Part 2 of Safehouse. The whole series will be completed either tomorrow or Sunday, depending on my schedule this weekend. Thanks and R&R! ~ Samayou Tamashi
Light had just started to leak over the horizon, but it wouldn't be fully morning for another hour.
Wolf sat next to the only window in the flat, Ben and Eagle on opposite sides of the door, and Snake beside Alex, measuring his heart-rate. "It's too fast," he muttered half to himself, and Fox turned around.
"How much too fast?"
"When you go to sleep, the heartbeats should slow down along with the breathing." With a frown, he continued, "It's…it's almost like he's still conscious."
Fox relaxed. "Oh, that's nothing." At the medic's confusion, he clarified further. "We're spies, remember? At the slightest sound we need to be alert. Until the mission's over, he doesn't really sleep. It's more like meditation or yoga-relaxes the body and senses, but leaves the mind awake."* With a smirk, he added, "Watch."
The MI6 operative stood up and walked until he was half a meter from the couch. At that point, Alex's hand shot up to press his Sig to Fox's temple, the trigger pressed halfway down before Fox wrapped a hand lightly around his wrist.
There was a short hesitation in which K-Unit was sure that their former member was about to get killed by friendly fire, but slowly Alex released his grip on the trigger and relaxed his arm back down to his side.
"What the hell was that?" Wolf demanded.
Snake, who had still had still left his hand on Alex's other wrist while measuring his pulse, spoke up, "He never woke up. His heart rate didn't change or even stutter."
Even Fox, who had been sure of the result, had felt a tinge of anxiety at the speed of the reaction. "Nerves. He tends to react violently when people get too close and he doesn't know their intentions. Though admittedly, that was twice as fast as I remembered," he added softly to the end. "We agreed that it would be dangerous if I tried to wake him up and he wound up killing me before realizing who I was, so I taught him how to relax subconsciously. If someone wraps their hand gently around his wrist, it means there's no danger."
"So why didn't he shoot me when I checked his pulse?" asked Snake.
"You've got a hand on his wrist," the medic looked down to confirm that, "so he assumes you're an ally." Eagle, who had taken a step forward when Alex had lifted the gun to his head, took a quick step backwards again.
From where he had remained sitting by the window, Wolf tensed as a figure dressed in a long trench coat despite the unusually sunny weather purposely strolled towards the entrance of the building. "Time to end the twenty questions. I see at least one." He double-checked that his magazine was fully loaded and disengaged the safety on the Walther P99QA as Fox checked over his shoulder to the view. "And there's another one," he commented calmly, pointing to the barely visible form keeping to the shadows of another building.
"Cub wasn't certain on the number, but he was sure there were at least six on his tail. Obviously, we're going to move on assumptions that there are more," Wolf informed Eagle, who looked downright evil with the Baretta Storm** he'd gotten from a friend living in the States and two flash-bangs readied in his left hand. The unit leader wasn't even sure how, but the man was never without a handful of stun grenades stashed somewhere.
The soldier grinned cheerfully. "Always do, Wolf. The real question is how far they can get before being overwhelmed by my sheer awesomeness."
Covering his laugh with a cough, Fox rolled his eyes. "I thought I told you guys that he was not to come in contact with any form of caffeine."
"It wasn't me, I swear. He's naturally this hyper, and you haven't seen him on a sugar rush yet. Horrifying." The two shuddered at the mere thought.
Eagle pouted but couldn't keep the smile from his eyes. At the sound of soft footsteps in the hallway, he froze before pulling the clip from the first flash-bang, opening the door, tossing it out, and slamming the door shut again. He plugged his ears and called to the rest to follow suit. The sudden sound, not to mention the blinding flash, dazed two of them. The third one almost made it to the door before Eagle re-opened the door and knocked him over the head with the butt of his handgun.
Seeing the body slump to the floor with a dull thud, Fox muttered, "There goes the welcoming committee."
"Please tell me more are coming," Eagle begged, aiming his Bambi eyes at Fox, "because I still have more flash-bangs and I never get to use the flash-bangs."
"Keep your attention on the door," Wolf barked at him, just as Fox shot at the assassin attempting to open the window while the unit leader was distracted. He spun around at the sudden gunfire before nodding at his teammate in appreciation.
"I take that as a yes?"
"Pay attention!" they both yelled.
With the MI6 agent and Wolf aiming at opposite entrances, and Eagle ready with another stun grenade in his hand, there was a dead silence. Snake suddenly broke the quiet. "I don't think the air duct should make that much noise."
