9.03 am, Wednesday, 10th August
Royal and General Bank, Liverpool Street
London greeted Alex like an old and reliable friend. Red buses, black cabs, blue-uniformed policemen and grey clouds... could he be anywhere else?
He could've done without the nameless MI6 frog-marching him from the plane into the back of a nondescript black car, but at least he finally felt like he was back in the real world. The side of his stomach was still sore and he could feel the pressure of the bandage against his skin, but otherwise, Yassen and the bullfight were already slipping into the distant past.
He hoped that Yassen passed on his note to Ian somehow. The assassin had known that his uncle was looking for him, and had known Alex's name too, so that had to mean that they were… what? Acquaintances? Allies? Friends? He'd never met one of Ian's friends before - he'd always thought that his uncle just didn't have any - but then again, if he did have friends and they were in a similar line of business as Yassen Gregorovich, then it was no wonder they'd never been introduced to him.
The car pulled up next to a familiar, god-awful sight and he waited for the agent to open his door before getting out.
He'd returned to the police station after returning to the docks and finding Yassen's yacht missing. It had been well after midnight by then, and he'd been questioned for over an hour before being given three stitches and a change of clothes. The questions had only stopped with the arrival of a man from the British consulate in Lyons. The man, who had been elderly and efficient, seemed to know all about Alex - one of Blunt's goons no doubt. He had driven him to Montpellier Airport to catch the first flight the next day. He had no interest in what had happened. His only desire seemed to be to get Alex out of the country.
And now, here he was, walking back into the belly of the beast. Funny how he'd felt safer on a moving boat with an armed assassin than he did in the headquarters of his own country's intelligence agency.
The office, of course, was the same as it had always been. The same ordinary, modern furniture, the same view, and the same dull boring reptilian prick sitting behind the same fucking desk.
Alex tried to see the teenager in the man in the grey suit. Blunt must have been his own age once. He would have gone to school, sweated over exams, played football, tried his first cigarette and got bored at weekends like anybody else. But there was no sign of any child in the empty grey eyes, the colourless hair, the mottled, tightly drawn skin. So when had it happened? What had turned him into a civil servant, a spymaster, an adult with no obvious emotions and no remorse?
And then Alex wondered if the same thing would one day happen to him. Was that what MI6 were preparing him for? First they had turned him into a spy; next they would turn him into one of them. Perhaps they already had an office waiting with his name on the door.
The windows were closed and it was warm in the room, but he shuddered.
Blunt was reading from a stack of pages slotted inside a folder while Mrs Jones, as usual, kept vigil at his shoulder. She, at least, gave him a small smile as he took a seat in front of them, whereas Blunt, of course, kept him waiting in silence for another five long minutes before putting down the file, looking up, and pinning him in place with grey, empty eyes.
"I'm very disappointed in you, Alex".
"That literally means nothing to me whatsoever".
The man let out an irritated huff and Alex mentally congratulated himself for annoying the bastard so early in their meeting.
"I have received a report from the police in Montpellier, and also from the British consulate" Blunt said, "This is standard practice when one of our people is involved".
"I'm not one of your people".
He ignored him. "The French police have investigated the explosion at your… friend's house and found that it wasn't a gas leak".
"Way to state the obvious".
Once again, he ignored the remark, although his left eye did twitch just a fraction.
"It turns out that a local terrorist organisation - the CST - have claimed responsibility".
"They're very new" Mrs Jones spoke up, "CST stands for Camargue Sans Touristes. Essentially they're French nationalists who want to stop local houses in the Camargue being sold off for tourism and second homes".
"It's got nothing to do with the CST!" Alex exclaimed, "It was Yassen Gregorovich as you bloody well know! You didn't send me there for a heads-up; you knew exactly what he was planning! You knew that he was targeting Edward Pleasure and yet you still let him plant that bomb and almost kill innocent civilians just to confirm your fucking theory-"
"Enough!" Blunt snapped yet his gaze, as always, showed nothing at all.
Alex was suddenly struck by the thought that if this man were to die, sitting here at his desk, nobody would notice any difference.
