12.47 pm, Wednesday, March 30th

Brecon Beacons, Wales

The sergeant stood up as Ian entered the room, a small but genuine smile on his face.

"Well I'll be damned. As I live and breathe, it's Jaguar".

He grasped his hand and shook it once, twice, and thrice.

"Sir" Ian returned, "I'm surprised you remember me".

"Are you kidding? The mess hall still has fucking scorch marks from you and that nightmare brother of yours! Speaking of, how is Stag?"

"... Dead, sir".

"Oh". He blinked, startled. "I'm sorry to hear that, Jag. He was a good man. Not a very smart one since he joined the SIS and all, but… well, he was one of the truly honourable ones".

His throat felt strangely tight. "Thank you, sir".

"But you were just as thick as he was, weren't you? Abandoning this place a year later to follow in his footsteps. So, how is Special Operations doing these days?"

"I wouldn't know, sir" he replied easily, "I quit".

"Oh yeah?" The sergeant gave him a wry grin. "What'd they do to fuck you over? Not enough health care?"

"They murdered my brother".

"… Well then. You best have a seat".

Ian gladly collapsed down in one of the two chairs in front of the man's desk. It had been a long drive from London - four hours, in fact - and he'd had to leave ridiculously early to be on time for the only twenty-minute time slot that the sergeant could afford to give him this week.

"I was surprised when my Corporal told me you'd rang - surprised that you even had the number". He gave Ian a rather pointed look, but the younger man had seen far more terrifying things than his old CO since leaving the SAS so he didn't crack under the pressure. "I'm only sorry that it took so long before I could pencil you in. You heard of the Stormbreakers?"

Ian frowned, remembering seeing a piece about it in last week's paper.

"Sayle, right? Giving free computers to every school?"

"That's the one". The sergeant leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "But since the bloody prime minister is the man pressing the button, I'm stuck with babysitting duty. The damn thing's in two days, and I've still got five units to get up to scratch to provide security for that fucking convention in London".

He shook his head in disgust, before suddenly turning back to him.

"But anyway! Enough about all that. What can I do for you, Jag?"

"Not have me committed, for starters".

"Committed, eh?" A dark eyebrow rose in interest. "And have you done anything that would make me think you should be shipped off to a retirement farm?"

"Not yet. But I'm about to". Ian took a deep breath and braced himself for the inevitable laughter. "I've heard a few rumours - about a boy that recently came here".

The sergeant didn't laugh. Instead, he seemed to freeze.

"... A few rumours, huh? And where, exactly, did you hear these rumours?"

"My source would prefer to remain anonymous".

Slowly straightening up, the sergeant glanced around the room as if expecting someone to jump out and yell "surprise!" at any moment. When no one did, he turned back to Ian and levelled him with a worryingly serious expression.

"Why do you want to know, Jag?"

He felt his heart rate increase.

"So there was a boy here?"

"Why do you want to know?"

They stared at each other, neither man willing to back down - but Ian knew that he had the most to lose here, so after a minute, he looked away.

"... Stag had a son, a few years after joining the SIS. Alex. My brother and his wife died not long after he was born, so I raised him. That's why I quit MI6 - they had already gotten John killed, and I didn't want Alex to be brought up in foster care… Three weeks ago, Alex went missing".

The sergeant had paled - paled so quickly and so dramatically that for a split second, Ian worried that he was going to faint.

"I've got a friend at Vauxhall who owed me a favour. He did some digging around and found a sales order that said a bunch of clothes for a teenage boy had been shipped off to a training centre in Wales". Ian gave the man a rather sardonic look. "Any chance you've lowered the recruitment age since I was here last?"

"... No" the sergeant replied quietly, "No, but the SIS… It's not my job to ask questions, Jaguar, you know that. And when the higher-ups… I was told to keep mum about it. Ordered to never breathe a word of it to anyone! I thought I'd seen it all… until I saw Cub".

"Cub?" Ian asked sharply, heart pounding in his chest.

The sergeant ran a world-weary hand over his face.

"Those fucking pricks in London!" he growled, "I told them it was a stupid idea! I don't know what they were thinking of, sending me a child like that - and expecting me to train him in only two weeks, too!"

"Alex was here?"

