Hello everyone. I know I haven't updated in a long while, but I am afraid that that is probably going to be common practise, as I have to put my priorities elsewhere. So, this has been a long time coming and is I am afraid quite a bit shorter than the previous chapter, but I decided that I had better hurry up and publish it rather than fuss around for another five months making it longer. I know I haven't replied personally to my reviewers, so apologies for that, your input is appreciated. So thanks to jackie, NeverMagpie, Tsume-Hikaru, x, AR-bookwork, Thaliran, Auraya-of-the-White, Castaway5, AtlantisGirl12, Wolfmonster, Nyxelestia, hello93bye, Aimed mischief, NienkevH, CaligoAngelus, AllThatIsGoldDoesNotGlitter, agentcherub, flyingdutchman08, Latina16, DoodlesInTheSand, ObsessivelyOdd and everyone who put this story on their favourites or story alert.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Alex Rider... they rejected the paperwork on the grounds that it was written on the back of a reciept for Starbucks
Alex was awake when he heard the knock at the front door. It was eleven pm exactly, and he had only gone to bed a mere forty minutes before. Jack was still up; he had been listening to her moving around in the kitchen. When he held his breath he could hear the faintest sound of Paolo Nutini's soft voice.
He sat up as he heard Jack walking out of the kitchen, obviously heading to answer the front door. Who was at the door at this time at night? A sudden feeling off utter terror gripped Alex and he threw of his covers and climbed out of the bed.
As he tore across his room, he heard the gentle creak of the front door opening. Panic fluttered in his chest and he shouldered his way roughly through his partly open bedroom door.
He reached the top of the stairs and paused listening. He heard Jack beginning to speak and he heard her voice falter in fear.
Then he was racing down the stairs and as the scene below him came into view, the first thing he saw was the porch light curving off of the barrel of a Jericho 941, semi automatic pistol.
The first few flakes of snow had begun to fall from the white streaked sky by the time Dominic had warmed up the engine on his motorbike and set off.
Because this was central London, the roads had all been gritted earlier in the morning but Dominic was cautious, expertly negotiating the bike around the few black shiny patches that the gritter had missed.
The bike drew a lot of looks as he revved it carefully down the streets. It was a cold early weekday and the working class were out in their throngs, throwing buckets of hot water onto their car windscreens and scraping at the covering of ice on their windows.
They looked up from these tedious but necessary tasks as he passed, their attention caught by the guttural purr of the bike's 248 cc engine.
The bike was a Royal Enfield Crusader and it had once belonged to his grandfather. When the old man had died, some years ago, he had left the bike to Dominic who had spent many hours restoring it to its factory condition.
On a day like this, it felt good to have the bike. It may have taken a few tries to coax the engine to start and a few minutes before it was warm enough to ride, but at least he was spared the task of scraping an inch of ice off of a windscreen with a credit card.
He knew that it would take about ten minutes to reach the block of flats on Grange Street where Adam lived from his place on St Kilda's Road.
He thought back over the conversation he had just shared with the man. He was puzzled as to why he had called him. They hadn't spoken in about four months. And now this… Dominic shook his head slightly and reaching a patch of road that seemed mostly free of ice, he pressed on the accelerator and leaned into the wind.
When he reached Grange Street a little while later, he pulled into a space at the end of the road, took the keys from the ignition, kicked the stand down and dismounted from the bike. He shed his gloves and pulled of his helmet as he began to walk towards the block of flats where Adam lived.
He didn't have to ring the bell when he got to the door leading into the foyer of the building, as someone was leaving and held the door for him as he approached. He smiled fleetingly at the person; a young woman and she smiled coyly back.
With his dark hazel eyes and smooth features, Dominic was not unaccustomed to receiving the attentions of the opposite sex. Smirking slightly he made his way across the foyer.
His trainers made a sharp noise on the cheap laminated floors. Here and there the shiny wood was streaked with dust and above his head the unlit lighting fixtures were adorned with clumps of cobwebs. There was nothing in the wide-open space but a small table, which held the logbook of the people who lived in the building and a cracked vase of fake flowers.
Dominic crossed the foyer, headed straight towards the double doors that led to the staircase to the higher floors.
He jogged up the stairs and then pushed through the door that opened onto the corridor of the second floor. He walked along the corridor, his trainers muffled now on hideous green and yellow carpet, until he reached the door that he knew to open to Adam's apartment and knocked briskly.
The door opened almost immediately.
Adam looked different than the last time Dominic had seen him. His skin was tanned and unlike Dominic he had not kept the close cut hairstyle that had been demanded when they were in training together. He also looked tired and a little worried, with circles under his eyes and worry lines across his forehead.
For an instant he looked surprised to see Dominic there and then his expression cleared and he offered him a wry smile. "Hey, sorry about this…"
Dominic frowned. "Don't be." He said simply. "What exactly is going on?"
Adam paused as if trying to think of a way to explain just what was going on and then sighed and invited him in instead.
He led him through to the kitchen and instinctively put the kettle on to boil. As he took two mugs and a jar of instant coffee out of the cupboard, Dominic's eyes strayed to the washer dryer, the door of which stood open.
He felt a jolt of alarm when he saw the mass of bloodied sheets and towels inside the machine, but looking at Adam, he couldn't see anything immediately wrong with him.
The other man had noticed his wandering gaze however and shuffled awkwardly. "You haven't killed someone, have you?" Dominic asked, only half joking.
