Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider. If I did... well, let's just say, I am not Anthony Horowitz.

Chapter 32: Olive Branches


"You… have…?" They, of all people, had heard of the PRISM project before? It couldn't be that easy. It wasn't possible that the answers had been sitting right in front of him this entire time. Right? After all, that would be astronomical luck.

More MI6 meddling?

Cameron peered at him, before shrugging slightly. "I don't know much, but we definitely came across it." He glanced over his shoulder at his unit mates. "Quite a few units were involved in some operations that I assume were connected to Project PRISM. But no one outright came and explained that. This was… what, four, five years ago?"

Four or five years was a long time – but maybe not in the realm of special ops and espionage. It still didn't answer the question of what or why, but if SAS units were involved, there was certainly reason enough for foreign organizations to be after the information. Even years later.

And it all somehow connected back to Ian.

"And?" Alex waved him to continue.

"I mean… that was when we were still relatively fresh," Cameron said. "Many of our assignments are based by the language of choice; our specialty. So, we usually get sent to Spanish speaking countries. It means that the majority of our on-duty, off-mission time is spent in Gibraltar, and from there we're shipped out to South and Central America every few months. Whenever there's something the higher ups think our skills would be useful for. Usually hostage negotiation or agent extraction – though to be fair, that has only been a couple of times. The time we spent in Spain was a bit of an oddity, to be honest." He sent Alex a rueful smile. "But four years ago, we were sent to Venezuela."

"We weren't supposed to know about the project," Mickey cut in. "But Jacobs has big ears and overhears a lot in the med tent."

Alex stifled a snort at Jacobs' glare, but focused on Cameron.

"He heard about this Project PRISM. An acronym, as far as we could tell, but I don't think any of us learned the details." He glanced at the others, but they all shook their heads. "It was very much hush hush. There were at least four other units in various parts of the country that were involved at this point, but I don't think they knew anything either. There were no explanations beyond our mission goal – to retrieve documents from the operatives."

"And someone made the mistake of writing down Project PRISM in the final report," Jacobs grumbled.

Cameron winced at that. "The higher ups were… not thrilled about that. Got sent to two months of refresher for potentially 'exposing state secrets.' Not our finest moment."

State secrets.

It still didn't explain it though. Something happening in South America was incredibly vague. Getting information from an operative. What was it about this Project PRISM that made the information so valuable…?

"That wasn't the last time we heard about Project PRISM though," Mickey added. "There was another… two years later. Also, in South America. Uruguay?"

"No, Paraguay."

He shrugged. "Whatever. Someone overheard it out of briefing – never made it into the report though, because we learned our lesson."

Alex kneaded his forehead. "But what is it?"

Cameron shrugged. "Damned if I know. The higher ups might have loose lips, but they didn't give much away. The gist however, was that it was somehow counter-terrorism intelligence for the U.K. Long con ops, managed by some bigwig that only showed up once every few years. Two years ago was the last I heard anything of it though."

Two years.

The first piece of the puzzle that fit. If it was all somehow connected to Ian, two years was right on scheduled. Because Ian had been killed two years ago. Everything had dropped off with his death. If he was in charge of managing some project and no one had taken it over… it suggested that information was missing.

Which…

Alex let his head fall to the table. It was all so confusing.

If any of Ian's files had been left behind, there were only a handful of places that they could have been stashed. Most of which were buried in the ruins of his old house.

Which had burned down around him for unknown reasons.

But those memories were gone. Permanently gone, as far as he could tell.

But there had definitely been a reason he had gone back to the house.

"So, we told you what we know. Time for some reciprocation."

Alex lifted his head to peer at Cameron skeptically. "What."

Cameron splayed his hands above the table. "You obviously know more about what's going on than we do – and we don't really expect you to freely share that information. However, we do need to know what we're up against." He waved his hand toward the USB. "MI6 demanding we pass on information is a little… out of the ordinary. And you're obviously more… familiar with them than we are."

Alex turned the words over in his head. Sure, there had been an olive branch, but… He still had no way of knowing that they were actually being truthful about not passing things on. It could all be a test.

