one of our informants, about ten years ago."
"Good to know. I'll pass it on."
"Alex, do yourself a favor: stay out of it. Focus on the trial and let the Americans handle their business."
Alex was tempted to agree, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Ben wasn't telling him everything that this case involved. A former informant shouldn't have been any concern to MI6; if he was active over a decade ago, whatever happened was already over and irreversible.
Unless their involvement with him broke protocol.
Unless their involvement with said informant broke sanctions for the United Nations.
That would be interesting.
"Alex?" Ben's staticy voice shook him out of his thoughts.
"How's Danielle?" Alex asked. His adopted sister was currently staying with Ben and his wife, Gwen.
Ben sighed heavily. "She's fine. Stop changing the subject."
"Tell her I said hi," said Alex, turning the words over in his mind as he made his decision. "And tell her not to call me."
"Alex-"
He hung up and disabled his GPS.
Blakemore glanced over at him. "Was that your handler?"
"Kind of. Long story. If you were expecting any help from MI6, don't bother." Alex ran his hands through his hair, adding the lack of help to the list of reasons why he hated Jones and MI6. "They won't be sending any. And officially, I don't exist."
Blakemore snorted. "You're joking."
"No," Alex slid his eyes sideways at him. "Is that not how you operate?"
"We don't bully people into working for us, if that's what you mean. Well. Besides criminal informants, and only rarely."
"Maybe you have more people willing to get their hands dirty." Alex half-winced, realizing he wasn't being as polite as he could but found himself hard pressed to care very much.
"Probably," Blakemore agreed pleasantly. "Side-effect of having a bigger country. We might have the same percentage of agents, but it's a larger number."
Neither spoke for the rest of the car ride.
Alex tried to mentally map their journey as best as the dark would allow; he only had the lighted street corners and halogen bar signs for landmarks. There were no tall buildings except for a single spire that stuck up from a domed building a few kilometers away. Blakemore had chosen a back road that wound around suburbs and strip malls.
After about twenty minutes, a row of buildings materialized on either side of the widening street, revealing that the backroad had followed the tube lines into the center of the city. They drove by multistoried buildings and parking garages, each with a gate and some level of security in front. Streetlights were suspiciously absent from most buildings, hiding the names and street addresses from street view.
Embassies, Alex thought. International embassies.
Sure enough, the car's headlights flashed across a large sign proclaiming that local vernacular dubbed the street 'Embassy Row'.
Instead of continuing straight at the next light, Blakemore turned down an intersecting road. Flickers of blue and red flashed off the nearby buildings as human shadows conducted rapid, silent business in front of said buildings. Four sets of headlights beamed from the middle of the street, almost blinding Alex, and Blakemore pulled up alongside them, not bothering to turn off his car as he shoved open the door.
Alex zipped up his jacket and followed, stopping short at the front of Blakemore's SUV.
The first thing he noticed was the eerie stillness. Lights flashed, but there were no sirens. Words were exchanged, yet no one seemed to speak. The air was always still when someone had died.
Blakemore crossed the epicenter of activity - two EMT's crouched above a prone corpse sprawled out across the street - and had a hurried discussion with two other people in dark clothes, a woman with golden hair and a man in a sweatshirt. Both looked hastily dressed, so they were recently alerted as well and had probably just arrived, and the paramedics were just starting to lift the body onto a stretcher. Another emerged from the back of an ambulance with a black tarp.
Alex leaned against the metal hood, warm from the engine's rumbling, and waited for the EMTs to wheel the stretcher by so he could get a glimpse of the ground.
The Arabian had been shot on the sidewalk. Dark spatters stained two concrete panels in what Alex estimated to be a square meter's area, and, if the body had fallen back. . .
Alex closed his eyes and tried to remember what he had just seen, something his uncle had made him do on several occasions when they visited a museum or store.
There had been a shoe. . . the toe pointing up, the rest hidden behind one of the EMTs.
So the body fell backwards - on his back, toes pointing up, hence the shoe.
But the blood stains were underneath. That was impossible.
Unless the body had been moved.
Alex opened his eyes.
The Arabian hadn't been shot on the sidewalk.
Shoving his hands into his jacket pockets, Alex stepped away from the car and looked up, spinning in a slow circle to examine the other buildings.
The blood was on the sidewalk, so the Arabian was shot from an angle.
"Alex!"
He looked back at the crime scene, saw Blakemore gesturing at him to come over, and hurried over.
Blakemore stepped aside, making Alex a part of their huddled conversation.
"He's a kid," the other male agent said. "You can't be serious."
No, my name is Alex.
"Classified," Blakemore replied. "But yes, I am. Alex, meet Miles."
Miles, a tall man with a dour face and unkempt hair, didn't make any acknowledgement, which suited Alex just fine.
The blonde held out her hand with a warm smile. "Alex. I'm Elise."
He silently shook her hand.
"Alex is here assisting with the trial," Blakemore said. "His dad and his uncle were both high-ranking agents in London-"
Alex wasn't sure about the high-ranking part, but he didn't interrupt.
"-and they promptly blacklisted him."
"What trial?" Elise asked.
Miles and Blakemore shared a meaningful glance.
"Galen Troy," Miles said.
Her eyes widened. "You're the kid he went after?"
I'm not a kid, Alex wanted to say, but he knew that would make him sound like one. "Yes."
"Everyone's heard," she said. "We-" Miles gave her a sour glance. "I was wondering what had happened to you."
Not much. Shot, lost half my pancreas, damaged liver, stuck on insulin pills until my body decides to start functioning again, my sister's leg is permanently scarred, and one of our iconic theaters was blown up.
Alex wasn't about to list his physical ailments to a group of strangers, so he shrugged. "Nothing exciting."
First chapter down! Woo-hoo! If you liked it, please review! I love reviews. They inspire me to write better and *hint* faster! If you didn't like it, still review! Tell me what you didn't like; I'll try to adjust, if it fits within the story's parameters :)