Because he had been warned.
By John Rider.
“I tore up the bridge,” he went on. “Then all hell broke loose. The Scorpia people opened fire. They wanted to kill me, of course. But the MI6 lot had machine guns and they fired back. All in all, it was a miracle I wasn’t hit. I managed to get to the north side of the bridge and a big car appeared out of nowhere. A door opened and I dived in. And that was just about the end of it, as far as I was concerned. I was whisked away and my father met me a couple of minutes later, hugely relieved. He’d thought he’d never see me again.”
And that made sense. When Alex had met Sir Graham Adair, the civil servant had been surprisingly friendly. He had made it clear that he was in some way in Alex’s debt.
“So my father … sacrificed himself for you,” Alex said. He didn’t understand. His father had worked for Scorpia. Why should he have been prepared to die for someone he had never met?
“There is one other thing I have to tell you,” the lecturer said. “It’ll probably come as a shock to you. It certainly came as a shock to me. About a month later I went down to my father’s home in Wiltshire. By then I’d been debriefed and there were a whole lot of security things I had to know about just in case Scorpia tried to have another crack at me. And” – he swallowed – “your father was there.”
“What?” Alex stared.
“I arrived early. And as I came in, your father was leaving. He’d been in a meeting with my dad.”
“But that’s…”
“I know. It’s impossible. But it was definitely him. He recognized me at once.
“How are you?
“I’m fine, thanks very much.
“I’m glad I was able to help. Look after yourself.
“That was what he said to me. I remember the words exactly. Then he got in his car and drove off.”
“So my father…”
James Adair stood up. “I’m sure Mrs Jones can explain it all to you,” he said. “But my dad wanted me to tell you how very grateful we are to you. He asked me to pass that on to you. Your father saved my life. There’s no doubt about it. I’m married now; I have two children. Funnily enough, I named the eldest John after him. There would be no children if it hadn’t been for him. My father would have no son and no grandsons. Whatever you may think of him, whatever you’ve been told about him, John Rider was a very brave man.”
James Adair nodded at Mrs Jones and left the room. The door closed. There was a second, long silence.
“I don’t understand,” Alex said.
“Your father wasn’t an assassin,” Mrs Jones said. “He wasn’t working for Scorpia. He was working for us.”
“He was a spy?”
“A very brilliant spy,” Alan Blunt muttered. “We recruited the two brothers – Ian and John – in the same year. Ian was a good agent. But John was the better man by far.”
“He worked for you?”
“Yes.”
“But he killed people. Mrs Rothman showed me. He was in prison…”
“Everything Julia Rothman thought she knew about your father was a lie.” Mrs Jones sighed. “It’s true that he had been in the army, that he had a distinguished career with the Parachute Regiment and that he was decorated for his part in the Falklands War. But the rest of it – the fight with the taxi driver, the prison sentence and all that – we made up. It’s called deep cover, Alex. We wanted John Rider to be recruited by Scorpia. He was the bait and they took him.”
“Why?”
“Because Scorpia was expanding all over the world. We needed to know what it was doing, the names of the people it was employing, the size and structure of its organization. John Rider was a weapons expert; he was a brilliant fighter. And Scorpia thought he was washed up. He was welcomed with open arms.”
“And all the time he was reporting to you?”
“His information saved more lives than you can imagine.”
“But that’s not true!” Alex’s head swam. “Mrs Rothman told me that he killed five or six people. And Yassen Gregorovich worshipped him! He showed me the scar. He said my dad saved his life.”
“Your father was pretending to be a dangerous killer,” Mrs Jones said. “And so – yes, Alex – he had to kill. One of his victims was a drug dealer in the Amazon jungle. That was when he saved Yassen’s life. Another was an American double agent; a third was a corrupt policeman. I’m not saying that these people deserved to die. But certainly the world was able to get along very well without them and I’m afraid your father had no choice.”
“What about the others you told me about?” Alex had to know.
“There were two more,” Blunt cut in. “One was a priest, working on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The other was a woman in Sydney. They were more difficult. We couldn’t let them die. And so we faked their deaths … in much the same way that we faked your father’s.”
“Albert Bridge…”
“It was faked.” Mrs Jones took up the narrative again. “Your father had told us as much as we needed to know about Scorpia and we had to get him out. There were two reasons for this. The first was that your mother had just given birth to a baby boy. That was you, Alex. Your father wanted to come home; he wanted to be with you and your mother. But also it was becoming too dangerous. You see, Mrs Rothman had fallen in love with him.”
It was almost too much to take on board at once. But Alex remembered Julia Rothman talking to him in the hotel in Positano.
I was very attracted to him. He was an extremely good-looking man.
Alex tried to grasp at the truth through the swirling quicksand of lies and counter-lies. “She told me he was captured. In Malta…”
“That was faked too,” Mrs Jones revealed. “John Rider couldn’t just walk out of Scorpia; they’d never have let him. So we had to arrange things for him. And that’s what we did. He had been sent to Malta, supposedly to kill his sixth victim. He tipped us off and we were waiting for him. We staged a ferocious gun battle. You know what we’re capable of, Alex. We did more or less the same thing for you with that multiple pile-up on the Westway. Yassen was there, in Malta, but we let him escape. We needed him to tell Julia Rothman what had happened. Then we ‘captured’ John Rider. As far as Scorpia were concerned, he would be interrogated and then either thrown back into prison or executed. They would never see him again.”
