Disclaimer: I do not own the Alex Rider series.

Claimer: I do own the AIS and all characters from the AIS (e.g. Desiree Swan).

Chapter 8

The next day saw all three teens back in school. It seemed that Cindy and her gang of cheerleaders had spread, through the very efficient gossip chain present in Brookland, the story of the fight which had broken out on Saturday night at the cinemas. They'd exaggerated the details, since none of them had actually seen the fight first hand. The fight had appeared on Sunday newspapers so many of the students had read about it, but since MI6 had forced the journalists not to mention any of the people involved, they didn't know until Monday that it was Alex, Desiree and Tom against Alex's uncles' enemies. Or so they thought.

As a result, Alex spent the day trying to avoid the flocks of girls who came after him, swooning and asking if he was alright. Desiree, on the other hand, spent the day avoiding the numerous boys who had taken it upon themselves to enquire after her black eye, which stood out painfully against her crystal blue eyes. Since, unlike the girls who would shriek at Alex and thus give him enough time to either run or hide, the boys didn't shriek when they saw Dessi, she had an infinitely harder time avoiding her followers.

In the end, it was left up to Alex and Tom to turn away the persistent boys with death glares or subtle remarks, after the girl had lost her temper and shouted at a boy, who was unfortunate enough to be the eleventh person enquiring after her health, in a tone that would have made Jake proud.

Thankfully though, by the end of the day, the news of their fight had worn off, and thus they hoped that tomorrow they would not have to repeat the experience of fawning girls and persistent boys. The only one who was in high spirits throughout the day was Tom; the boy hadn't exactly been the one doing the fighting, he'd merely been forced to hide.

Tuesday passed without much incident, unless you counted the moment during English class when Tom had leaned over to ask what the other charms on Desiree's bracelet did, and had ended up accidently pulling the flower charm off the bracelet. Alex and Dessi had gone into full fledged panic attacks. After all, ten seconds was not a lot of time to stop an explosive device, and they had no idea how powerful the thing was. In the end, Alex had yelled over the teacher for the class to duck and hide while Desiree hurled both the charm and the chair she had sat on at the window.

The chair had broken through the window, showering the ground outside with glass, and allowing the charm to fly out the window. Before the teacher could yell at Dessi for throwing the chair, the flower charm had exploded in midair, the shock wave destroying the other two windows and overturning desks and chairs as it hit the classroom.

However, the directional explosive had completely disintegrated the chair that had gone with the charm. The teacher had promptly fainted from shock, which was probably a good thing too, for the moment after the explosion had take place both Alex and Desiree had turned on Tom and had started shouting at him.

After about five minutes the SAS guards, with Ben at their head, had rushed into the classroom, guns drawn, to see the two teenage spies still berating Tom about his carelessness while the rest of the class watched with awe. Jake had come in soon after, and had immediately dragged Desiree away to get the full story out of her; the rest of the class had responded merely with excited gibberish.

After that, the AIS unit leader had pulled Alex away from shouting at his friend, and had taken his place, yelling about how Tom could have done Scorpia's job for them and killed them all. By then the rest of the kids had already been evacuated from the classroom, and the unconscious teacher had been carried down to the nurse, so only those who actually knew about Scorpia heard Jake shouting the name.

Ben had called the MI6 to inform them about the incident. Mrs Jones walked into the classroom ten or so minutes after the call, in time to put a stop to Jake's shouting. By that stage, Tom looked almost close to tears. He was, after all, old enough to understand what he'd done, even accidentally, so he didn't really need the line-up of spies shouting at him about how he'd almost killed everyone. He winced slightly when Mrs Jones looked at him, as if he expected her to start yelling too, but she merely gave him a reassuring pat on his shoulder and sent him out of the classroom.

The window was fixed in record time. For a while, the three teens ignored each other. Then Alex and Desiree apologised to Tom for getting mad at him. He in turn apologised to them for touching things he shouldn't. By the time school finished, they were back to being friends, the incident put behind them.

It wasn't until Wednesday that Scorpia made their fifth attempt. Alex, Dessi and Tom had just been dropped off, and were following the stream of students into the school when there was the all too familiar sound of gunshots. The immediate reaction from the teens surrounding the three was screaming. Painfully loud, ear piercing screaming.

"EVERYBODY, GET INSIDE!" Alex roared, and there was a sudden rush once people realised who was shouting orders at them.

Desiree turned when she saw that there was someone lying on the ground, groaning weakly and clutching his leg. Blood flowed freely through his fingers; apparently, he was the one the bullets had hit.