"If Cub is Alex, then… yeah". The man suddenly sounded exhausted. "Christ, I knew he looked familiar! But I could never put my finger on it - the amount of men that come through here, are you kidding me? I'm surprised that they haven't already all blurred into one! And now you're here, telling me that that was Stag's boy?! Those fucking picks!"

Ian could hardly believe it. He had found him! He had finally found Alex!

"Is he still here?"

The sergeant's expression immediately turned from furious to remorseful.

"No, Jag, he's not… SO picked him up two days ago. I don't know where they took him".

And just like that - his world crumbled around him once more.

"But listen to me, Jaguar". He leaned closer across the table. "The boy was fine. He was fit, he was healthy - exhausted, probably, but there's not a single person here who isn't! Whatever the SIS want with him for… they need him alive".

Blunt's face suddenly flashed before him - sitting behind a desk in a featureless office almost fourteen years ago to the day.

"The best is now dead… So just who the hell do you think is going to fill John's shoes?"

"Who indeed…"

"Did he say anything to you?"

His voice was faint, hoarse, but thankfully the man didn't comment on it.

"Not a thing. I thought he was here willingly, mind you, so I didn't exactly coddle the boy. But he was smart, clever. Knew when to keep his head down and knew when he could risk talking back. He certainly kept the rest of his unit on their toes… Maybe he said something to them".

Suddenly reaching out, he pressed a small button at the end of the desk. There was a click, a brief burst of static, and then-

"Sir?"

"Corporal, what do K-Unit have scheduled right now?"

There was a shuffling of papers audible across the intercom.

"Downtime, sir. Their next exercise is the assault course at… fourteen hundred hours".

"Thank you, Corporal".

The sergeant lifted his finger off of the button and gave Ian a significant look.

"How would you like a tour of your old training base?"

1.03 pm, Wednesday, 30th March

Port Tallon, Cornwall

It was only his first day here and already, Alex was exhausted.

He'd found a message, presumably written by the last agent MI6 had sent, the moment he'd woken up that morning - a strange design with what looked like a reference number beneath it. It hadn't made any sense to him, but he'd sent a photo of it to Mrs Jones anyway, just in case it meant something to MI6.

Afterwards, he'd been escorted by Mr Grin to meet the wonderful Nadia Vole, who was just as severe and blank-faced as the jellyfish. She was the one who'd brought him to this bare, square room, with a chair and a desk and the first Stormbreaker he had ever seen. And having spent the last four hours playing with it, Alex had to admit - it was pretty fucking cool.

But he still had a job to do.

Standing up, he stretched with a groan before walking over to the door and looking out. There was nobody in sight. Time to move.

Block A was administration and recreation, full of offices and cafeterias. Block B was full of computer screens and printers. Block C was a seemingly endless library, before finally, he reached Block D - the place where Vole had told him the main Stormbreaker assembly line could be found.

Alex slipped off his shoes and, carrying them in his hand, hurried down the metal steps. It was like stepping into a morgue. The air-conditioning was so strong that he could feel it on his forehead and on the palms of his hands, fast-freezing his sweat.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and put his shoes back on. He headed for the door at the end of the passage and, as he'd predicted, it was locked. He pressed his ear against the metal and listened.

Nothing.

Unless… was he imagining it? A sort of throbbing. A pump or something like it. Alex would have given anything to see through the metal - and suddenly he realised that he could.

The Nintendo Switch was in his pocket. Tapping on the app called Exocet, he held the back of the device against the door. To his amazement, the screen flickered into life; a tiny, almost opaque window like an x-ray looking through the metal door.

Alex fumbled in his pocket and took out the set of earphones that had come with the Nintendo and quickly plugged them in.

"-place. We have twenty-four hours".

"It's not enough."

"It's all we have. They come in tonight. At oh-two-hundred".

Alex didn't recognize any of the voices. Amplified by the tiny machine, they sounded like a telephone call from abroad on a very bad line.

"... Grin … overseeing the delivery".

"It's still ... not enough time".

And then they were gone.

