freesirius4life:

Alex: Ben, calm down…

Ben: No, Alex, I will not calm down! Not when I’m being forced to work with Agent Lewinsky!

Yassen: Whose Agent Lewinsky?

Ben: The CIA Agent that tortured Alex!

Yassen: *cocks gun*

Yassen: The what now?

A Day to Remember (Twice!)

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It was an unusually sunny day for the beginning of March. Ian almost found himself relaxing as he drove through the English countryside towards London and home, despite the fact that he still had to write his report before his mission was complete. He might not have discovered the exact virus that Herod Sayle intended to unleash with his Stormbreaker computers, but that didn’t matter now. Ian had found the computer code and added a kill switch; when the system was activated to release the virus, it would shut down, locking the virus safely away until the computers were recalled and it could be disposed of by MI6. He’d also been able to add his laptop as a remote source writer. Even if his code was discovered and removed, he’d be able to add it back in. And, provided the traffic when he arrived in London was no worse than usual, he would be home in time to have dinner with Alex and Jack and still write his report before the end of the day.

As he pulled onto the drive and grabbed his bags out of the boot, Ian took a deep breath and smiled. The clean air of Cornwall, with the ever present smell of sea salt in the air, had been nice, but the smell of the pine tree hedge, which really needed a trim before the birds started their breeding season (he didn’t remember it being so overgrown when he’d left for Sayle Enterprises), intermingled with the cherry blossom and the flowers that were just beginning to bloom was home. And, like the icing on a cake, he was home in time for dinner, just as he had hoped he would be. Often, he got home so late at night that he ended up skulking into the house silently so that he didn’t disturb Alex and Jack as they slept. He might even suggest they got a takeaway for dinner if Jack hadn’t started cooking yet. He unlocked the door and stepped into the hallway and saw Jack just leaving the kitchen, holding two steaming mugs in her hands.

“Hi Jack,” he greeted jovially.

Smash!The two mugs dropped to the floor, spilling tea everywhere. Jack’s jaw almost seemed to join them, her mouth open wide, as though she were in shock. All of the colour drained from her face in the time it took Ian to blink just once.

“Everything alright?” Ian asked, dropping his bags in the doorway and rushing forwards to help her, pieces of the ceramic crushing beneath his boots. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

Jack just stared at him, eyes wide and barely breathing.

“Jack?” Alex called from upstairs. “You good?”

She didn’t reply but continued to stare at him in what, if Ian didn’t know better, he would have called disbelief. Her strange reaction to his arrival stopped him from calling back up to Alex to say that he’d sort it. He couldn’t understand it - he often showed up unannounced after going on a mission, so why was she so surprised to see him?

“Jack, what’s wrong?” he asked at the same time as Alex called again. This time, Ian heard his nephew walking down the hallway from his bedroom to the stairs. Well, he could help get Jack to a chair and then they could work out what was wrong.

Alex came bounding down the stairs but came to an abrupt halt when he skidded around the corner and saw them.

“What..?” he breathed. Like Jack, Alex seemed shocked to see him.

“Alex?” Ian asked, looking back at his nephew and suddenly unsure what he had walked into. Alex, almost unconsciously it seemed, had prepared himself for a karate strike. His knees were slightly bent, lowering his centre of gravity, his arms were raised and tensed and there was a dangerous look in his eyes. And now that Ian looked at him properly, he saw that something was seriously wrong. He had been so concerned about Jack and whether she was going to faint on him that he hadn’t looked at his nephew properly when he first came down the stairs, but now he did. This was not the same boy that he had left three weeks ago. Somehow, he was older. Significantly older. And his eyes… they were so much darker than Ian had ever seen them.

“Alex?” he said again, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender.

Before Ian knew what was happening, Alex sprang into action. He crossed the space between them incredibly quickly, jumping over the shards of broken mugs like they weren’t there, and striking out with his arms and legs in such a flurry that it was all Ian could do to back away towards the lounge and block the attack.

“Get out of here, Jack!” Alex called behind him, not losing his focus on Ian or letting up with his kicks and punches.

“Alex? What-” but before he could ask what was going on Alex let out a yell of rage.

“-Who are you working for?”

“What?” Ian was beyond confused at this point. All he could try to do was calm Alex down and then work out what was going on. He was still blocking and dodging all of Alex’s attacks, but his nephew was a strong and experienced fighter. And somehow, he seemed much stronger than he had been when they had sparred almost a month ago, almost like he had done much more intensive fight training… and had used it… outside of training fights. He wasn’t allowing any opportunities for Ian to strike back (not that he particularly wanted to) and was moving with such speed and ferocity that it took Ian by surprise. It felt like he was fighting an enemy on a mission who would very happily kill him if he got the chance, rather than Alex.

“Why him? Of all people, why him?” Tears were streaming down Alex’s face but it did not stop his attack from being effective. He was focused and disciplined and didn’t even seem to have noticed the tears.

“Alex? What are you talking about?”

They were completely in the lounge now and Ian had to avoid coffee tables, sofas and chairs along with Alex’s attack. Suddenly, he was on his back. One of Alex’s strikes had knocked him down and before he could make a move to get out of the way and back to his feet, Alex had pinned him down.

“Did you really think this would work? That you could disguise yourself as him and sneak into the house unnoticed?”

What the hell was Alex talking about?

“If you wanted that to work, you’re two years too late,” Alex snarled. He might have the upper hand right now but Ian was stronger and more experienced than him. He made his move and now he was the one pinning Alex to the floor.

“What do you mean, Alex?” he asked gently. “What do you mean two years too late?”

“Ian died two years ago,” he spat out but Ian could hear the defeat and sadness in his voice too. “If you wanted to pretend to be Ian, you should have done it years ago.”

Ian froze. Why did Alex think he was dead? And that he’d died two years ago! Alex took advantage of his lapse in concentration and Ian suddenly found himself on his back again.

“Who sent you?” Alex growled.

“Nobody sent me,” Ian said truthfully, his mind racing at a hundred miles an hour trying to make sense of what Alex was saying and work out what to do.

“I will not ask again. If you tell me the truth, I might consider letting you just go to jail rather than some MI6 black site where the sun doesn’t shine.”

No. Alex had just said MI6. Why would they be coming? Alex didn’t know anything about his work, he couldn’t, but he had definitely just said MI6.

“How can I prove to you that I am Ian?”

“You can’t.”

“There must be something.”

“There is nothing you can say because I know that Ian is dead. He died two years ago. And, anyway, I didn’t know enough about him for you to be able to say anything that only I would know.”

That broke Ian’s heart but he had been an agent for long enough to be able to suppress his own feelings. He took advantage of Alex’s distraction and flipped him on his back again.

“Maybe you can’t think of anything right now, but I will prove to you that I am who I say I am.”

Before either of them could do or say anything more, Ian was grabbed from behind and pulled off of Alex. He’d been so focused on his nephew that he hadn’t heard them coming up behind him. His hands were jerked behind his back and he felt the cool metal of handcuffs closing around his wrists. Whoever they were, they had arrived at the house almost impossibly quickly.

“Is Jack okay?” Alex asked, picking himself up off of the floor and dusting himself off.

“She’s fine. Fox is with her. How are you? Who’s this?” The man was clearly a soldier. The SAS liked to use animal code names. How had Alex called soldiers, possible SAS soldiers at that, to the house, so quickly? There had been no introductions but Alex clearly knew and trusted them… more than he currently trusted Ian… what the hell was going on?

“That’s good, thanks Wolf. Yeah I’m okay. I don’t know who he is but-” Alex lent forward and whispered into the man’s ear. Ian couldn’t hear what he said to the man but he could guess, based on the sudden hardness and change in his expression and the glare that he cast in his direction.

“We will find out who you are and who sent you,” the soldier said coldly. “But you definitely chose the wrong disguise and you will pay for that.”

Ian said nothing. He was used to threats and knew that it would be no good to try and persuade them that he really was who he said he was, not at the moment, anyway. The truth would out, in the end. The main question he had was why they thought he was dead in the first place.

“Alex-”

“-Nope. You’re done,” the man called ‘Wolf’ said, interrupting him and signalling to the two soldiers who were holding his arms and stopping him from moving.

That was the only warning he got before he was swung around and marched through the house. It was not worth the fight to break free right now. He was forced out of the house and down the drive towards a car waiting on the road. Jack was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s even got the same car that Ian had.” Alex must have followed them to the door and seen his car on the driveway.

“It’s the same car, Alex!” he protested, earning him a hard shove in the back, but Ian dug his heels in and managed to turn himself around to face his nephew.

“The last time I saw the real version of that car, Ian’s car, I nearly died in it,” Alex replied quietly but there was an edge to his voice that Ian had never heard before. “It was littered with bullet holes and Ian’s blood was all over the driver’s seat, and it was crushed in a car compactor while I was still inside it. I only just got out.”

Ian was too stunned by Alex’s shocking revelation to say or do anything as he was dragged down the drive, shoved into the car and driven away. He had so many questions! How could Alex be 'remembering’ all of that? His death, when he was here and very much alive! His bullet ridden and blood stained car, when the car was on the drive! And why had Alex said that two years had passed? He’d only left for Sayle Enterprises three weeks ago! There was no way that any of that had happened but… something had happened and Ian was determined to find out what it was.

Alex watched as Snake and Eagle shoved the fake Ian into the car and drove away before he retreated back into the house. Jack was in the dining room and he folded himself into her arms. The man could have chosen any day to walk into his house looking like Ian. Any other day and Alex might have coped just a little bit better. But today? Today was the second anniversary of Ian’s death, so naturally Alex had been thinking about his uncle more than usual. And then to go downstairs and literally see him standing there! For a second, he had thought he was hallucinating or seeing Ian’s ghost before reason had kicked in.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I will be. Are you?”

“A little shaken but I’m fine. It really was just like he was walking through the door.”

“I’m just glad he’s gone now.”