"I'll remind you to keep a civil tongue in your mouth when you address me, boy" he said darkly, "The fact remains that the French government is blaming CST for the crime and that's all that they need to know. As for Gregorovich… We sent you there to ensure his arrest. I ordered you to say his name out loud as soon as you saw him and then leave the rest to us. You were not meant to approach him!"
"I took the initiative".
"I don't pay you to take the initiative; I pay you to follow orders!"
"You don't fucking pay me at all!"
"Alex" Jones said quietly before Blunt could throttle him, "We told you that Gregorovich is a very dangerous man. What were you thinking, putting yourself at risk like that?!"
For a moment, he felt his anger soften. For all of her faults, Jones had proven time and time again that she was concerned about him - not concerned enough to get him out of this mess, of course, but concerned enough to worry for his safety.
"He was on a yacht at the jetty" he finally replied, "He had two other men with him and it was a wide open space; he would've seen your guys coming a mile off. I thought… I thought if I got close enough then maybe I could disable the yacht or- or even keep him there until your agents arrived. I'm just a kid - they had no reason to suspect me".
They believed his excuse.
"It was still a reckless thing to do, Alex!" Jones scolded, "I can understand you wanting to ensure his arrest, but putting your own life on the line was not-"
"Thank you, Tulip" Blunt interrupted, his sharp gaze still on the boy in front of them, "Regardless of your motives, the end result is the same. Yassen Gregorovich escaped".
Good.
"That wasn't my fault; he tried to kill me!" His voice was appropriately frightened. "He put me in a ring with a bull and told me he'd shoot me if I tried to escape! Where were your bloody agents on standby then?!"
"You didn't say his name! His name was the go word!"
"Wasn't hearing his step-by-step plan to murder me from his own mouth proof enough?!"
"You shouldn't have gone off-script!"
"Yeah, well, you shouldn't have blackmailed a fourteen-year-old into doing your dirty work for you!"
Blunt took a slow deep breath.
"Our intel suggests that Gregorovich has been hired to eliminate all parties involved in the writing of a particular news article".
Alex frowned. "A news article? Who would order a hit on someone because of a news article? And why was it the Pleasures that were- oh".
Edward Pleasure was a journalist.
Edward Pleasure was a bloody journalist!
"Quite" Blunt replied dryly, "We believe that the bomb was meant to kill Mr Pleasure and destroy all traces of the article he's writing with it. The fact that he wasn't killed in the explosion likely means that whoever is behind this will try again".
"Whoever is behind this? You mean you don't know?"
He traded a look with his deputy before turning back to Alex.
"We have a theory, but we can't bring it to the attention of the Prime Minister yet because… well, quite frankly because it sounds like complete nonsense".
"Why is it nonsense?"
"Because the man we suspect to have ordered the hit is Damien Cray".
Alex frowned, and then sat back in his seat, flummoxed.
Damien Cray was a household name, after all - one of the most admired and respected entertainers in the country who had raised millions and millions of pounds for charity in the last year alone. From what he remembered, the man had been born in London and attended the Royal Academy of Music at a young age. He'd been the lead singer of a popular seventies band, went solo a decade later, won dozens of Grammys and Academy Awards, and then started campaigning for a range of world issues from saving the rainforests to feeding African children. He'd recently branched out into hotel chains and gaming systems, was close friends with the US president and regularly had brunch at Number Ten Downing Street.
Accusing him of hiring an assassin to kill a journalist for writing about him was… well… complete nonsense.
"Why was Edward Pleasure investigating him?" Alex asked slowly.
"That's what we want to find out" Blunt said succinctly, "From what we've been able to find out, the article originally had nothing to do with Cray - it was about the National Security Agency of America and one of their high-ranking officers, Charlie Roper. One of our agents did some digging around and found that Roper recently took a little holiday to Paris… and that Damian Cray was footing the bill".
"So you think that Cray is… what? Asking this Roper guy for NSA secrets?" Alex shook his head. "No; what reason would he have? He's a multimillionaire! He could have anything he wanted with a snap of his fingers!"
