"Alex, how good it is to see you! What are you doing back here?" Mr. Crawley spoke very happily; as if this was the day he had been waiting for, for Alex to come back. And who knows, perhaps it had been.
Alex was sitting in Alan Blunt's office, but for once the man seemed to be away. Taking his place momentarily was Mr. Crawley. o:p
Alex would have rather been alone in Mr. Blunt's office, maybe to do a little snooping around to see if he could find out why he had been called in. He was sure he could find something to give him at least a hint. This was probably the reason that they had given him a babysitter, to make sure that he knew nothing of what was about to happen. He was reminded again why he left MI6.
"Mr. Crawley, do you know why I'm here? Is it that-," but he never got to finish what he was going to say because at that moment, Mr. Blunt walked in, and trailing behind him was Mrs. Jones.
"You my leave Crawley," Mr. Blunt made it sound like an invitation, but Crawley knew it was not. Mr. Crawley left the room saying good-bye to Alex on his way out.
Mr. Blunt looked the same as ever. The passing year hadn't changed him. But Mrs. Jones was another matter. She had grown out her hair and the outfit she wore was more colorful than what she used to wear, but despite this she seemed depressed; she looked like she had broke. In this job, seeing too much than was good for you, was a given. But something had to have made her crack; something terrible had made her break.
"Alex we have called you here today on very grime circumstances, we swore we would never call you back in again, but, I think you would at least want to be informed with what is going on, seeing as it is going on, in your school." Mrs. Jones spoke softly.
"Going on in my school?" Alex said. "What would that be?"
Mrs. Jones looked at Mr. Blunt as if asking him if she could stop. He nodded telling her to continue. "Alex, four months ago the government released a project called Connaissance. The word is French for knowledge, or information. This is a program that allows us to easily commutate with=2 0our operatives that are active. Now how it works is classified, but I think I can tell you the basics. In light of what has happened and what is happening, the operative sends us what is for lack of a better word, an 'E-Mail'. Before it goes to us, before it even leaves the device it is sent on, it goes through an encryption key. Now what this key does is simple, it encrypts the file so if anyone intercepted it, they would not be able to read it."
"A week ago one of our operatives sent us a file that was coded as well as encrypted, we thought this operative might have found something that about the key, perhaps it had been stolen, or even hacked. Why else would anyone code an encrypted file? Being extra careful? That's what we hoped for. But the events over the past four days have told us otherwise."
"See, just a day before we got the coded E-Mail, an operative was doing a routine check up on one of the corporations that you have dealt with before. For security purpose, we cannot tell you which one. We think this was the file that had been stolen and somehow read."
"What was in the E-Mail is grim news. This operative believes that some of your information was sold to an enemy."
"The person who intercepted the file is unknown, but Alex, we think it is one of your enemies friends' from your spy days, who is trying to get revenge on you. This person does not know your real name but was sold the name of your school.=E 2
"I wonder Alex, do you know a boy in your Maths class by the name of Adam Onis, or a boy whose name is Ronald Tornencein? I hope you don't Alex because, if you do, this news will come as grim news, not that it would be cheerful anyways." She sighed before continuing. "Adam was kidnapped from his home the day the E-Mail came in and Ronald was kidnapped just two days ago on the walk home with his friend. They are probably dead, killed for information that they did not have. In place of a person they might not have even known. We have, on very good sources, that they were kidnapped by the ones who intercepted that E-Mail, and the person who received your information."
"They are trying to find you Alex, they know what school you go to, but they do not know your name. So they will keep picking off the boys in your school in till they are satisfied they have got you and killed you."
"We have thought about pulling you out of school and hiding you in a save house far away, but for you to disappear while they trying to find this schoolboy that is also an agent? It would make you look guilty, and, we cannot have you hidden forever. So what if we tell the boys? Well that's just going to create panic and let them know that we know what they are trying to do, they would just work faster killing more boys at once." Mrs. Jones sighed. "You see this is a very much lose-lose situation. But then we thought we could just leave you alone and try to track them and catch them before someone else gets hurt. We know it is not the ideal plan, but we have no other choices."
"So, what your saying is," Alex paused to try to make sense of it, "that a friend of one of my enemies, is out to kill me. But they don't know my name, but they do know what school I go to. They are trying to find out who I am by kidnapping, and killing boys about my age."
"Yes, that's right," said Mr. Blunt.
AR AR AR
They had offered to put him in a cab. He refused. He would take the train. Besides, he wanted time to think about it, before he got home. He had to tell Jack about the news he had just been told.
He could just imagine how that conversation would go over.
"Jack, MI6 told me there is a murderous lunatic bent on killing me. But they don't know who I am, so they have just been killing boys in my place that have no idea what's going on. MI6 has no idea who this lunatic is, so they have no idea how to stop them, or where he is going to hit next. Tea?"
She would have him on the first plane to America. He would be leaving. And the kids in his school would be hopeless. Sure there were teachers, who could at least hide the kids…but could they fight? He snorted at the idea of Miss. Philis, his Algebra II teacher, who was 82 years old and blind as a bat, trying to ward of assassins.
No, for once MI6 was right; he was going to have to stay in school.
The train pulled to his stop and he got out. He began the short walk home. It was getting dark now. He wondered when Tom got home.
He walked the rest of the way home, no longer thinking, trying to keep his head clear for when he had to face Jack. He still wasn't sure what he should tell her. If he told her the truth, well, it is bye England.
But if he lied, she wouldn't be prepared for what might happen. Maybe that was better. No. He couldn't think that. He had to tell her something. Maybe he could tell her part of the truth. But what would keep her on her toes, but make it so he wasn't on a one-way flight?
It was too late... He was home. He pushed in the door. What he saw was Jack and Tom sitting in a kitchen chairs waiting for him. He shut the door.
"So," said Jack, holding a wine glass with what looked like red wine, she swished the contents of the cup, staring intently at the glass. "What did they want you for?"
"They wanted to tell me something," said Alex staling. He put his hands in his pocket. He was trying to put her at ease. The look on her face said very plainly it didn't work.
Jack put down her glass. She pushed in her chair and stood up, walking over to Alex.
"What type of news?" she asked, in a don't- give-me-bull voice.
"Well…" he was staling again. What should he do the truth or a lie? He wished he had stopped at the door and thought it out. To late for that now.
"Alex! What did they say to you? What did they tell you?" she asked, he could see her hand inching to her pocket where she kept her mobile phone, likely to call the airlines.
Alex then had an idea. He thought back to what they had told him, what had they kept saying? Ah, that was it.
"Alex what did they tell you? If you make me wait one more second-" she said angrily.
"Grim news,"