Alex wasn't sure why Max had wanted to meet him at the cafe down the street from Brookland. A lot of kids visited here after school. It wasn't too fashionable but it wasn't a dump either. The coffee was good enough but more importantly it was cheap. Alex preferred the tea which was even cheaper and perhaps the best he'd ever had for that price. He hadn't been here in a while. It was too awkward for him to come alone with that many prying eyes and Tom hadn't wanted to hang out with anyone recently.

So perhaps the only reason he'd agreed to meet with Max was because the larger boy had suggested Mel's Cafe. Alex sipped his tea and glanced at his mobile, pulling up the text message Max had sent him with the date and time. He wanted to make sure he was actually there on the right day, at the right time.

Max was late. That made Alex's left leg start to bounce up and down in nervousness. It was utterly ridiculous considering he was meeting a kid he'd known nearly his entire life and not some girl for a first date or even an MI6 agent. But after everything that had happened to him during his year with Blunt and his people he couldn't help but feel that something was off every time someone was more than a minute off schedule. It was something he was working on.

He sighed in relief when he saw Max finally turn the corner and enter the cafe a few seconds later. The other boy stopped and glanced around, searching for Alex. He saw him in the corner, conveniently placed so he could see a majority of the street. Max came over without bothering to order anything at the counter and Alex doubted he would have anything during this visit.

The taller boy looked horrible in Alex's opinion. There were dark creases under his eyes and he looked abnormally pale. Either he wasn't getting enough sleep or he was sick. Alex didn't see any sign of fever and Max's walk was straight and controlled, just like always. They had been friends long enough for the ex-spy to know that meant Max was severely lacking in some sort of restful sleep.

"Hi," Max said shyly as he sat down. Alex looked him in the eye and took another drink of his tea before bothering to answer. He knew that Max had been holding things back for awhile. He had questioned the other boy a few days ago in the corridor at school only to have Max avoid answering with a panicky excuse about a drama rehearsal.

"Is there something you wanted?" Alex asked and even to his own ears it sounded cold. But he was past caring. He'd been getting text messages from Red for nearly fifty-two hours and each one was getting more and more unnerving. He hadn't been blackmailed into doing anything like he was certain Ryan had been but he could feel it coming. There would come a point when whoever this was got bored with simply stalking and decided to act. Alex was tired of being on edge and for the first time he felt a deep seated need to punch someone into unconsciousness.

"Has Red been texting you too?" Max asked.

"Of course," Alex replied as it shouldn't have been a surprise that they were all receiving some sort of message. And in all honesty it shouldn't have considering they'd had a meeting about this sort of thing. "Why? Is it bothering you?"

Max looked at him in utter surprise not sure how to take his old friend's flippant attitude towards what Max considered to be a very serious and dangerous problem.

"Here," the other boy replied and slid his mobile across the table. Alex picked it up and couldn't help but wonder what was inside. "Look for yourself."

He didn't need anymore invitation than that. The messages sent to Max were much more demanding and pointed than the ones Alex had been receiving. It was hardly a surprise. Anyone who knew something about them would know that Max was-and always would be-the easiest to crack. He didn't take pressure very well and he took violence with even less grace than he took being pressured.

Alex eyed one particular message above all others. Red was asking something. Not out right. They were much too subtle. But whatever it was they seemed to think Max had it.

"What is Red trying to get out of you?" he asked, when he'd finished with the texts and slid the phone back to its owner. Max shrugged.

"I'm not sure," he said. "Something to do with Cole I think."

"Like he gave you something and now Red wants it?"

It was an observation not a question but Max nodded along anyway.

"Yes," he said. "But Cole never gave me anything. Did he give something to you?"

"Yeah."

Max looked at him expectedly, wanting him to continue with that thought but Alex hesitated. He wasn't sure why. After all, it wasn't as if the thing truly mattered anymore.

"What was it?" Max asked.

"Just a flash drive," Alex told him.

"What's on it?"

"I don't know."