“They’re taking him to Liverpool Street to question him,” Ben cut in. Alex had noticed him standing in the room, but Ben was much more like a friend to both him and Jack and neither of them minded him being there.

“Thanks Ben.”

Alex stepped back into the hall and, for the first time, surveyed the mess that had been left behind. He had been lucky to avoid all of the broken pieces of ceramic when he’d attacked the man; he’d barely noticed the smashed mugs when he’d first come down the stairs. All he had seen was Jack, deathly white and leaning against the wall looking like she was about to faint, and Ian. The fake Ian had been so close to her that he could have done anything, and all Alex had been able to think about was getting him away from her. It was only now that he saw that his favourite mug had been smashed; it was one that Ian had bought for him when they had gone to Disneyland when he was eight. It always reminded him of a time when life was simpler. When he had Ian and Jack and knew nothing about MI6. And aside from that, it was just a nice mug. He always felt incredibly British when he thought about the fact that he had a preference on mugs based on how they felt in his hands and how much tea they could hold. Like so many things from before Ian’s death, the mug was gone but, Alex couldn’t afford to dwell on that right now.

“How did you guys get here so quickly?” he asked, looking away from the carnage in the hallway and turning back to face Ben.

Alex had finally been given an emergency beacon that wasn’t just for a mission. Mrs Jones had decided that he had perhaps made too many enemies and they might try and retaliate. So when Alex had come to his senses and realised that it was a real person standing in his hallway, not a hallucination or a ghost, he’d promptly pressed his transmitter three times to signal a home invasion before he attacked.

“We were on our way to a briefing,” Ben explained. “We were only about five minutes away from you when you activated your beacon and, as we were by far the closest support to you, Mrs Jones rerouted us.”

“I’m glad it was you guys,” Alex admitted. He needed the familiar and friendly faces today.

“He even had a key!” Jack breathed.

“What?”

“He let himself in with a key.”

Alex glanced at the door and sure enough, a set of keys was hanging from the lock. He walked forwards, his legs moving of their own accord.

“How the hell did he get these?” he wondered aloud as he examined the key ring.

“What do you mean, Alex?” Ben asked gently.

“This is the exact same key ring that Ian had.” And even as he said it, he knew that it was true. There was one thing that made Alex sure. One year, Jack had taken him to the Lego store for his birthday; when they were at the tills, Alex had seen a suit-wearing Lego figurine key ring and he’d bought it for Ian. The thing that made Alex sure that this was the exact same figure that he’d given his uncle was the face. Ian had had it on his keys for a long time and the face on the little figurine had worn away. And Alex, in the ever present optimism of childhood, had decided that he’d draw a replacement on. Looking at it now, he shuddered. The face that his younger self had drawn was horrific but it was definitely the same face that he was looking at now. He took the key out of the lock and held the keys in his hand for a moment before making a decision. He stepped out of the house and unlocked the car on the driveway.

“Alex? What are you doing?”

“I just need to make sure.”

“Make sure of what?”

“Well,” he said, pausing and turning to face Jack and Ben as he tried to compose his thoughts to be able to explain. “Ian was driving when he was killed and he had to have had his keys with him. So whoever this man is, he can’t have taken the keys from the car or by breaking into MI6 and stealing them because then he’d have known that Ian was dead and used a different disguise. And nobody would have been able to replicate that awful face I drew, so they have to be the same keys! They have to be Ian’s! So why did this man choose Ian as his disguise if he knew that he’s dead? It doesn’t make sense.”

He turned and began walking towards the car again, his body growing heavier with every step. He didn’t particularly want to get into the car again - the last time he had, he’d nearly been crushed - but he had to know. He had to know how this man had Ian’s keys and an exact replica of his car but didn’t know that Ian was dead… or why he decided to use Ian’s face despite the fact.

“Alex!” Ben called, running down the drive towards him. “I know you want answers but it would be better to wait. We don’t know if the car is a trap.”

“What, like I open the door and it explodes in a ball of flames?” Alex’s mouth went dry at the thought. He’d been tricked into thinking that it’d happened to Jack once; he didn’t really want to find out what it actually felt like.

“It’s a possibility.”

Alex almost wanted to groan in frustration but he knew that Ben was right. It wasn’t worth the risk.

“I’ll check the car over and then, once I’m happy it’s safe, you can have a look, alright?”

“Thanks Ben.”

“Come on. I’ll make us all a drink, and then I’ll get to work and you can make a plan.”

“Yeah, okay,” Alex agreed with a sigh.

When they reached the door, a holdall and jacket that had been dumped on the floor caught his eye.

“Did he bring these in?” he asked, looking up at Jack. She nodded.

Alex quickly closed the front door behind them, grabbed the bag and coat and carried them into the living room. If he couldn’t examine the car, he was definitely going to have a look at these.

He emptied the contents onto the floor and began to pore over them. There was nothing in the holdall that stood out to him. It was just black t-shirts, black trousers, underwear and toiletries. Alex tried not to notice that the toiletry bag was identical to the one Ian had had… nor the fact that the man and his clothes smelt exactly the same as he remembered Ian smelling (that had been almost more of a punch to the gut than seeing someone walking around with Ian’s face), but everything he discovered lingered in his mind, floating around like irritating flies that buzzed around and refused to leave him alone. Like he was collecting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle but didn’t have enough to put the outline together, let alone complete the whole image! There was a laptop too but, seeing as he would be unable to log in to it, Alex didn’t waste any time examining it. He moved on to the jacket and in the inside pocket, he found a wallet. His fingers trembled slightly as he opened it.

Inside were the usual credit cards, loyalty cards, some loose change and a receipt from a petrol station just outside of Port Tallon. Alex checked the date and took a shaky breath. It was dated two years ago. It was from the day before Ian was killed! He put it to one side to examine properly later and a photograph in the wallet caught his eye. It was of him and Ian from their first skiing holiday. He thumbed it out of its slot and turned it over. On the back, written in Ian’s handwriting, was the date of their holiday and a sentence that made him catch his breath. A’s first solo run! Alex was sure that this was Ian’s handwriting; either this was an excellent forgery or this picture really had once been Ian’s and he’d been proud enough of Alex that he’d commemorated the occasion andkept it with him as a reminder.

He’d never considered his uncle to be a sentimental man. Hell for the last two years all he’d been told was that Ian had only been training him to take his place as an agent! But if this genuinely had been Ian’s, then there was some level of care and attachment there. And suddenly, Alex remembered the photograph that had been on Ian’s desk in his office in Liverpool Street when he broke in, back when he’d still believed that Ian was a banker. Perhaps Ian had cared for him, even if he had been training him. Both photos were reminders of skills that he’d been taught, after all. Alex was about to put the photo and wallet down when he noticed another photograph that had been hidden behind the first. It was of a man and a woman holding a baby and beaming from ear to ear. These were his parents; the baby had to be him. He gently prized this one out of the little pocket too and just stared, enraptured, for a moment. He’d never seen a photo with the three of them in it before! He could feel the indent of writing on the back of this photo too, but he stared at the photo for a little while longer before turning it over.

The note on the back of this one was in different handwriting. One that he’d never seen before but still felt like he recognised. With all our love, always x. Alex almost wanted to cry. His parents must have had this photo taken just before their move to France. And they had given Ian a photo with all of their love. If the plan had worked, they would probably never have seen each other again…

“Alex?” The call pulled him out of his train of thought.

He looked up, tears welling in his eyes, and saw Ben standing in the doorway.

“I’ve checked the car. It’s clean.”

“Thanks. Can you take me to Liverpool Street? After?”

“Well,” Ben began uncertainly.

“I want to talk to Blunt or Jones. To start with, anyway.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am. Thanks Ben.” Alex put both the photographs back into the wallet and pocketed it before picking up the car keys again.

A flood of memories hit him as he opened the car door. The crash of the claw and motion as it picked the car up and dumped into the crusher. The smell of oil and diesel as the car broke apart. The smash of the glass and the feeling as it fell down onto him and into his hair. His heart racing as he clambered desperately through the car to the rear window… Alex shuddered and took a few seconds before he forced himself to push those memories aside for now. He needed to be analytical, to examine every inch of the car and not let his emotions cloud his judgement.

He was looking around the backseats when he found it. So far, all he’d found were the usual things you’d expect to find in a car; the map as backup in case the Sat Nav failed, a first aid kit, sunglasses, de-icer, a half empty bottle of water. But in the back, tucked down the side of the rear passenger side seat, where he had always sat when he was too little to join Ian in the front or when he, Ian and Jack had all been going somewhere together, was a small plastic object. It had fallen into the gap where the plug came out of the upholstery and must have been forgotten about, until now. He pulled it out and examined it. It was his old Tamagotchi. He’d completely forgotten that he’d owned one until he looked at it, but now he remembered being so upset when he’d realised that he’d lost it. He could only have been about eight at the time and he and Jack had searched the house for hours with no success. But now he looked at it, at the scratched and half peeled stickers where he’d tried to remove them, and knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was his.

Everything that he was finding was throwing up so many more questions and providing absolutely no answers. He would just have to find them for himself. He walked back to the door where Ben and Jack were waiting.

“Okay, I’m ready,” he said to Ben before turning to Jack.

“I’ll be waiting in the car,” Ben said, and Alex knew that he was purposefully giving them some time alone.

“Are you sure about this, Alex?” she asked.

“Yes. I need answers, Jack. I need to know how he managed to get so many of Ian’s things. I need to know how I saw Ian’s car get crushed two years ago, yet it’s here without a scratch.”

“Are you sure that’s his car? It could just be the same model and they switched out the licence plates?”

“No, it’s definitely his. I found this in the gap between two of the back seats,” he said, holding up the Tamagotchi.

“Wait, is that?”

“Yes. It’s my old Tamagotchi. It’s got the same peeling stickers and everything.” He let out a sigh. “I don’t know, Jack, but this, the keys, photos that definitely came from his wallet… I just don’t understand how so many details can be correct but also not making sense, and I need to find out.”

