High school (mostly marching band if I'm being honest) is destroying a lot of my free time and it took me this long to figure out a good writing schedule so I'm really sorry that it took like five weeks to get this out. It (hopefully) won't happen again. I'll do my best
I've also gotten a beta! Thanks to fancygirl229 (who I'm also lucky enough to go to school with), there should be minimal mistakes. Hopefully. (If there are, it's probably me, not her.)
"Don't even lie, Eagle, you were scared!" Fox jibes, grinning.
Eagle glares. "Of course I wasn't scared," he says. "I'm not scared of spiders. That's ridiculous."
"You looked scared to me," Snake interjects helpfully.
"I was startled!" Eagle says, crossing his arms emphatically. "There's a difference."
Wolf snorts. "Sure."
"Now remember, Eagle." Fox places a hand on Eagle's shoulder, completely straightfaced. "It's just as scared of you as you are of it."
Eagle throws a piece of pasta at his face, but the indignant response that Fox is sure is coming is prevented by a loud ringing sound.
"Hey," Wolf says, frowning. "We agreed. No interruptions."
"It should only be accepting calls from priority numbers. Sorry. I'll turn it off," Fox says. But he's pretty sure that the only numbers he has set to priority are the rest of K-Unit's. He pulls out his phone.
For a moment, he just stares at the screen and the strangely familiar number displayed. Then, suddenly, the reason that he knows the number hits him. He freezes. He hasn't seen that number in over three years.
"Something wrong?" Snake asks. He sounds concerned.
"It's MI6," Fox manages to say, somehow, and feels a not-quite-inexplicable anger well up inside him.
Eagle leans forward and frowns. "Are you going to answer it?"
Fox hesitates, then nods and hits the answer call button before he can convince himself not to. "This is Ben Daniels," he says.
"There's a problem with your account, number four-eight-stroke-nine-three-zero-two," replies the calm, professional voice that he doesn't think has changed in three years. "Please come to the bank between one and three today, along with anyone else who may be a co-holder on your account. Have a nice day, sir. Goodbye."
"Wait, I-" Fox starts to say, but she's already hung up. He hadn't gotten a chance to even try to reply. He sets his phone on the table, mind racing. What are they doing? If he remembers correctly, both the account number and the time given are part of a code—a code that means urgent, immediate meeting necessary. He's not sure what the whole co-holder thing is about, but he suspects it means that the rest of K-Unit should come too.
"What'd they say?" Eagle asks, interrupting his train of thought.
Fox sighs. "We need to go to the bank."
"'We'? As in, us too?"
"Yeah," Fox confirms.
"It can't be good if they want all of us," Snake says.
The expression on Wolf's face is deadly. "Nothing with MI6 involved is ever good."
The Royal and General Bank is, as it's always been, very good at appearing to be a very average bank. Of course, appearances can be deceiving. Fox watches the businessmen and everyday people filing in and out and can't help but wonder how many are agents.
He approaches the woman behind the counter, who offers a pleasant smile. "How can I help you today, sir?" she asks.
"I'm here for an issue regarding account number four-eight-stroke-nine...three-zero-two?" he replies.
If she notices his hesitation, she doesn't show it. "The lift on the right," she tells him, handing him a small card with a group of numbers on it—the floor numbers he'll need to press in order for the lift to actually work.
Fox thanks her and turns around to see his unit looking extremely confused. "Uh, Fox? There's only one lift," Eagle says, raising one eyebrow at him.
"There's only one lift for the general public," Fox corrects. "You just have to know where to look for the others."
"Spies," Wolf mutters, shaking his head.
Fox hasn't even knocked on the door of Mrs. Jones's office before it swings open, revealing a vaguely troubled looking Mrs. Jones. Smithers sits next to her. "Sit down," she says, gesturing first at K-Unit and then at the four chairs set in front of her. After glancing at each other, they do.
"Why are we here?" Fox asks immediately. It's bold, perhaps even bordering on rude, he knows, but he has little patience left for MI6.
"Well, that's going to take some explaining," she says, her pen tapping rapidly on her desk. K-Unit says nothing. "There are two main reasons, but they won't make sense yet." She pauses for a moment, seemingly thinking. "Let's just start with this. What do you know about Deathmask?"
"Deathmask?" Snake repeats, one eyebrow raised. "I don't think I've ever heard of him."
"I haven't either," Wolf says. Eagle shrugs.
"I've heard the name once or twice," Fox says. "But I don't actually know anything."