"You never looked?" Max questioned incredulously. "Even after he died? What if it was something important?" Max voice had started to rise and Alex shushed him quickly hoping that none of the other patrons had heard any part of that.

"Be quiet. It's password protected."

"And you couldn't hack it? You?" Again Max sounded incredulous and this time Alex didn't fault him. His friends knew he had been a proficient hacker for years. They had watched him get into numerous accounts, unlock phone apps, and other such things he probably would get in trouble for if anyone knew.

"I didn't want to," Alex told him and then held up a hand to stop the other boy before he went off about that. "Cole was dead. He asked me to hang on to it just after we'd started talking again. I was still mad at him for what he did to Tom and so I never bothered with it. I'd forgotten it until I saw the text Red sent you."

"Cole was murdered Alex," Max stressed. "I know you thought he was a bad friend but Anita wasn't any better and you know it. She was the one that strung Tom along and laughed at him behind his back to anyone who would laugh with her."

"And I didn't feel very sad when she died either."

Max stared at him hard to see if he was serious. He knew that Alex sometimes said horrible things he didn't mean for one reason or another. It was just a matter of figuring out if he was bullshitting. But Max was fairly certain that Alex was telling the truth and the realization sent shivers down his spine and made the hair on his arms stand up. Alex smirked at him, knowing he'd gotten a reaction.

"Sometimes you're just as bad as Cole ever was," Max told him and couldn't help but feel pleasure at the stab of pain that flashed through Alex's eyes. "Tom told me that Red has been torturing him with Anita's death."

The shorter boy eyed him blankly and Max did his best to copy that expression. He knew Alex was wondering why Tom hadn't told him that but had seen fit to let Max in on it.

"When did he tell you that?" Alex asked, voice devoid of anything Max might be able to use against him. This meeting had spiralled out of control and it was suddenly, blindingly obvious why they were no longer friends anymore. There was too much history and so much of it was just too dark.

"I saw him before I came here. I saw Ryan last night." Alex didn't ask after Ryan and Max didn't expect him to.

"Max if you really want to know what's on the flash drive I can open it for you," Alex told him but Max was already standing up and shoving his mobile into his jacket pocket.

"Don't bother on my account," he snapped unable to stop himself. "It's not like I'm the one who was murdered."

He left the cafe without ever looking back but if he had he would have seen Alex with a contemplative expression on his face as if he was reworking his opinion about Max. And indeed he was. He hadn't expected him to get angry over an old flash drive that more than likely had stolen homework assignments and maybe a picture sent during a round of sexting. Cole collected things like that. He kept them with the intention of using them when the time was right.

00000

Back at home Alex peeled back the wallpaper that hid the small hole in his wall and pulled out a key. The key itself went to an army trunk his grandfather had owned that was stored in the attic and Alex made quick work of finding it and opening it up. In the trunk was what was left of his life with his parents. These were things that MI6 had allowed the family to keep after they'd cleared the Rider home of all possible sensitive materials. There was a baby album of him, his parents, and Ian. Copies of birth certificates and death certificates. A copy of the file Ian had kept on Jack as well as a copy of the completed Visa paperwork Jones had given him as proof that she'd kept up her end of their bargain. There was also his baby blanket, a locket a great-grandmother had worn, and his mother's engagement ring.

Off to the side in a small, crappy, cardboard box was a few things he himself had collected over the years. A special rock he'd found in the park, a popsicle stick with a smiley face that Tom had given him when he'd had his tonsils removed, and other various things that would mean nothing to anyone but himself. Among all of these special things was the flash drive Cole had given him the week before he'd died. Alex had barely been talking to him then, angry on Tom's behalf, but Cole had rang the doorbell one night and insisted that Alex keep it for him.

The blond boy had tried once to open it but when he'd seen it was password protected he hadn't bothered to try as hard as he knew he should have. Everything surrounding Cole and his memory was confusing at best. He had never been ready to pry into what the dead boy was trying to hide but with Red sniffing around and with MI6 aware that something was happening that might pose a threat he figured it was high time he opened this thing.