“I know,” she said, pulling him into a hug. “I can come with you, if you want?”

“No, thanks, Jack. I’ll be okay. I don’t even know if anyone will see me but I’ve got to try. Are you going to be okay?”

“Don’t worry about me,” she said with a quick smile. “You go do what you need to do. Are you sure you don’t want me to come?”

“It’s not that I don’t want you there, Jack, but I want to keep you as far away from them as possible. I don’t want them to do anything to you, too!”

Alex and Ben drove to Liverpool Street in silence. Alex could tell that the older agent was worried about him but couldn’t think of anything to say to ease his nerves, so he said nothing. Alex was glad of that. So many thoughts were swirling around in his head that it was as much as he could do to try and process them himself, let alone hold a conversation. The whole situation was too hard to explain until he knew more, anyway. They pulled into the underground carpark and Ben led him over to one of the lifts.

“Are you sure about this, Alex?” Ben asked.

“Yes.”

“Alright,” he replied with a resigned air and swiped his card to call the lift.

Ben led him along the corridor and into Mrs Jones’s office, not that Alex needed his help. He would have been able to find his way to the office blindfolded.

“Good evening, Alex,” she greeted from her seat behind the desk.

“I need to see the file you have on my mother,” Alex said without greeting or preamble.

“I’m sorry?”

“Before my mum and dad married, Blunt had her investigated. There is a file with everything in it and I need to see it.”

“Alex, what is this about?”

“I just need to see it.”

“Why?”

“Mrs Jones,” he said as politely as he could but his patience was wearing incredibly thin. “I have done so much for you and I haven’t had so much as a penny in thanks. You have blackmailed me, manipulated me, and straight up forced me to go on suicide mission after suicide mission. I think that should give me some authority to see the file you have on my own mother, but, if it isn’t, I think the fact that I have just been attacked by a man who looks identical to my dead uncle might be. Not just that, he’s instant that he is my dead uncle and absolutely nothing about the entire situation makes sense. I’m getting answers and this is where I am starting.”

“Very well, I’ll see what I can do.”

Alex nodded and sat himself down in one of the plush grey chairs that sat against one of the walls. Sitting in the chair in front of the desk would give her power and Alex absolutely refused to do that.

“It might take some time, Alex. Perhaps-”

“-I’ll wait,” he growled. He was not going to allow her to fob him off and send him away.

“If you insist,” she said nonchalantly and began typing away at her keyboard.

Ben sat down on the seat next to him and they waited in silence while Mrs Jones worked. For all the attention she paid them, they might as well not have been there. About half an hour later, there was a knock at the door.

“I’ve got the file you requested, Mrs Jones.”

“Thank you, William.” Mrs Jones took the file from her assistant and placed it on her desk. Clearly, if Alex wanted to look at it, he would have to join her.

Alex threw himself into one of the chairs in front of her and pulled the file towards him but Mrs Jones put a hand on it, stopping him before he could open it.

“What are you looking for, Alex?”

“Who says I’m looking for anything?”

“Clearly you’ve known that this file existed for a while - I won’t ask how you knew when today is the first I’ve heard of it - but you need something today.”

“Or, perhaps, seeing my dead uncle walking around, even if it was just a disguise, has reminded me that I know practically nothing about my parents. Maybe I decided that enough is enough and I want to know more about my mother because aside from the fact that she was a nurse I know practically nothing. Maybe I just want to know where I came from.”

“Alex. I am breaking the rules by letting you see this file. Tell me the truth.”

“Is it so hard to accept that I just want to know more about my mum? I know that you won’t give me Ian’s file, or my dad’s, and even if you did, it would probably all be redacted. This just has who my mum was. What she did. Who her friends were. I just want to know more about her.”

“Very well,” Mrs Jones conceded, taking her hand away and letting Alex open the file.

Thankful that he’d managed to avoid telling her the real reason, Alex gazed down at the first sheet of paper. It just had basic background information; her height, weight, eye and hair colours. It also had her birthday, home address and where she worked. He’d known that she was a nurse. He hadn’t known that she had worked at St Dominic’s, the very same hospital where he’d been treated several times in the past. Had any of the doctors or nurses who’d treated him worked with her? Would any of them be able to tell him about her? Alex made a mental note to look into it at some point in the future and carried on reading. There was more on that first introductory page than Alex had ever known about her, and he was only just beginning to scratch the surface.

He slowly made his way through the file, keeping an eye out for anything handwritten, but learning so much about who his mum was and what she did. Finally, as he neared the end of the file, Alex found a copy of a letter that she’d written to his dad. There was so much love crammed into that small page that Alex’s heart almost felt like it was going to burst. And the handwriting matched the inscription on the back of the picture. Alex wasn’t an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but it was good enough to reassure him that the photo in 'Ian’s’ wallet had indeed been given to the real Ian by his parents a long time ago.

But what did that mean? If the wallet, or at least the photos, had been Ian’s, how had the man gotten hold of them? It was the same question with the keys and the Tamagotchi. If someone had gone to this trouble to set up a disguise, why hadn’t they realised that Ian was dead? Or, if they had, why had they decided to continue with it, knowing that he would be discovered almost immediately?

Alex’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door and someone coming in.

“Mrs Jones, I’ve got an update on the… oh hello, Alex old chap, I didn’t see you there.” Smithers had become unusually uneasy upon seeing Alex sitting in the room.

“Hello Smithers.”

Mrs Jones and Smithers exchanged tense glances, and Alex knew that what Smithers had come to say was about the man who’d broken into Alex’s home.

“Could you wait outside for a moment please, Alex?” Mrs Jones asked.

“No.”

“Alex-”

“-No, Mrs Jones. This man broke into my home. I deserve to know what you’ve found out about him.”

“Oh, very well,” she replied exasperatedly. “Please go on, Smithers.”

The gadget master cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I, um, I ran some tests…”

“And..?”

“I think it would be easier to show you.”

“Very well.” Mrs Jones stood up to follow Smithers and Alex stood up too. So did Ben.

“Alex, old chap-”

“-Forget it, Mr Smithers. I’m coming.”

The tension as the four of them walked silently to Smithers’ office was palpable.

“He isn’t wearing a facial disguise and I can’t see any signs of plastic surgery. He does just look and sound like Ian. And he’s done his research - he knows who I am and where he is. So I took the liberty of doing a DNA test to see if our mystery man is recorded anywhere on our system, and that’s where things get interesting. There was a match.” Smithers had looked increasingly uncomfortable as he’d been talking. “This is the DNA of the man you apprehended, Alex,” Smithers said, tapping away at his keyboard and bringing up the DNA string.

“Okay,” Mrs Jones said. Clearly, like Alex, she was unable to see the relevance.

“And this-” Smithers said, again tapping at his keyboard “-is the record for the DNA match on our system.” He paused for a moment. “The DNA match is for Ian Rider.”

There was silence for a few moments as everyone tried to take in what Smithers had just told them before Alex broke it.

“How can that be Ian? You told me he died two years ago!”

“I don’t know,” Smithers began but Mrs Jones interrupted.

“Ian was killed, Alex. I hate to say it but I saw his body. We did all of the necessary tests at the time. We did DNA analysis and matched fingerprints and did retinal scans. The man who died on his way back from Cornwall was Ian Rider. We knew that before we sent the police to tell you.”

“Well clearly you got it wrong! Either you’re wrong now or you were wrong then! Because they can’t both be Ian!”

“There’s something else,” Smithers said. “Obviously, we questioned the man downstairs… he’s insistent that he has just come from Cornwall… from Sayle Enterprises… but he is also acting as though it istwo years ago. Either he’s a very, very good liar or he is telling the truth and has no knowledge of the past two years.”

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t know, Mrs Jones. That’s the thing. I just don’t know.”

“What happens now?” Ben asked.

“We need to find out the truth.”

“And how exactly are you going to do that?” Alex exclaimed. “You’ve done all of the tests! What else can you do?”

“I don’t know just yet, Alex, but we will find out.”

“No. You know what? That’s not good enough. You have ruined my life since before I was born. I am not going to stand around and watch you mess it up again. Let me talk to him.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Alex.”

Alex laughed humourlessly. “To be honest, Mrs Jones, right now I don’t care what you think. Let me question him.”

Alex was surprised both by his own assertiveness and by the fact that Mrs Jones conceded without more of a fight, but he was glad of that. He hadn’t wanted to use all of his remaining energy arguing with Mrs Jones. Although, now that he was walking along the corridor to the interrogation room where 'Ian’ was being held, with her, Ben and Smithers, his stomach began to churn. He was about to come face to face with the man who was using Ian’s face as a disguise and he didn’t like the thought of it one bit.

“We’ll be watching next door,” Ben said softly. “And if you want to leave, you can. Just get up and walk out, okay?”

Alex took a deep breath and nodded before he opened the door and walked into the interrogation room. He sat down stiffly and examined the man who sat, cuffed to the table, before him.

“Alex?” he said softly.

“Who are you?” Alex asked coldly.

“I’m Ian. I’m your uncle.”

“My uncle was killed two years ago. Who are you?”

“Alex,” the man said, manoeuvring his hands in the cuffs to try and hold Alex’s and trying to look him in the eye. But Alex pulled his hands away, clasping them in his lap and staring at them to avoid the man’s gaze. He could barely deal with being in the same room and speaking to someone who looked like Ian, let alone whatever the man was trying to achieve by physically reaching out. He supposed the answer was probably emotional manipulation if the man was a fake. And if it was Ian then it could either be that, given that his uncle had been training him for intelligence work all of his life, or, perhaps, a more genuine attempt at a connection if he had ever cared for him at all. Either way, Alex was not going to deal with it. Not right now. The man cleared his throat and pulled his hands back, seeing his reaction to the movement. Alex glanced up and saw the pain in his eyes before the man began to speak again. “I don’t know what’s happened. I don’t know how it has happened, but I promise you that I am Ian.”

