Well, this has been a ridiculously long time a-coming, but it's here now. Enjoy. And, apologies for the spurious plotline/assignment. But, I'm rather fond of Luc.
You'll find out.
DISCLAIMER: Well, I did ask Mr. Horowitz nicely, but he wouldn't give the characters to me. He just let me borrow them.
Alex had two blissful weeks of normalcy; he was given detention for not paying attention in class, battled with his maths homework, and struggled to catch up with his coursework, and enjoyed every second of it, just for the sheer novelty value. His problems were usually along the lines of preventing nuclear warfare. It was nice to have others to deal with.
Then, late on that Friday, the phone rang.
Jack and Alex were in the middle of supper, and Jack had picked it up, grumbling the whole time about bad timing people had, and how unfair it was that they had to choose to ring now.
A few terse, unfriendly words were exchanged, then Jack came back into the kitchen, and sat down with a frown. "It's for you. Alan Blunt's secretary, I think."
He went into the hall, and picked up the phone, which was lying on the table. "Hallo?" he said, a little warily.
"Alex Rider?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"I'm Emma Gibson. I work for the Royal and General."
Alex sighed. "Yes?"
"I'm just ringing to ask you whether you can come in tomorrow morning? To the bank, I mean. There are a few questions we need you to answer about your uncle's legacy to you. Would eight o'clock be alright for you?"
Alex frowned, knowing she couldn't see it, but unable to stop himself. "No, actually." He said, a little frigidly. "It's a school morning. I've got Biology, and I'm already behind with my coursework, due to all my… illnesses."
"The Bank will send a car."
"Yes, thank you, but I can't come tomorrow." He repeated, resisting the urge to snap it, and sound rude.
"It's an extremely urgent problem. Also, your guardian, Miss Starbright? We may have to talk to you about the renewal of her visa…"
Alex grimaced, but then a thought struck him. "Well, she should probably be the one to talk to you about that… maybe if she came in with me… After all, it wouldn't be legal to go behind her back, would it? And, you know, I think she's applied for renewal now; how much influence would you have on an already-processing visa application?" There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Alex grinned, making a mental note to talk to Jack about her visa. But for the moment, revenge was sweet; why should manipulation be a one way thing, anyway?
"Alright, Mr. Rider." The secretary sounded rather put-out, her voice cold. Alex grinned again, resisting the urge to cheer; a little victory, maybe, but more than he'd ever scored against MI6 before. "Can you come in on Saturday morning? Please bring a back pack of some sort." A short pause. "We'll send a car." She said, finally.
"Saturday morning would be fine, Miss Gibson. I'll take the Tube."
He put the phone down without waiting for a reply.
Jack looked up as he re-entered the kitchen. "MI6 again?" she asked, and he nodded. "Why can't they just bloody well leave you alone? Don't they get that you're a teenager, and you have a life you need to lead, rather than being dragged across the globe to be used as some sort of shield?"
Alex shrugged. "I dunno. But they've got a new toy to play with now, and everyone knows that toys are no fun if you don't play with them."
"What do you mean?"
"They've trained someone else like me. Matt, I think. Or maybe Mark. Anyway, they're going to want to put him in the field, and I guess they'll put me in with him, just to help him. God, he's gonna hate that." He added, grinning. "Might be fun, after all."
"That poor boy." Jack said, sympathetically, forking up some spinach. "Is he an orphan too?"
"Nope. He volunteered for this, I wouldn't feel to sorry for him. And anyway, if he turns out to be good at this, I get to 'retire', so there's an upside to everything." Thinking about it brought a rare grin to Alex's face. "You never know, this could be the last thing I ever have to do." He remembered his initial impression of Matthew, and the grin slid off his face. "Or, then again, maybe not."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," Alex said, quietly, cutting a potato in half to let it cool, without looking at Jack, "He hasn't got it in him to be a spy."
"Alex, before all this started, I wouldn't have said you had it in you to be a spy." Jack pointed out, reasonably. "Yes, you were fit and healthy, and you spoke however-many different languages, and you had more luck and curiosity than should be allowed, but I wouldn't have automatically equated those things to you being a natural spy. I thought you wanted to be a footballer."
"I wouldn't exactly say I 'wanted' to be a spy." Alex muttered. "I got coerced into it."
"How?" Jack asked, taking another mouthful.
"Various things." He said, slowly. "Um… Jack?" She nodded at him to show she was listening, her mouth full. "When does your visa run out?"
She swallowed, and stared at him for a couple of seconds. Mentally, he kicked himself; Jack was far from being stupid, and she had to have put two and two together. "They threatened you with deporting me?" she asked, eventually, in a very, very quiet voice, that Alex recognised as the calm before the storm. He nodded, with a small shrug. "Well, then." She said, tightly. "Anything else?"