Adam shook his head but didn't smile. "It's Cub." He finally said as he spooned the coffee into the mugs. For a few seconds he didn't look at Dominic but when he finally did he added an extra spoonful of coffee into each of their mugs, he thought they might need it.
His ex-team mate was stood, frozen rigid with a mixture of shock and dismay apparent in his eyes. "What does fucking Cub have to do with anything?" He growled finally, accepting a mug of the strong black coffee from Adam.
"He came around at three am this morning…" Adam began but a disbelieving Dominic cut him off. "So, he's here then?" He demanded.
"Yes, he's taking a shower."
"He's taking a shower!" Dominic repeated incredulously.
"I know it's a shock, but hear me out okay." Adam said in an attempt to placate Dominic. "I haven't got all the details myself yet, but basically he's in a bit of trouble. Actually, a lot of trouble from the sounds of it…"
Dominic snorted. "So he's run to you to sort out his own goddamn mess?"
Adam frowned at him, and although they were no longer officially a unit, and so Adam was no longer officially Dominic's leader, he still shut up at the look.
"Apparently he's run into some trouble with Scorpia… He came here in an absolute state, bruised all over… he's got fucking whip marks and yet he doesn't want to go to MI6."
"Why would he want to go to MI6 anyway?" Dominic asked with real curiosity this time.
Adam hesitated before answering. He guessed it was too late for the truth to do any more damage. "We were wrong about Cub. I couldn't tell you before but I saw him in action, on one of my first operations. He was snowboarding down a mountain on a fucking ironing board for Christ's sake… He's a government agent Dominic. The real thing."
"That's why he was at Brecons Breacons?" Dominic accepted Adam's word without question, another old habit ingrained in to him after the time he had spent with Adam as his leader. Adam nodded.
"How the fuck did he get caught up with Scorpia?" Like Adam, Dominic was not unfamiliar with the name of the terrorist organisation. It seemed surreal to him that the teenager he remembered from training could be involved with them.
"I have no idea, but I'm going to find out," Adam sounded sure of himself for the first time. Dominic was surprised to see the resolution in his eyes. He had never thought that Adam had liked Cub very much.
"Are you going to go to MI6? What else can you do?" Dominic asked, taking a gulp of coffee and leaning back on Adam's counter.
Before Adam could answer however, they both started at the noise of a door opening somewhere in the flat.
The layout of the flat meant that the kitchen was joined to the living room by an empty doorway. The living room opened onto the corridor and straight across from it was the bathroom. To the left of the bathroom and opposite the kitchen was the bedroom. The front door was to the right of the bathroom and living room, at the end of the corridor.
Adam had said that Cub was in the shower so any minute now he would walk into the living room. From there he would come into the kitchen.
Dominic put down his coffee and waited.
Alex sat on the bathroom floor, braced uncomfortably against the side of the acrylic bathtub.
He was dressed in a clean pair of jeans and a black shirt, which he left un-tucked so that it reached below the belt line of his jeans.
A towel was slung around his shoulders, catching the drips from his hair, which was dark with water. His shoulder bag sat on the tiled floor beside him and it was from this bag that Alex had removed the object that he now held in his hands, staring at it as if it mesmerised him.
The object was a semi-automatic pistol, a Baby Eagle or Jericho 941. The make originated from Israel in 1990 but had since made its way around most of the world, by import and export of varying degrees of legality.
Alex snapped the gun open and counted eleven .40 Smith and Wesson rounds. Only one bullet had been fired of the twelve that the Jericho had capacity for.
His numb fingers found the silencer that was attached to the pistol and he unscrewed it and dropped it into his bag. Now he could feel the blunt edges of the threaded barrel.
He closed his eyes and lent forward, drawing his knees towards him. He rested his forehead against his legs, felt the pistol against his stomach.
A noise outside of the room made him instantly unfurl himself and drag himself to his feet. The towel that had hung around his neck slipped off, and almost instantly a drop of water slid down his back, making him shiver.
He stood and listened, holding the gun loosely in his hand. After a few moments of silence he walked to the bathroom door and stood there, once again listening.
The barrel of the pistol tapped against his leg as he trembled slightly. The sudden movements he had made to pull himself to his feet and move across to the bathroom door had aggravated his more recent wounds and the tremors of pain that wracked him were causing his involuntary shaking.
He couldn't hear anything and decided that it was probably just Wolf moving around his apartment, but he still felt slightly uneasy as he checked the safety was on the pistol and stowed it in the waistband of his jeans, zipped his bag shut and attempted to restore Wolf's bathroom back to it's previous state. He'd bloodied a few more of Wolf's towels but there wasn't anything he could do about that now.
Grabbing hold of his bag, he walked back towards the bathroom door and listened for a few more moments before unlocking it and pushing it open.
The flat was quiet but Alex didn't think much of that, he had left Wolf on his own after all and the man didn't strike Alex as being the sort to talk to himself.
He walked across the landing and into the living room. Finding it unoccupied, he dropped his bag back down beside the sofa and headed towards the second doorway that led from the room.
Walking through the doorway, he found himself in a kitchen. It was a small room, barely able to contain the stove, fridge, sink unit and washer dryer that had been crammed into it.
The room seemed even smaller when considering the two men, both of broad proportions, who currently occupied it.
"Eagle?"
So that was chapter two, hope you enjoyed. You guys are gonna have to tell me if you prefer longer chapters with a longer wait or shorter chapters with a shorter wait. I shall endeavour to get the next chapter out faster. Apologies again for any technical mistakes. Distortment.