“So why…?” Alex still couldn’t make complete sense of it. “Why Albert Bridge?”
“Albert Bridge was a bloody mess,” Alan Blunt said. It was the first time Alex had ever heard him swear. “You’ve met Sir Graham Adair. He’s a very powerful man. He also happens to be an old friend of mine. And when Scorpia took his son, I didn’t think there would be anything I could do.”
“It was your father’s idea,” Mrs Jones went on. “He also knew Sir Graham. He wanted to help. You have to understand, Alex, that’s the sort of man he was. One day I want to tell you all about him – not just this. He believed passionately in what he was doing. Serving his country. I know that sounds naive and old-fashioned. But he was a soldier through and through. And he believed in good and evil. I don’t know how else to put it. He wanted to make the world a better place.”
She took a deep breath.
“Your father suggested that we send him back to Scorpia as an exchange. He knew how Mrs Rothman felt about him; he knew she would agree to anything to get him back. But at the same time, he planned to double-cross her. There was a gunman in place, but the gun was loaded with blanks. John had a squib in the back of his jacket – a little firework – and a phial of blood. When the shot was fired, he activated it himself. It blew a little hole in the back of his jacket. He went sprawling and pretended to be dead. It looked as if MI6 had killed him in cold blood. But we never hurt him, Alex. That’s why I wanted you to meet James Adair. The idea was that now he would be safe again and he could simply disappear.”
Alex buried his head in his hands. There were a hundred questions he wanted to ask. His m
other, his father, Julia Rothman, the bridge… He was shaking and he had to force himself back under control. At last he was ready.
“I have just two questions,” he said.
“Go on, Alex. We’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“What was my mother’s part in all this? Did she know what he was?”
“Of course she knew he was a spy. He would never have lied to her. They were very close, Alex. I never met her, I’m afraid. We don’t tend to socialize much in this business. She was a nurse before she married him. Did you know that?”
Ian Rider had told Alex that his mother had been a nurse, but he didn’t want to talk about that now. He was simply building himself up, finding the strength to ask the worst question of all.
“So how did my father die?” he asked. “And my mother? Is she still alive? What happened to her?”
Mrs Jones glanced at Alan Blunt and it was he who answered.
“After the affair on Albert Bridge, it was decided that it would be best if your father took a long holiday,” he said. “Your mother went with him. We arranged for a private plane to take them to the South of France. You were meant to go with them, Alex, but at the last minute you developed an ear infection and they had to leave you behind with a nanny. The two of you were going to follow them out when you were better.”
He paused. His eyes, as ever, showed nothing. But there was a little pain in his voice.
“Somehow Julia Rothman discovered that she had been tricked. We don’t know how; we’ll never know. But Scorpia’s a powerful organization: that much should be obvious to you by now. She found out that your father was still alive and that he was flying to France, and arranged for a bomb to be placed in the luggage hold. Your parents died together, Alex. I suppose that’s something of a mercy. And it was all so quick. They wouldn’t have had any idea.”
A plane accident.
That was what Alex had been told all his life. Another lie.
Alex stood up. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling. On the one hand he was grateful. His father hadn’t been an evil man. He had been the exact opposite. Everything Julia Rothman had told him and everything he had thought about himself had been wrong. But at the same time, there was an overwhelming sadness, as if he was mourning his parents for the very first time.
“Alex, we’ll get a driver to take you home,” Mrs Jones said. “And we can talk more whenever you’re ready.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Alex cried, and his voice cracked. “That’s what I don’t understand. I nearly killed you, but you didn’t tell me the truth! You sent me back to Scorpia – just like my dad – but you never told me that it was Julia Rothman who killed him. Why not?”
Mrs Jones had also got to her feet. “We needed your help to find the dishes. There was no question about it. Everything depended on you. But I didn’t want to manipulate you. I know you think that’s what we always do, but if I’d told you the truth about Julia Rothman and then given you a homing device and sent you in after her, I’d have been using you in the worst possible way. You went in there, Alex, for exactly the same reason that your father went to Albert Bridge, and I wanted you to have that choice. That’s what makes you such a great spy. It isn’t that you were made one or trained to be one. It’s just that in your heart you are one. I suppose it runs in the family.”
“But I had a gun! I was in your flat…”
“I was never in any danger. Quite apart from the glass, you couldn’t even bring yourself to aim at me, Alex. I knew you couldn’t. There was no need to tell you then. And I didn’t want to. The way Mrs Rothman had deceived you was so horrible.” She shrugged. “I wanted to give you the chance to work things out for yourself.”
For a long moment nobody said anything.
Alex turned away. “I need to be on my own,” he mumbled.
“Of course.” Mrs Jones went over to him and touched him lightly on the arm. It was the arm that was the least burnt. “Come back when you’re ready, Alex.”
“Yes – I will.”