“What did Jack get me for my ninth birthday?”

“What?”

“You want to prove to me that you’re Ian? Well then, I’m going to ask you some questions. What did Jack get me for my ninth birthday? You should know the answer to that. Ian was actually there for that one.”

“What happened to you?”

“Just answer the question or I will leave and I won’t come back.”

“She got you a DVD,” 'Ian’ said after a moment’s thought. “Spy Kids - it has just come out and you loved it. The three of us watched it on the sofa after your party.”

“What did Ian always say to me when we started something like climbing a mountain or when he helped me with difficult homework?”

“The first part’s the worst part,” 'Ian’ said with a sigh.

Well the man was two for two on some of the more private questions that Alex had been able to think of. Questions that he didn’t think anyone would have been able to discover the answers to before impersonating him.

“Where’s the spare key kept?”

“Behind a fake brick in the front wall of the house.”

“Ian left a map of the mine tunnels in his room in the Sayle Enterprises compound. Where?”

“How do you know that?” the man whispered, his eyes widening with shock.

“Answer the question.”

“How can you possibly know the answer to that question?” 'Ian’ breathed, his eyes filling with tears. “What the hell did you do?” he shouted at the blacked out window where Alex knew that Mrs Jones, Smithers and Ben were watching.

“Just answer the question. Where did Ian hide the map?”

'Ian’ took a deep breath before he looked Alex straight in the eye and answered. “I tucked it in the canopy at the top of the bed. Alex? How do you know that? What did they make you do?”

“Exactly what you trained me for. You must be thrilled,” Alex said coldly, standing up and walking to the door. He had his answer - this man was Ian. He could be the only person who knew where that small, seemingly insignificant piece of paper had been hidden.

“What do you mean?” Ian shouted, losing control of himself for the first time that day. “Alex! What do you mean? What did they do? Alex!”

But Alex had reached the door and closed it behind him, cutting off Ian’s shouts. He took a few deep breaths before he opened the adjoining door to join the others.

“Are you okay Alex?” Ben asked. Mrs Jones and Smithers were still watching Ian through the glass. He was the only one looking at him.

He shook his head slightly in response. “I will be,” were the words he said out loud, though.

Alex looked through the glass. It was a jarring sight. His uncle had always been calm and collected. Alex couldn’t recall him ever losing control like he was now. But the thing was, Ian wasn’t thrashing about, the metal of his cuffs cutting into his wrists and causing blood to drip down his arms and onto the table. He was sat completely still, staring at the glass with a look that Alex had never seen in his eyes before. It chilled Alex to his core and he was just grateful knowing that it wasn’t being directed at him. He was certainly glad that he wasn’t in Mrs Jones’ shoes.

“Did he get the answers right?” Mrs Jones asked, looking at Alex now.

“Yes. Every single one of them.”

“Shall I take you home, Alex?” Ben asked softly. “Let them ask him more questions and investigate a bit more?”

“No. I want to stay.”

“Alex, I don’t think-”

“-I don’t think you get a say, Mrs Jones. I’m staying.”

She examined him for a few moments. She must have decided to let him stay without putting up a fight because she nodded and left the observation room, entering the interrogation room a few seconds later

“Mrs Jones,” Ian said coldly. “I wondered when you were going to grace me with your presence.”

“Ian.”

“Where’s Blunt?”

“He’ll see you later.”

“Ah. I’m not a priority then, I see.”

“Ian. We need to know what happened.”

“Well, as I’ve already explained numerous times today, I drove home from Sayle Enterprises and went home. Except apparently two years have passed since then for everyone else, and you all think that I died. And, if I’m understanding correctly, you decided that the appropriate response to my 'death’ was to use Alex? To send him in my place instead of one of the hundreds of trained, adult agents that you could have used? Did you really think that I would have left that compound if the virus was still a threat? Obviously I couldn’t tell you exactly what I’d done over an unsecured line but in what world would I have left if there was still a threat?”

Alex took a deep breath. This was Ian and if he was telling the truth (and why would he be lying right now?) then the Stormbreakers had not been a threat when MI6 had sent him to the compound. They had used him and he’d nearly died and it would all have been for nothing if he had!

“I need to ask you some questions.”

Ian threw his hands in the air as far as the cuffs would allow and huffed in exasperation.

“I can’t tell you anything more, Mrs Jones.”

“You see, Ian,” Mrs Jones said, leaning back slightly in her chair and crossing her right leg over her left; to look at her, she could have been having a coffee with him in a café, not interrogating him. “We saw your dead body two years ago. You were driving home from Cornwall, that part’s true, but you were ambushed by Yassen Gregorovich with a machine gun and he gunned you down. I saw your body, littered with bullet holes, and you were dead. So the question is, how can you be here now?”

Ian’s eyes darkened and narrowed slightly as she said Yassen Gregorovich’s name. Something she had said did not sit well with him but Alex had no idea what it was. Was it to do with Yassen killing him or something else?

“Did Alex see?”

“Did Alex see what, Ian?”

“Did he see the body?”

“No.” Alex saw Ian slowly let out a breath in relief. “Very few people did,” Mrs Jones continued. “But we did enough tests to establish that it was Ian’s body. So, how can you be here?”

“I don’t know Mrs Jones. I only know what I’ve told you and what you’ve just told me. Now I have a question for you.” He didn’t wait for her permission before he asked. “What the hell have you done to Alex? You sent him to Cornwall but it wasn’t just that, was it? How many times have you used him? And what did he mean 'what I trained him for’?”

“That’s four questions.”

“Well then, four answers.”

“You aren’t exactly in a position to negotiate Ian, are you?”

“Who said I’m negotiating? But if you’re not going to tell me, let’s see if what I’ve guessed is an accurate summation of the truth, shall we?”

Mrs Jones gestured as if to say 'go ahead’ so Ian continued.

“When I 'died’, you decided that using Alex was a good idea. You sent him to Cornwall, straight into Herod Sayle’s hands. But, looking at him, I’d say it didn’t end there? Am I right? I’d guess that you’ve been using him for the last two years. How many missions have you sent him on?” Ian swore and ran a hand through his hair as best he could with the cuffs. “He’s fourteen years old! Did you ever stop to think about the damage you were causing?! And why the hell does he think that I was training him?”

Ian paused for a few moments, waiting to see if Mrs Jones would respond, before he spoke again. “Do you have nothing to say?”

“He has saved so many lives-”

Ian scoffed. “-Is that how you can sleep at night?” he asked incredulously. “You justify it with the lives that he saved? Well, I guess that and by saying that you were only following Blunt’s orders? Right?”

“Ian-”

“-No. I’m done. You’re going to uncuff me and I’m taking Alex home. Do you understand?”

“I don’t have the authority to release you, Ian. We still need to find out what happened before we can let you go.” She stood up and walked over to the door.

“This is ridiculous. Let me go.” Ian’s voice was low and serious.

“I’m sorry, Ian.”

Mrs Jones walked back into the observation room where Alex and Ben had been watching.

“Alex, you should go home. Daniels can take you. No one else is going to talk to him tonight.”

“I want to stay.”

“Go home, Alex. I’ll send a car to pick you up in the morning and you can stay all day. But there is nothing else to do today. Go home and get some rest.”

Reluctantly, Alex allowed Ben to lead him out of the room and down the corridor to the lift. Only once they were in the car and on the road to Chelsea did Alex let out a deep breath that he hadn’t really realised that he’d been holding.

“Are you okay, Alex?”

“No.” He could be truthful with Ben, he knew that. “I just don’t understand, Ben. Ian was killed two years ago so how can he be here now? And if he was telling the truth… that the Stormbreakers weren’t going to be a threat after he left the compound, then everything they made me do…”

“I don’t know, Alex,” Ben said gently, pausing while he focused on the road for a moment. “I don’t know if we’ll ever know. But if he’s here, regardless of how or why, isn’t that a good thing?”

“To be honest, I don’t know, Ben. He was training me my whole life to become a spy, just like him… I don’t even know if he liked me, let alone loved me.”

“Look, Alex, obviously I never met him before but, from the brief glimpse I saw just now, I didn’t get the impression that he was training you. It didn’t look like he was just saying it for effect or to get you to believe him. It looked to me like he was telling the truth and was horrified when he realised what Blunt and Jones have made you do. All I’m saying is, let him talk to you before you make your mind up, okay? No matter what you’ve been told by Mr Blunt or Mrs Jones or anyone else, he is the only person who actually knows what his intentions were. Try and sleep on it and I’ll pick you up in the morning, alright?”

“Yeah, okay,” Alex agreed with a weary sigh and leaning his head against the window, gazing sightlessly out at the London streets. In fact he hardly noticed when Ben pulled up outside his home.

“I’ll come in with you.”

“Thanks.”

Jack had seen them pull up and was running to greet them before Alex was even out of the car.

“Oh Alex!” she whispered, pulling him into a warm hug. At least he knew that Jack loved him.

“Let’s get inside,” Ben suggested, guiding the two of them towards the front door.

Walking into the house, there were no traces of the broken mugs and spilled tea, his fight with Ian earlier, nor of his frantic search through Ian’s holdall.

“I’m sorry for just leaving you to deal with all the mess earlier, Jack.”

“You don’t have to apologise for that. Not to me,” she said, pulling him into another hug. “You went where you had to go.”

“So who was that man?” she asked a few minutes later when they were all sitting in the lounge with a cup of tea. Ben had ordered them a takeaway. Despite how late it was, they all felt like they needed one.

“It was Ian,” Alex said simply. “I don’t know how or why but it’s definitely him.”

“But he..?”

“For us he died two years ago. For him, he left Sayle Enterprises earlier today and those two years never happened. It makes absolutely no sense but he was telling the truth, I’m sure of it.”

“Wow! I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. So what happens next?”