"Then let's start there." Mrs. Jones gestures to a wall to their left, which at the press of a button from Smithers becomes a large screen. A picture of a skull—no, a mask with a skull on it, Fox realizes—appears suddenly. "Deathmask is a highly dangerous assassin who has taken out forty five targets—that we know of—since he first emerged a little less than three years ago," she says, her voice businesslike and serious. "No one has ever been able to catch him. Even more impressive, no one has ever seen his real face."
Wolf frowns. "All due respect, but we're not going to be able to help with that. We're soldiers, not spies."
"You don't need to help with it," she says, and takes a deep breath. "Two days ago, we sent an agent to complete a deal with Deathmask. He was wearing a near-microscopic camera disguised as a pair of glasses, the feed of which was being transmitted to us. The agent is dead, but the camera managed to get us an image of Deathmask's face."
"Where are you going with this?" Fox manages to keep his tone fairly civil.
"Smithers?" Mrs. Jones says, sitting down and immediately putting a peppermint in her mouth. Her voice is steady, but something in her face doesn't seem right. Something has to be wrong. If only Fox had an idea of what.
Another button from Smithers and the screen shows a medium-quality picture of...
No. It's impossible.
"Alex," Snake whispers, echoing Fox's thoughts.
Waves of shock surge through him. This is impossible. Alex had been hit by a car. Wolf had seen him die in the hospital. Fox had been to the kid's funeral, for heaven's sake.
"You're looking at the face of Alexander Rider." Mrs. Jones says, her mouth a thin line. Fox could be wrong, but he thinks he sees pain in her eyes. Maybe he doesn't. He isn't sure.
"It can't be," Eagle suddenly blurts. "That's not Alex. There's no way. People don't just come back from being dead for three and a half years."
"I've run the facial recognition eight ways," Smithers says almost miserably. "It comes up with the same thing every time. Alex. It's him."
Fox forces himself to look at the picture again. It definitely looks like Alex, albeit older, which makes sense (except none of this makes sense). The only thing that isn't right is the eyes. Fox had never seen Alex's eyes like that—cold, deadly, emotionless. Still, he's sure it's him.
"You said there were two reasons that we were here," Wolf says, still staring at the picture. "What are they?"
"The first was just to verify that it's Alex in the picture, which I think you've done," Mrs. Jones says. "As for the second—we sent a small analysis team when we went to recover the body of our agent. They found several samples of...well, as strange as it sounds, they found bits of wood from a species of sassafras tree that's only found in North America and has never been planted anywhere in Europe. We checked, and there used to be a mulch factory that worked with that specific species, but it's been closed for over ten years. The building is still there. We think Deathmask might be working out of it for now. Maybe."
"You think you've found Deathmask because of some wood on the ground that might not even be from him?" Eagle asks skeptically.
"It sounds rather hasty when you put it like that, but, yes, I suppose."
"Great," Eagle mutters. "Just checking."
"And what does this abandoned factory have to do with us?" Fox asks cautiously.
"We're planning an assault tomorrow, and we need one more unit. I'll understand if you refuse, but we might find some answers there. Answers that I think we all want."
"Tomorrow?" Snake says. "Isn't that a bit soon?"
"He might already be gone, so, no, not in this case." Mrs. Jones sighs. "I wish we had more time too, trust me."
"What do you three think?" Wolf asks in a low voice.
Fox thinks about it for a moment. If K-Unit is there, will Deathmask (Alex? Fox doesn't know which to think) be more or less likely to attack in full force? He'd like to think that they were positive figures in his life. Alex wouldn't attack them. Then again, Fox hadn't thought that Alex would die, come back, and become an assassin, either. He wants answers. And he wants to see Alex. "I think we should," he says quietly.
"So do I," Eagle agrees. Snake hesitates for a moment longer before nodding.
"We're in," Wolf tells Mrs. Jones.
She gives a brief, tight smile. "Alright. You're free to leave. Report to safehouse two-five-one at oh-six-hundred hours."
They nod and rise from their chairs. As they exit the room, Wolf says darkly, "I just hope we don't regret it."
"Don't say that," Snake chastises. "There'll be an explanation. It'll all be fine."
Fox says nothing, but, privately, agrees with Wolf.
It's a sign of how troubled K-Unit is that the rest of the evening is quiet and subdued. They don't talk much, just sit around wordlessly and wonder.
"Do you suppose it's really Alex?" Snake says quietly, finally voicing all of their thoughts. "I mean, he was dead. Definitely dead. For three and a half years."
"Closer to six months," Fox corrects flatly. "Mrs. Jones said Deathmask-Alex-whoever-has been active for around three years."
"But Cub wouldn't have even been sixteen!" Wolf objects. He glares aggressively at the wall opposite him, although he knows it won't help anything. "Besides, he's dead. I saw the doctors try to revive him, and I saw them fail. His heart stopped."