He closed up his trunk and took it back to his room. Once it was plugged in it was only a matter of minutes before Alex was past the password and looking at the files. Cole may have been a bit paranoid in his last days but he wasn't good enough to keep Alex out.

There were only a couple dozen files on the drive and most of them appeared to be word documents. They were labelled with numbers so Alex had no idea what could be inside them. Sighing, he resigned himself, and opened the first one.

00000

Wolf was sipping a beer and flipping through the channels on his television wondering if it was too early to go to the pub when his computer dinged. He set the beer on the table, muted the TV, and picked up the idling laptop from it's place next to him on the couch. Balancing it in his lap, he watched as Cub did something rather odd and the first interesting thing he'd done in a week. Eagle had started to collect the boy's text messages but hadn't gone so far as to start watching the kid's friends. That was what Wolf was for but he had only done one sweep so far. He had figured Cub would be the one worth keeping an eye on.

He watched in real time as Cub hacked his way past some sort of simple, password protected security and began opening word documents. They weren't the strangest word documents Wolf had ever seen but they were certainly peculiar. Whoever owned these had been doing some serious research and not the academic kind. It was page after page of newspaper articles concerning things Wolf wouldn't have connected.

Things about construction in the Underground, teen suicide, and how strong the undertows were in rivers and creeks running through London and the surrounding area. There was also a few things about moon cycles and exotic plants. Then there was something about organic chemistry and advanced mathematics. It was all very strange and it must have been strange to Cub as well because he kept opening and closing windows at random as if he thought that most of it was junk, simply there to disguise the presence of something else. After close to two hours of this, Wolf's screen suddenly went blank as he was booted off the kid's system.

He typed in a few commands trying to figure out what had happened. His surveillance program shouldn't have just randomly shut down, not even if Cub turned off his computer. Something had happened. Either the program had failed for some reason or someone had seen him in the system and had kicked him out. His money was the latter possibly considering who he'd been spying on.

He worked to try to get back in and had almost accomplished doing so when the screen went black and a skull and crossbones suddenly appeared. There was the sound of an electronic laugh pumping through the computer's speakers and then some words were typed out on his screen.

Leave this alone or I'll expose you too.

Everything went still for a half minute and then the screen flickered between blue and black before the hard drive gave a loud clicking noise and everything shut down. He sat in stunned silence for a moment before he tried to turn the machine back on but it was no use. The whole thing was dead.

00000

Rosten was rather surprised when a fourteen inch laptop computer with a surprising amount of scratches on it was slammed onto his desk on top of the case file he'd been reviewing. He looked up to see an annoyed and grumpy looking Wolf looming above him with his arms crossed. He had long learned to recognize this expression as one that was worn only when something hasn't gone Wolf's way. He sighed and leaned back in his chair wondering what it was.

"What is this?" he asked pointing at the laptop.

"That was my computer," he replied. "Now it's a really big paperweight."

"What happened?" Rosten asked, genuinely curious. Wolf wouldn't bother to physically hand him his dead computer if it wasn't relevant to what Eagle had put him up to.

"I was hacked."

"Somebody hacked you?" he asked. "Why?" People didn't bother with the personal computers of a single off duty soldier. Wolf didn't have access to anything at the moment and if he did it wouldn't be on his personal computer. The other man shrugged and dropped heavily into the chair by Rosten's desk.

"I don't know who but I'm pretty sure it was the same guy sending Cub all those messages," he told Eagle. "They found me in Cub's system. Threatened to expose me if I didn't back off. They even piped through the Joker laugh from Batman."

"You think they're serious?" Rosten asked. If Wolf's identity was actually exposed it wasn't so much that he would be in danger as it would be that his career was over. Wolf shrugged.

"Don't know. They may not even know who I really am. Just figured they'd go with a generic threat and hope I freak out myself so badly I'd stay away."