“He’s being kept at Liverpool Street tonight,” Ben told her. “He’ll be questioned again tomorrow, I presume by Blunt this time and possibly others. Ultimately, I guess it’ll be up to Blunt what happens after that.”

“I’m going back tomorrow, Jack.” Alex felt like he should give her some warning.

“Well then, I’m coming too.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. If you’re going, I’m going.”

Alex did not sleep well that night. Nightmares of Sayle Enterprises and the maze of mine shafts and swimming through the submerged tunnel flooded his brain. Each time, he was caught or got lost or ran out of air part way. Each time, Alex woke up breathless and in a cold blooded sweat.

When the first light of morning finally broke, he went downstairs for breakfast, out of habit not because he actually felt like eating anything. One look at Jack and he guessed that she hadn’t slept much better than he had.

“Are you sure you want to go, Alex?” she asked as they both pushed their breakfast around on their plates. She’d made them both scrambled eggs on toast but neither of them had much of an appetite. The prospect of going back to Liverpool Street would have been enough on its own to stop him eating but the thought of seeing Ian again made it ten times worse.

“No. But I’m going. I’m sure that he really is Ian but I don’t know if anyone else is. And I don’t understand how he can be here. I think that’s bugging me more than anything. I mean, life wasn’t exactly great with him gone and MI6 using me as and when they liked but… oh, I don’t know, 'simple’ isn’t the right word…”

“I don’t know what the word is either, but I know what you’re saying,” Jack said, pulling him into yet another hug.

“Are you sure you want to come?”

“I could very happily spend the rest of my life with neither of us going back into that building. But I’m not going to let you go through this alone, Alex. No matter what they might try and do to me.”

“Thanks, Jack,” Alex breathed.

Sitting in the back of Ben’s car on the drive back to Liverpool Street, Alex began to question his wisdom in coming back today. His palms were clammy, his heart was pounding and at times it felt like he couldn’t breathe. At the same time, he knew that he wouldn’t have been able to just sit at home, waiting for news.

“Good morning, Alex,” Blunt greeted as they stepped out of the lift and into the corridor where Ian was being held. He had been waiting for them and the thought almost made Alex shiver. “And Miss Starbright…” Alex could tell that he was not impressed that she was here.

“She’s staying,” Alex told him.

“Very well,” he conceded and Alex did not like how quickly he had accepted it.

“We’d like you to ask him some more questions.”

“Why?”

“Just ask him some more things that only your uncle would know.”

“I got my answer in four questions yesterday.”

“He doesn’t know that, though,” Blunt countered inscrutably.

Alex paused, feeling like he was walking into a trap. “Fine, I’ll go and ask him some more questions,” he agreed after a moment.

“We’d like you to wear an earpiece too. We have some questions that we’d like to ask him.”

Alex was surprised at this. Why was Blunt sending him in with his questions instead of going himself or sending Mrs Jones or Crawley?

“Why me?” he asked suspiciously. “What exactly are you trying to do? Find out if he is who he says is, or hope that he makes one mistake so that you can use it as your excuse to lock him up for the rest of his life?”

Blunt did not reply and Alex knew that he was not being given a choice. After a couple of moments of silence, Blunt turned and walked away down the corridor towards the room where they were holding Ian. With a glance to check that Jack and Ben were still behind him, Alex followed. The soft sound of their footsteps along the corridor was more comforting than he cared to admit, even to himself. There was an agent on guard outside the door now; he waited until Blunt, Ben and Jack had gone into the observation room before he opened it to let Alex in.

Ian was still cuffed to the table, sitting exactly as he had been the evening before. To look at him, you wouldn’t know that he’d spent the night here. Alex wasn’t even sure if he’d have slept, but Ian looked exactly the same as when Alex had first seen him yesterday afternoon.

“Morning,” he greeted stiffly, sitting down in the chair opposite his uncle.

“Is it?” Ian replied.

“Have you eaten?”

Ian laughed. “No.”

Alex turned to face the glass. “Seriously?” he asked. “When you kept me here, I was given a proper spread! And arguably, I’d done something worse than disappearing for two years.”

“We’ll organise some food to be sent in,” Mrs Jones said through his earpiece.

When he turned back to face Ian, there was something calculating in his uncle’s eyes.

“Alex? What did you do?”

“We aren’t here to talk about me.”

“You might not be, but apparently I’ve missed two whole years of your life and I’d like to know what I’ve missed,” he whispered.

“No. You really don’t,” Alex replied softly. He cleared his throat and refused to look Ian in the eyes. “Describe the room you stayed in at Sayle Enterprises. Where was it in the compound? Furniture? Pictures on the walls?”

Ian gave a resigned sigh before he began to answer.

“It was in Sayles’ house. Quite a large room - the 'blue room’ they called it - at the end of the upstairs corridor. The furniture was old mahogany; a four poster bed with a canopy draped over it, a desk with a chair, and a wardrobe. There was a Picasso on the wall next to the door to the bathroom. I put a bug on the back of the canvas so that I could check whether anyone had been in the room while I was out. The window looked out onto the fountain.”

Well those details were all correct. Alex was surprised to learn that it had been his uncle who placed the bug rather than Sayle, but didn’t comment on it.

“Tell me about the mine. What you found there.”

Ian told him. He described the graffitied entrance, the tunnel collapse, and which tunnels he’d had to use to go around it. He spoke of the submerged tunnel and how he’d used SCUBA equipment and fixed a guideline from one end to the other. How the other side of the submerged tunnel allowed him to access the hidden construction line of Sayle Enterprises.

“Do you think you’d have been able to swim the tunnel without SCUBA gear?” This was more for his own curiosity than proving to them that this was Ian.

He paused and thought for a moment. “Probably. It was quite a distance but, with the guidewire, I think so.”

“What did you have sent to the box at the post office?” Alex didn’t actually know the answer to this but it didn’t matter. Either MI6 sent him the information, or they’d be able to find out what was sent if they deemed it important enough.

“It was just some books. I worked out that Sayle was planning to use the Stormbreakers to release a virus and I was trying to work out what it might be.”

“Did you find out?”

“No,” Ian admitted. “There weren’t any samples in the compound while I was there. But I do know that it would have wiped out most of the population… which is why I neutralised the threat before I left,” he added, glaring at the window and slamming a hand onto the table, making Alex jump.

“They left it until the last minute to bring the virus in. Yassen Gregorovich brought it a couple of days before the launch.”

Ian swore softly under his breath. “Did you meet him?”

“I’ve already told you. I’m not the one answering questions.”

“Alex, please,” Ian whispered.

“Stop!” he said in a tone of voice that he hoped sounded serious. “I’m not talking about it, so you can stop asking.”

There was a knock on the door and a man walked in with a tray of food. He put it on the table and left again without saying a word. Alex examined the breakfast that had been brought for Ian. There were a couple of individually wrapped pastries, a cereal bar and a glass bottle of orange juice. Ian glanced at the tray too, but made no move to pick anything up.

“To be honest, I’m not feeling very trusting of them right now,” he said in a low growl, staring at the blacked out window again. “And even if I was, I’m not hungry.” He turned back to face Alex. “I feel sick thinking about what’s happened to you.”

“If you want me to stay, stop. You don’t have to eat but stop trying to get me to tell you what happened.” Alex took a couple of deep breaths before he continued. “Who do you play Mario Kart as?”

The sudden change of pace took Ian by surprise, but only for a second.

“Yoshi. On the Mach Bike.”

“And who am I?”

“Luigi. In the Nostalgia 1 Kart.”

“And Jack?”

“When she plays, she’s Daisy if we’re using your account and she’s unlocked. Otherwise she’s Princess Peach. But she doesn’t like playing with both of us at the same time.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re too competitive,” Ian said with a reminiscent laugh.

“Ask him what office number was his.” This time it was Blunt’s voice that came through his earpiece.

Alex asked the question.

“1504.”

“And what is outside your office window?”

“There’s the flagpole between mine and Crawley’s office? Is that what you mean?”

“It is.”

This went on for quite a while, his own questions being interspersed with ones that Blunt or Mrs Jones or someone else fed him through his earpiece. Some of them Alex also knew the answer to and others he had no idea what they were talking about, but he tried to keep his face blank either way.

“Okay. That’s it for now, Alex,” Mrs Jones said through the earpiece. “Take a break for lunch.”

Alex was glad for a break. He was exhausted.

“We’re stopping for lunch,” he said as he stood up.

“Just tell me one thing before you go.”

Alex paused, waiting for Ian to ask his question.

“Obviously you’re wearing an earpiece today, or you’ve been prepped with questions. Were you wearing one yesterday? Or given questions to ask me then, too?”

“Why does it matter?”

“It matters because if you were then they might not have involved you in any missions since… well since I 'died’. For you anyway. If you were wearing an earpiece, then you could have been fed questions about Sayles compound that another agent found out the answers to.” He ran his hands through his hair awkwardly again. “It matters because it’s the difference between you being used as an agent, and you just living your life while adults who have signed up for this and are trained are sent on missions.”

Alex turned away and walked out of the door without giving his uncle an answer. He couldn’t bear to tell him the truth but he didn’t want to li

Rider of the Secret Service - Chapter 3 - Through the Frosted Glass

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*Earlier that day*

Alex woke up to a delicious scent wafting up from the kitchen. He glanced at the clock on his bedside table. Why was someone cooking breakfast at 7am? On a Saturday! With a resigned sigh, Alex rolled out of bed, his sudden hunger at the smell of food outweighing his desire to go back to sleep. The rowing season had ended so Saturday mornings were once again his own to spend as he pleased. And for the most part, that had meant lying in and lounging around until mid-morning before getting on with his day.

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he made his way down the stairs, Alex was utterly unprepared for the sight that met his eyes upon entering the kitchen. Yassen Gregorovich… flipping a pancake with a perfectly timed flick of his wrist, the pancake spinning in mid-air before landing, cooked side up, in the frying pan where it started to cook with a satisfying sizzle.

