Scorpia

suits. He really did look like the bank manager that he had once pretended to be, a man in his fifties, more comfortable with figures and statistics than with human beings.
    “Good morning, Alex,” he said.
    Alex didn’t reply.
    “You can leave us, Burns. Thank you.”
    The agent nodded and backed out. The door swung shut. Alex approached the table and sat down.
    “Are you hungry, Alex? Please. Help yourself.”
    “No thanks.” Alex was hungry. But he wouldn’t feel comfortable eating in front of this man.
    “Don’t be stupid. You need your breakfast. You have a very busy day ahead of you.” Blunt waited for Alex to respond. Alex said nothing. “Do you realize how much trouble you’re in?” Blunt demanded.
    “Perhaps I will have some Weetabix after all,” Alex said.
    He helped himself. Blunt watched him coldly. “We have very little time,” Blunt said as Alex ate. “I have some questions for you. You will answer them fully and honestly.”
    “And if I don’t?”
    “What do you think? Do you think I’ll give you a truth serum or something? You’ll answer my questions because it’s in your interest to do so. Right now, I don’t think you have any idea what’s at stake. But believe me when I tell you that this meeting is vital. We have to know what you know. More lives than you can imagine may depend on it.”
    Alex lowered his spoon and nodded. “Go on.”
    “You were recruited by Julia Rothman?”

    “You know who she is?”
    “Of course we do.”
    “Yes. I was.”
    “You were taken to Malagosto?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you were sent to kill Mrs Jones.”
    Alex felt a need to defend himself. “She killed my dad.”
    “That’s not the issue.”
    “Not for you.”
    “Just answer the question.”
    “Yes. I was sent to kill Mrs Jones.”
    “Good.” Blunt nodded. “I need to know who brought you to London. What you were told. And what you were to do when you completed your mission.”
    Alex hesitated. If he told Blunt all this, he knew he would be betraying Scorpia. But suddenly he didn’t care. He had been drawn into a world where everyone betrayed everyone. He just wanted to get out.
    “They had a layout of her flat,” he said. “They knew everything, except for the glass screen. All I had to do was wait for her to appear. Two of their agents took me through Heathrow. We came in as an Italian family; they never told me their real names. I had a fake passport.”
    “Where did they take you?”
    “I don’t know. A house somewhere. I didn’t get a chance to see the address.” Alex paused. “Where is Mrs Jones?”

    “She didn’t want to see you.” Alex nodded. “I can understand that.”
    “After you killed her, what were you supposed to do?”
    “They gave me a phone number. I was meant to ring it the moment I’d done what they wanted. But they’ll know you’ve got me now. I expect they were watching the flat.”
    There was a long silence. Blunt was examining Alex minutely, like a scientist with an interesting lab specimen.
    Alex squirmed uncomfortably in his chair.
    “Do you want to work for Scorpia?” Blunt demanded.
    “I don’t know.” Alex shrugged. “I’m not sure it’s any different to working for you.”
    “You don’t believe that. You can’t believe that.”
    “I don’t want to work for either of you!” Alex cut in. “I just want to go back to school. I don’t want to see any of you ever again.”
    “I wish that were possible, Alex.” For once, Blunt actually sounded sincere. “Let me tell you something that may surprise you. It’s been six … seven months since we first met. In that time, you’ve proved yourself to be remarkably useful. You’ve been more successful than I could possibly have calculated. And yet, in truth, I wish we had never met.”
    “Why?”
    “Because there has to be something wrong—seriously wrong—when the security of the entire country rests on the shoulders of a fourteen-year-old boy. Believe me, I would be very glad to let you walk out of here. You don’t belong in my world any more than I belong in yours. But I can’t let you go back to Brookland, because in approximately thirty hours every child in that school could be dead. Thousands of children in London could have joined them. This is what your friends in Scorpia have promised, and I have no doubt at all that they mean what they say.”

    “Thousands?” Alex had gone pale. He hadn’t expected anything like this. What had he walked