Alex thought of his friend now as he sat down opposite Alan Blunt and Mrs Jones. He lowered himself slowly into the chair, wondering what they were going to say to him. Jack hadn’t wanted him to come here at all.
“The moment they know you’re capable of walking, they’ll probably have you parachuting into North Korea,” she had said. “They’re never going to leave you alone, Alex. I don’t even want to know what happened to you after Venice. But just promise me you won’t let it happen again.” Alex agreed with her. He would rather have stayed at home. But he knew he had to be here. If nothing else, he owed it to Mrs Jones after what had happened in her flat.
“It’s good to see you, Alex,” Blunt said. “Once again, you’ve done a very good job.” Very good. The highest praise Blunt knew.
“I’ll just bring you up to date,” Blunt went on. “I don’t need to tell you that Scorpia’s plot was a complete failure, and I very much doubt that they’ll try anything on this scale again. They lost one of their top assassins, the man called Nile, when he fell out of the balloon. How did that happen, by the way?”
“He slipped,” Alex said shortly. He didn’t want to go over it again.
“I see. Well, you might like to know that Julia Rothman also died.” That was news to Alex. He had assumed she must have escaped.
Mrs Jones took up the story. “The platform underneath the balloon fell on her as she was trying to escape,” she explained. “She was crushed.”
“I’d have been disappointed too,” Alex muttered.
Blunt sniffed. “The most important thing of all is that London’s children are going to be safe. As that scientist —
Dr Stephenson—explained, the nanoshells will slowly pass out of their bodies. I have to tell you, Alex, that the terahertz dishes were transmitting for at least a minute. God knows how close we came to a major disaster.”
“I’ll try to move a little faster next time,” Alex said.
“Yes. Well. One other thing. You might be amused to hear that Mark Kellner resigned this morning. The prime minister’s director of communications—remember him? He’s telling the press that he wants to spend more time with his family. The funny thing is, his family can’t stand him. Nobody can. Mr Kellner made one mistake too many. Nobody could have foreseen that stunt with the hot-air balloon. But someone has to carry the can, and I’m glad to say it’s going to be him.”
“Well, if that’s all you called me in for, I’d better get home,” Alex said. “I’ve missed more school and I’ve got a lot to catch up on.”
“No, Alex. I’m afraid you can’t leave quite yet.” Mrs Jones sounded more serious than Alex had ever heard her and he wondered if she was going to make him pay for his attempt on her life.
“I’m sorry about what I nearly did, Mrs Jones,” he said. “But I think I’ve more or less made up for it…”
“That’s not what I want to speak to you about. As far as I’m concerned, your visit to my flat never happened.
But there’s something more important. You and I have never spoken about Albert Bridge.” Alex felt cold inside. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know what you did was right. I’ve seen Scorpia for myself now; I know what they are capable of. If my father was one of them, then you were right. He deserved to die.” The words hurt Alex even as he spoke them. They caught in his throat.
“There’s somebody I want you to meet, Alex. He’s come into the office today and he’s standing outside. I know you don’t want to spend any more time here than you have to, but will you let him talk to you? It will only take a few minutes.”
“All right.” Alex shrugged. He didn’t know what Mrs Jones wanted to prove. He had no wish to return to the circumstances of his father’s death.
The door opened and a tall man walked in, bearded, with brown curly hair that was beginning to grey. He was casually dressed in a beaten-up leather jacket and jeans. He looked in his early thirties and although Alex was sure he had never met him, his face seemed vaguely familiar.
“Alex Rider?” he asked. He had a soft, pleasant voice.
“Yes.”
“How do you do?” He held out a hand. Alex stood up and felt his hand taken in a grasp that was warm and friendly. “My name is James Adair,” he said. “I think you’ve met my father, Sir Graham Adair.” Alex was hardly likely to forget. Sir Graham Adair was the permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office. He could see the similarity in the faces of the two men. But he knew James Adair from somewhere else too. Of course.
He was a lot older now. The hair colour was different and he was more thickset. But the face was the same. He had seen it on a television screen. On Albert Bridge.
“James Adair is a senior lecturer at Imperial College here in London,” Mrs Jones explained. “But fourteen years ago he was a student. His father was already an extremely senior civil servant—”
“You were kidnapped,” Alex interrupted. “You were the one Scorpia kidnapped.”
“That’s right. Look, do you mind if we sit down? I feel very formal standing up like this.” James Adair took a seat. Alex waited for him to speak. He was puzzled and a little apprehensive. This man had been there when his father was killed. In a way, it was because of this man that John Rider had died. Why had Mrs Jones brought him here now?
“I’ll tell you my story and then get out of here,” James Adair said. “When I was eighteen years old, I was the victim of an attempt to blackmail my father. I was snatched by an organization called Scorpia, and they were going to torture me and kill me unless my dad did exactly what they said. But Scorpia made a mistake. My father could influence government policy but he couldn’t actually change it. There was nothing he could do. I was told I was going to die.
“But then, at the last minute, there was a change of plan. I met a woman called Julia Rothman. She was very
