Besides being tossed around quite violently in the back of the NCIS van due to an agent's very reckless driving, Alex's journey from the crime scene to the interrogation room was pretty uneventful. Actually, scratch that. He didn't appreciate the fact that they confiscated his clothes just because he rolled over a few splotches of blood.

The NCIS tracksuit that they lent him was incredibly comfortable though. It made the wait in the interrogation room a little more bearable. At least they let him keep the iPod he had stuffed in his pocket. Unlike the phone that he had lost somewhere in the underground tunnel, this had managed to escape any fall-related damages.

Alex looked up as soon as his ears registered the click of the door opening. A man with a cocky swagger entered the interrogation room and sat down in a seat across from him. Then, Mr. Swagger tapped on the table as he looked him over carefully. While he was doing this, a silver-haired man, that he could have only assumed was the man's boss, walked in.

Boss-man stood next to the table and dropped a heavy folder on the table. "What were you doing at our crime scene, kid?"

The teenaged spy winced at the question. He had spent the last hour sitting here thinking up an answer to that question but to no avail. Somehow, it was a lot harder to come up with an excuse when he was a little fuzzy on the details himself.

"I don't know," he said honestly.

At the last moment, Alex had decided to adopt a nasal drawl. Preserving his identity from these Special Agents seemed like a good idea. He'd be damned if this government agency were to find out about his previous status and use his involvement as blackmail – again. The quicker he was out of there, the better.

"Let me ask an easier question, then," Boss-man said lowly. "What's your name?"

"Gardiner. Alex Gardiner," Alex replied.

He'd decided in the van-ride over that he was going to use the cover identity that the CIA gave him when he went to Skeleton Key with Belinda Troy and Tom Turner. He hoped that NCIS wouldn't see through the fake documentation the CIA provided. Hopefully, the documents and the fake sources still existed.

Boss-man turned to the mirror and jerked his head to left. Alex could safely assume that one of the people watching had gone to verify his identity. The worst that could happen was that they would find out he was lying to them.

The man he dubbed Mr. Swagger stopped tapping and clicked his fingers, pointing at Alex excitedly. "I finally got it. How I know you!"

Alex frowned at his statement. He examined the man again in more detail, hoping to God that the man was mistaken. Scanning his memory of the last two times he had been in the US proved fruitless. He couldn't remember seeing this man either of those times.

Mr. Swagger leaned across the table and smirked, "Does E.T. want to phone home?"

The fifteen-year-old recoiled at the man's question. Suddenly, he knew where the man had seen him. After his re-entry from space, he was picked up by the USS Kitty Hawk, an American Naval ship before being handed over to ASIS. Mr. Swagger must have been one of the men there that day.

"Has Kangaroo Jack stolen your old job?" Alex responded.

They stared each other down for a little while. Alex was pretty sure that this guy knew next to nothing about him despite knowing about the re-entry. However, this did put a spanner in the works.

Boss-man turned to Mr. Swagger and gave him a disgruntled look, "Is there something I should know, Dinozzo?"

"Sorry, Boss," the man gulped. "It's classified."

Mr. Swagger – Dinozzo, Alex noted – stood up as his Boss calmly left the room. Just before Dinozzo also left the room, he shot Alex an apologetic look, "We'll be back soon. Hang tight."

Unfortunately, with this new development Alex really couldn't afford to hang tight. He patted down his pockets for his Smithers-enhanced iPod and popped the earbuds in his ears. Thank goodness for Smither's goodbye gifts.

What was the eavesdropping code again? Alex pressed a few buttons and placed the iPod on the table so it was pointing at the door. He leaned back and shut his eyes, trying to make his actions seem as natural as possible.

"Boss, seriously, you wouldn't believe me even if I told you." Mr. Swag— Dinozzo's voice came through a little muffled but it was recognisable.

"Try me," the other man bit back.

Alex frowned slightly, this guy better not break protocol. Classified events are a secret for a reason. In this case, he was the secret and he'd rather remain as one. He'd been out of the business for a month now courtesy of Blunt's retirement. Just in case, he picked up the listening device and selected the record option.

"Boss!" Another voice cut into their conversation. Whoever this newest person was, they were breathing heavily from rushing over.

"What is it, McGee?" Boss-man sighed.

"I got a hit on Alex Gardiner," the new man replied. "The passport photo may be a year old but it's definitely the same kid. His parents are a Tom and Belinda Gardiner and they live together in L.A. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get a hold of his parents right now. I'll have to try again later."

Alex hoped that they would deem him a waste of time and release him into Social Services custody. That way, he could escape and reunite with the Pleasures and pretend this whole mess never happened. It's kind of sad that this was what his life consisted of lately.

"How convenient," Dinozzo commented wryly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" the guy called McGee asked. "You make it sound like it's a conspiracy to be out of reach."

Dinozzo chuckled, "Ohoho, have I got a story for you. You see, when I was Agent Afloat, the USS Kitty Hawk were tasked to retrieve a space pod that landed off the coast of Australia. You'd never guess who was inside."

Alex cursed under his breath and opened his eyes. The classified BS was for his benefit only. It sounded like these Agents had no qualms about telling each other government secrets. For investigative purposes this was smart. They'd get the answers quicker and they would have plausible deniability.

"By your dancing eyebrows, I'm assuming the kid in there," McGee answered.

Dinozzo whooped, "And McGeek scores!"

"McGee, I want you to look into the retrieval," Boss-man interrupted his colleague's celebrations. "My gut is telling me that there's more to this kid than he appears."

"Y-you believe Tony?" McGee stammered.

Their boss sighed loudly, "I wouldn't have believed him but, when you were gone, Dinozzo cryptically asked him about it. The kid's reaction coupled with a flippant comment about kangaroos confirms Dinozzo's story."

"Are we going to interrogate the kid again, Boss?" Dinozzo asked him.

"Nah," the man replied. "Let him stew for a while. Ziver can watch over him. She's more than capable."

Note: Thanks to J'aime lire for asking about the MI6 vs M16 thing. I've read all the Alex Rider novels and the only one that didn't use M16 was Scorpia Rising and I'm pretty sure that's because I had the American version for that. Since I'm a massive Alex Rider fan, I'd prefer to go with the version that the author uses. That's why you'll see M16 instead of MI6. :)