Chapter 2
Disclaimer: I forgot to put this in last time. Shame on me. I am not Anthony Horowitz and I do not own Alex Rider. I think some people were getting suspicious. -.-'
Author's notes: Wow, this was done quickly. I think that the number of reviews left on the last chapter must have made me super inspired or something. :) Enjoy.
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"I apologize for intruding like this," Ben said to Jack after he arrived. He smiled easily at her. Some of her tension dropped away. Alex marveled at how easily he had charmed her. "But we felt it would cause less disruption to Alex than if we took him away."
They were in the living room, Alex seated nervously on the edge of the sofa, Jack and Ben both standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. The room was in slight disarray, but cleaner than usual. Jack had insisted when she learnt they were going to have a guest, however unwelcome that guest was.
She smiled tightly in return. "I just wish it wasn't necessary," she murmured.
"Me too, Miss Starbright. And it probably isn't. We're just erring on the side of caution, that's all." He kept smiling. Jack looked more reassured than she had since Alex had told her what was happening. Alex would have felt reassured by it, too, if he couldn't see the little telltale bulge of a gun holster beneath Ben's jacket. And if he hadn't seen the man scanning the surrounding rooftops every time he looked out the window.
Maybe it was just that he was being prepared, or that old habits died hard, but it reminded Alex constantly of just why Ben was staying with them. It made it impossible for him to relax.
But Jack didn't see that. She took his words at face value. "Okay, then. We weren't expecting visitors, Mr. Daniels," she said apologetically after a pause. "But Ian's old room is clear. You can stay in there, if you like."
"That would be fantastic, Miss Starbright," Ben said with another smile. He bent and picked up his bag. He only had one with him, but it was quite big.
Jack smiled back, this time without tension. "It's Jack. If you're staying here, you might as well drop the formality."
"Only if you call me Ben in return. Deal?" He held out his hand.
Jack laughed and shook it. "Deal."
"Excellent." He smiled widely, as though it truly was. "Now, Alex, you want to show me where to drop my stuff?"
The house was quite big by the standards of London (and it had certainly felt that way to Alex when he was younger, before Jack had come to live with them, when he was often there alone) but it didn't take long to point out the highlights to Ben and show him Ian's old room. It was fairly bare. After MI6 had taken most of it and they had boxed the rest up, they hadn't bothered to do anything to the room. At the time it had been too fresh. Then it had just become unimportant.
"It's been cleared. MI6 came and took pretty much everything away, so you shouldn't trip over anything, you know, dangerous." Alex fidgeted awkwardly in the doorway. Like Ian's office, his bedroom had always been off limits and Alex didn't really want to go inside.
"It's fine, Alex." Ben said, dropping his bag on the bed and turning to look at him. "And I did mean it when I said I was sorry for intruding."
Alex furrowed his brow. "Well, you had to," he pointed out reasonably. "You're supposed to be looking out for me."
Ben gave him a sharp look. Maybe he hadn't worded that right. "Yes, I'm looking out for you," he said, dropping the 'supposed'. "But I know I get anxious when people stop by my place unannounced."
Alex tried to shrug it off. But Ben had hit very close to the truth. "It's not that it's you," he said uncomfortably. "It's that you're…"
"From MI6," Ben finished for him. "Look, I don't know the whole story behind this. One of the first things I asked about when I joined was you. But they said I didn't have a high enough clearance and I imagine there's a lot about your… arrangement that they're not too keen to tell anyone about."
Alex smiled at that. "Probably not," he agreed, thinking of how they had threatened to suspend Jack's visa and to send him to an orphanage or boarding school.
"So I can see how this would make you a little uncomfortable," Ben said.
Alex shrugged and looked away. "It's fine. At least it's you and not… just anyone." He knew first hand how most people reacted to his age. At the beginning, even Fox had treated it as a joke.
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The next morning, Alex was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to eat a bowl of cereal and do his homework at the same time. In the month he had been back at school, he had mostly caught up on what he had missed, though he still had the suspicion that he was missing large pieces of information. Half of his schoolwork seemed to make little sense.
"That's because its school work, Alex," Tom Harris had said in disgust when he mentioned it. "It never makes sense."
Alex wasn't so sure.
"Hey, kid," Ben said, entering the kitchen. "You're up early." He looked around. The kitchen wasn't that big. The table was in the center of the room. The wall opposite the door had a pantry and the fridge. The side wall had a bench with the sink and cupboards. Ben moved over to that wall and started opening them at random.