“Good morning, Alex,” Yassen greeted as he returned the pan to the hob.

“Morning,” Alex mumbled. The man’s incessant ability to always be awake no matter what time of day or night it was was infuriating, especially this early in the morning. He and Ben had volunteered (despite Alex’s protests that he didn’t need babysitting) to ‘look after’ Alex while Jack was needed at home in America for a few weeks, so the three of them had become used to each other’s habits. Yassen, for instance, was used to the fact that Alex wasn’t a morning person and, to Alex’s relief, quietly continued to make pancakes while he flicked on the kettle to make himself a cup of tea. Alex glanced around the kitchen. When he and Jack made pancakes, it usually ended with flour absolutely everywhere; over the counters, floor and often themselves but Yassen, like with most things, cooked with precision. If he had made a mess at any point (although Alex doubted that he had), it had been dealt with instantly and the kitchen was now spotless, other than the sauces, fruit and cutlery that Yassen had laid on the countertop.

Once his tea was made, Alex slumped into one of the chairs at the kitchen island. Yassen wordlessly slid a plate of chocolate chip pancakes in front of him and Alex looked up incredulously. Since he had moved in, Alex hadn’t seen the man eating anything other than porridge or granola with fruit and yoghurt for breakfast and he had rolled his eyes the last time Alex filled a cereal bowl with Coco Pops. Yassen merely replied with a look that Alex was too tired to try and decipher so, with a mumbled “thanks”, he turned his attention to the plate before him.

“So what are your plans for today?” Yassen asked once Alex had finished his breakfast and felt much more awake.

“Nothing much really. Football this afternoon and I’ve got some homework to finish off,” he said with a yawn.

Just then, the sound of the key turning in the lock and the front door opening echoed along the hallway.

“Morning!” Ben called as he came inside.

Alex and Yassen both returned greetings of their own.

“Smells good,” he said approvingly, appearing at the kitchen door.

“Where’d you run this morning?” Alex asked, taking a sip of his tea.

“Along the river. The views are much better than I normally have. Usually it’s just back alleyways and housing estates,” Ben said as he filled the kettle and flicked it on. He turned and leant against the counter while he waited for it to boil. “And Wolf messaged me. He’s being discharged this morning so I’m going to pick him up soon.”

“That’s good! I’ll come with you,” Alex said.

“Are you sure?” Ben asked, surprise momentarily flickering across his face before he regained control of himself. Alex understood why Ben was surprised; he didn’t like hospitals and although he had gone to see Wolf a couple of nights ago, he hadn’t really been comfortable for the whole time they had been there.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Half an hour later, the three of them were in the car on the way to the hospital. Alex was looking forward to seeing Wolf again but a heavy feeling had settled in the pit of his stomach, as it always did when he was faced with the prospect of a visit to the hospital, even if the patient was someone other than himself. Alex focused on his breathing. Deep breaths. In and out. And he tried to reassure himself with the fact that they weren’t even going to stay in the hospital today - they were just going to pick Wolf up and leave again. And with Yassen and Ben by his side, he was undoubtedly much safer than he had been many of the other times that he had been in hospitals… even the times that he had been assigned MI6 protection.

***

“Are you alright, Alex?” Ben asked as they climbed out of the car, trying not to show the extent of his concern for his young charge nor the fact that he could see Alex trying not to bounce with nervous energy.

“Yeah I’m okay… I’m just not a fan of hospitals,” was the reply.

“I know,” Ben said, putting an arm around him. “But Wolf’ll be glad to see you-”

“-And we’ll be out again before you know it,” Yassen added reassuringly, ruffling Alex’s hair. The two men exchanged a glance that Alex didn’t see. Now that they were spending more time with Alex, they could both see the toll that the many missions he had been forced on had taken on him, even if he was usually very good at hiding it.

The three of them made their way through the almost identical looking corridors that would have been a perfect maze but for the fact that they had visited a couple of days before and knew the way. There were signs on the walls but if you didn’t know what to look for, they would be as helpful as a plaster covering a newly amputated limb. Ben kept talking to Alex, trying to distract him from their surroundings by talking about their plans for the rest of the day.

“Hey Cub!” Wolf greeted as they entered his room, pulling Alex into a bear hug. “This is a nice surprise!”

“How’re you feeling, Wolf?”

“Great thanks. I’ve been discharged so we’re good to go.”

Ben could tell that Alex was relieved that their visit to the hospital really was going to be in and out in under five minutes; he’d relaxed a great deal compared to when they had first arrived in the car park. Ben had just picked up Wolf’s bag and they were all preparing to leave when they heard the sound.

Gunshots. Followed almost immediately by screaming.

Ben’s thoughts instantly turned to Alex. He knew that Alex had once been kidnapped from a hospital and the experience had nearly led to Alex’s death. He was trying not to show it but Ben could see that he was thinking of that night at St Dominics. There were more gunshots. They were still a distance away but they were closing in. Wolf’s room was one of the first that anyone coming up the stairs or lift would come across - the further away Alex was, the better.

“Go!” Ben said to Yassen, nodding at Alex who wasn’t really paying them any attention but was staring at the door. His hands had tensed into fists at his sides and Ben knew that he was mentally preparing for a fight. “We’ll cover you.” Wolf nodded determinedly, taking the gun that Ben offered.

Yassen nodded in understanding, his own gun already in his hand and moving to Alex’s eyeline. He spoke softly to Alex while Ben strode to the door. He opened it and peered around the frame, his gun raised ready to shoot. Their corridor was clear of gunmen but he knew that the situation could change at any moment. Yassen and Alex appeared behind him and, after a nod from Ben giving him the all clear to move, Yassen pulled Alex out of the room behind him and then pushed him in front. There was only one set of entrances to access this floor and Yassen led them away from the stairs and lift. Ben and Wolf took up their positions on either side of the corridor. They would do all they could to block off the attackers and keep Alex safe before reinforcements arrived.

***

Yassen guided Alex down the corridor. He knew that he was leading them away from their only exit routes but that also meant that he was also leading them as far away as possible from the gunmen. They arrived at an empty looking room near the end of the corridor and Yassen quickly cleared it to make sure that it was secure before closing the door behind them.

“Alex.”

“Yeah,” he replied absently, his eyes fixed on the door and his hands clenched in fists, just as they had been in Wolf’s room down the corridor.

“Alex,” he said, putting a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Look at me.”

But Yassen didn’t get the chance to say anything to reassure Alex as the door to the room crashed open. The earlier gunshots must have been a diversion to try and get them to split up. To take Alex as far away from the potential danger as possible and corner him… and they had fallen into the trap that had been set. Yassen still had his gun in his hand and he shot and disarmed the three men who had just stormed the room but not before one of them managed to get a shot fired at Alex. But it hadn’t been a bullet that fired from the gun. He had been shot with some kind of dart. Anaesthetic, perhaps, which made sense if this had all been part of a plan to capture him.

“Alex,” Yassen said urgently, looking into his eyes. His pupils were already blown. Not a good sign.

Alex began to sway and almost immediately his legs buckled from underneath him. Yassen caught him and lifted him onto the bed.

“You’ll be okay, Alex. We’ll look after you,” he said, trying to reassure Alex as much as himself. His words were empty though and he knew it; he didn’t actually know that Alex would be okay, given that he had no idea what he had been injected with. He felt sure that it would be something to incapacitate him to make him an easier captive but it could just as easily be poison, although a bullet would have been a much more efficient way of killing Alex if that was their plan.

He stormed back to the pile of men that he had left in the doorway. They were a mess, breathing raggedly in their pain. He had not been aiming to kill them; they would likely have important information regarding whoever had ordered the attack and could therefore be interrogated. And that information could be used to protect Alex in the future.

“What was in the needle?” he asked coldly.

None of them replied. He had no patience to play their game. His bullet had torn out one of the men’s kneecaps. He stood on it, exerting more and more pressure until the man was gasping, soundless in his pain.

“I will not ask again.”

“Our employer designed it,” one of the other men, clutching his bloody shoulder, hissed. “It activates the fear centre of the brain and subdues the target.”

Yassen resisted the urge to lash out; he didn’t need screams of agony to add to the fear that the drug was causing. Instead, he took a deep breath and imagined hitting out, the man screaming out in pain. Then he turned and walked back to Alex.

“Alex. Alex, look at me.” The teenager’s eyes had been closed but now they opened. They were completely glazed over and out of focus and Yassen saw no recognition in them.

“What happened?” Ben and Wolf had appeared in the doorway, summoned by the gunshots when Yassen had fired his gun.

“They ambushed us. The gunshots were probably used to split us up and make it easier to get Alex. I took them out but not before they shot him with something. According to him” -Yassen said, pointing at the man with the injured shoulder who was now whimpering in pain- “the drug activates the brain’s fear centre and subdues whoever is injected with it.”

The two agents swore before both rushing over to Alex’s side. He showed no more recognition that they were beside him than he had Yassen. There was absolutely nothing behind his eyes to show signs of cognitive thought. Yassen didn’t even know if he could hear them or if he was currently stuck in some kind of nightmare induced by his fears. And Alex had lived through far too many real life horrors for his brain to pick and choose from. He could be reliving any number of events that he had barely escaped from with his life. Or the drug could be causing him to be experiencing something completely new, using the fear he had felt then and layering it over a new scenario. Yassen had no idea. He didn’t like not knowing. And, most of all, he didn’t like that he had no way of helping Alex.

“How did they even know that he’d be here?” Ben whispered, more to himself than to the room.

The three men exchanged a look. None of them knew the answer to that question and that made all of them nervous. Nobody had known that Alex was going to come with Ben to pick Wolf up. So had they seen Alex at the hospital a couple of nights ago and planned an attack for if he came back? Or had they been watching the house, looking for an opportunity to make their move? And if they had been watching the house, why hadn’t Yassen or Ben noticed? But more important than answering those questions right now was getting Alex to safety.