"Ambitious of them," Eagle smirked. Trying to intimidate Wolf was something not even he had tried to do. There were just some people who couldn't be threatened or bullied into doing what other people wanted. Eagle took a moment to consider what the world would be like if Wolf had been more attracted to the bad side.

"Certainly," Wolf smiled, pleased at Eagle's joke. "Anyway, my computer's dead and I'm not good enough to keep this guy out of my system twice."

"What are you suggesting?"

"That I phone a friend."

"What friend?" Rosten asked hesitantly fairly sure he knew where this was going but really hoping that he was wrong. Wolf leaned forward, elbows on his desk and seemingly pleased with his next course of action.

"Jake the Snake."

"No," Rosten said and stood up suddenly, grabbing his empty mug and walking towards the coffee machines in the back of the room.

"Oh come on," Wolf said, exasperated as he followed Rosten to the back and watched him fill up his mug. "You know he's way better at this crap than me."

"No," Rosten said forcefully.

"Look I know you two had a falling out or whatever but I really think he would be of some help."

"Are you saying that because you really mean it or because you think he and I should kiss and makeup?"

"Both," Wolf replied and without bothering to make fun of what Eagle had just said. He would have if he wasn't being completely serious in his suggestion. Rosten sighed. He was fairly certain he was going to regret this.

"Fine," Rosten said but stuck a finger in Wolf's face sharply to hold his attention. "But he works with you, not me. Got it?"

"Completely," Wolf replied and disappeared. When Rosten got back to his desk he set the coffee on the desk and pushed the computer off his files and onto the floor. Half the room looked at him when it crashed to ground, adding dents to the multitude of scratches. He ignored it for the remainder of the day.

00000

Alex spent the next couple of days simply going through the motions of his life. Jack hadn't noticed much of anything but then, Alex hadn't intended for her to. He was quite adept at keeping her out of the loop. He spent every free, waking moment he had trying to figure out the odd compilation of things Cole had collected and then saw fit to hide.

He wracked his memory of the events leading up to that fateful night trying to find some hidden meaning behind some simple word that he hadn't picked up on before. Cole had been killed before MI6 and at a time when Alex had wanted nothing to do with him. Now Cole was back, creeping into every thought and every action. He jumped every time his mobile beeped or buzzed and he had eventually just turned it off.

Sitting in his desk chair, blankly staring at the open document in front of him Alex relived those final months. Cole had been getting nastier and nastier as if something profound had happened to him and whatever it was hadn't been good. No one could say that the murdered boy had been open and honest even before he'd been caught stabbing Tom in the back, figuratively.

Alex hated to admit it but Max had been right to call Anita part of the problem. She had been a witch but Tom had been so smitten with her he couldn't see it and Alex hadn't had the heart to point it out. Still, it gave neither her or Cole the right to do what they had done. They all had been fighting for the rest of the time Cole had been alive. Alex had refused to barely speak to him so it had been an utter shock for Cole to suddenly ask him to hold onto something.

And why him?

Why hadn't Cole asked Ryan, who hadn't turned on him? Or even Max who wouldn't take anyone's side in the conflict? Why Alex? Had he trusted that Alex would break into the flash drive and figure out who had killed him? Had Cole known he was going to be murdered or at least suspected that he was going to be attacked?

It was a chilling thought and Alex felt a sudden wash of dread go over him thinking that he may have let a murderer walk around free for all these years because of some old schoolyard crush. Anita may have been opportunistic and petty but she had ultimately meant nothing in the grand schemes of things. Of course, it hadn't felt like that when it was happening.

The problem today was that Alex couldn't make heads or tails of what he was looking at. It all seemed some so random. And there was just so much of it. None of it flowed. He was starting to think he should bring in Ryan on this. The other blond boy may not be his favorite person but he had known Cole better than anyone. He knew how Cole had thought. Maybe he could figure this out.

Sighing in resignation, he turned on his mobile and pulled up his contact list. It wasn't like he had anyone else he could go to.