Alex moved to the door. He opened it but then seemed to have second thoughts. “Can I ask one final question, Mrs Jones?”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“It’s just something I’ve always wondered and I might as well ask you now.” He paused. “What’s your first name?”
Mrs Jones stiffened. Sitting behind his desk, Alan Blunt looked up. Then she relaxed. “It’s Tulip,” she told him. “My parents were keen gardeners.”
Alex nodded. It made sense. He wouldn’t have used that name either.
He walked out, closing the door behind him.
A MOTHER’S TOUCH
Scorpia never forgot.
Scorpia never forgave.
The sniper had been paid to take revenge and that was what he would do. His own life would be forfeit if he failed.
He knew that in a few minutes, a fourteen-year-old boy would walk out of the building which pretended to be an international bank but was really nothing of the sort. Did it matter to him that his target was a child? He had persuaded himself that it didn’t. It was a terrible thing to kill a human being. But was it so much worse to kill a twenty-seven-year-old man who would never be twenty-eight than a fourteen-year-old boy who would never be fifteen? The sniper had decided that death was death. That didn’t change. Nor did the fifty thousand pounds he would be paid for this hit.
As usual he would aim for the heart. The target area would be a fraction smaller this time but he would not miss. He never missed. It was time to prepare himself, to bring his breathing under control, to enter that state of calm before the kill.
He focused his attention on the gun that he was holding, the self-loading Ruger .22 model K10/22-T. It was a low velocity weapon, less deadly than some he might have chosen. But the gun had two huge advantages. It was light. And it was very compact. By removing just two screws he had been able to separate the barrel and the trigger mechanism from the stock. The stock itself folded in two. He had been able to carry the whole thing across London in an ordinary sports bag without drawing attention to himself. In his line of work, that was the critical thing.
He squared his eye against the Leupold 14×50mm Side Focus scope, adjusting the cross hairs against the door through which the boy would pass. He loved the feel of the gun in his hands, the snug fit, the perfect balance. He had had it customized to suit his needs. The stock was laminated wood with water-resistant adhesive, making it stronger and less likely to warp. The trigger mechanism had been taken apart and polished for a smoother release. The rifle would reload itself as fast as he could fire it – but he would only need a single shot.
The sniper was content. When he fired, for the blink of an eye, as the bullet began its journey down the barrel, travelling at three hundred and thirty-one metres per second, he and the rifle would be one. The target didn’t matter. Even the payment was almost irrelevant. The act of killing was enough in itself. It was better than anything in the world. In that moment, the sniper was God.
He waited. He was lying on his stomach on the roof of an office block on the other side of the road. He was a little surprised that he had been able to get access. He knew that the building opposite him housed the Special Operations division of MI6 and he had supposed that they would keep a careful watch on all the other offices around. On the other hand, he had picked two locks and dismantled a complicated security system to get here. It hadn’t been easy.
The door opened and the target appeared. If he had wanted to, the sniper could have seen a handsome fourteen-year-old boy with fair hair, one strand hanging down over his eyes. A boy wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt and baggy jeans, and a wooden bead necklace (he could see every bead through the scope). Brown eyes and a slightly hard, narrow mouth. The sort of face that would have attracted plenty of girls if the boy had only lived a little longer.
The boy had a name: Alex Rider. But the sniper didn’t think of that. He didn’t even think of Alex as a boy. He was a heart, a pair of l
ungs, a convoluted system of veins and arteries. But very soon he would be nothing at all. That was why the sniper was here. To perform a little act of surgery – not with a scalpel but a bullet.
He licked his lips and focused all his attention on his target. He wasn’t holding the gun. The gun was part of him. His finger curled against the trigger. He relaxed, enjoying the moment, preparing to fire.
Alex Rider stepped out onto the street. It was about five o’clock and there were quite a few people around. He was thinking about all the things he had been told in Alan Blunt’s office. They still wouldn’t quite register. It was just too much to take in. His father hadn’t been an assassin; he had been a spy, working for MI6. John Rider and Ian Rider. Both spies. And now Alex Rider. At last they were a family.
And yet…
Mrs Jones had told him that she wanted him to make a choice, but he wasn’t sure that the choice had ever been his. Yes, he had chosen not to belong to Scorpia. But that didn’t mean he had to be a lifelong member of MI6. Alan Blunt would want to use him again: that much was certain. But maybe he would find the strength to refuse. Maybe knowing the truth at last would be enough.
All sorts of confusing thoughts were racing through his mind. But he had already made one decision. He wanted to be with Jack. He wanted to forget his homework and go out for a film and a blow-out dinner. Nothing healthy. He had said he would be home by six, but perhaps he would call and meet her at the multiplex on the Fulham Road. It was Saturday. He deserved a night out.
He took a step and stopped. Something had hit him in the chest. It was as if he had been punched. He looked left and right but there was nobody close to him. How very strange.
And here was something else. Liverpool Street seemed to be running uphill. He knew it was flat, but now it was definitely slanting. Even the buildings were leaning to one side. He didn’t understand what was happening. The colour was rapidly draining out of the air. As he looked, the world went from colour to black and white, apart from a few splashes here and there: the bright yellow of a café sign, the blue of a car…