Alex wakes up the following day in an Elizabethan house wearing silk pajamas. He realizes that he was drugged and asleep for more than a day. A nurse opens the door and tells him that he will join Blunt for lunch. When Alex meets Blunt, Blunt introduces his secretary, Mrs. Jones. Blunt reveals that Royal & General is a cover for the Special Operations division of MI6. Ian was a spy with assignments around the world, which explains his absences and injuries over the years. He was on an undercover assignment in England when he was killed. Alex asks if they know who killed Ian, and they say they do but cannot tell him at this time.

Blunt and Mrs. Jones then tell Alex that he is at a training center and they need his help. Egyptian businessman Herod Sayle, who was adopted and raised by an English couple, is planning to donate thousands of Stormbreaker computers to Britain’s schoolchildren. However, Blunt and Mrs. Jones do not trust Sayle because of his contracts in China and the former Soviet Union and his private army. They sent Ian to spy on him, working undercover as a security specialist.