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John Crawley sat in his dimly lit office, the weight of his latest scheme pressing heavily on his shoulders as he considered his life choices. He stared at the file on his desk, a dossier marked "Alex Rider" with various photos and documents spilling out. Crawley had his reasons for what he was about to do, but that didn't make it any easier. Not to mention, Alex was extremely slippery when it came to kidnappers.
For Crawley, MI6 was not about the glamor of espionage. It was about the logistics, the paperwork, and dealing with the aftermath of every operation. He was the one who made sure everything ran smoothly, the man behind the curtain who never got the glory but always bore the brunt of the fallout. He was also in charge of the paperwork of one Alex Rider. Once upon a time, it had been John Rider. Then it had been Ian Rider. And, now, it was Alex Rider. Father, Brother, Son. All of them were walking, talking shitshows. Crawley double-checked the doors before he began talking to himself.
"The bloody Science Museum incident alone cost us millions. And the paperwork… God, the paperwork. And now, he's shot the Prime Minister. Again."
Crawley would have liked to say it was because SCORPIA had encouraged his dramatic tendencies, but that would be a filthy lie. Alex had gone into SCORPIA with a double digit body count, millions of pounds in damage to British property, millions of pounds in damage in foreign property, strained relations with Cuba, somehow improved relations with both Russia and the United States, and many, many casualties under his belt.
Crawley sighed, rubbing his temples as he recalled the debacle at the Science Museum. Perhaps employing Alex after that was where they had gone wrong. Alex had parachuted through the roof to save the Prime Minister from a terrorist in disguise, Harod Sayle, only to accidentally shoot him while taking out the terrorist. The fallout had been a nightmare. A BLOODY NIGHTMARE!
"Does Alex have any idea how much overtime and political networking that took? The PM suggested remedial gun training, for God's sake."
Crawley had thought the PM might have been smart enough to realize that Alex’s military training had been very illegal in the first place. The Sergeant had barely been kept from calling the BBC. Several of the squads had filed formal complaints that Crawley had to disappear. And, to cap it all off, Alex had somehow injured six Green Berets while unarmed during RTI training. It was supposed to have been a friendly exercise .
Crawley had a new plan. It may be slightly unhinged. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to do this or just needed a vacation. Smithers had voiced his concerns about Crawley’s workload. Crawley had quietly increased his budget for that. All he wanted was some peace and quiet. Everything had been wonderful that time Alex was kidnapped by those weird bank robbers who ended up not robbing a bank. At any rate, if he could get Alex kidnapped and out of the way, maybe MI6, cough, him, cough, could finally have some peace. He picked up the phone and pulled the trigger on the arrangements.
“Operation Trojan Horse is a go. Standing by.”
The agents assigned to the kidnapping were seasoned professionals. Agent Marcus Hale was in charge, but he very much respected his partner, Agent Claire Donovan. Marcus was well aware that threats to national security could come in all shapes and sizes, but even they had their doubts. They had received the briefing from Crawley, but the target was just a kid—a fourteen-year-old boy who, despite his impressive resume, looked impossibly young for his age.
Marcus carefully looked at Claire as they continued eating their lunch. Alex was supposed to pass by in the plaza any minute now. “I don’t like this, Claire.”
Claire let out a long slow sigh. Marcus knew that she had spent a stint in the Middle East. “Look Marcus, nobody likes anything with kids, but sometimes they get radicalized by unscrupulous parties. In Afghanistan, there were boys as young as thirteen who were signed up with the Taliban.”
Alex picked that moment to arrive in the plaza. They both got up and approached him. Marcus muttered into his earpiece. "Crawley, I’m okay with torturing suspected terrorists, but this is a kid. This is crossing a line."
They grabbed Alex, who offered no resistance. Marcus almost froze at how young he looked. The kid could be on the cover of those old magazines with kids clothes his mother used to pour over for hours .
Alex smiled at them. It was nice to have had Ian’s lip reading training sometimes. Poor Marcus and Claire were looking fairly pale. "Good evening. I assume Mr. Crawley sent you?"
Claire whispered almost inaudibly in Marcus’s ear as they cuffed him. So far, so good. This was almost too easy. And maybe they had blown it since the kid had figured out that this was Crawley’s call. "He’s too nice for this job. This feels wrong."
They both led him to the car and started the usual procedures. This was weird. And Marcus couldn’t tell if it was the fact that this was a kid or if he was actually getting a sixth sense of something being off. Maybe the kid wasn’t actually dangerous? What was Crawley playing at then?