Fox quickly switched his aim but too late as a bullet scraped past his left ear, burying itself in the far wall and sending him stumbling back. A short man dressed entirely in black dropped from the now-open vent, rolling as he hit the floor and evading the short bursts of fire Wolf and Eagle sent at him. Behind him, Snake had stepped away from Alex to pull a throwing knife from its sheath on his waist and send it spinning at the assassin, but with a quick turn, it only sliced his arm. He sent two shots at Wolf, who stumbled and fell clutching his chest, another at Eagle, catching him in the upper arm, and the last one grazed Snake's head, knocking him out.
The assassin paused, Fox moving silently to duck into the shadows by the doorway as he aimed for a fatality. Even as he shot, the assassin seemed to blur as he dropped to avoid the bullet and set back return fire. Fox fell back against the wall, head spinning and chest painfully bruised. All of them were wearing body armor beneath their shirts, but the man didn't need to be alerted to this fact. Getting up would only make him take head shots.
Quietly, as the assassin turned to Alex, he picked up his M1911 from where it had dropped and was about to pull the trigger when the silent man suddenly spoke up, catching him off-guard. Alex had slept through the fight, whether it was the morphine, his meditation, or a mix of both, and even now he didn't stir as the assassin addressed him.
"Rider, you've killed two of the Russian mafia's highest leaders in their own homes, our liaison to them, and three of our own executive board."*** K-Unit, including Snake who was slowly watching the room stop spinning, stared on in shock, forgetting their own injuries. At barely fifteen, Alex had taken out six of the world's most dangerous people and lived. Fox realized that he had only seen a small part of his sometimes-partner's job, and understood why MI6 spoke of him as the best. "SCORPIA sends a message. 'We never forgive, and you have not been forgotten.'" From a sheath on his leg, he pulled out a long dagger with a black scorpion emblazoned on one side and stepped forward, intending to hit where their sniper had so narrowly missed.
Fox regained control of his thoughts and once more aimed for a head-shot but Alex beat him to the kill.
His fatal mistake had been not using his gun to end it neatly. The dagger wasn't even a foot above him when Alex used his gun to ensnare the assassin's wrist. In a quick snap, learned ironically from the same people who were now trying desperately to kill him, he broke the ulna and radius simultaneously, the dagger flying from the now-useless hand to stick perfectly straight up in the floor at his feet. Alex flicked his ring finger out to spin the gun back into position. He shot twice, the first a little to the left but the last catching him above his eye.
Within less than ten seconds, the assassin had been killed. Mercifully, his mind never had the chance to register the painfully broken bones.
Even as the man collapsed to the floor, Alex never relaxed his hold on the Sig, his finger hesitating by the trigger as if awaiting the next target.
Recovering first from the sudden flash of events, Fox shakily stood up and put a finger on his lips for silence from K-Unit. He left his gun on the floor and slowly stumbled to kneel beside the couch, wrapping the hand not holding his chest around the small wrist. "Relax," he whispered.
Eventually, he did.
Fox and K-Unit worried when Alex continued to sleep the entire day, or 'meditate' as Fox put it. Snake, after bandaging his own head, fixed up Eagle's arm as the soldier complained that he'd never gotten to use the rest of his stash and got an ice pack for Wolf. The man had two ugly bruises where the bullets had been deflected, but they still hurt like hell. Fox had come out with a possible cracked rib, but he insisted that he didn't want to be hospitalized until Alex woke.
The body was taken out, along with the one that Fox had shot, by a group of MI6 agents. All traces of the fight, down to the bullet holes and scuffed carpet, were fixed up and made to look as if that morning had never happened. When asked, no one mentioned what had happened to the three men Eagle had conked out in the hallway, though it was assumed that MI6 had either taken them in for interrogation or killed them. Both theories were popular between the four of them.
To satisfy the rest of K-Unit, Snake checked Alex's breathing and pulse (while nervously holding his wrist the entire time) assuring them that he wasn't comatose. The only outward signs of life were his fingers subtly shifting on the trigger, adjusting to maintain a steady grip and ready to shoot again at any moment.
Over six hours later, at the same time he had arrived early the previous morning, he opened his eyes, rubbing the sleep from them and, after a short hesitation, holstering the Sig at his waist. After checking the time on his watch to make sure he had rested no longer than the allotted twenty-four hours, he sat up on his right elbow to take careful note of the changes in his surroundings, however small. The floor had been both scrubbed and vacuumed thoroughly. In two, no three spots, the carpet didn't match the rest of the room—likely a stain-remover. When he had holstered the Sig it had been marginally lighter. Likely, one bullet was missing from the chamber.