"And we believe that he has used some of that money to buy off Charlie Roper" the man finished, "You see, now, why we can't go directly to the PM about this? We have no concrete proof, for starters, and to accuse such a man as Damian Cray of high treason…"
Alex was starting to get a sinking feeling in his stomach. There was only one reason why Blunt would be telling him all of this:
"You want me to investigate Cray".
"If it's not too much trouble".
"It is. It really, really fucking is!"
Blunt scowled at him. "We're not asking you to do anything too arduous, Alex. We simply want you to look around in areas where any adult agent would be found out immediately. In fact, Damien Cray is about to launch his latest state-of-the-art game system in Hyde Park in a few days time".
"And, let me guess, I'm to attend?"
"Yes. You are". He turned back to the folder he'd left on his desk. "I've asked Mrs Jones to pass on some books about the man - various biographies and whatnot. You can spend the next few days researching him and then you can see for yourself what the man is like at the Gameslayer convention. Don't worry about getting a ticket. MI6 will foot the bill".
Alex stood up and, without waiting to hear another word, left the room.
9.41 am, Wednesday, 10th August
Royal and General Bank, Liverpool Street
There was a long pause. Blunt took out a pen and made a note on a sheet of paper. Then he looked at Mrs Jones.
"Well?"
She watched as he drew a circle around the last sentence he had written. She could see the words Yassen Gregorovich upside down on the page.
"You know exactly what my feelings are on the matter, Alan".
"Then it's a good thing I'm in this chair, isn't it?"
"Alex's snark seems to be rubbing off on you".
He gave her a dark look before turning back to the page.
"Curious how Gregorovich didn't kill him when he had the chance…"
"I wouldn't say that, all things considered" Mrs Jones replied carefully, "Maybe we ought to tell Alex about Yassen-"
"Absolutely not". Blunt picked up the piece of paper and crumpled it. "The less Alex Rider knows about Yassen Gregorovich the better. I very much hope the two of them don't run into each other again".
He dropped the paper ball into the bin underneath his desk. At the end of the day, everything in the bin would be incinerated.
"And that" he said, "is that".
12.58 pm, Thursday, 11th August
Hyde Park, London
The one-hundred-million pound Gameslayer, developed by Cray Software Technology, was due to be demonstrated by Sir Damian Cray himself in front of an invited audience of journalists, friends, celebrities and industry experts.
Cray Software Technology… Camargue Sans Touristes… CST… Maybe it was just a coincidence, but Alex didn't like the fact both groups shared the same initials.
Mrs Jones had, in fact, left three books about Damian Cray in his so-called room the day before. Two of them were hardly books at all, more glossy brochures put out by record companies to promote the man who had made them so many millions. The same face stared out from the covers. Jet-black hair cut short like a schoolboy's. A very round face with prominent cheeks and brilliant green eyes. A small nose, almost too exactly placed right in the middle. Thick lips and perfect white teeth.
The third book was written quite a few years later. The face was a little older, the eyes hidden behind blue-tinted spectacles, and this Damian Cray was climbing out of a white Rolls-Royce, wearing a Versace suit and tie. The title of the book showed what else had changed - Sir Damian Cray: The Man, The Music, The Millions.
Alex had glanced at the first page, but the heavy, complicated prose had soon put him off. It seemed to have been written by someone who probably read the Financial Times for laughs. And besides, what would he really gain by reading it? It wasn't as if Cray's biography was going to contain the fact he'd apparently been buying and selling state secrets.
About an hour beforehand, he'd been ushered back into a nondescript black car by a nameless agent who'd been ordered to drop him off outside Hyde Park with a ticket and make sure that he entered the convention.
Alex had done so, of course - it wasn't as if he could've run far with the tracker in his wrist, and Blunt had already displayed his disregard for Alex's well-being so if the man's agent got a little trigger-happy trying to prevent his escape, then he very likely wouldn't be held at fault for it.
Instead, he showed his ticket at the gate and went in.
He could hear shouting and, even in the hazy afternoon sun, he was almost blinded by a hundred flashbulbs all exploding at the same time. The Mayor of London had just arrived and was waving at the press pack, at least a hundred strong, herded together into a pen next to the bridge. Alex looked around and realised that he knew quite a few of the faces surrounding him. There were actors, television presenters, models, DJs, politicians...