00000

"You've had this the whole time?" Ryan snapped, arms crossed and an ugly look plastered on his face. "Are you stupid?"

"Honestly," Alex snapped back, "I'd forgotten about it."

"You forgot?"

"Yes, Ryan. Contrary to popular belief, Cole wasn't the center of my universe. Now are you going to look at it or not."

The other snatched the flash drive from Alex's outstretched hand and turned on his heel sharply. Plugging it into his own computer he drummed his fingers in annoyance as the screen popped up. Alex had disabled the password protection days ago and Ryan immediately started opening files, ignoring the presence of the other boy with ease.

"This just looks like a bunch of crap he found on random Google searches," Ryan finally said.

"It's not," Alex insisted. "There's something important here. We're just missing it."

"Are you sure?" Ryan asked dubiously.

"Yes. Why else would he have given it to me in the middle of a fight?"

"To get you in trouble?"

"In trouble for what?" Alex asked, surprised. "Like you said, there's nothing too bad on there."

"Look, Alex," Ryan hedged finally turning to look at him. "How much do you know about what Cole was doing in the those last few days?"

"Not much," Alex said. "I know he apologized to Tom for that thing with Anita."

"Do you know why he apologized?"

"Guilt," Alex suggested but it didn't feel right. He had never know Cole to feel guilty about getting what he wanted.

"Dude," Ryan admonished, rolling his eyes. "Cole was trying to make sure that the group back together."

"Why?" Alex asked. "If he wanted other friends he could have had them easily. There was no reason to admit to something he hadn't thought he'd done."

"He didn't want to be friends with you," Ryan agreed. "He just wanted everyone to think he was."

Alex stared at him, wondering what he could possibly mean by that. There was no reason to pretend being friends with people who pretty much hated him. The whole school had known there'd been a falling out between Cole, Alex, and Tom. And nobody had even thought to turn their backs on Cole. He was too popular and Tom had been painted as a petty and jealous underling. Cole hadn't needed to save face. Not to them.

"Why?" he finally asked, confusion apparent.

"There was this Inspector hanging around," Ryan told him. "Asking questions about the night Anita was killed."

"Why would he investigate a suicide?" Alex asked.

"He wasn't sure it was a suicide. He seemed to think someone helped her fall off that bridge."

"And he thought it was Cole?" Alex asked, stunned. He had always known Cole had been cold and cruel but he didn't think he'd throw someone off a bridge. And especially not Anita. As far as Alex had known, Anita had done everything Cole had ever asked her to do and she had gotten the nice shiny trophy of popularity in return.

"Apparently," Ryan said. "I guess the Inspector thought that Cole had been trying to get back at Tom for something."

"Back at him for what?"

"I never knew," Ryan replied. "All I know is that the Inspector had enough evidence to think that Cole had hurt Anita because Tom had backed him into a corner over something. Of course, the Inspector also asked me if I thought Tom could've killed her. I don't think he was very good at his job."

"Maybe," Alex replied offhandedly. Things between Cole and Tom had been ugly. Could they really have been that ugly? He didn't think for a second that Tom had anything to do with Anita's death but it was possible that the fight between the two teens may have had something to do with why she was dead.

"But what about the flash drive?" Alex asked, snapping back to why he was there in the first place. He'd think about what Ryan had told him later.

"Whatever Cole was trying to hide, he hid it well," the platinum blond said. "I don't know what any of this is. Maybe he was writing a book?"

"A book?" Alex asked incredulously.

"Yeah," Ryan shrugged. "I saw something about lunar charts. Maybe he got into werewolves before he died."

Alex honestly couldn't tell if Ryan was being sarcastic or not so he simply made a rude remark, collected his flash drive, and left. When he was home, Alex sat on his bed, flash drive safely secured in the hole in the wall, and thought about what he knew. If an Inspector had really thought Cole capable of murder over a schoolyard fight the best thing Cole could have done was make it seem as if there had been no fight. If there had been no fight, there would be no motive. At least, that was what Ryan had made it sound like.