"Then how do you explain the picture?" Snake picks at a loose thread on the arm of the couch. "That was either Alex or someone who looks exactly like him."
"I don't know. I don't know! It doesn't make sense," Wolf says angrily. It doesn't make sense. None of it does. Cub was dead, and now he's not. Or maybe he is. Wolf wishes they had some solid, definite answers instead of all this vague guessing.
"You've been quiet, Eagle," Snake says. Eagle looks up.
"Well, it's just...I had a really terrible thought," he says reluctantly.
"What?" Fox asks.
Eagle hesitates. "Did any of us actually...see Alex's body? We didn't at the funeral. We didn't before the funeral." He looks at Wolf hopefully. "In the hospital, did you see?"
Wolf almost insists that of course he did. He had seen, hadn't he?
Hadn't he?
He forces himself to think back to that day in the hospital. "I-I...no. I didn't," he says after a moment. "I saw the heart monitors flatline, but I never actually saw Alex. There were too many people in the way. They rushed me out of the area almost immediately afterwards."
His response is met by several seconds of silence.
"Eagle, are you suggesting that Alex was...?" Fox says finally, trailing off, unable-or unwilling-to finish the thought.
"Never dead to begin with, yeah," Eagle confirms, pointedly not looking up from his hands.
"But how would we not know? Why would he not tell us?"
"If someone went to all the trouble of faking Cub's death, they probably wouldn't want anyone to know he was still alive," Wolf says.
"For that matter, who would fake his death?" Snake adds.
Eagle sighs. "I don't know. It was just an idea," he says. "We should get some sleep. Who knows what'll happen tomorrow."
The morning comes early, earlier than Snake would have liked. The other three are already downstairs by the time he gets there.
"Nice of you to finally show up," Eagle says, grinning. Snake, however, can see the tension behind his eyes. He's nervous. They all are.
"I guess the thought of seeing your face again was just too much," he returns, more as an anti-stress mechanism than any kind of actual banter, then grabs a piece of toast. "I can eat this on the way. Let's go."
Wolf nods, face emotionless. "It's assault time, boys."
K-Unit arrives at the safehouse to find H-Unit, a group they had trained beside and know well, and another unit they don't recognize. All eight men are checking their combat gear and weapons.
"K-Unit reporting," Wolf says. Three of H-Unit's four members look up and nod, one of them giving a slight smile. Wolf nods back.
One of the men from the unknown unit approaches them. "K-Unit. Good. I'm Hawk, leader of N-Unit. I'm also in charge of this mission. Your codenames?"
"Wolf, Fox, Eagle, and Snake," Wolf replies, gesturing to each of them in turn. He's heard of N-Unit-they graduated a few years before K-Unit did, and they're good. Hawk nods.
"Start getting your tactical gear on," he orders. "We'll go over the plan as soon as everyone is ready."
"Yes, sir," K-Unit says in unison. They go over to where H-Unit is and start pulling gear off the wall.
Coyote, H-Unit's medic and the best people person Wolf has ever met, grins as they approach. "Nice to see you lot again," he says. "How've you been?"
Eagle, pulling on a bulletproof vest, says, "Pretty good." He leans back so he can see past Coyote. "Hey, where's Ram?"
Coyote's grin falls from his face immediately, replaced by a look of pain. "He died around a year ago," he says. "We were in a major gunfight and someone got in a lucky shot."
"I'm sorry," Wolf says, and means it. He had liked Ram.
"Thanks. We're pretty alright now. But thanks." Coyote smiles again, but it's a far cry from his earlier grin.
Bear, the leader, looks mildly curious, and also seems to want to change the subject. "I thought you were on leave?"
"Special circumstances," Fox replies easily. Wolf wonders, not for the first time, how it is that Fox can answer a question without really giving an answer at all. Must be from his days with MI6.
Unfortunately, thinking about MI6 leads to thinking about the mission they're about to do, which in turn leads him to thinking about Alex. A twisting feeling of anxiety settles itself in his stomach. He does his best to ignore it. He's the leader—he has to stay strong for his unit.
"Hey, stow the chatter," says Hawk. Eagle and Coyote, who had been conversing pleasantly, fall silent.
Wolf checks his gun one last time before sliding it into its place. Hawk looks over. "All of you done?"
Wolf glances back at his unit and nods once. Hawk strides over to a map hanging on the opposite wall. A large rectangular building highlighted in red takes up most of it. A smaller picture of the skull mask hangs next to it (Wolf tries to concentrate on the mask and not what's underneath it.)
