When Robert awoke, he was tied to a wooden chair, in a concrete, leaky room. A single bare bulb glared above him. He could see at the front of the room the man from the helicopter. The man looked to be about thirty, with dark, trimmed hair, and brown eyes. An ugly scar ran down the man's cheek, running vertically from his hairline to his chin.

"Hello?" Robert asked. The man refused to answer. Instead, he merely turned his back to Robert and walked out, slamming the heavy, iron door behind him. From the cold- Robert was only wearing a T-shirt and shorts- and the leak stains on the wall, Robert figured he must be somewhere underground. He also suspected he was still in America, as a Huey had an extremely limited range, only a few hundred miles, and these bastards didn't seem to have very many resources. At first he wondered why they would need him. Cursing himself for his own stupidity, he realized belatedly that they probably wanted him to make them a nuclear device. Unfortunately, he knew how to make one, and they would probably force him to. All he could do was make sure it was inefficient, and hope for the best.

3 weeks earlier

Alex had received a spam email advertising some whale-watching cruise. It had been two months since he had moved in with the Pleasants, and he had been thoroughly enjoying himself. As he was clicking the delete button, he noted the name of the agency. Cetacean Institute of America. The cruise ship's captain was listed as "Joseph Brynne". It was quite apparent, then, that Joe Byrne wanted to talk to him. At some point the CIA were going to have to come up with different acronyms and anagrams before some terrorist organization just started destroying all companies that remotely sounded like "CIA".

He hollered to Sabina, and asked her if she wanted to go downtown, and think about the possibility of going on a whale cruise. She agreed, after he stressed the first letters of each word. But, before they went off, she pulled him aside and asked him if this meant he was leaving again. He responded that he didn't know.

Once the two of them had biked to the non-descript building the CIA used as it's West Coast HQ, a security guard escorted Alex and Sabina into the office. He had hesitated in allowing Sabina to enter, but Joe Byrne ushered the two of them in, after Alex stated that Sabina, being as she was the closest thing to family he now had, ought to be able to know what was going on.

Byrne had put it bluntly. A terrorist organization that was liked to Al-Quaeda had gained possession of approximately thirty kilograms of highly enriched Uranium, either from Russia, Iran, or North Korea, and had abducted Robert Marshall, the "Nuclear Boy Scout", whom they knew had the know-how to create a nuclear device. MI6 and the CIA would use a combined task force to try to destroy the device. Mrs. Jones, however, had asked Joe Byrne into the possibility of getting Alex on board. The reason, she stated, was to be an adviser, and possibly, to help get Robert Marshall out when they destroyed the device.

"What are they planning to do with a bomb that size?" Asked Alex.

"We don't know for sure. The material they possess is insufficient to create a device capable of destroying a city, but we suspect that they may have other plans for it. Really, what we are afraid of is if they use it to detonate something far larger."

"Like what? What do you mean by "Far larger"? How can something be larger than a nuclear explosion?"

"It's only my gut saying this, but we believe them to have purchased bunker busters from North Korea, capable of drilling a hole through the side of a mountain. That leaves two possible targets in the continental United States. Either they are aiming to hit Cheyenne Mountain, which is NORAD's HQ, or they..." Byrne took a breath, as though he couldn't really believe what he was about to say. "Or they are trying to hit Mount Rainier. "

For the first time during the course of the meeting, Sabina spoke up. "Why would they do that?"

"There's been a theory," Byrne started, "That a nuclear device could cause a stratovolcano to erupt. Only a few Volcanoes would be able to erupt this way. Rainier, Anak Krakatau, Vesuvius, and Etna. All of them are active. All of them are on the Decade Watch List. All of them would kill millions of people if they erupt. We believe that they intend to target Rainier for two reasons; the first is that they would be able to send massive volumes of ash into the jet stream, thereby causing a "Mini Ice Age" that could last for up to five years, ruining crops, causing widespread famine, and the like, and the second reason, are the lahars it would form."

"A lahar," Byrne continued,"Is a massive mudslide. If Mount Rainier had a full eruption right now, and the entire glacier on top of the mountain melted, a three mile wide, four hundred foot tall mudslide would travel down the Puyallup River Valley towards the cities of Tacoma and Seattle at a speed of up to sixty miles per hour. In short, it would destroy the entire Puget Sound area, and kill possibly up to three-and-a-half million people. If the terrorists get this bomb, the State Department estimates that it could kill up to one hundred million people worldwide, from the lahars, from crop failures, and, most importantly, from the revolutions that are sure to happen. Revolutions always happen after massive famines. That is the terrorists' reasons for wanting this bomb. To take control of all of the countries thrown into chaos by the revolutions that are sure to happen. So my question is, Alex Rider, are you with us?"

Sabina looked at him. It was quite clear to Alex what her thoughts on the matter were.

"Yes."

Author's Note

Now, as clarification over some confusion, I would like to mention a few things. The "Nuclear Boy Scout" idea is based on David Charles Hahn, who, whilst still a boy scout, successfully created a small nuclear reactor. He now works (so far as I am aware) for the US Navy. The general idea for this story came to me a few years ago, when I was reading one of the books, Snakehead, I think, that a "Daisy Cutter" bomb, or even better (or worse, depending on your perspective- *chuckles*) a nuclear device would be able to cause an eruption. The most likely Volcano someone would use such a device on, would probably be on Mount Rainier, to destroy my former hometown of Tacoma, and by extension, Seattle. (I have now live in middle-of-nowhere, New York)I sincerely hope I do not offend anyone's religion during the course of this story. The terrorists I settled on are going to be called Al-Dhulfiquar, not because of any bias against Shi'ite Muslims in particular, but merely because I know more about Shia Islam than Sunni Islam. Why a Shi'ite terrorist organization would be in any way connected with a Sunni terrorist organization I do not know, but I'm gonna put it in there anyways. Also, constructive criticism is more than welcome, and I will try to accommodate complaints. This is, after all, my first story.