Of course… some of it was practically public knowledge at MI6. Everyone there knew about Ian. Knew that Ian was an agent… If Alex misled them a little bit, while still pretending to give them what they wanted… it could be a win-win for all of them. "MI6 is… let's say part of the family business. My uncle was a spy, until he was murdered. I didn't know about any of this until after the fact, but I was already being targeted." Targeted at first by MI6, but that was semantics. It had all snowballed from there, going from bad to worse to absolutely horrific within a very short period of time. "The director thinks she knows what's best for me, but she hasn't had a very good track record in the past two years of keeping me safe." Alex chewed on his lip, wondering if that would be enough to satisfy their curiosity.

Cameron peered at him for a long moment, before sitting back in his chair. "Okay. I'll take that." He tapped his fingers on the table. "But I'm going to trust you to give us a bit of a warning before you do anything stupid. We've… dare I say it, somehow grown fond of you and would like you to keep kicking."

Alex felt heat rise in his neck and glanced away from them. He hasn't set out to make others trust him, to make them want to protect him.

He was better on his own.

But, for now… he supposed it wasn't doing much hurt.


A week later everything was thrown upside down again.

And it was a move Alex didn't understand.

Orders had come down from on high that they were to temporarily report back to London.

LONDON.

Alex had questioned Jones' moves in the past, but this one made no sense. To move him back to the city that he had tried so hard to escape from… And the city where operatives from who knows where would have easy access to him. It didn't sit right.

A sitting duck.

It made him wonder if for once and for all, he really couldn't trust Jones to have his best interest in mind. At least with the moves before she had – admittedly clumsily – kept him away from whoever was tracking him down. To bring him back within their reach…

It stunk of suspicion.

Either Jones was giving up or she was trying to use him as bait.

None of the others had been particularly pleased with the orders either – though that was most likely related to the vague determination of an end date. They were soldiers, not MI6 slaves, after all. They were steadily creeping closer to their expected off-duty time. And though no one specifically mentioned it around Alex, he knew that they were wondering what the next steps were going to be.

He didn't expect them to give up their family lives just to protect him.

Knuckled rapped on the door frame. "Mickey's doing the final sweep. Good in here?"

Alex took one last glance around his room. It had held a lot in the past few weeks. Nightmares. Heart to hearts. Discoveries. A bit of redemption. But now, the sheets were back and tucked in. The quilt back in its rightful place. The desk was clear. No evidence that any of that had occurred at all. "Guess so."

Nico passed over a tightly folded paper. "The info for the border crossing. A group of foreign nationals returning home from holidays."

Alex raised an eyebrow at him. "And the teenager is explained how…?"

Nico shrugged. "Guess they figure you can pass for a university student – at least at a glance. The border shouldn't give us any trouble. We'll take the train across, swap vehicles once we're in the country."

Which meant that they were immediately having to trust that MI6 had their best interests in mind. That there was no possibility that the arrangements weren't already sabotaged. They would be working blind in a country where infinitely more possibilities were present.

But they couldn't play their hand too early either. As much as Alex wanted to just throw it all to the wind, he knew better. Though he suspected that the SAS unit would follow him, even in direct defiance of their orders, there were still far too many unknowns. Too many risks to leave – but it meant that he in turn had to take risks to stay.

"If you're ready…?" Nico turned to leave. "Cameron wants to make the evening train out of Calais. And that's about seven hours from now. You'll have plenty of time to read that over."

Alex mused it over. That meant they were probably taking a more direct route. No circuitous routes that avoided cities.

Something had lit a fire under MI6 and they felt it was safer to bring him back into their clutches. It was concerning. Especially since not even the latest update from Smithers indicated any reason for bringing him back.

There was, of course, the danger that someone other than Jones was calling the shots now. Whether they used her security code or not…

Alex grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. The days of relaxing and recuperating were over – at least until this latest curve-ball was solved. Everything he had learned over the past several weeks pointed toward far too many players in the shadows that were somehow controlling his movements, with Jones barely holding the playing pieces together. She had felt it was better to keep him completely in the dark, even when there was cold, hard, historical evidence that suggested that was the worst way to approach the problem.