This was more than the first appearance of a new game system. It was the most exclusive party London had ever seen.
Inside, he found a huge area fitted out with high-tech lighting and a raised stage with a giant plasma screen displaying the letters CST. There were already about five hundred guests spread out in front of it, drinking champagne and eating canapes. Waiters were circulating with bottles and trays. A sense of excitement buzzed all around.
The music stopped. The lighting changed and the screen went blank. Then there was a low hum and clouds of dry ice began to pour onto the stage. A single word - GAMESLAYER - appeared on the screen; the hum grew louder. Hidden fans must have been turned on because real wind suddenly blasted through the dome, clearing away the smoke and revealing Damian Cray in a white suit with a wide, pink and silver striped tie - standing alone on the stage, with his image, hugely magnified, on the screen behind.
He was smaller in real life than he seemed in his photographs. That was Alex's first thought. Nevertheless, Cray had been an A-list celebrity for decades. His presence was huge and he radiated confidence and control.
"Welcome, welcome!" he said, "Today is the day that I launch the Gameslayer, my new games console!"
Predictably, the crowd went wild, but Alex found himself… on edge. There was just something about the man's face - something sharper and darker lurking underneath the surface of that picture-perfect charismatic grin.
"Before I move on to the demonstration, I wonder if any of the journalists among you have any questions?"
A man near the front with grey hair and a severe, schoolteacher face raised her hand.
"The first game, Feathered Serpent, involves shooting yet it's well known that you have a dislike of violence. So how can you justify selling children violent games?"
A ripple of unease ran through the audience. Cray, however, didn't seem offended.
"That's a good question. It's true - I hate violence. Real violence, war… But, you know, modern kids do have a lot of aggression in them. That's the truth of it. I suppose it's human nature. And I've come to think that it's better for them to get rid of that aggression playing harmless computer games, like mine, than out on the street".
"Your games still encourage violence!" the woman insisted.
Cray frowned. "I think I've answered your question. So maybe you should stop questioning my answer".
This was greeted by more applause, and Cray waited until it had died down.
"But now, enough talk" he said, "I want you to see Gameslayer for yourself, and the best way to see it is to play it. I wonder if we have any teenagers in the audience, although now I come to think of it, I don't remember inviting any..."
"There's one here!" someone shouted, and Alex felt himself pushed forward. Suddenly everyone was looking at him and Cray himself was peering down from the stage.
"No-" Alex started to protest, but the audience was already clapping, urging him on. Before he knew it he was climbing up onto the stage. The room seemed to tilt. A spotlight spun around, dazzling him.
And there it was.
He was standing on the stage with Damian Cray.
1.12 pm, Thursday, 11th August
Hyde Park, London
It was the last thing Alex could have expected. He was face to face with the man who had ordered the death of Sabina's father.
For the first time, he was able to examine Cray at close quarters. It was a strangely unsettling experience. Cray had one of the most famous faces in the world. Alex had seen it on CD covers, on posters, in newspapers and magazines, on television... even on the back of cereal packets. And yet the face in front of him now was somehow disappointing. It was less real than all the images he had seen.
There was a taut, shiny quality to his skin that whispered of plastic surgery. And surely the neat, jet-black hair had to be dyed. Even the bright green eyes seemed somehow lifeless. Cray was a very small man. Alex found himself thinking of a doll in a toy shop. That was what Cray reminded him of. His superstardom and his millions of pounds had turned him into a plastic replica of himself.
"What's your name?"
"Alex Rider" he said, thinking quickly. If Blunt yelled at him for it, he could say he was put on the spot - which he had been. But once this was reported in the news, and it would be, then maybe Ian would catch sight of his name in some newspaper or magazine.
"Well, it's great to meet you, Alex Rider. I'm Damian Cray".
They shook hands. Alex couldn't help thinking that there were millions of people all around the world who would give anything to be where he was now - and all he wanted to do was go home.
"We're very lucky that we do indeed have a teenager" Cray went on, addressing the audience, "So let's see how… Alex... gets on with the first level of Gameslayer One: Feathered Serpent!"