1.06 pm, Wednesday, March 30th

Brecon Beacons, Wales

"There was no love lost between Cub and the others" the sergeant told them as they made their way through the muddy field, "Wolf, in particular, seemed to take offence to a kid being here - not that I blame him, but… well, he shouldn't have been so vocal about it - especially since he's K-Unit leader. Nobody was happy to have that boy go through selection".

Ian could empathise - he'd been six years older than Alex was now when he'd done his own fourteen weeks here, and it had been brutal.

"That's them". The sergeant pointed at one of the many identical wooden huts stretched out ahead. "Or, what's left of them, anyway. Our good friends in London pinched one of my other men too, while they were here… Listen, Jaguar, I've got to get back - there's still a fuck ton that needs to be done before that Sayle convention - but swing by before you leave, alright? And if my men give you any shit, direct them to me".

"I will" he promised, "Thank you, sir".

The man merely nodded before turning around and making his way back through the grey, overcast drizzle. Steeling himself, Ian walked up to the hut, rapped on the door twice, and then stepped in.

There were three men inside, all a good decade or so younger than himself, and that, at least, was somewhat reassuring. It may have been stupid of him to think so, but he'd rather Alex have spent two weeks with fresh-faced recruits than two weeks with hardened veterans.

Each man had immediately leapt to attention as he entered; no doubt presuming that he was a higher-up, there for a surprise inspection, but once they caught sight of his civilian clothes and longer-than-regulation haircut, they relaxed into a curious state of confusion.

"Who the hell are you?"

The man who spoke took a step forward, and based on the tough guy air he was giving off, Ian felt it safe to assume that this was Wolf.

"I'm here to ask a few questions".

"That doesn't answer my question".

"Well it's a good thing you're not the one asking them, then, isn't it?"

He squared up to him, no doubt ready to throw down at the slightest provocation, and Ian couldn't help but think that if this guy had done the same to Alex - innocent, friendly, kind fourteen-year-old Alex - then he might just agree to a fight after all.

"Wolf". The tallest of the group spoke up, his tone a touch on the warning side. "Let's hear him out, at least".

"Hear him out?" He scoffed. "Special Operations has already taken Fox. You want them to take another one of us too?"

"I'm not MI6" Ian interjected before an argument could break out, "Quite the opposite, in fact".

"You?" Wolf glanced him up and down. "A soldier?! Don't make me laugh".

Well, if that was how he wanted to play it…

"You guys still keep track of assault course records?"

Wolf shifted uneasily from foot to foot. "Yeah".

"Yeah" he repeated flatly, "I bet you fifty quid that the code name Jaguar is still in the top three".

His eyes widened in realisation but thankfully, he didn't challenge him on it.

"My real name is Ian Rider" he continued, "And I believe you know my nephew - Cub".

If possible, the man's eyes widened even more, and he took a step back even as the other two men stepped closer.

"Cub already left" the tall man said, his accent faintly Scottish, "Someone from SO took him away a few days ago".

"I know" he replied, his anger making his voice shake, "But the SO don't exactly have him legally".

"They- They kidnapped him?" For the first time, the third man spoke. He had dark hair but surprisingly bright eyes, and genuinely seemed horrified by what he was hearing.

"Yes. They did".

"Why?!"

"... I don't know" Ian admitted, "But I heard a few rumours that a boy was sent here, and your sergeant confirmed it. What I want to know, is if he said anything to you".

"Cub? No. No, he was, uh… he was a pretty quiet kid" the man replied, "Sharp, though. And funny, too - when he actually talked to us".

Alex was sharp, and he did have a wicked sense of humour - something which had gotten him in trouble on more than one occasion before. But quiet? That didn't sound like him at all.

"Did he tell you why he was here?"

"We asked him, the first night he showed up, but…" The Scottish man shrugged. "He just said that he couldn't tell us".

"Couldn't?" Ian asked sharply, "Or wouldn't?"

The man glanced over at Wolf who was starting to look a little bit queasy.

"He said- He said that he wasn't allowed".

"Did he say anything else? Who had brought him here? Why he was even here in the first place?"

Wolf was already shaking his head.

"No. No, he didn't- didn't tell us anything like that! He hardly spoke at all".

"And I wonder why that was".

Interestingly, the Scotsman was glaring furiously at him, and Wolf spun around with a scowl of his own.

"You didn't treat him any better either!"

