| “ | I will track them to the ends of the earth. I do not use the word 'evil' very often but I think it perfectly applies to them. | ” |
—Mrs Jones describing Nightshade. |
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Nightshade are the third antagonist organisation to appear in the Alex Rider series, the other two being SCORPIA and the Snakehead. They first appear in the novel Nightshade, though they are briefly mentioned in Never Say Die. Unlike criminal organisation SCORPIA, or the Snakehead (a criminal syndicate), Nightshade is a private military company. It is the main antagonist of the novel Nightshade.
Operations[]
Nightshade are known by the audience to have only ever performed two operations: Leap Of Faith, a major terrorist attack located in St. Paul's Cathedral. This operation takes place in Alex Rider: Nightshade, and supporting a failed attack made in Nightshade Revenge.
However, they have also done several other acts, as told by John Crawley. Unlike other organisations, Nightshade do not obey any rules. The organisation was suspected to be responsible for terror acts of in Munich, Washington, Singapore, Paris, Brussels and Madrid; a bombing in Istanbul, assassinations in Moscow, Riyadh and Beijing, and kidnapping Paul Sabar, the banker of Vatican City State; even after receiving a ransom of €2million, they killed him anyway. In Crawley's words, "they're efficient. They're ruthless. And they don't obey any rules".
Leap of Faith[]
Nightshade were hired by Dominic Royce, then Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the British civil service, to assassinate all of Parliament, due to Royce's belief in their incompetence. For this, Nightshade asked for $20million, which Royce paid, to their bank account in Geneva, Switzerland.
To execute this plan, Nightshade aimed to use the payment they had received from the Third Command drug cartel: a canister of North Korean-made VX, which they had received in return for killing their main rivals, which involved thirty-seven deaths in fourteen days, including entire families. To assemble the targets, they arranged for the death of popular former Home Secretary, James, Lord Clifford, via poisoning. (WIP)
MI6 agent "Pablo" (one of a number of aliases used by this agent) had learned of this plan and brought it to the attention of MI6. Meeting "Pablo" in Brazil, John Crawley discovered that Nightshade had a big plan. However, two of their agents, Sofia Jones and Frederick Gray, killed "Pablo" by using a remote-controlled model aeroplane with a knife in its wing. Although Sofia escaped, Frederick was captured by Brazilian police and detained by their Special Operations Battalion - BOPE. Frederick killed five police officers and injured three more, thanks to his advanced training and having numerous gadgets hidden on him.
Alex Rider infiltrated Nightshade under the guise of his clone Julius Grief, and succeeded in discovering Nightshade's Greek base of operations, as well as the identities of the Teachers, a generalised idea of their structure (and strength of the Numbers), their training - and their plans to attack London. However, thanks to Royce, the Teachers learned who Alex really was, and set about trying to use him as a distraction for the police (tricking them into thinking that he was Julius Grief), to ensure that nothing would interfere with their plans.
The plan for Leap of Faith was to have Frederick/Number Six, Sofia/Number Six, and Number Eleven to attack Lord Clifford's memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral, which was certain to have every Member of Parliament present, due to Lord Clifford's popularity. Sofia would infiltrate the memorial service choir, and climb into the Ornamental Gallery at the Cathedral, and let Frederick and Number Eleven in through this way (having BASE jumped from the Shard to St Paul's), to detonate explosives containing VX and assassinate all present. The plan would follow with the Numbers being extracted in a stolen helicopter.
However, Alex had escaped to London, and knocked out Number Eleven and took his place. In St Paul's, the Teachers could not communicate with the Numbers (owing to Alex bringing an RF jammer with him), and convinced Freddy that the Teachers were wrong, and not to follow through with the attack. This led to Frederick and Sofia being captured by the British security forces and detainment for deprogramming. (WIP)
Members[]
Executive committee/"Teachers"[]
The leaders of Nightshade are a quartet of Americans, who, in the eyes of their agents, are the Teachers.
- "Brother" Lamar Jensen
- "Brother Mike" - a.k.a. Lenny Michelangelo
- Sister Jeanne
- "Sister" Professor Krysten Schultz
Agents/"Numbers"[]
- Frederick Grey - No 009:
- Alex Rider - No 026:
- William Jones - No 007: Mrs Jones' son
- No 013: Said to be a top performer in the assault course, and a brilliant actor
- No 022: A girl
- Japanese girl:
- No 020: Said to be always working with 023
- No 023: Siad to be always working with 020
- Sofia Jones: Mrs Jones' daughter
- No 011