But did all of this have to do with Cole's death or more specifically with this Red character? None of it was fitting. None of it was making any kind of sense. But Alex was sure that there would be answers in one location. The police station. If there was an investigation then there would be a file. Alex didn't have the skills to hack into the database but if he could get his hands on the hard copy he would be able to see exactly what the police had been thinking about Anita's death.

He didn't know much about it other than what Tom had told him. He needed to know what had happened on the bridge that night. It seemed relevant. Red had made it relevant.

00000

Working late into the night was something that Rosten did on a semi-regular basis. The day shift floor was completely deserted at this time of night and the silence and darkness gave him a chance to really think things through. If he listened hard enough he could hear the night shift people through the ceiling as they did whatever it was they did at night.

He flipped through Alex Rider's file again. This particular version was essentially blank. It told the story of a stupid kid who thought it had been a good idea to drop a yacht through the roof of police headquarters. Apparently it was some sort of petty revenge scheme that hadn't been well thought out. Rosten agreed with that conclusion.

The file stated that the police had taken Alex into custody for a while but that he had been bailed out and the charges had been inexplicably dropped, the matter swept under the rug. But that was all there was. Rider had managed to otherwise stay out of the system and the lack of information was driving him insane.

He sighed and shut the file putting it into the bottom drawer of his desk and locking it securely. He kept his two most important keys on a chain around his neck to avoid pickpocketing incidents. One of the keys went to his desk at the station and the other went to a storage locker rented under a false identity.

Tapping his fingers on his desk he tried to think through everything he knew. Obviously whoever was tracking Cub and his friends wasn't interested in petty teenage drama. Computer hacking, threats of exposure, and murder spoke of something very, very different. Something that reeked of professionalism. Professional criminal that is.

This person or organization or whatever was probably not an enemy of Cub. At least, not in the way they were used to. This all went back to a kid's death that, while tragic, hadn't been very relevant. Until now. Now that death seemed to be extremely important.

And maybe that was the key. Not Cub but his dead friend. Someone had gone out of their way to send a message while at the same time getting rid of a problem. Whoever that message was for was either Cub or someone he knew. Furthermore, the closer they got the more apparent it became that there was something else going on than simple blackmail. This person was good and Rosten wanted to know who it was.

Standing up he he made his way to the lift and to the top floor of the building where the evidence boxes were stored. It wasn't all of their cases but the ones that were still open and had a prayer of being solved. Although, there were some that Rosten thought would never be solved. The evidence room took up the entire floor and had only two exits. There was an emergency fire exit that would announce to everyone that someone opened it the second you touched it. The other exit was the elevator. You needed a special card to get the elevator to reach this floor and only a few people had them for security reasons.

One of them was a man named Jonathan and it was his entire job to bring case evidence down to the relevant person requesting it. Jonathan only worked days and Rosten knew him fairly well. The people who worked nights didn't work the cold cases and the evidence they submitted were processed in a separate room on a different floor before it made its way to Jonathan who was the only one that wasn't politically powerful who was allowed in that room.

However, Rosten had also secured himself a key card to the evidence room. As part of his agreement with intelligence services he was allowed in this room whenever he wanted. He had never used it before but he figured now as a good a time as any.

The evidence room was shut down, almost all of the lights were out but but he could still maneuver well enough. He made his way to where Cole Atkins, murder victim, had his entire death summarized in a white cardboard box. It was easy enough to find but there wasn't much inside. At least, nothing useful.

As he familiarized himself with the Atkins murder file he got the sudden and unshakable feeling that he wasn't alone in this room. Rosten straightened up and very quietly set down the file in his hand. Leaving the evidence box where it was, he silently moved down the aisle of evidence to the open corridor between the rows of floor to ceiling shelves. He cautiously peeked around the corner of each one until finally, near the back, he found that other person.

He was actually quite amazed that the intruder hadn't heard him come in. But then again, the kid was so engrossed in what he was reading that Rosten doubted he would notice if he suddenly caught on fire.