"I stayed out of his way" he shot back, "Just like you should have done!"

"He was a bloody schoolboy, Snake! He shouldn't have even been here!"

"No, he shouldn't have" Ian interrupted before the taller man - Snake - could reply, "But he was here, and from what I can tell, he wasn't exactly treated very fairly, now was he?"

The temperature of the room seemed to drop by ten degrees.

"... I didn't know he'd been kidnapped" Wolf said quietly, "I mean - what the hell would SO want with a kid?! I thought- I just thought that he was some sort of spoiled brat who'd been sent here to get straightened out, alright?"

"And you… what? Thought that spending two weeks in the world's toughest training camp wasn't good enough to straighten him out?"

"I was scared, alright?!" Wolf exploded, "We all worked our asses off to get where we are today! And you should know yourself - if one member gets binned, then the entire unit gets binned! There was no bloody chance in hell that Cub was going to survive the selection process, which meant that none of us would pass either, and I just- I was scared, alright?"

"You were scared".

Ian's voice was low, dangerous, and as he silently stepped forward, the man shrank back in fear.

"You were scared" he repeated, not stopping until they were toe-to-toe, "If you were so scared, Wolf, then how the hell do you think that fourteen-year-old child felt?"

The hut was deathly silent, only the wind whipping through the trees outside forming any sort of sound at all.

"... He was only fourteen?" the dark-haired man asked, softly, "I thought… I mean I knew he was young, but… but I didn't think he was that young".

"I thought he was sixteen or seventeen" Snake agreed, "Enlistment age, at least".

Wolf had yet to speak, but given how he was currently trembling in fear and couldn't bring himself to meet anyone's eyes, Ian was satisfied that the message had gotten through.

"He turned fourteen in February" he said, finally stepping back, "But Alex always was mature for his age".

"... Alex? That's his name?"

"That's his name".

Snake slowly nodded and seemed to come to a decision.

"Eagle, you still got that burner phone you smuggled in?"

The dark-haired man immediately baulked.

"What? Burner phone? What are you- I don't- I- I never-"

"Look, we know you talk to your girlfriend, alright? We've heard you".

"With excruciating detail" Wolf added, still somewhat shell-shocked, and the third soldier - Eagle - flushed bright red before reluctantly reaching underneath the mattress of his bunk and pulling out a slim black phone.

Snake took it and handed it to Ian.

"Put your number in and we'll text you if we hear anything".

He took it with a grateful nod and did as told.

"You know anyone in SO?"

"Perhaps" he replied vaguely, handing back the phone.

Snake nodded at one of the beds in the room - the only one without any bedsheets.

"Our fourth member, Fox, was recruited around the same time Cub left. Yeah, we still think he's an absolute dick for leaving to go join the enemy, but he's a good guy, and I saved his ass during a hike once, so he owes me one… If you can find some way of contacting him, and tell him that K-Unit sent you, then you'll have an inside man".

Ian didn't even know what to say other than-

"Thank you". His voice may or may not have cracked on the last word, but they were smart enough not to mention it. "Really. Thank you".

"It's the least we can do". Surprisingly, it was Wolf who replied. "I… shouldn't have treated Cub like that. We left it on good enough terms, but… well, I'd like to say sorry to him in person one day. Whether we like it or not, he's one of us now - and we never leave a man behind".

1.17 pm, Wednesday, 30th March

Port Tallon, Cornwall

Alex tried to piece together what he had heard. Something was being delivered. Two hours after midnight. Mr Grin was arranging the delivery. But what? Why?

He had just turned off the Nintendo Switch and put it back into his pocket when he heard the scrunch of gravel behind him that told him he was no longer alone. He turned around and found himself facing Nadia Vole.

Alex realised that she had tried to sneak up on him. She had known he was down here.

"What are you doing, Alex?" she asked. Her voice was like poisoned honey.

"Nothing".

"I asked you to stay in your room".

"Yes. But I'd been there all day. I needed a break".

"And you came down here?"

"I saw the stairs. I thought they might lead to the toilet".

There was a long silence. Behind him, Alex could still hear - or feel - the throbbing from the secret room. Then the woman nodded as if she had decided to accept his story.

