Chapter One KSR

Alex Rider glared at the man sitting in front of him. As usual, Alan Blunt looked as if he was carved from a piece of particularly old Plasticine.

'You want me to do what?'

'We're afraid,' Alan Blunt said, 'that this girl is in danger.'

'Why?'

'Her sister has just been killed.'

He leant across the table and pushed a photograph underneath Alex's nose.

Alex willed himself to look down at it.

The girl staring challengingly at him from the picture was nothing short of stunning. Her hair was very fair, and looped back off her face in a ponytail. Her eyes were hard and blue. She wasn't smiling.

'Which one's this?' Alex asked, dragging his eyes away.

'Pardon?'

'The girl or her sister?'

'Oh. The girl. Her name is Lacey Jayne Anders.'

'And you want me to …? What, exactly?'

Alan Blunt sighed. Alex Rider's glare had not subsided, and his eyes were beginning to feel like lasers. He rubbed his temples, opened a desk drawer and took out a thick wad of papers.

'I'll be blunt, Alex.'

'You always are.'

'This girl has recently been taken on by the KSR. Kentucky Spy Ring. That may sound trivial to you, Alex, but there is a lot of work for a spy ring out in Kentucky, believe me. It's a dangerous job. But that would be OK, if it wasn't for the fact that her sister, who was killed, also worked for the spy ring. And so did their parents.'

'And don't tell me …' Alex said slowly, beginning to sense a Blunt bombshell. 'They were spies too, right?'

'Right. Someone has it in for the Anders.'

'Well, surely that's OK. All they have to do is stop being spies, huh? Then they'll be left alone.'

'Not quite. The KSR seem to have some sort of contract which means that this girl –' he tapped the picture thoughtfully '– has to continue work for them whether she likes it or not.'

'Sounds familiar,' Alex commented, through gritted teeth.

'Anyway, Alex, we were contacted by the Kentucky Police a few days ago. They feel that Lacey Jayne will be ambushed if she is put on to any sort of case. The Kentucky Police have warned the KSR of this, but apparently they don't seem to care.'

'Sounds even more familiar,' Alex muttered.

'Which means, Alex, that Lacey Jayne Anders needs someone else to work on the case with her.'

'Great,' Alex said, flaring up. 'I have to babysit some girl now, do I?'

'Actually, reviewing the information, she'll probably be the one doing the babysitting.'

As usual, there was no hint of mirth in Alan Blunt's pale eyes.

Alex sat down and picked up the picture again. He ran his fingers over the smooth surface of that beautiful, dangerous face that betrayed no emotion … almost as bad, he thought, as Alan Blunt's Plasticine mask.

'What's this case she's working on?' he finally asked.

'A simple theft case, according the KSR,' Alan Blunt said, 'but we think there's something more to it. Mrs Jones has a hunch.'

Alex shifted uncomfortably. Mrs Jones' hunches usually turned out to be correct.

'Lacey was chosen to work on the case because the theft took place at a school, which means she can go undercover as a student. And which means you can go undercover, too.'

'Is that all you're going to tell me?'

'That's all we know.'

'All right.' Alex couldn't help it: he was intrigued. Intrigued by the mysterious Lacey Jayne Anders. 'Just one last thing. If it's just a simple theft case, why have the KSR become involved?'

'They volunteered,' Blunt said, with a chilling laugh that sent shivers up and down Alex's spine. 'And it's your job to find out why.'

This had to be the weirdest case ever, Alex thought, as the plane began to gain height. Alan Blunt had been talking in riddles. Was he supposed to spy on this mysterious Lacey girl? Or just on this even more mysterious spy organisation, the KSR?

Alex laughed comfortably to himself. It was almost hilarious. It could almost be a fast-food company. The KFC.

On the other hand, there was Lacey's sister's murder. Alan Blunt hadn't known very much about that either. Apparently, KSR were keeping it to themselves. All he knew was that involved an invisible killer who had managed to enter the house two days before, complete the murder during the night and leave unseen and unheard. It was Lacey who had found her sister's body the next morning.

Alex gave an involuntary shudder and told himself to grow up. He reached into his backpack and produced what looked like a simple CD player with earphones, but actually doubled up as a device for cutting metal and as a bomb.

Smithers had not given him all that much. He had been in a very grumpy mood when Alex had visited him earlier that morning, not at all like his usual cheerful self.

'I suppose,' he had said, dumping the CD player unceremoniously on the table in front of Alex, 'that this spy ring you're visiting will have much more fancy stuff than I can give you here.'

'I haven't been recruited by them, Smithers,' Alex had said, feeling a momentary pang.

Jack had not been all that pleased to hear that Alex was off again.

'Your schoolwork,' she'd said before kissing him goodbye outside the airport, 'is suffering. I suppose it's for the best. But you won't even be practising any languages, will you? You'll probably come back speaking Kentucky dialect …'

Jack was from New York, and very suspicious of outsiders.

Alex stared out of the window. They were above the clouds by now. The sun was bright on the tiny window. He felt cramped. He longed for air. He reached into his backpack and tugged out the picture of Lacey once more. The edges were beginning to crumple. He must have pulled it out every ten minutes ever since the plane had set off.

'Any orders, sir?'

It was the air hostess. She was quite tall, with smooth brown arms and a long rope of plaited fair hair hanging down from her cap. Her face was shadowed by the luggage rack overhead.

'No, that's OK,' Alex began.

Very suddenly, she slid into the seat beside him and her fingers fastened about his mouth.

He choked for air, and then his training kicked in, and he forced her arms up and pinned her back against the seat. And then he let her go in shock.

He'd looked at the photo of her enough to recognise her immediately.

It was Lacey Jayne Anders.