"Cub!" he snapped, breaking the silence suddenly and forcefully. The kid jumped, dropped the file, and sprang up into a fighting stance on pure instinct. When he saw who had caught him he looked as if he was going to run. "Do not run."

"What are you doing here?" Cub asked and Rosten gave him a look that said to stop being ridiculous.

"I work here," he said bluntly. "What are you doing here? And you should give me a very good answer or I'm going to arrest you on all sorts of fun charges."

"Anita Zamora," Cub said.

"What?"

"Anita Zamora. She was a classmate of mine."

"The girl that committed suicide," Rosten said, the name clicking in his head. Wolf had told him all about the article he'd found and Rosten had read it himself just a few hours ago. "I thought her case was closed. That file shouldn't be here."

"The investigating officer thought the nature of her death was suspicious. He thought there was the possibility that she was murdered."

"And what do you think?" Rosten asked, interested despite himself. Cub gave him an assessing look as if trying to think about exactly how much information he wanted to give. Rosten didn't blame him. They had hardly been friends. Hell, they wouldn't even admit to being teammates. Cub was just an odd memory from training that nobody was legally allowed to talk about. And that meant suspicion freely flowed both ways which was rather unfortunate for Rosten because he needed Cub to tell him the truth.

"I think there's something I never knew," Cub finally told him. Rosten admired his ability to be completely honest and entirely cryptic all at the same time.

"Like what?" Rosten asked.

"Like what really went down between Tom, Cole, and Anita. There's something I'm missing and I know there's something you're missing too." It didn't surprise Rosten that Cub knew he'd been looking into the blackmail and the connection to a murder and a suicide. Although, neither he nor Wolf had thought the Anita girl would prove to be more relevant than just being a tool for cruel manipulation.

"Well Tom happens to be the only still alive," Rosten said and watched as Cub's face twist into something ugly.

"Tom's not a killer," he said coldly.

"Then what is he?"

"The kid that got in the way," Cub said and Rosten nodded. There was nothing to suggest otherwise. Wolf insisted that Tom's computer was pretty clean; he seemed to be a typical kid but then again, so did Cub. Anyone could seem typical and normal if they were smart enough to hide the bad parts of themselves.

"Do you think he's a target?" Rosten asked. Now that he had Cub talking he wanted to pick his brain. See what he knew and thought.

"I think Red thinks he may know something, Even if Tom doesn't realize it. Whether he's marked for death or not is something I'm trying to figure out." Rosten nodded. That made sense. Enough sense to even sound like the truth. Rosten swallowed it with a grain of salt.

"Makes sense," he said, nodding. "How did you get in here anyway?" It may have seemed like an abrupt change of subject but he legitimately wanted to know. And like most teenagers, Cub was happy enough to talk about how he outsmarted a bunch of adults.

"Broke into the electrical room and rewired the alarms to the fire exits. Then I just walked up the stairs. It's easy enough."

"A little too easy," Rosten replied. Cub nodded. They were local police though and the people they usually went up against didn't have the brains or ambition to do what Cub had done. Rosten looked him over. Cub didn't carry any sort of weapon and he was almost positive that the kid was retired. Or Cub thought he was retired. There was no telling what MI6's intentions were.

"Cub," he said and the boy gave him his full attention. "I'm going to go back to my desk now. But I want you stay in touch."

Cub easily understood what Rosten was offering him. He was giving him the freedom to go through the evidence room in exchange for knowing what he found. Cub nodded. Whether he would give him what Rosten needed to know was a matter he'd deal with later. But Cub was an asset no matter what way you sliced it.

Besides, there was no reason not to give Cub a little room to run. If the kid ran into a wall they would know. And if he caught Red, then all the better for them. A leak would be closed and he wouldn't be shot at. If Cub wanted to play detective he saw no reason to stop him. After all, the kid was the only one with any real insight on the situation and the skills to do something about it.

Yes, it was probably for the best to just let Cub do his own thing.

With surveillance of course. Always with surveillance.