Alan Blunt had been having a strange sensation all week, as if he were being watched. Although he might be the head of one of the most powerful secret organizations in the world, he never fancied himself as a target for blackmail or assassination. Take him out and someone else just as competent would be moved into his position. The organization would never allow itself to become so dependent on any one individual that it would be disabled by that individual’s removal.
Nevertheless, he had stepped up his awareness of his surroundings in the past few days, looking for anything or anyone that might be out of place. But he’d seen nothing.
As he held the envelope in his hand, he realized he should have relied on that sixth sense.
His wife always opened the Christmas cards from the people that she knew, and the ones that she didn’t, she placed on his desk in his library. As he sorted through them, his eyes fell on the card with Alex Rider’s name and address in the return part of the envelope.
He examined it carefully, but it appeared to be safe. Opening it, he pulled out a brightly colored Christmas card. Inside the card were several photographs.
Of him…inside the coffee shop, and taken within the past few days. He knew it had been recently because he was wearing that awful Christmas tie that his wife had bought him last year. It was bright green, with a pattern of playful kittens wearing either Santa Clause hats on their heads or gift bows around their necks. He only wore that tie in the two weeks before Christmas.
Looking back at the card, he saw that there was a note. It read:
Do not make use of Alex Rider again. If you do, there will be no place that you can hide from me. He does not belong in our world. Leave him be.
Alan rubbed the bridge of his nose. He should be upset that someone could have gotten that close to him without his seeing them, but he was more upset at having to give up his claim on Alex. Which, of course, he would do. He certainly wasn’t going to risk his life in order to keep on using the boy, as valuable as Alex had been. But Alex now had a different kind of value.
Alan should have seen this coming. There was only one person who cared enough about Alex Rider to do something as clever as this to get his message across – Yassen Gregorovich.
Well, Yassen, Alan thought with a smirk, message received, loud and clear, although it might not be the one you intended.
Who’d have thought that the way to capture the top international assassin would be by using a fourteen year old boy?