Alan Blunt is a character that the Stormbreaker movie turned comical; in the books, he comes across as cold - he's more evil to me than Yassen is as an assassin. Yassen makes no apology for what he does - you pay him and he does his job.
Alan hides behind God and country, but I think he's crossed over the line into being power hungry. The guy flat out says he thinks it would be beneficial for Yassen to kill Alex (in book 1) because then they'd know that Harold Sayle was doing something illegal. I mean, that was so totally cold to not only be uncaring about the death of a fourteen year old boy, but to almost wish it to happen!
I'm working out how to break Alan's hold on Alex - details are not quite clear yet but I'm getting there (with Yassen's help).
(hey, where's your post for today? I need my Teddy/Scorpius fix ;-)