Skeleton Key

world?”
    “That‟s all I ever wanted, Alex. All of this…! I was only ever doing what I believed in.”
    Alex felt an enormous tiredness creeping up on him. He weighed the card in his hand. It was strange really. From one Skeleton Key to another. It all came down to this.
    Sarov raised the gun. The blood was spreading more rapidly now. He swayed on his feet. “Give me the card or I will shoot you,” he said.
    Alex lifted the card then suddenly flicked it. It spun twice in the air, then disappeared into the water. “Go ahead then, if that‟s what you want,” he said. “Shoot me!”
    Sarov‟s eyes flickered over to the lost card, then back to Alex. “Why…?” he whispered.
    “I‟d rather be dead than have a father like you,” Alex said.
    There were voices shouting. Footsteps coming nearer.
    “Goodbye, Alex,” Sarov said.
    He raised the gun and fired a single shot.

AFTER ALEX

    We‟ve lost Alex Rider,“ Mrs Jones said. ”I‟m sorry, Alan. I know it‟s not what you wanted to hear. But that‟s the end of it.”
    The head of MI6 Special Operations and his number two were having lunch together in a restaurant near Liverpool Street Station. They ate there frequently, although not often together.
    The restaurant was in a basement with low, vaulted ceilings, soft lighting and bare brick walls.
    Blunt liked the starched white tablecloths and the old-fashioned service. Also, the food was poor so few people came there. That was useful when he wanted to have a conversation such as this.
    “Alex did very well,” he muttered.
    “Oh yes. I had an email from Joe Byrne in Virginia. Of course, he was upset about the loss of his own two agents in the underwater cave, but he was full of praise for Alex. He definitely owes us a favour… which will at least be useful in the future.” She took a bread roll and broke it in half.
    “It wouldn‟t surprise me if the CIA didn‟t start training their own teenage spy now. The Americans are always copying our ideas.”
    “When we‟re not copying theirs,” Blunt remarked.
    “That‟s true.”
    They paused as the waiter came over with the first course. Grilled sardines for Mrs Jones, soup for Blunt. Neither dish looked particularly appetizing but that didn‟t matter. Neither of them had much of an appetite.
    “I‟ve looked through the files and I think I have the general picture,” Blunt said. “But perhaps you can fill me in on some of the details. In particular, I‟d like to know how the Russian authorities found out about Sarov in time.”
    “That was because of what happened at Edinburgh Airport,” Mrs Jones explained. She looked down at her plate. There were four sardines lying side by side, complete with heads and tails. If it was possible for a fish to look unhappy, these had managed it. She squeezed lemon over them.
    The juice formed tears beneath the unblinking eyes.
    “Alex ran into a security guard called George Prescott,” she went on. “He‟d managed to escape from Sarov‟s plane using a gadget Smithers had given him.”
    “I don‟t recall authorizing Smithers—” Blunt began.
    “Alex wanted to use a telephone,” Mrs Jones cut in. “Obviously, he was going to warn us about Murmansk, what Sarov was planning. This man, Prescott, stopped him.”
    “Unfortunate.”
    “Yes. It must have been very frustrating. Alex actually told him that he was a spy and that he was working for us, but then Sarov caught up with him. Prescott was killed—and that was the end of it. Or it would have been … but we were extremely fortunate. Prescott had a radio transmitter clipped to his jacket. It was turned on throughout his conversation with Alex and his office heard every word that was said. Of course, they didn‟t believe Alex either, but when Prescott was found with a bullet in his head they put two and two together and got on to us as fast as they could. I was the one who alerted the authorities at Murmansk and I must say that the Russians acted very promptly. They pulled a naval force together, plus two helicopter gunships, and stormed the yard.”
    “What happened to the bomb?”
    “They have it. According to their people, it would have been big enough to blow a sizeable hole in the Kola Peninsular. The fallout would have contaminated Norway, Finland and, for that matter, most of Great Britain. And I really do think the backlash would have been enough to force Kiriyenko out of power. Nobody likes him very much anyway.”
    “Where is