"This is our target," Hawk says, indicating the picture of Deathmask, "and this is where we're hoping he'll be. It's an abandoned factory-very large, lots of exits, and lots of machinery to hide behind. The target might be there, and he might not, but we need to be on high alert the entire time."
One of the members of H-Unit-Wolf doesn't know him, he must have replaced Ram-raises a hand. Hawk nods to him. "Tiger, right?"
"Yes," the man-Tiger-confirms. "I was just wondering why three units are going after one man."
"Well, first off, it allows us to cover more ground. Secondly-well, this man is probably one of the most dangerous assassins in the world. If not the most. I've seen his file. Trust me, we'll be glad to have this many men if we actually have to confront him." Hawk looks around, but no one else has any questions.
That's Alex he's talking about, says a not-very-helpful voice in Wolf's head. Wolf mentally tells it to shut up.
"K-Unit, you'll be going in here. H-Unit, here. N-Unit's going in here," he continues, pointing to three different places on the map. "We're looking for the assassin, or, failing that, any kind of evidence as to his identity or next target.
"Also," he adds. "I've been told that we're to use that ammunition right there"-he points to a table with lots of magazines on it-"and nothing else. Don't ask me why, I don't know. Now, unless there are any more questions, we're moving out in two minutes. Make sure you're ready."
Wolf, who had spent the entirety of his time in the back of the transport irrationally working himself up, is glad to finally be at the factory. The possibility of combat calms him—that, at least, is something he has some kind of control over. It's not a lot, but it's enough.
K-Unit moves silently to their entry point and waits for the signal.
"One," says Hawk's voice through their earpieces. "Two."
A shot rings out a short distance away, and there's a shout of pain-none of his men, Wolf is relieved to note. Immediately, Wolf presses his Comm button and asks, "What's going on?"
"Hawk's down. Might be dead," reports a voice after a few moments. Someone from N-Unit, probably-Wolf doesn't know the voice. "There's a sniper on the roof. We're taking Hawk inside so we can have a look at him. H-Unit, continue into the building. K-Unit, see if you can get the sniper."
"There's a ladder right there," Fox says, pointing to the side of the building.
"Go up," Wolf orders. "I'll follow you. Snake, Eagle, stay here."
Another shot, but no yell this time. Either it missed, or it had been a perfect death shot.
"And hurry."
Fox climbs the ladder as quickly as he dares-it moves a little too easily for his comfort. "I don't think it'll support both of us, Wolf. Wait until I'm all the way to follow."
"Alright."
"Be careful," Snake adds. Fox appreciates the concern, but it doesn't do much for him at the moment.
Thirty seconds or so later, he reports over the Comms, "I'm almost up." He hadn't realized how tall the building is.
Just as he reaches the top, there's an ominous cracking sound, and he manages to roll onto the roof just before the ladder crashes down. Fox curses under his breath as the sniper, who had been lying on his stomach and looking through his rifle scope near the other side of the roof, looks up. Fox quickly draws his gun. "Don't move," he orders, not expecting the sniper to listen.
He's right. Immediately, the sniper springs to his feet and pulls out a handgun. He points it right at Fox. Fox realizes with a feeling strangely akin to being punched that it's Deathmask—Alex. Surely Alex won't shoot him. Alex wouldn't shoot him. Fox starts edging nearer.
"Don't come any closer," Deathmask snaps. Fox stops moving, but his mind seems to be going at double speed. It's Alex's voice—older and distinctly cold and deadly, but Alex's nonetheless.
"Alex, it's me. It's Ben. Put the gun down. Please."
"Why would I do that?" Alex—Deathmask?—says, amusement tinging his voice. "I'd rather not be taken in, thank you very much."
"Alex, please. We thought you were dead. Whatever happened, we can help you."
"Fox, what's happening?" Wolf demands. Fox goes to press his Comm button and reply, but stops immediately when he sees Deathmask's finger tighten on the trigger.
"I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't want your help." Deathmask takes a step back and glances for a split second at the side off the building.
Fox almost shoots, but he hesitates for a moment—after all, it's Alex under that mask. He can't do it.
"Fox, talk to me!" Wolf orders. "What's going on?"
"Alex," Fox says quietly. "Please."
"Who's Alex?"
Fox freezes. It sounds like an honest question. It sounds like he really doesn't know. But...Deathmask is Alex. Fox is sure of it now.
Too late, he realizes that he shouldn't have let his attention slip.
A gunshot sounds.
Look at me being all mean and stuff. (I'm sorry. Kind of. Just remember—if you kill me, I can't write more. Just saying.)
Reviews are always welcome :)