Eagle was in a chair by the door with one arm bandaged and wrapped up in a sling and loudly snoring. Wolf appeared to have been reading the file in his lap but, like the other soldier, had succumbed to sleep. Fox, Alex noticed, had fallen asleep on the floor beside the couch he was lying on. Even sleeping, his hand was still wrapped around Alex's wrist. The teenager had to give a small smile at that. It must have been a long day.
Feeling the new wrap on his shoulder and the fresh bag of morphine in his system, he momentarily relaxed back into the pillow. The weariness hadn't faded and through the painkillers his shoulder throbbed, but the day-long reprieve had been enough to make it easier.
With a glance in the direction of Snake's retreating footsteps, he tossed on a loose t-shirt lying on the floor after pulling the IV from his elbow and lightly removing Fox's hand without disturbing him. He retrieved his jacket from where it had been tossed haphazardly on the arm of the couch and pulled a packet of black powder from one of the pockets hidden inside the left sleeve. When he rubbed pinches of it into his sandy-blond hair, the small particles bonded with the roots and his scalp, darkening his hair to a dark brown as if it had always been that way. It wouldn't come out unless he used one of Smither's shampoos to remove it. A pair of contacts from a similar pocket in the right sleeve faded his dark brown eyes to soft amber.
Snake returned to the room to see a completely different person, only knowing it was him by the bandage across his cheek and the way he was carefully holding his shoulder. Alex held a finger up to his lips, not wanting to disturb the sleeping men.
"You shouldn't be up yet," the medic glared, but made sure he spoke quietly.
The spy shrugged with his good arm. "I've been in the field for over three weeks now. Blunt is going to want a report. Besides, information could have leaked on this safehouse and I'm still not up for a full out fight."
Snake opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again. "Let it heal," he finally decided and Alex nodded with an understanding expression.
"I'll try, but that's all I can promise. Work… Well, you know." Moving his injured shoulder slowly, he managed to ease the jacket on. Before he let his fingers touch the door knob, however, he spun back around to meet Snake's eyes. "Tell the guys thanks for everything. If any of you ever needs help, just tell anyone connected to the police that you're friends of the current Rider and he owes you a huge one."
Shaking his head, Snake held out a hand. "We never really did get introduction did we? Jake O'Reilly." Alex grinned as he nodded and shook the offered hand. "Rider. Alex Rider." The medic had to snort at his joke, but he was serious again.
"And if you need SAS behind you, just ask Fox and he'll point the way."
"I know. Thanks again, and I hope someday we can just sit down and talk." Both of them sighed at the impossibility of that in the near future. "Until then, if you look carefully, I think we'll meet again," he winked. Snake blinked, and he was gone.
"Damn. How does he do that?"
A/N: Thanks for all the review! I checked my email when I got home and almost had a heart-attack at all the alerts. I responded to all the reviews I could, but to those anonymous reviews: Thanks sooo much! The sequel/epilogue will be added as Part 3 and should be up either later today or sometime tomorrow depending on how much time I have.
*This type of meditation, and his reaction to being touched, can really happen. You can close off all your senses and 'meditate' while still responding subconsciously to touches and movements. It takes awhile to master, but it IS possible and quite relaxing.
**Another favorite gun, and personally one of the easiest to use (with the exception of the Walther P99 that SAS troops really do use in combat), the Beretta Px4 Storm Subcompact F has minimal recoil and works well in relatively close spaces.
***For those of you who were confused, this is about six months after Crocodile Tears. He's been getting around, and by the mafia, I mean THE mafia (located and working out of Russia).
To some of the individual anonymous reviews I got, there were two in particular that I was so grateful for. They noted pieces that were off, and I can explain those. Sorta...
Ambrele: The Sig Sauer is made to be accurate, and I think that I exaggerated the distance he was shooting from. My uncle and cousin are both snipers, and they assured me it is a fairly simple shot despite how difficult it sounds. Thanks for telling me, and its alright that your anonymous. Keep reviewing!
Anonymous: (The one with the uber-long review) I have something to explain. I...heh...don't live in England. I'll gratefully move this over to the States if it makes more sense, because I have only been in Europe a half-dozen times and have no knowledge of how things are different. The part about Ben speaking in Japanese was entirely on accident and I hadn't caught it until right before publishing. I have this awful habit of switching languages and not noticing it. When my sister pointed it out, I just quickly left a note at the bottom for translation. If I do it again, tell me and I'll either fix it or make another note. Your review was so helpful, please keep telling me when I miss something!