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Nightshade are antagonists in the Alex Rider novel Nightshade. They are the third criminal organization in the series, after Scorpia and the Snakehead, and are the first 'new' group featured in the revival of the series.
History[]
Nightshade are described as "making Scorpia look like a vicar's tea party" by MI6 agent "Pablo". MI6's Chief Science Officer, Samantha Redwing, identifies them as subcontractors, with no beliefs; they will simply kill anyone or destroy anything for a lot of money. MI6 Chief of Staff John Crawley affirms this, referencing Nightshade's recent operations; according to him, they have been responsible for assassinations in Beijing, Riyadh and Moscow, a bombing in Istanbul and the murder of the Vatican City State banker Paul Sabar, who they killed even when they received a ransom of two million euros.
Nightshade's base of operations is a former Hellenic Army base on Crete, bought from the Greek government. Under the front organization Kids Crisis Relief (a charity that takes care of war orphans), they operate the base as the training and residential place for their operatives, as well as their main headquarters. The base contains residential blocks for boys and girls, a taverna called Mistral (which serves as the kitchen and dining facilities for operatives), classrooms, an airstrip, a modified church, a shooting range and an assault course. The main building is The Temple, a building which serves as the home of the leaders and their operations centre.
Nightshade's numbers act as a cult, with prayers and hymns rescinding their individuality and pledging undying support for their God, as they view themselves as being there to do his bidding.
Nightshade[]
At the beginning of Nightshade, two girl Numbers approach the former British Home Secretary, James, Lord Clifford. The Numbers are disguised as girl scouts, who are supposedly selling cakes to raise funds for their activity centre. Lord Clifford buys a cupcake from them, with the treat being poisoned with an agent that cannot be found in toxicology reports. When Lord Clifford consumes the cake with his afternoon cup of tea, the poison induces a seizure and a fatal heart attack. Lord Clifford's demise is part of a larger plan conducted by Nightshade.
Two Numbers, Six and Nine (respectively, Sofia Jones and Frederick Grey), are sent to Rio to kill the MI6 agent known in that country as "Pablo". As he meets MI6 Chief of Staff and Deputy Head of Special Operations John Crawley, Pablo reveals that Nightshade is planning an attack on London. He is then killed by Sofia and Frederick, who fly a modified model Spitfire at him, with its knife-tipped wing fatally slashing his throat.
Crawley sends men after the two killers, who escape on a moped. Sofia escapes at an airport, boarding a Nightshade-owned helicopter that flies her away and is later destroyed to cover their tracks. Frederick, however, is captured and detained by Brazil's military police. Using gadgets on him (including razorblades hidden in eyeglasses and a syringe containing powerful tranquilizer hidden in his ear), he breaks out of his cell, killing five officers and wounding three more, before he is subdued and sent to HMS Secure Unit in Gibraltar.
Although she escapes, Sofia is photographed and positively identified by Mrs Jones, who recruits Alex Rider to get close to Frederick, discover Nightshade's plans and bring her children home. Reluctantly, Alex agrees, assuming the identity of his late clone, Julius Grief, and getting transferred to Gibraltar, where he is imprisoned with Frederick.
After a week in Gibraltar, Alex has made scant progress because Frederick refuses to communicate; even worse, the other prisoners, especially Henry Mellish, want to kill him. Desperate, and seeing Frederick's going to Nightshade as the only way he can get answers, Alex talks to Dr Rosemary Flint (the prison's psychiatrist, who worked with Julius before his escape, and who has agreed to be his communication with MI6) and stages a break out from the villa of the prison governor, Frank Sheriff. Alex and Frederick climb over the trees at the villa, over the wall and down The Rock of Gibraltar, in the dead of night. They evade the prison guards and military forces and hide in an abandoned cinema. Alex does not yet know how Frederick knows where to go, as none of the prisoners are allowed out of the prison for any reason at all, due to the danger they pose to all society.
A day later, Nightshade hire two agents of the drug-smuggling gang La Maquina to take Frederick to Tangier. After coercion from Frederick, they reluctantly take Alex with them. They ride in a boat to Tangier, before being flown to Crete, and Nightshade's base of operations. The Teachers are unaware of Alex's true identity at this point, and believe that he is Julius Grief. Brother Mike is openly hostile, believing that he has corrupted Frederick and that both boys must die. He is overruled, and Alex is accepted into Nightshade, experiencing the life of the Numbers - including their merciless training.
