Chapter Fourteen
Stars and Stripes
Alan Blunt moved the key towards the ignition, and then stopped. Something was not right. He'd had a sense of being watched since he'd left the Royal and General, over half an hour ago. He'd come straight here.
He had been followed. And something else was different. Nothing major, at first. His wing mirror was out of focus, as if it had been moved. There was a scratch on the dashboard. The radio station had been altered, not that he ever listened. It had previously been set to a local radio station, but now the dial had been twisted in between 108 and 109. He didn't bother switching it on. He unbuckled his seat belt, and climbed out of the car, and that was when Alan Blunt saw that the underside of the steering wheel had been taken out. It was not properly back in place, and two of the screws were missing.
He got out, and went around to the petrol tank. He knew it had been almost empty. If it was full, he would know. It was full. Alan Blunt had only time to turn around, when his whole body was engulfed in flame. He was thrown forwards, towards Hunter, and Hunter could see the skin, blackened, but not gone completely. The smell of burning filled the air, and no doubt at any moment, someone would alert the fire brigade.
Hunter fled.
When Jack Starbright awoke at nine o'clock, she knew something was up. She looked in Alex's room, and he wasn't there. She looked in the kitchen. She looked in the bathroom. She even looked in Ian's old study, though she could hardly bear more than a quick glance, even now.
Alex was nowhere to be found. She went into the living room, and saw that everything was a mess. Had Alex put up a fight? Someone had smashed a window, and broken in. How had she not heard? She quickly ran upstairs, dressed, and picked up the phone.
Alex awoke to find himself in tremendous pain. He had fought... He could remember that much. He had been overpowered, of course, but he would have fought to the death. Of course, they'd had weapons, both of them. But they'd been told to keep him alive. So they had hit him with the barrel of a gun, and dragged him away.
He didn't know who they were, or how they had gotten in. All he knew was that they were going to kill him.
He looked around. He was high up, that much he knew. The air was thin, and he guessed he might be in some kind of aircraft. All he could see were metal walls, and he was quite sure he was in the hold of an aeroplane. There was not much else he could see, and so he decided to sleep.
As soon as Mrs. Jones received John Crawley's email, she called in five of her top agents. She was in charge of MI6 now as, though Alan Blunt had survived, she'd been told that the damage he'd sustained could leave him permanently hospitalized. He had not awoken yet, but when he did, she did not want to give him news of the loss of their most unique agent. Alex Rider, had he been 10 years older, would have been the best. She had to get him back.
After briefing the five agents, she went to the hospital. She knew he had sustained massive injury, and had been warned by a kindly nurse that he would not look anything like she had once known him too. The nurse had been right, but she could still see him in there. His face has horribly burned, and one of his arms was completely disfigured. The nurse told Mrs. Jones that that would be a permanent loss. It was currently attached to a drip, and she could see it. Two of his fingers were entirely blackened, and his thumb had been bent into a strange and irregular position.
She had sat with him for a long time, not speaking. It made her sad, and she almost asked the nurse if there had been any other visitors. Family? Friends, maybe? She didn't, though. If Alan didn't want to reveal his private life, that was his choice. It would be betraying him.
As soon as Mrs. Jones left the hospital, she received a call. She answered, and the four words she heard before the voice hung up were "We have Alex Rider."
The caller had made one fatal mistake, however. They had called her personal phone, and only three people had that number. One of them was Alan Blunt. She assumed whoever it was had attempted to kill Blunt, and steal his phone to get Mrs. Jones' number. The mistake was that they had called her from Alan's phone. She had his number, and this could be used to track the phone.
Less than five minutes later, Mrs. Jones and her five top agents were on a flight to America.
This time when Alex awoke, he was in what appeared to be a living room. There were two armchairs, and a table in the centre. On the far wall was a painting, a Van Gogh imitation, by the looks of it. How ironic, he thought, that he should die in a living room. But even before he could formulate a plan, any way that he could escape, someone entered the room. Someone he knew, without having ever seen.