"Well, Ian left everything to me; as we found out, at the reading of the will." Alex shifted, uncomfortably. "But, until I turn eighteen – or twenty one, I forget which – they hold it all in trust. They were going to…" he glanced at her; the look on her face told him that he didn't need to continue. "Well, yeah." He ended, rather lamely.
"OK." Jack said, nodding sharply. "Well, tomorrow, I'll go down and re-apply for my visa, so they can't hold that over your head. Unless…" she looked suddenly doubtful, "Can they bar a visa application?"
"They're not going to try, for a while – long enough for it to get through, I'd imagine." Alex shrugged.
"It takes about thirteen weeks, if you're a student." She bit her lip, "But, of course, I'm not any more. It might take the same amount of time, I don't know. I'll look into it." She looked at him, and smiled at his worried face. "Hey, don't worry, OK, Alex? I'll worry about this thing. And when that's done, I'll take steps to finding out how we can deal with this 'trust' they've got over this house, and everything else."
"Aren't visa applications, quite…" he paused, "Um, expensive?"
Jack laughed a little, though the tightness that Alex recognised as anger hadn't entirely left her posture, and there was a slight ring of defiance in her voice as she said, almost-lightly, "Alex, your uncle employed me as a live in help six years ago; and I've had wages for six year. I've got enough to cover a visa application – even a non-student one." She smiled at him, again. "I love you dearly, Al, and I'd do it for free, except we'd have very little to live on if I did."
Alex nodded, rather awkwardly, and she changed the subject, returning to her forgotten meal, and saying, as she did so, "So, this other boy – Matt?" he nodded, "You said that if he's good, you won't have to do this anymore?"
"Possibly. They might just recruit more and more kids. But, I guess, the more they get, the less they'll use me, so I can disapprove, but I'm not going to complain." Alex shrugged again.
"Fair enough." Jack nodded. "And – sorry, couldn't help overhearing – they want to see you this Saturday?"
"Yeah."
"Another assignment?" she asked, with a long suffering sigh. Alex nodded.
"Well, probably." He added, fairly
Jack shrugged. "Well, I guess there's nothing either of us can do – for the moment. I'll ask Tom to get your homework for you."
Alex nodded, unsure whether he should be grateful or not. Very little more was said.
Saturday arrived all too swiftly for Alex's tastes; he would have welcomed it if he never had to set foot inside the Royal and General Bank, but he wasn't stupid enough to ignore a direct summons.
He was met at the door, and escorted up to Blunt's office, where Matt was already sat, waiting, a distinct air of smugness around him. Alex sighed; apparently his new 'colleague' hadn't grown out of this self-created competition the way Alex had hoped he would.
"Alex." Blunt said, with his typical, almost off-putting directness. "Sit down." Silently, Alex pulled up the chair next to Matt, with a half-glance at Mrs. Jones, who was watching him carefully. Briefly, he wondered if she ever protested against the idea of child spies – whether she had voiced her concern over bringing in Matt, at least. After all, one child spy could be called opportunism. Two was deliberate exploitation. And from what he'd learnt about Mrs. Jones and her own children during his Scorpia 'assignment', he couldn't help but question, at least in his own mind, whether she had totally suppressed all her maternal instincts to the point where it didn't bother her that she was sending two children to semi-certain death.
"Two days ago, the President of United Steelworks, Jonathon Milroy, was taken ill." Blunt began, with his typical brusqueness, and Alex dragged his attention back to the 'meeting'. "He died yesterday." Alex bit back a sarcastic rejoinder, and saw that Matt was listening eagerly. He managed to stop himself rolling his eyes. "He was replaced by a man called Pierre-Philippe Girard."
Alex raised an eyebrow, waiting for them to get to the point. "And?"
Blunt frowned at him. "Milroy was diagnosed with gastric flu, when he died, and the body was cremated before any further tests could be done on him."
"So, Girard murdered him, gave him arsenic, or something." Alex said, impatiently. "What else? What do you need us for?"
Matt gave him a glance almost as disapproving as Blunt's was acerbic. Alex resisted the urge to sigh.
"Girard's ascent through the ranks of United Steelworks has been littered with circumstantial deaths." Blunt continued, dispassionately. "The French government has had their eye on him for a while, but there has never been any concrete evidence against him; and all of the people who've died have been diagnosed with seemingly natural deaths, generally some sort of gastric problem, or kidney failure; in fact, none of these deaths would be at all suspicious, were it not for the fact that the only person who stood to, and did, gain, was Girard."
"He's power mad." Alex surmised, flatly. "It's a little obsessive, but it doesn't need spies."
"Immediately as he became President of the company, he cancelled several long-standing orders with various firms." Blunt continued, quietly, as if he hadn't heard. "Privately owned French companies are required to submit documentation to the government detailing their expenditure, and their income. Girard did this – but in a routine governmental check of his factory, several of his claims about them didn't add up. He covered himself well enough, but it raised suspicions."
"And you want us to find out what he's doing with 'United Steelworks'?" Alex said, raising an eyebrow.