As Cray spoke, three technicians came onto the stage, bringing with them a television monitor, a games console, a table and a chair. He could tell at once that the graphic detail of the Gameslayer was better than anything he had ever seen, but a moment later the audience gasped with surprise and Alex perfectly understood why.
A character had walked onto the screen and was standing in front of the gates, awaiting his command - but he was wearing exactly the same clothes as Alex. He looked like Alex. More than that, he was Alex right down to the brown eyes and the hanging strands of fair hair.
Applause exploded around the room. He could see journalists scribbling in their notebooks or talking quickly into mobile phones, hoping to be the first with this incredible scoop. Cray's technology had created an avatar, an electronic double of him, making it possible for any player not just to play the game but to become a part of it.
Cray waited until everyone was quiet, and then he turned to Alex.
"It's time to play" he said, "Don't worry if you get killed on your first go. The console is faster than anything on the market and it may take you a while to get used to it. But we're all on your side, Alex, so let's see how far you can go!"
The words were… encouraging, certainly, and yet… there was just something behind those eyes…
Alex suddenly realised whether or not Blunt was right and whether or not this man was responsible for the bomb and whether or not he had hired Yassen to kill Edward Pleasure… Alex wanted nothing more than to see Damian Cray's picture-perfect facade crack.
He got his wish sooner rather than later.
The game was beautifully designed. Its texture maps and backgrounds were perfect. The playable character was way ahead of the competition… but for all this, it was just another computer game similar to the ones Alex had played with Tom.
He was beating the game.
Cray's face hadn't changed, but now he was leaning over Alex, his eyes fixed on the screen, one hand resting on his shoulder with a tight, white-knuckled grip.
"You're making it look too easy" he murmured and although the words were spoken light-heartedly, there was a rising tension in his voice.
Millions of pounds had been spent on the development of this game, after all - but it was being beaten by the first teenager to play it.
One more final boss stood between Alex and the next level. All he had to do was get past it. That was when Cray made his move. He was careful. Nobody would see what happened and if they did it would simply look as if he was carried away by the excitement of the game. But he was quite deliberate. His hand suddenly moved to Alex's arm and closed tight, pulling it away from the controller. For a few brief seconds, Alex lost control. It was enough.
The boss reached out and its claws raked across the avatar's stomach. Alex actually heard his shirt being torn; he almost felt the pain as the blood poured out. His avatar fell to its knees, then pitched forward and lay still. The screen froze and the words GAME OVER appeared in red letters.
Silence fell inside the dome.
"Too bad, Alex" Cray said, "I'm afraid it wasn't quite as easy as you thought".
8.18 am, Friday, 12th August
Chelsea, London
Ian frowned as he heard the letterbox clang shut. It was too early for the regular post to be delivered, but he hadn't ordered anything either.
Silently standing up, he carefully drew the gun he'd started to keep by his hip at all times and crept into the hallway. The only thing he could see was a plain white envelope resting on the front door mat. Slowly walking over, he nudged it with his foot, but-
Nope. It was just a plain white envelope resting on the front door mat.
Reholstering his weapon, he reached down and picked it up, flipping it over only to see his own address staring back at him, written in an elegant yet unfamiliar hand. It was postmarked colissimo and stamped prioritaire. Who on earth was sending him a letter from France?!
Ripping it open, he pulled out two sheets of paper. The first was brief, written by the same person who'd addressed the envelope, simply stating: Rupert Street, Fri 20th, 6pm -Y
Y? Y as in… as in Yassen? Yassen bloody Gregorovich wanted to meet him in person and not only that, but wanted to meet him in London?! That seemed unnecessarily risky for the assassin, but then again, perhaps he had some business here. Ian quickly decided not to think about that, but because he was so busy not thinking about that, his thoughts drifted with the realisation that this was the first time he'd ever seen Yassen's handwriting which felt strangely intimate and-
No. Nope. Nada. Not thinking about that either! Definitely not thinking about-
He recognised the second note's handwriting.
Ian felt himself freeze, his breath catching in his throat as he slowly but surely raised the second piece of paper to the light because-
Because that was most definitely Alex's handwriting.