"There is nothing down here" she said, lying like the lying liar that she was, "This door leads only to the generator room. I will take you back to the main house and later you must prepare for dinner with Herr Sayle. He wishes to know your first impressions of the Stormbreaker".

She gestured, and Alex walked past her and back up the stairs. He was certain of two things. The first was that Nadia Vole was lying. This was no generator room. She was hiding something - from him and perhaps also from Herod Sayle. And she hadn't believed him either. One of the cameras must have spotted him and she had been sent here to find him. So she knew that he was lying to her.

Not a good start.

Alex reached the staircase and climbed up into the light, feeling the woman's eyes, like daggers, stabbing into his back.

As much as it pained him to admit it - maybe Blunt really had been onto something when he'd told him about his "bad feeling". There was clearly something going on here - something that didn't seem to be related to Stormbreaker. Something that had gotten the last guy from MI6 killed.

Something that could get him killed, too.

If he didn't work for Blunt, then Ian would be murdered, but if he did work for Blunt, then he himself could be murdered. Either way, he knew he only had one option - he'd just have to see this through until the end.

1.38 pm, Wednesday, March 30th

Brecon Beacons, Wales

Heading back towards the sergeant's office, Ian sent Lee a quick message, asking if he knew of any fresh recruits from the SAS. With any luck, he'd be able to get this Fox's number and have a second set of eyes and ears in MI6.

Externally, Ian waited patiently outside the main building, but internally, he was raging. MI6 had kidnapped Alex. MI6 had made him think that his nephew might be dead. MI6 had killed his brother and his sister-in-law, and now they were trying to take Alex away from him too - and it had Alan fucking Blunt's fingerprints all over it.

"Jaguar". The sergeant stepped out of his office, a thick folder in one hand, and a pen in the other. "How'd it go?"

"... Better than expected" he admitted, surprised to find that it was true, "Alex - Cub - didn't tell them any more than he told you, but K-Unit's going to keep their ear to the ground in case anything new comes up. They also told me to get in touch with a former teammate of theirs - Fox?"

"Ah, yes. Fox". The sergeant looked conflicted. "I had high hopes for him, you know. Thought that after a few years under Wolf's command, he could lead a unit on his own… But then the vultures got him".

"Snake said he was a good guy - that he'd be willing to help".

"If you can get your hands on him, then sure. He hasn't been gone long enough yet to forget his roots. Tell him his old CO is asking him to". As the man spoke, he flipped open the file and started signing some documents. "You know, when the SIS brought Cub here, I was told not to ask any questions. I was also told to keep his existence on the down-low, and since he wasn't going to be here for the full fourteen weeks, I didn't have to register him as a member of K-Unit, either - not that it was particularly possible, anyway, given the fact it was already a fully manned team. But since Fox has left…"

He signed his name on one last dotted line before clicking the pen and giving Ian a somewhat mischievous look.

"Well. K-Unit is one man short. And I was given no orders on who I could replace Fox with... Cub doesn't happen to have a criminal record, does he?"

"... No".

"Excellent".

Scanning each document in turn, he finally nodded, satisfied, and handed the file to Ian.

"It was very convenient of the SO to not give me a copy of his birth certificate" he said, "After all, if I say that the boy looks about seventeen, then who's going to prove otherwise? And he was here for such a short length of time, too - it really is such a shame that it wasn't long enough to give him the basic fitness assessment that every enlistment requires".

"Such a shame" Ian repeated faintly, staring at the filled out - and rubber-stamped - application form in his hands, with the name ALEX RIDER typed out in all caps at the top.

"... I know it isn't much, Jag, but it's the best I can do" the sergeant finished quietly, "Cub might have only been here two weeks, but dammit, he's one of ours! And now, at least we've got the paperwork backing that up too - for whatever that's worth".

The papers in his hand crinkled as his hands started to shake, and Ian quickly closed the folder to cover it up.

"Thank you, sir".

The sergeant put a hand on his shoulder.

"I don't know what the fuck the SIS think they're playing at, Jaguar, but that boy showed damn more courage and resilience than half the muppets here - so you just say the word, and you'll have an entire SAS regiment backing you up".

He clapped his shoulder once before turning to head back to his office.

"You've got my number. Keep me in the loop, Jag".