Alex continued to remain flawlessly polite, even after a few days of kidnapping. Even Claire hadn’t had the heart to actually do anything past holding him and asking questions. I mean, he had shot the PM according to Crawley. And caused a lot of damage at that museum. Kid even admitted it, but swore up and down that it was an accident and that he had been aiming for a terrorist (Sayle had made the gossip mill rounds at the point) and tried to land on the metal parts of the roof but missed because the parachute and gun were designed for grown men. Marcus felt like this kid had a point, though should probably learn when to call an adult.
Back at MI6, Crawley started receiving calls. The first few had been the same sort of “Alex is innocent” calls. Innocent, his effing ass. He had the kid dead to rights on video. And it was good video, not grainy bullshit.
Well, he should have expected complications. He wondered what it was this time. Had Alex caused gruesome injuries? Did Claire end up requiring multiple amputations? Had he escaped and blown up the entire block? Had Alex somehow shot the PM for the third time this-
Marcus was on the phone. "Sir, why are we kidnapping this kid? He's really nice and like twelve?"
Crawley let out a long slow sigh and reminded himself that the fact that Alex looked young for his age was why they employed him. “Well, we don’t trust anyone. It’s sort of what we do.” It was an extraordinary operational advantage most of the time. Today, it was working against him. "He's fourteen, and he's a menace. You haven't seen the reports. He’s destroyed more government property than I care to count!"
Marcus let out a long slow sigh on the line. Static filled Crawley’s ears. This was going the same way that the last five calls had. “Look, he’s been cooperative, he’s provided us with his version of events, and he swears up and down that most of it is accidental. This just looks like really bad luck and really bad life choices but you kind of expect those from a teen. Also, he claims to have been working for you and MI6 this entire time. So either he’s been conned or we have…by you.”
Crawley mentally groaned. This was what happened when you sent the competent ones with morals into your personal assignments. They tended to figure these things out and not be cooperative towards your plans. “And just what are you going to do? He does present-”
Marcus hung up on him.
Well, fuck. There went his plans. Crawley knew that Marcus and Claire were probably going to release Alex. It had been a nice fifteen days of peace, though. No operations. No insane billionaires. No Alex going rouge and then joining a terrorist organization. No exploding government-funded buildings. And the PM was still doing physical therapy for his arm. Again. Which meant MI6’s funding was still safe, along with a bunch of other government programs.
Maybe he could bill SCORPIA for this? Money didn’t grow on trees. Plus, Alex had worked for them at some point. Technically. Crawley sighed as he eyed the price list that he had made up after Alex’s destructive tendencies became more apparent. Waste not, want not, and there was a delicious irony in the enemies of the UK funding MI6.
The debriefing was painful. Albeit, Alex had seemed to have mercy on him and framed it as a kidnapping by unknown forces to Jones and Starbright, which was the story they had agreed upon in a private meeting.
Crawley had taken the liberty of doing Alex’s “initial debriefing” in which he had lied his ass off and claimed that he had sent the agents as security and told them it was a kidnapping so they would take keeping Alex out of sight seriously. After all, they didn’t want a repeat of the sniper incident and MI6 had blocked several dozen threatening notes and packages sent to Alex’s place of residence. This somehow had made sense in Alex’s sociopathic little mind and he had actually thanked Crawley and offered him a slightly melted candy. Which. Was wild.
They were all looking at Crawley. Right, they were probably expecting some sort of response. "Yes, ma'am, Alex did a great job escaping his latest kidnapping. Remarkable resourcefulness, that boy. Truly."
Tulip coughed slightly and stuck another peppermint in her mouth. Crawley leaned back in his chair. It was time to get this debrief moving out of his office. “You know, this reminds me of the time we sent Ian to Thailand and-”
“Okaaay, thank you, Crawley. I’m sure you have so much paperwork to get done.” Tulip interrupted him before he could get any further into the story of how Ian had been disguised as a ladyboy and kidnapped by a local crime lord, not because of MI6, but because he thought Ian was especially pretty. Crawley winked at a slightly deflated Alex, who had probably wanted to hear more about Ian.
They all filed out of his office at a pace only Tulip could manage. He leaned back in his chair, muttering to himself.
"Every single day, Alex Rider makes me question my life choices. Every. Single. Day."
And so, Crawley’s life continued, a never-ending cycle of chaos and paperwork.
Fin