"So are you," Alex said. He watched Ben for a second, then said, "Cups and bowls are in the third cupboard, coffee is in the corner one, and cereal is in the pantry."
Ben grinned at him over his shoulder. He found a cup and made some coffee. "I'm supposed to be up early. It comes with the job. What are you doing?"
"Homework," Alex said, pointing to his book. "I don't suppose you know how to convert mass to moles, do you?"
Ben hovered over his shoulder and looked at the book. He wrinkled his nose. "Isn't there a triangle-y formula thing for that?"
"Triangle-y formula thing?" Alex asked dubiously.
"Yeah. So you don't have to rearrange it? Or something?" Ben looked just as confused as Alex felt. "I dunno. I haven't done any of that stuff in ten years."
"Nice to know it has real world applications, then," Alex said wryly. "That makes learning it so much more interesting."
Ben shrugged and took a sip of coffee. "Heh, maybe if you want to be a chemist or a demolitions expert or something."
Alex sighed. "Right." He went back to his homework.
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Alex arrived at school early that day because Ben dropped him off rather than biking to school like normal. But by the time Alex got there most of his friends knew that Miss Treat was back. He wasn't really surprised. She'd been incredibly popular last time she was here.
"Do you think we'll have her?" Tom asked wistfully once Alex had been filled in.
Alex reshouldered his bag and considered telling Tom that she was an MI6 agent. He decided against it, mostly because Tom was in awe of anything involved with MI6 and compounding that with his feelings for Miss Treat wouldn't be pretty, but also because he didn't know what the hell to tell Tom about it.
"Yeah, I think we will," he replied, smothering a laugh. Tom didn't notice.
"I hope so," Tom said. Then he brightened up. "Hey, do you want to come round to my place later on? Dad brought me a new video game. They had another fight." Tom's parents were going through a divorce. They were perfectly nice people, if they were apart, but something changed the instant they saw each other. He was always getting presents, or bribes as he called them, from both his parents.
Alex thought about it. "I'm sorry, I don't think I can," he said awkwardly. "But, if you want, you can come round to my place and bring it with you," he offered.
Tom looked curious. "Are you grounded?"
Alex shook his head. "Not really. Look, I'll explain it later, okay?"
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In his bare, functional office on the seventh floor of the 'Royal and General' bank, Alan Blunt looked down at the file on his desk that chronicled the security arrangements for Alex Rider's residence. It was a good plan. It covered the basics and concentrated on the areas that were weakest, such as the school. He nodded. This would work.
Then he picked up the phone and dialed a number that was written down nowhere. He knew many such numbers.
"Yes?" a blank, unfriendly voice said.
"Tell him," he ordered. At the other end of the phone there was a grunt of affirmation, then a click, and the dial tone resumed. Alan Blunt replaced the phone in its cradle.
Now it was time to send another agent into the Black Hand.
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The organization called Scorpia gained their name from the four areas of crime in which they dealt. Sabotague. Corruption. Intelligence. Assassination.
Their intelligence network was second to none. No government sanctioned intelligence agency could hope to match it. On every street corner, there was a man who would sell information to them in exchange for money to buy drugs or booze. In every office, there was a disgruntled employee who would betray company secrets. In every shop, there was a listener. In every pub.
Or so it seemed like. All this information was funneled to Scorpia, to deal with as it needed. And yet, this information network could betray them.
"Tell him," Alan Blunt had ordered from London. And somewhere in the world, in the hearing of one of these listeners, an MI6 agent under Scorpias eye told a friend that he would be returning to London to work with Alex Rider.
The information passed through Scorpia like a breeze, fueled by the name Rider and a day later was back in London, whispering in the ear of Yassen Gregorovich, just as it was meant to.
"Alex Rider," Yassen Gregorovich murmured softly. "What are you up to now?" His dark eyes scanned the room in front of him. The Black Hand was moving slowly, but was secure. He had already eliminated the agent MI6 had had in place. There were no others.
The first shipment would not arrive for weeks yet. There was time, perhaps, to find Alex Rider and see. Yes. He nodded to himself slowly. There was time to find Alex Rider and see why Scorpia had sent the name whispering into his ear.
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When Alex left school that afternoon, Ben was standing at the gate, arms folded, tapping his fingers nervously against his arm and scanning the streets constantly.
"Good, Alex," he said obvious relief in his voice. "There you are. Get in the car."
Alex didn't question. It didn't seem like the right time. He got in the car. But once Ben slid in beside him, he asked urgently. "What's going on? Is everything alright?"
"There's been a sighting of Gregorovich," Ben said grimly.
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