It is later revealed that Nightshade have been hired by the Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Dominic Royce (operating under the pseudonym of "the Doctor", referring to his initials), to kill the entire Cabinet of the United Kingdom and other political leaders, because of their perceived inability to solve the world's problems. Unable to attack the Houses of Parliament directly, Royce had Lord Clifford, a popular former politician, killed in order to bring all the politicians together into one place out in the open, at Lord Clifford's memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral. To do this, Nightshade took possession of the most dangerous nerve agent in the world, VX, and aimed to have two Numbers BASE jump from the Shard to St Paul's, and detonate explosives containing VX, killing the entire congregation, including royalty, celebrities, priests and choirs. Nightshade call this attack "Leap of Faith".
After the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom raises the terrorist threat level from SEVERE to CRITICAL, the Teachers call Alex (accepted into Nightshade's ranks as Number Twenty-Six) to the Temple. They have discovered Benjamin (a stuffed monkey from Frederick's childhood, given to Alex by Dr Flint as a way of communicating with him), and reprimand him for trying to give a Number identity. Frederick is summoned, and Alex is told by Brother Lamar to kill him. Sickened, Alex throws the gun away. The Teachers reveal that the gun was empty, and that it was a test, which Alex has failed. Brother Lamar then reveals that MI6 Special Operations has been closed down and Mrs. Jones and John Crawley are under house arrest, thanks to Royce and his sycophantic assistant Owen Andrews, and that extra police officers are in London because of attack fears; Nightshade and Royce will trick the British media into thinking that Julius Grief has returned, in order to distract the police into finding Alex and killing him, thereby exposing their real target. Alex promptly passes out, having consumed drugged coffee.
Waking up in Brighton, Alex steals a hoodie and escapes to London, phoning his friend Tom Harris and getting him to contact Jack Starbright and have her go to an MI6 safe house, the House of Dolls toyshop, to meet him there. Tom tags along, and the three of them work out a plan to stop the attack.
The trio go to the Shard, where Frederick Grey and Number Eleven are about to perform the BASE jump; William Jones, Number Seven, was scheduled to take part in it, but broke his arm in a training exercise. Alex knocks out Number Eleven and takes his place, performing the BASE jump to St Paul's. Sofia Jones is in the choir, and has been planted to open the dome and let her co-conspirators in. Inside the cathedral, Nightshade's communication equipment does not work, and Alex reveals his true identity to Frederick. He calls Nightshade out for their heinousness, saying that no God would encourage a war. Frederick attacks Alex, who was wrested the VX bomb from his grip, and sends him, bomb and all, into the congregation; as Alex is still wearing his reserve parachute, it opens, stopping him from falling to his death on the cathedral floor. The bomb fails to go off, and London is saved.
MI6 Special Operations reopens, with Mrs. Jones and Crawley reinstated; Sofia and Frederick (and presumably Number Eleven) have been detained by the security forces and are undergoing deprogramming. Dominic Royce is exposed as the leak that led to Nightshade's exposure, and is incarcerated at HMS Secure Unit Gibraltar; Andrews has been arrested in Costa Rica for drug smuggling (planted on him by Crawley as revenge). However, by the time the Special Air Service arrives at Nightshade's base, the area is abandoned. The Teachers have taken the remaining twenty Numbers with them. All the world's intelligence agencies are on their tail.
At the end of the book, the Teachers' attentions turn to finding Alex and killing him in revenge for ruining Leap of Faith, and stealing two of their Numbers.
Nightshade Revenge[]
Immediately after the failure of Leap of Faith, Nightshade have been plotting payback on Alex. The Teachers take Alex's best friend Tom Harris hostage. Brother Mike orders Alex to take a gun to the hospital where Frederick is being held, in order to free the boy so that he may rejoin Nightshade. With no choice, Alex complies and convinces Frederick to hold him hostage in order to let them leave, going to an airfield, where Brother Mike is waiting in a Nightshade helicopter. At the site, Frederick appears to betray Alex by killing Tom, before he and Brother Mike depart.
But all is not as it seems; Tom is still alive, and it is realised that Frederick is infiltrating Nightshade in order to bring them down. As William Jones is still in Nightshade's thrall, Alex goes after them. He also realises that Frederick left him a clue as to where Nightshade may be found.
Eventually, Brother Mike kidnaps Alex and takes him to a Nightshade base. The place is El Dorado, a mockup of an American town from the Old West, owned by Nightshade's new client, philanthropist Jon Lucas. Lucas reveals to Alex that he has hired Nightshade to help him bankrupt his former employer, computer games manufacturer Rudolph Klein, so that he can take over Klein's company Real Time and merge it with his own organisation. The bankruptcy will be achieved by sabotaging Real Time's new game, which will lead to the deaths of its players. Nightshade, meanwhile, learn of Frederick's duplicity, and plan to have Frederick and Alex engage in a gunfight. If Alex dies, Freddy will rejoin Nightshade, but if Alex wins, he will live as a worker for Lucas.