“We have to get him out of here,” Ben said a second later, echoing Yassen’s thoughts out loud. “The gunshots might have been to separate Alex from all of us but they are probably still planning to take him when they get here.”

“Agreed. Except the hospital will be in lockdown so we can’t just walk out of here.”

The three adults stood quietly for a few moments, deep in thought as to the best way to get Alex to safety.

“What if we take him out as a patient?” Ben asked.

“That could work,” Yassen agreed, thinking through the logistics.

Just then, Alex sat up and mumbled something that sounded like ‘dying’ before he broke off into completely unintelligible words.

“If he says that and someone overhears, we will be stopped,” Yassen said, pushing his own horror at what Alex was currently experiencing aside so that he could focus on getting him to safety.

“What if he was a psychiatric patient?” Wolf suggested as he helped Alex drink some water.

So that was how Yassen Gregorovich found himself helping Alex into a straitjacket to get him out of the hospital. The boy was still completely out of it, entirely dependent on Yassen to hold him upright and move him forward. As they moved towards one of the side exits, with Ben and Wolf walking ahead of them and clearing their passage, the corridors became more and more deserted as patients hid from the danger and doctors and nurses rushed to where they were needed. Alex slowly regained some control over himself. At least, he was able to call for help a couple of times, not that anyone (other than Yassen, Ben and Wolf) heard him.

As they reached the penultimate corridor before the exit, Ben slipped into a second straight jacket. They reasoned that if Ben sounded like a psychiatric patient too, then anything that Alex managed to say in his confused state would also sound like delusions. Yassen was glad that they had taken the extra precautions when Alex shouted for help, saying that he was being kidnapped, although the terror and panic in his voice was like a punch in the gut. The drug certainly induced fear. Ben’s proclamation that he was the Prime Minister, in addition to Yassen warning the security guard that Ben had just bitten one of the doctors, completed their disguise and Yassen smiled to himself as the door was opened to allow them out. He breathed a small sigh of relief once they were in the open. They still had to get Alex to a safe house and find out what was in his system but he was out of the hospital and safe from those who wished to harm him.

“Wolf and I are going to stay and help with containment and capture. We’ll meet you at the safe house,” Ben said once Alex was safely strapped into the car. Yassen understood. They needed to know who had orchestrated the attack, why they wanted Alex and how they had found him.

“We’ll see you there,” Yassen said as he opened the door to climb into the driver’s seat.

He turned around to face Alex. There was a second of confusion, then a moment of clarity as Alex realised who he was, followed by terror. What did Alex think he was planning to do? Yassen could only imagine what his fear induced mind would concoct if he still remembered that Yassen was, primarily, an assassin. The drug he’d been injected with had made him believe that Yassen was kidnapping him and, from the looks of him, he probably thought that torture was on the cards too. Alex mumbled something that sounded like ‘Yassen… kill you too’ and Yassen wondered whether he was remembering a warning that he had once been told.

“Alex,” he said softly, trying to explain that he was safe. That he wasn’t in any danger. But before Yassen could say anything more than his name, Alex’s eyes unfocused and he knew that the boy was drowning him out, not listening to what he had to say. It didn’t stop him from talking anyway, even if it probably wasn’t resonating. As much as he hated it, Yassen knew that he would just have to wait for the effects of the drugs to wear off enough for Alex to understand. Resigning himself to an anxious drive, Yassen set off for the safe house.

Alex remained silent on the drive and didn’t do anything until they had arrived. Yassen helped him out of the car and saw Alex looking around wildly. The safe house was very secluded, with every view of the house cut off by hedgerows. Nobody would be able to see them getting out of the car. He led Alex over to the front door and as they walked, Alex opened his mouth to cry out for help. Moving quickly, Yassen covered the boy’s mouth with his hand so that he couldn’t shout and hastily led him into the house. The last thing he needed was the police arriving to find a drugged Alex who was convinced that he had been kidnapped.

He settled Alex down on the sofa and grabbed his first aid kit and a glass of water. Alex still refused to acknowledge him and Yassen didn’t know if he could hear him, but he explained what he was doing and why all the same. If Alex understood even a small amount of his commentary, he might begin to relax. He removed the straitjacket, extracted a vial of blood so that he could analyse it to work out what Alex had been injected with and then held the glass of water to Alex’s lips so that he could drink. Next, he set up a saline drip to begin flushing the drug out of Alex’s system. The test on Alex’s blood would take a while to come back with a result, so Yassen took a seat on one of the armchairs so that he could keep an eye on Alex’s condition. He was still completely out of it, despite the saline. Yassen kept talking. About some of the different things that they had done with Ben over the past couple of weeks. About Ian and John. Anything.

Ben arrived sooner than Yassen had expected him to. He checked the camera at the front of the house and saw Ben’s car pulling into the drive. The agent rang the doorbell a few moments later and, with a glance at Alex who was staring with wide unfocused eyes at the drip in his arm, Yassen got up to let him into the house.

“How is he?” Ben asked as soon as the door closed behind him.

“Not good. He’s still completely out of it and he’s had nearly a whole bag of saline.”

Ben swore. “Do you know what the drug is?”

“Not yet. The results should be back in a couple of minutes.”

“Hopefully it’s something we know and have an antidote for.”

Yassen nodded but didn’t voice his doubts. The attacker who had told him, albeit reluctantly, what the drug did had said that his employer had made it. That made it extremely unlikely that they would have an antidote, so they would just have to keep going with the saline and wait for Alex’s system to clear.

“Did you find out anything from the men at the hospital?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Not much. They were all captured and have been taken to Liverpool Street. Wolf went with them to, uh, oversee the questioning.”

An alarm went off, interrupting their hushed conversation.

“That’s for the test,” Yassen said, turning the alarm on his phone off. “He’s in the lounge,” he added as he went to check the result.

He had just glanced at the kit for long enough to see that there wasn’t one specific drug coursing through Alex’s system when he was interrupted by a shout from Ben.

“He’s gone!” Yassen swore to himself and rushed to the lounge.

Ben was right. The room was empty, a small pool of saline on the floor beside the sofa where Alex had removed it, and the patio doors were wide open.

“I’ll check the garden,” he said, taking control of the situation and moving to the doors. “Check in here. He can’t be anywhere else in the house or we’d have seen him as we talked in the hallway.”

He looked around the garden but saw nothing out of place. He hadn’t thought Alex had the strength to stand on his own, let alone get out of the house but he knew that he hadn’t been taken. There were sensors surrounding the house and grounds so that anyone approaching from outside could not take them by surprise. That also meant that Alex was still within the boundary of the gardens. Ben finished checking behind all of the furniture and joined him at the doorway, also looking into the garden.

“Alex!” Ben called out desperately, but didn’t get a response.

Rather than search all of the hedges by hand - there was nowhere else in the garden that Alex would be able to hide - Yassen grabbed his thermal imaging camera from the side and, after quickly scanning the house to make doubly sure that Alex wasn’t inside, he returned to the door and scanned the garden. It didn’t take him long to locate the teenager, lying motionless under the hedge.

“He’s over there,” he said quietly to Ben, pointing out the spot where Alex lay.

“Do you know what he was drugged with?” Ben asked softly as they made their way to Alex.

“The test found a few different chemicals but I wasn’t able to examine the results properly. Once we get him inside, I’ll be able to have another look and hopefully sort out an antidote.”

They reached the hedge. Ben pulled the branches out of the way and Yassen pulled Alex out from underneath them. He lay there, blinking in the sunshine, looking absolutely defeated. He didn’t try to struggle or resist, but just looked up into their faces.

“Ben…” he mumbled after a few moments and Yassen was glad that he had recognised the agent. If he recognised Ben, he might realise that he was safe. But all hopes that Ben’s presence might calm Alex down were dashed when he saw a flash of anger in his otherwise blank eyes and heard a word which sounded like ‘traitor’ slip from Alex’s lips. Somehow, Alex had made the connection that if Yassen and Ben were together, then Ben must have become a double agent and also be his enemy. Obviously none of Yassen’s attempts to put Alex’s mind at ease and explain that they weren’t enemies had worked.

Gently, Ben lifted Alex up and carried him back into the house. He took him upstairs while Yassen grabbed the first aid kit. They cuffed Alex to the bed, for his own safety more than anything else - if he couldn’t get off of the bed then he couldn’t try and escape and end up hurting himself - and Ben set up another bag of saline while Yassen examined the results of the blood test he had done. There were a few unidentified compounds and of those that had been identified, Yassen didn’t have all of the components that he would need to make an antidote. They would just have to wait for time and the saline to clear the drug from Alex’s system.

***

Alex woke up with a splitting headache and with no idea where he was. The last thing he remembered was Yassen making pancakes for breakfast… and maybe a car journey but he couldn’t be sure. Had that been earlier that day? He was lying on an extremely comfortable bed although, when he tried to sit up, he found that he couldn’t move. His wrists were cuffed to the bed. Where was he? What had happened? And why was he cuffed to a bed? How much danger was he in? Feeling a little like a detective, Alex looked around the room. There was some kind of drip going into his arm. The door to the room opened before he had finished his examination of his surroundings and Ben walked in.

“Back with us?” he asked hopefully.

“Ben? What’s going on?”

“What do you remember?”

“Erm,” Alex said, filling the silence while he thought. “Not very much.”

“Well if you’re not gonna become an escape artist on us again, do you want to come downstairs?”

“Escape artist?”

“Yeah you were drugged and confused and tried running away from us.”

“I promise I’m not gonna run away,” Alex said with a confused smile, proffering his cuffed wrists.

Ben laughed and unlocked the cuffs.

“Wait, who’s ‘us’?” Alex asked as he swung his legs off of the bed.

“Yassen. We’ll explain when we’ve got you downstairs,” Ben said as he sorted out the drip going into Alex’s arm.

