Scorpia

the headquarters of MI6 Special Operations. Alan Blunt was her immediate superior. She wondered how he would react to the news that Alex Rider had joined Scorpia.
    Blunt’s office was at the very end of the corridor with views overlooking Liverpool Street. Mrs Jones entered without knocking. There was no need. William would have rung to say she was coming. And sure enough, Blunt registered no surprise asshe came in. Not that his round, strangely featureless face ever showed any emotion. He too had been reading a report, several centimetres thick. She could see he had made neat notes using a fountain pen and green ink for instant recognition.
    “Yes?” he asked as she sat down.
    “This just came in from SatInt. I thought you should see it.” SatInt was satellite intelligence. She passed it across.
    Mrs Jones watched Alan Blunt carefully as he read the single page. She had been his deputy for seven years and had worked with him for another ten before that. She had never been to his home. She had never met his wife. But she probably knew him better than anyone in the building. And she was worried about him. Quite recently he had made a huge mistake, refusing to believe Alex when it came to that business with Damian Cray. As a result, Cray had come within minutes of destroying half the world. Blunt had been given a severe dressing down by the home secretary, but it wasn’t just that he was finding hard to live with. It was the fact that he, the head of Special Operations, had been bettered by a fourteen-year-old-boy. Mrs Jones wondered how much longer he would stay.
    Now he examined the photograph, his eyes unblinking behind his steel-framed spectacles. It showed two figures, a man and a boy, getting out of a boat. It had been taken above Malagosto andblown up many times. Both faces were blurred.
    “Alex Rider?” Blunt asked. There was a dead tone to his voice.
    “The picture was taken by a spy satellite,” Mrs Jones said. “But Smithers ran it through one of his computers and it’s definitely him.”
    “Who is the man with him?”
    “We think it could be a Scorpia agent called Nile. It’s hard to tell. The photograph is black and white, but so is he. I’ve downloaded his details for you.”
    “Are we to infer that Rider has decided to switch sides?”
    “I’ve spoken to his housekeeper, the American girl … Jack Starbright. It seems that Alex disappeared four days ago from a school trip to Venice.”
    “Disappeared where?”
    “She didn’t know. It’s very surprising that he hasn’t been in touch with her. She’s his closest friend.”
    “Is it possible that the boy has somehow become involved with Scorpia and has been taken by force?”
    “I’d like to believe it.” Mrs Jones sighed. It couldn’t be avoided any longer. “But there was always a chance that Yassen Gregorovich managed to speak to Alex before he died. When I met Alex after the Cray business, I knew something was wrong. I think Yassen must have told him about John Rider.”
    “Albert Bridge.”
    “Yes.”
    “That’s very unfortunate.”
    There was a long silence. Mrs Jones knew that Blunt would be turning over a dozen possibilities in his mind, considering and eliminating each one in a matter of seconds. She had never met anyone with such an analytical brain.
    “Scorpia haven’t been very active recently,” he said.
    “It’s true. They’ve been very quiet. We think they may have been involved in a piece of sabotage at Consanto Enterprises, near Amalfi, yesterday evening.”
    “The biomedical people?”
    “Yes. We’ve only just received the reports and we’re looking into them. There may be a link.”
    “If Scorpia have turned Alex, they’ll use him against us.”
    “I know.”
    Blunt took a last look at the photograph. “This is Malagosto,” he said. “And that means he isn’t their prisoner. They’re training him. I think we should step up your security rating with immediate effect.”
    “And yours?”
    “I wasn’t on Albert Bridge.” He laid the photograph down. “I want all local agents in Venice placed on immediate alert, and we’d better contact airports and all points of entry into the UK.I want Alex Rider brought in.”
    “Unharmed.” The single word was spoken as a challenge.
    Blunt looked at her with empty eyes. “Whatever it takes.”

THE BELL TOWER
    “S o tell me, Alex. What do you see?”
    Alex was sitting in a leather chair in a plain, whitewashed room at the back of the