"French policemen were sent in." Mrs. Jones said, briefly. "But they – died. It was claimed they had a skiing accident."
"They might have done."
"Neither of them skied." Blunt replied, shortly.
"Why does this involve British spies?" Alex asked, pointedly.
Blunt looked at him coldly for a few moments. "That's what we're asking you to find out."
Alex sighed. He hadn't really been expecting a detailed answer.
"We've got your briefings here." Mrs. Jones said, softly, after a brief pause, producing two beige folders which she'd been holding on her lap. "I assume you both brought bags, as we asked you to?" Matt held his up; Alex simply nodded. "Good. You're leaving this Wednesday; we'll provide your schools with reasons. Once you've read the details in those files, and memorised them, you will have to destroy them, is that clear?" Two nods, and Alex noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that Matt glanced at him, very slightly, as that was said.
"You'll be working with a member of our own organisation, and some from the DGSE…"
"I'm sorry?" Matt interrupted. Unconsciously, Alex stiffened, waiting for some sort of explosion – but Blunt just grimaced slightly, and said, slowly,
"The 'Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure'," Alex noted in passing that Blunt had a flawless French accent. "The French Secret Service. You do both speak French fluently, yes?" Again, two identical nods. "Good." He pressed a button on his desk, and said, quietly, "Send them in."
There was a couple of seconds silence, before the door opened, and two people entered, a man and a woman. Alex stood up, without really thinking about it, and saw Matt follow suit a couple of seconds later. The woman held out her hand first.
"Joanne Armitage." She said, shaking Alex's hand, firmly, and raising a questioning eyebrow at him.
"Alex Rider." He said, giving her a small, tight smile.
"Luc Moreau. I suppose you're my son?" The man said, dark, faintly amused eyes looking at him critically, as he also shook Alex's hand. His name was French. His accent wasn't.
Alex shrugged. "If you say so." He replied. "We haven't quite got that far in the briefing."
"We're supposed to play happy families." Armitage said, with a faint, lopsided smile. "And we've also been told…" she glanced at Blunt, and looked back at Alex with a tiny, hardly noticeable shrug, her smile widening fractionally. "Well – maybe later."
"You'll be staying with Moreau and Armitage for the next few days." Mrs. Jones told them; her voice was gentle, but her eyes were sharp. "You are, as Armitage said, a family; she has just been given a job at United Steelworks. Moreau is working as a ski instructor." She looked at the pair of them, carefully. "You've been enrolled in the local schools – you'll find the details of your family, and past life, in your files."
"The reason we're sending you," Blunt cut in, his voice bland, "is because we know that a pair of adults turning up will look suspicious; with children, they are nothing more than an ordinary family. Any problems you have with French can be passed of due to your long stay in England – as will explain your fluent English." He nodded at Moreau, who inclined his head. Only Alex noticed the faint hint of laughter in his eyes as he did it.
"You'll be travelling with various bits of furniture, the same as a normal family would when they were moving; you'll find clothes and books and everything else you might need to pack at the house you'll be staying in for the next few days."
Alex could hear the dismissal in her voice, and turned to go, as did the others.
"Alex." Mrs. Jones said, quietly, "A word, please."
He paused, waiting while the others filed out, then turned to them, his face cold. "Yes?"
"You'll need to go and see Smithers." She told him. "He'll give you various things he's designed for you…"
"I thought Matt and I were just there for cover?" he asked, coolly. "What do we need gadgets for? And why isn't Matt here as well, to get these 'things'?"
"There's no harm in being prepared." She pointed out. "We're going to give you both ski suits – you can give Matt his – like the ones you had at Point Blanc," Alex repressed a shudder at the name of the school he'd 'attended' and nearly been dissected at, "And he has various other things for you." She paused. "And we'll contact your housekeeper, Jack. From now until the end of your assignment, you won't be able to contact her, or any other of your friends."
"Right." Alex said, heavily. "So, cut off from normality again, huh?" He sighed, when they looked at him, blankly. "Alright. I understand."
"Good." Blunt said, brusquely.
"Alex – watch out for Matt." Mrs. Jones said, quickly. She didn't sound worried for the other boy; more as if this was something she had to say, something routine, something she had memorised.
"Why?" he shrugged. "I thought he was 'just like me'? I didn't need someone to watch out for me." He watched them carefully; Mrs. Jones had definitely flushed a little.
"It's for your own protection as well." Blunt answered, and Alex stared at him. He had never known Blunt be at all interested in his protection. "Green spies can get people killed. There's no sense losing both of you, when we've put so much into you."
"I think you've taken more out of me than you've put in." Alex said, unable to fully keep the resentment out of his voice. There was a moment's silence. "Can I go?" he asked, eventually. "I wouldn't want to keep Smithers waiting."
He didn't wait for a reply.
And, there you go. Please tell me what you think.
Lol, ami. xxx