He would just have to be ready for anything.


The border crossing into the UK had been remarkably boring. The way it should be. The immigration officials had glanced through their papers, stamped where applicable, and then waved them through – not even bothering to ask their reasons for entering the county. Even with such a mix of supposed nationalities and ages.

Of course, Alex also noted that they had missed the firepower that the SAS team undoubtedly had hidden throughout the vehicle. How the drug sniffing dogs and officials that gave the car a cursory check over missed it – and it certainly didn't make him have much faith in their ability to keep real threats at bay.

So, in that case, it was probably good the SAS team had their weapons. At least Alex knew they weren't going to turn on him…

Which was more than he could say about any of his other MI6 assigned guardians, so that was probably a step in the right direction.

His shrink would probably have a field day with his newfound trust.

They crossed over the channel in a short manner of time and as promised there was another vehicle waiting there for them. Alex side eyed it as Cameron and Mickey looked it over carefully. It was too late at night for him to make out much more than it was a standard black SUV. And really, they hadn't killed him yet with the vehicles so…

Cameron came back, opened the back, and started pulling things out. "Get your stuff. We need to get up to London before midnight."

Alex glanced at his watch. That gave them a little over 2 hours. But it also meant that they were taking a fairly direct route once again.

It felt like a trap.

Nico seemed to sense Alex's hesitation. "Come on. Do you really think we'd let MI6 call all of the shots?" He waved a hand at the waiting vehicle. "This was sent from Command Central, at highest priority with one of Mickey's contacts. Same with the safehouse. That was the only way we gave in to come back here."

Alex swallowed. "But why?"

"Why?" Nico looked puzzled.

"Why are we here? Why did Jones call me back?" There was some underlying threat. Something that she hoped to achieve by having him back under her thumb.

Maybe he had made too much progress.

Was too much better.

And now she thought she could convince him to what she wanted.

But then, that didn't mesh with the persona she had been pushing for the months previous.

Maybe Blunt finally convinced her…

Nico grabbed his shoulder. "We're going to figure that out. Until then, you're under our protection."

Alex looked away. What had he done to deserve such loyalty? So far, all it seemed was that he was a stumbling block.

"Hurry up!" Cameron hissed. "We've got three minutes until the camera blackout rolls over and I certainly don't plan to still be here."

Alex stared at him. Camera blackout? "Is this related to Mickey's contacts?"

Nico gave a rueful grin. "I told you, we're in charge." He picked up Alex's backpack and tossed it to him. "Let's go before Cameron has an aneurysm."

Alex rolled his eyes, but followed along. Maybe being back in London wouldn't be all bad.


It was all bad.

Within less than 24 hours, it became clear that the SAS unit had no intention of letting anyone near him – the other side to that was Alex wasn't allowed to do anything. Although they had thoroughly vetted the new safehouse in Bethnal Green, they hardly let him out of their sight. It was a semi-detached house, which meant it shared too many walls with the neighboring house for the SAS unit's comfort. Meaning no outings. No fresh air. Nothing.

Nada.

Zip.

Zilch.

And Alex was going stir crazy by the end of two days.

Nico, for what it counted, seemed to have some sympathy, but that hadn't resulting in any loosening of the restrictions.

They were worried about MI6 swooping in and taking over – with cause.

But it also meant that anyone and everyone was a potential enemy and threat.

Not to mention that Jones was the reason he was back in London in the first place. Her patience would only stretch so far – and Alex feared what would happen if she decided that the SAS could no longer be trusted. He didn't trust her to make those types of decisions.

It all came to a head on the third day when Alex got a cryptic message on his music player. 'Weavers Fields 51°31'33.0"N 0°03'40.7"W. 2 pm, Thursday. Drop your tails, my boy. Jones has been keeping information.'

Only one person had access to, or even knew, about this method of contact. Smithers.

That was the only explanation.

And really, the only person that Alex was willing to tempt fate for. The only person likely to have information that Jones wasn't sharing.

He had two days to plan. And he would have to plan carefully.


A/N: Oh, Alex, what are you planning? Happy New Year everyone!