"Alex!"Dessi shouted as she hurried to the boy. He looked to be slightly older than the three of them, with light brown hair and hazel eyes that were currently screwed up in pain. He was also breathing extremely quickly, apparently under the impression it would lessen the pain. Alex shoved Tom towards the school, before running to Desiree and the boy.

"Okay, I need you to stay with me, and concentrate on my voice," Dessi was muttering when Alex arrived, "Try not to think about the pain."

"Hey," Alex whispered softly, startling Dessi a bit, "How did he get hit?"

"By the looks of it, rebound," she answered, pointing to the slight dent in the metal flag pole, "Unlucky coincidence. If he doesn't stop panting he's going to hyperventilate."

Alex bit his lip before kneeling down next to the boy.

"Hi, I'm Alex. I can help you," he said in the most soothing tone he could manage, wincing slightly at how lame his sentence sounded, "I know it hurts, but I really need you to stop breathing so quickly. Can you do that for me?"

Dessi stood and turned at the noise coming from behind. There were three Scorpia agents, dressed in white to disguise in the snowy background. They were currently engaged with a group of SAS soldiers who had been the first to head them off. Sounds of snow crunching made the girl spin again, tensing in case she needed to attack. It was only K-unit, charging towards them. She recognised Wolf, Snake and Eagle from their stay in Australia, but had never met the last man. She knew, however, that his code-name was Shark – it had been in K-unit's file.

"Hey, it's you!" Eagle exclaimed; they hadn't been told that agents from the AIS had been invited to help protect the school, and K-unit hadn't seen Jake yet.

"Yeah, it's me," Dessi said impatiently. Then she turned to Snake, whom she knew was the team medic, "Snake, that kid over there was hit by a rebound bullet to his leg, and he's hyperventilating."

Snake swore and hurried over to the injured boy, Alex hastily getting out of his way. Dessi turned back to K-unit in time to see the questioning look Shark sent Eagle's way.

"Alex! Desiree!" A voice suddenly exclaimed. Both teens, along with K-unit, turned to the front door leading into the school, to see Cindy Rills rapidly beckoning the two teens to the door. Dessi glanced at Alex who shrugged from his position beside the injured kid, and the two made their way to the head cheerleader.

"What is it?" Alex asked.

She didn't need to answer. There was a sudden tinkling as glass smashed after being hit by a bullet. Screams echoed from behind the girl, causing both Alex and Dessi to start. Students rushed out of one of the classrooms, and fled into another.

"Snipers," Dessi deduced, pushing past the cheerleader.

Alex turned to K-unit.

"There're snipers and they're aiming for the classrooms!" He yelled.

The response was almost immediate. Wolf barked an order to Shark, then said something into the radio attached to his collar. Snake and Eagle carried the wounded boy up into the school. Shark hurried off to where the fight with the three Scorpia agents was taking place. They were just finishing up, having already knocked two of them unconscious. Shark himself knocked out the third, before shouting something at them, gesturing up to the roof tops surrounding the school.

Alex ran to catch up to Dessi. The girl was searching for Tom, who was nowhere to be found. Alex saw an all too familiar flash from the window just as she passed a classroom, and he threw himself at the girl, tackling her to the ground as another bullet sailed above their heads.

"Oh…thanks," Dessi gasped.

"No problem," Alex replied, getting off the girl and helping her back up. For a moment, they both looked out the window at where the bullet had come from, then they responded to some unspoken signal and set off again to find Tom, pushing their way through the panicking students and ordering them to stay down.

Outside, the SAS soldiers and MI6 agents had already been ordered up to the roof tops of the buildings surrounding the school to dispose of the snipers. After all these men had done to protect the school, they weren't going to let a couple of flights of stairs come between them and those snipers who were targeting the classrooms.

They burst onto the rooftops almost simultaneously with their guns drawn, shouting at the snipers to, well, drop their snipers. The Scorpia agents stood slowly, turning with perfected balance to look at the circle of guns pointed their way. Then they all moved, with blurring speed, and attacked. It was a suicidal, kamikaze move, but then again, no Scorpia agent wanted to be taken alive if it could be helped.

In the school, Alex and Desiree found Tom and another student huddled in a corner well away from any windows. Their relief was interrupted with simultaneous gunshots that were repeatedly fired by the SAS soldiers and MI6 agents against the Scorpia snipers. The students put their hands over their ears, shutting out the noise and dropping to the floor.