A flash of memory appeared in Alex’s mind but it was gone too quickly for understanding to join it. His mind and body were still being affected by whatever he had been drugged with and Ben helped Alex down the stairs and into the lounge. Some more flashes came as he glanced around the room but, just as before, understanding did not come. Just as Ben helped in to sit down on the sofa, Yassen came in with a tea tray.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, concern evident in his voice.

“Alright, I guess. I have no idea what happened though.”

“We’ll be able to fill some of that in, but we don’t know everything.”

So with Yassen and Ben sharing the narrative between them, Alex began to understand some of the events from that morning. By the time they finished talking, Alex knew what had happened that day… although he couldn’t remember any of it for himself. He remembered a vague sense of fear but nothing particularly. He supposed he should be glad of that, that he didn’t have more memories of fear and pain, but it was disconcerting to have no memory of the day.

“So where’s Wolf?” he asked eventually. He had many other questions but he had resigned himself to the fact that the answers weren’t ones that Yassen and Ben could provide.

“He’s back at Liverpool Street,” Ben explained. “We captured everyone at the hospital who was involved and they’re being questioned now.”

“We will find out who was after you, Alex, and we will stop them,” Yassen promised, resting a hand gently on his shoulder, and Ben nodded in agreement.

And, for once, Alex knew that he wouldn’t be left alone to handle this by himself or only be given protection in exchange for going on a mission. Yassen and Ben would protect him, no strings attached, from anyone who tried to cause him harm. Not even Alan Blunt would have the guts to try and defy Yassen Gregorovich and expect to live to tell the tale.

Rider of the Secret Service - Chapter 2 - In the Crosshairs

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Alex was forced through a hallway and into a room at the back of the house. Before he could take in his new surroundings, he found that he was sitting down again. This was a very comfortable seat and, looking down, he realised he was on a sofa. He squinted around the room. He was in the lounge. What a strange place to torture someone! The soft furnishings and light coloured carpet must be a pain to clean.

Yassen had disappeared but now he re-entered the room with some things on a tray that Alex couldn’t see. The assassin looked… pensive? Was that the right word? He had no idea but it was the one that came to mind so it was the one that Alex decided to go with. He struggled to make the connection between the man’s expression and the name of an emotion. What had he been drugged with to make his mind so slow? Yassen was crouching in front of Alex now. When had he moved across the room from the door? Could he teleport now? No, that didn’t make any sense.

“Alex.” Why was his voice so..? Alex couldn’t find the word. Was it full of contempt? Or excitement at the prospect of killing him? Or something else? He had no idea and decided to try and ignore the assassin again but it was harder than it had been in the car. He had closed his eyes so that the man couldn’t torture him by showing him what was to come so he felt rather than saw Yassen stand up and lean over him. He was undoing the straight jacket? Well, seeing that the man had drugged and kidnapped him in the first place, he must have known that he was too drugged to be able to fight. Alex opened his eyes again - this took a lot more effort than it should have done - and saw that he was right. His arms now hung limply by his sides. Even with his utmost concentration, he could not move them. Getting out of here was going to be even harder than he originally thought…

Yassen had grasped his left arm. There was something shiny in his hand. Alex only realised it was a needle when the assassin found the vein in his elbow and pushed it in. There was some kind of tubing attached to the needle Alex realised as he followed it down with his eyes. He watched the blood flow through the tube from his elbow to a small bottle. Was the man going to drain his blood and kill him that way? That would have to take a very long time… was he vindictive and sadistic enough to do that? Alex couldn’t trust his mind to provide him with an accurate answer to that question, although he felt as though his first instinct - ‘yes’ - was probably correct. Before he could even try and process what was happening, Yassen was gone with the vial now filled with Alex’s blood and then almost immediately back with a glass of clear liquid.

“Drink.”

Why did Yassen want him to drink? So that his mind would clear a bit and he would experience the torture more clearly? So that he would actually be able to answer the assassin’s questions? So that Yassen could truthfully say that he had been entirely responsible for Alex Rider’s death? Or was it a cruel ploy to make him drink poison or something? Whatever the case, it wouldn’t be good and he didn’t want it but the glass was at his lips and he had drunk before he could stop himself. Maybe if he pretended to still be out of it, he would be able to catch Yassen off guard and escape! It was a rubbish plan, even through his still hazy mind he knew that, but it was the only one he had… so it was what he could do. He looked up and peered through squinted eyes around the room. That part… wasn’t really acting. His eyes were still sensitive to the bright light streaming in from the patio doors and he couldn’t really make out much detail of the room, no matter how hard he tried.

Yassen got up and moved back to the tray on the table by the door. Had he decided to just begin with the torture anyway? That was exactly what Alex didn’t want to happen. Instead, the man picked up something clear - maybe a bag of some sort? - and carried it over. Only now, as he watched Yassen attach the tube trailing from the bag to the one trailing out of his own arm, did Alex realise that the needle was still in. There was a name for that… he wracked his brain trying to remember. A cannula! That was the type of needle that stayed attached! Wasn’t it? It wasn’t an important detail to be able to remember, but the fact that he had been able to find the correct word (at least, he thought it was the right word) brought Alex hope. Surely that meant that his mind was clearing and he would be able to think better. Unless, of course, whatever was being dripped into his bloodstream even now would keep his mind addled. He had to get it out. But his arms wouldn’t obey him. And anyway, if he tried to take it out now, Yassen would only put it back and probably hurt him for the trouble… it would have to wait until Yassen was out of the room. But infuriatingly, the man didn’t seem to be going anywhere. He had attached the bag to something above Alex’s head so that gravity would do his work for him and was now sat on one of the other chairs in the room. Alex stared at the slightly thicker section of the tube where the drops of clear liquid were stored before they made their way down and into him.

Drip…

Drip…

Drip…

Drip…

It was relentless. He tried to will it to break. To slow down. Anything that would stop it from affecting him and preventing him from escaping.

The doorbell rang. Yassen seemed to spring up in one fluid motion and, with a final glance at Alex, he strode out of the room. This was his chance. He had to get out before the other person who had helped with the kidnapping - for Alex was sure that that was who was at the door - came into the room too. Alex focused all of his attention on his right hand. He could open and close it as he wished. Next was harder. He forced his arm to move. It did! Sluggishly, he moved his arm inch by inch until his hand could reach the tubing around his elbow. He pulled the drip out; the cannula was taped in place and he didn’t have time to worry about taking that out now. Focusing his attention on his legs now, Alex was pleased to find that he could stand up. Very jerkily, one foot at a time, he made his way across the room to the patio doors. He pulled the handle down. To his great surprise, the door was not locked. With one final look behind him, and seeing that he was still alone - Yassen and his visitor had not yet returned to the room, although Alex could hear them talking in the hallway - Alex ran.

‘Ran’ might have been an optimistic and kind way to describe his movements. But he moved away from the house and that was his main goal. Alex knew that he couldn’t get too far, which worried him, but if he could find a good enough hiding place then maybe he would be able to avoid Yassen and build his strength up enough to get further away. He made a beeline for the hedge. It looked like it would be thick enough to conceal him and there was nowhere else in the garden to hide. Alex had just settled himself under the hedge - he could only just about see the doors through all of the leaves and branches so hoped that he would be invisible to anyone looking in - when he heard the shout. He had hidden himself just in time. Yassen appeared at the back door and looked around with eyes that knew their surroundings well. Alex hardly dared to breathe.

Then someone else joined him at the door. This must be the person who had been with them in the hospital but Alex couldn’t quite make out their face, obscured as it was by one particular leaf and by the fact that his vision wasn’t completely back to normal.

“Alex!” the new person shouted. He knew that voice! And not just from the hospital earlier. This was the voice of someone he knew. Someone he had spent a considerable amount of time with. Alex stayed silent and motionless as he tried to work out who this person was. He didn’t think that it was someone he distrusted, but equally why would someone he trusted be working with Yassen Gregorovich? Was this how he had been captured in the first place? By someone he trusted, betraying him?

Yassen had disappeared from the doorway momentarily but now he was back with something that he held up to his face. Binoculars? Or, Alex thought with a new wave of panic, a thermal imaging camera? He watched in trepidation as Yassen began to scan the hedges around the garden. The assassin paused a fraction too long when he was facing Alex and he knew that he had been spotted.

Yassen quietly said something to his accomplice that Alex couldn’t hear as the two of them made their way down from the house towards him. Alex didn’t try to escape. He didn’t have the energy to get out of the hedge, let alone run away. He just lay there, waiting for the inevitable torture that would follow his escape attempt. Alex shrank back as light flooded into where he hid as one of the men lifted up the branches and the other pulled him out. He blinked in the bright light now that he was back in the open. Yassen and the other man were looking at him strangely - Alex was still struggling to identify emotions. He decided that it was probably anger that he’d escaped, if the assassin felt emotions as strongly as that. As far as Alex could remember, Yassen didn’t really have emotions, not strong ones, anyway. Wait! He knew the other person! It was Ben Daniels! A flood of rage flooded through him. Ben was the only person at MI6 who Alex would have trusted with his life and it turned out that the agent had betrayed him. Ben was working with Yassen Gregorovich! He had helped him smuggle him out of the hospital! And now he was here, presumably happy to either watch or even join in the torture that would be about to come.

Alex didn’t struggle or resist as he felt himself picked up and carried back into the house, his last hopes of rescue fading away. If Ben had switched sides, he would be able to divert any MI6 attention away from the house. Alex would never be found. Unless they wanted to send a message to MI6, that was…

This time, he was taken upstairs. He was laid down on a bed and before Alex could even begin to take in his new surroundings, he felt something metal close around his wrist. He tried to move his arm into his line of vision to be able to see what it was but he didn’t get very far before whatever was around his wrist stopped it from moving any further… a handcuff. By the time he had worked it out, his other wrist had been similarly restrained. And the drip was back. His situation really was hopeless.

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