Scorpia Rising

be a connection. That would have been typical of Alex. He was a boy of extraordinary resource.

    Alex finally got home in the middle of the afternoon. Jack was completely shocked by what had happened, and when Mrs. Jones called her a short while later, she was in no mood for an argument.
    “We need to talk to Alex,” Mrs. Jones said. “We’ll send a car around to bring him to Liverpool Street.”
    “I’m sorry, Mrs. Jones.” There was ice in Jack’s voice. “Alex isn’t going anywhere. I can understand that you want to debrief him. But if you want to see him, you’re going to have to come here.”
    “That’s out of the question.”
    “Fine. Then you can forget about talking to him.” Before Mrs. Jones could interrupt, Jack continued. “Every time Alex has been into that building of yours, it’s been nothing but trouble. The last time was November. He came to see you because he had a journalist chasing after him—and what happened? You sent him to spy on Desmond McCain and he ended up in Kenya being almost fed to the crocodiles. Well, that’s all over now. He doesn’t work for you anymore. If you want to talk to him about what happened this morning, you can come over here, but don’t make it too late. He’s had a tough day and I want him in bed before ten.”
    It was unheard of for the director of Special Operations and his deputy to be summoned in this way. Secret conversations need to take place in a secure environment and Blunt’s office was exactly that. Nobody could enter without being scanned . . . for weapons or for recording devices. Any form of eavesdropping was out of the question. The windows had even been treated to deflect radio or microwave beams. It was impossible to find out who had been there and for what reason. Visiting Alex at his home in Chelsea would change all that. It was a completely unacceptable risk.
    And yet, early that evening, the car drew up outside the elegant white-fronted house that had once belonged to Ian Rider, and Blunt and Mrs. Jones stepped out. Jack had refused to budge from her position, and in the end they’d had to accept that this was the only way. But then, of course, Alex was no ordinary agent. Recruiting him in the first place had broken all the rules. So perhaps they should have been prepared to make an exception.
    Alex was waiting for them in the living room. Blunt could see at once that he was very different from the fourteen-year-old he had so often employed. It wasn’t just that he was bigger, that he had filled out more. He was more confident too. Looking at him, Blunt was suddenly reminded of Alex’s father. The resemblance was really quite remarkable.
    Jack offered coffee, which was politely declined. She had already given Mrs. Jones a full description of what had happened after Alex left the school and the deputy director didn’t waste any time.
    “We’ve had divers and police down at the river,” she began. “It seems likely that both the pilot and his passenger managed to escape from the helicopter. Certainly no bodies have been washed up.”
    “You’d think someone would have seen two dripping wet men climbing out of the water,” Jack growled.
    “We’re still making inquiries. We’re still looking.” Mrs. Jones glanced at Alan Blunt, sitting opposite her. “It does seem strange that they managed to vanish into thin air. This was broad daylight, in the middle of London. They must have been injured. And yet as far as we can tell, no one’s had any sight of them.”
    “Did you see the sniper, Alex?” Blunt asked.
    “Not really.” Alex had changed into jeans and a T-shirt. He was barefoot, as if to stress that this was his home and he would dress how he liked. It felt strange having Blunt in the room, as if two worlds that should have been kept apart had somehow collided. “He was too far away and he had his back to me. But I got the numbers of the car and the helicopter.”
    “They were both fake,” Mrs. Jones said. “We’ve got the car—we picked it up from Wandsworth Park—and we’re running tests for fingerprints and DNA. We’ve also salvaged the wreckage of the helicopter. But I have my doubts that either of them will lead us anywhere.”
    “These were professional people,” Blunt agreed. “That trick with the car wash, for example. That showed a certain style—”
    “Whose style?” Jack asked.
    “We don’t know. We’ve spoken to the owner of the garage. He says he was paid to close the car wash