Alex and Dessi glanced at each other grimly. They knew, from the sound of the sustained gunfire, that no Scorpia agent would be walking out alive.


"That's attack number five," Mrs Jones said, passing the file which contained the day's events over to Mr Blunt, "I must say that Scorpia are losing a lot of good agents to this 'revenge'. We now have thirteen of their people in our custody."

Mr Blunt nodded, his eyes skimming over the report. On the bright side, Rider hadn't been involved with any of the fights which had taken place that day. On the down side…

"They've graduated to attacking the entire school at random?" Blunt asked. The boy who'd been hit by the rebound bullet, Pete Brookes, had been taken to St. Dominic's so that the bullet could be removed.

"It does appear that way," Jones replied, "At least no other children were injured. Or killed."

"Yes…"Blunt trailed off. It just wasn't like Scorpia to just attack an entire school without targeting specific people. Their now dead snipers hadn't even attempted to aim for Harris, the boy who had been the target of their previous four attacks.

"Something's not right about this," Blunt said after a minute or so of silence.

"I'd have to agree."

Blunt nodded slowly as he kept reading the report.

The confrontation was executed to perfection. No lives were lost, although three agents and two soldiers were injured when the assassins attempted a kamikaze style attack. In total, six snipers were retrieved from atop the buildings. However only five bodies could be accounted for after the confrontation…

"How can they find six snipers but only five bodies?" Blunt asked, lowering the report onto his table, "They must've let one escape. That one must've been looking for information regarding something, perhaps another student at the school. The others were only there for distraction. But, why? What could they possibly be searching for through snipers?"

Mrs Jones stared at her boss without a word. Honestly, no-one would've come up with the conclusion he just did. Perhaps that was why Blunt wasn't fired after the whole fiasco with Damian Cray. Because Blunt was the only one who could possibly look at something unexpected which the enemy did, and come up with alternative explanations.

"What do snipers have?" Now Blunt was just thinking out loud. Mrs Jones supposed that that was probably a good thing; she didn't like it when her boss jumped to conclusions, so he'd fallen into the habit of thinking out loud when she was there so they could both follow his though pattern, "What do snipers have that other weapons don't? What could they achieve with snipers that they couldn't achieve with sending in…Snipers have scopes. They could easily identify targets. But not once did they aim for or at Mr Harris…"

"So they were looking for someone else," Mrs Jones surmised.

"Yes…the problem now is, who?"


"Are you sure it was her?" A low voice asked.

"Positive," a slightly higher but still manly voice answered.

"Hm…I thought Ivan Stalin would have been able to manage the job. Apparently I was wrong," the first man said, drumming his fingers lightly on the table, "We now need to deal with the both of them, though I must say, they have made this so much easier by being constantly together."

They were in a small but brightly lit room. The walls were painted a bright sunny yellow, the roof a slightly lighter shade of cream. The room, though extremely small, was one of the most secure rooms in the building, asides from the windowless cells which it neighbours. This room was scanned almost on a daily basis for bugs. Its walls were thick and sound proof, the ceiling reinforced so that it would take an extremely powerful explosive to break it apart.

There was an empty table and three chairs in the room. Currently, two chairs were occupied. It was very rarely that there were ever three people in the rather cramped room at the same time – that had only ever happened once before when they'd played host to a very important hostage.

The man who'd spoken first had been the appointed leader in the operation. His name was William Smith, American born and an agent with the CIA for years before he'd been fired and had moved to England. The man had been fired due to his 'overuse of excessive force during interrogation'. In other words, torture leading to permanent physical and mental damage.

The man who was currently reporting to him had no name. Well, he did have one once, but had long since let it go as something else which belonged in his past life. Now, his fellows and superiors merely referred to him as Scope, due to his legendary ability to never miss any targets with his sniper scope.

Both men worked for the ruthless organisation known as Scorpia.

It was very rarely that such an efficient organisation is ever bested. A little more than a year ago, it had been bested twice by a teenage boy. A boy, not even fourteen, had defeated two of their plans! What made it infinitely worse, was that a couple of months later, they'd been outdone again by another teenager. This time, a blonde girl, who'd been stupid enough to let herself be caught on their surveillance camera. Of course Scorpia had retaliated against both. But apparently that hadn't worked. Now, with both teens in the same place, they could kill two birds with one stone and get their revenge.

"I believe it's time we pay another visit to the Rider household," William said.

After all, Scorpia never forgives, Scorpia never forgets.


The suspense! Well, Scorpia just made their first ever appearance (I think)…

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Love Chariots99