The insane CIA chief Dwain Garfield orders an air strike, aiming to destroy El Dorado and Nightshade with it, writing off Alex's death, and those of the Numbers, as nothing. As the gunfight begins, Alex, Frederick and William turn the tables; Frederick shoots and kills Brother Mike, while Alex shoots Lucas in the leg. William (whose memories of his family have been triggered by Alex) shoots and kills the other three Teachers, and the other Numbers revolt against their captors. With Garfield's air strike approaching, Alex, fellow MI6 agent Ben Daniels, and the Numbers go to the El Dorado courthouse, which serves as the master server room for Lucas. At gunpoint, Alex and Ben threaten the businessman to deactivate the malicious software in the game, which he does, before explaining how they can escape. They all go down an abandoned mineshaft, and board a hidden hi-speed train that takes them away to safety. However, Jon Lucas refuses to face justice, and stays behind; he is killed in the destruction of El Dorado.
Although Alex has won, his victory is pyrrhic, as Frederick is mortally wounded by a Nightshade operator, and before dying, he confesses to Alex that he feels he would never survive in the world after Nightshade made him commit atrocities, and thanks Alex for being his only friend.
Members[]
Teachers[]
There are four "Teachers" introduced in Nightshade. They are the leaders of the organisation; they are all fifty years old and American:
- "Brother" Lamar Jensen, the founder and chief executive of Nightshade. He is a former weapons supplier whose company, LJ Weapons Systems, armed multiple armed forces, until he was discovered selling weapons to Islamic State, the Taliban and Boko Haram, among other terrorist groups. He is believed to have been inspired by Japanese kamikazes in his evil actions with Nightshade. He has a penchant for smoking cigars.
- "Sister" Professor Krysten Schultz, the developer of the implants that allow the Teachers to communicate with the Numbers. She is a former professor at the Harvard School of Engineering, until she left twelve years previously. Her last work at Harvard was in communications using the atomic imperfections in diamonds.
- Sister Jeanne, the academic and mental trainer of the Numbers. She is by far the least fleshed out of the Teachers.
- Lenny "Brother Mike" Michelangelo, a hostile black man and ex-mob assassin who seems to have responsibility for physical training of the Numbers. He seems to have an obsession with killing Numbers who have been 'compromised', as well as killing outsiders,
The Teachers live in The Temple at Kavos Bay, a modern reconstruction of an ancient Greek temple. It includes a communications room to communicate with the Numbers via their implanted communicators.
The normal uniform of the Teachers is grey shirts buttoned to the neck, loose grey robes and sandals, with a gold crescent moon pendant on the neck. On occasions when they are in the field, they dress in whatever is appropriate, such as a business suit, or at El Dorado during the shootout, as a cowboy in solid black. Both these guises were Brother Mike's.
Cardinals[]
Cardinals are technicians and scientists. Alex suspects that they were recruited from various gaols across Europe.
Primes[]
Primes are European criminals, recruited by Nightshade to provide armed security at their base. Although armed, they are normally lazy and half-asleep, due to nobody approaching the base and the Numbers not wanting to leave.
Numbers[]
The "Numbers" of Nightshade are its main operatives: the perfect child soldier, programmed virtually from birth. The Numbers are the children of families with important military, intelligence and crime connections, stolen from their families at a very young age and indoctrinated in Nightshade's beliefs. Examples include Frederick Grey, the only child of Lt. Gen. Sir Christopher Grey of the Royal Engineers; and William and Sofia Jones, the children of MI6 Special Operations head Mrs. Lale 'Tulip' Jones.
At their secret base in Kavos Bay, the Teachers mold the Numbers into unquestioning tools of their design, to follow every order that is given, to the letter, without any hesitation or questioning. Training includes martial arts, languages, battlefield medicine, and skills that are useful to specific missions, such as piloting miniature aircraft, and parachuting. The Teachers say that the Numbers were not wanted by their parents and were sent to sea; they 'rescued' them and raise them with a religious upbringing. Numbers are, as their designation implies, not even given names, as their memories of their families are suppressed; they view fellow Numbers as brothers and sisters, the Teachers as godlike figures, no interest in the outside world and are instilled with religious fervour for their 'cause'.
There are twenty-five Numbers introduced in Nightshade. Prior to the novel, two of them, Numbers Fourteen and Twenty-One, have died in training accidents. By the novel's end, two of them, Numbers Six and Nine (respectively, Sofia Jones and Frederick Grey) have been detained by the British security forces and are undergoing deprogramming. The fate of a third number, Eleven, is not known, as Alex had knocked him out at the Shard, and Nightshade is stated to have twenty Numbers left.
The normal uniform of the Numbers consists of blue jackets, mauve shirts, grey trousers and black shoes. However, when working at El Dorado for Jon Lucas, the Numbers are dressed in checked shirts and jeans, almost blending in with the cowboy theme of the restored Wild West town.
