Operation: Scorched Earth – The Storm
Um. Please don't kill me? I come bearing gifts! Unbetaed, long awaited gifts, but gifts nonetheless!
* hides *
Anyway, here is a new chapter of Operation: Scorched Earth, as my frantic battle with research papers and final exams finally ends. This is an exciting, long, action-packed chapter, so I hope this fulfills your appetites!
Oh, and as a side note… this isn't exactly how you make ammonal... But this should be close enough.
….
Despite the fact that he was approaching his twenty-seventh hour awake, Alex wasn't tired. He could feel the buzz of adrenaline running through his body as he armed himself.
Plans whirled through his mind as he thought through possible situations. He was always good at reacting on the spot, but it never hurt to be prepared.
Alex slid onto his bike.
Let's end this. Today.
Alex could feel the familiar surge of adrenaline as he steadily pedaled towards the pub. It all came down to instinct now, instinct and luck.
It was for this very moment that MI6 wanted Alex so badly, this moment when all the research and preparation and information gathering was complete, and a mission came down to a Spy's split second choices. Agencies could train a spy to fight. They could train a spy to lie. They could train a spy to act a role, and give him tons of innocuous but useful gadgets, and give her the best support in the world.
But ultimately, a spy with bad instincts wouldn't survive the field. If Alex's instincts hadn't been telling him that something was up with Damian Cray, the psychopath would have succeeded with nobody to stop him. His instincts had told him to trust in Yedit's innocence, and in Yassen's desire to keep him alive, and each of those decisions had saved him at least once. Alex's instincts had steered him towards the right choices, and kept him alive.
The same instincts that had driven him to investigate his uncle's murder had told Alex to run for his life when MI6 wanted to send him off to Uganda. Alex wondered briefly how that scene would have played out if the renegades hadn't been there to get him out.
The truth was that Alex was an intersection of intense creativity, well-honed instincts, and the unique training that gave him a diverse set of skills on which to draw in any situation.
He was an invaluable intelligence asset, and MI6 would bend heaven and Earth to get him back, because a spy with the right instincts can work with whatever luck they got and find a way to still manage to get the job done.
Even so, Alex couldn't help but hope that MI6 would let him go. That after searching for long enough, they would just give up. He knew they wouldn't. He knew they would do anything to get him back.
But deep inside, Alex hoped that they would anyway.
Alex arrived at the pub shortly before work hours. He locked up his bike, and let himself into the pub, smiling at Lina (who winked at him over the cover of her compact mirror) as he did.
"Is Piper about?" he asked, settling into one of the chairs. "I'd assume she wanted me in for cleaning duty, but given that I'm not here on a usual day, it's probably best not to make assumptions."
"Nah, I don't think she wants you cleaning," Lina replied, shutting the mirror when she was satisfied with whatever makeup she had been applying to her eyes.
"I certainly would prefer it if the cute boys would stay in one place for a while," she added with another flirtatious smile. "Makes it easier to oogle, and I like to oogle."
I'm sure you do. Just like you oogle children before selling them off you black-hearted bitch, Alex thought.
"Well, feel free to stare as long as you like," he said instead of giving voice to his thoughts, leaning back with a grin. "My body is a temple and all that."
"That it is," Lina said with a grin that was downright lecherous.
"So, do you have any idea what Piper has up her sleeves?" Alex asked with just the right amount of excitement and trepidation.
"Ye-es," Lina said, lengthening the word with an unnecessary syllable in order to add an irritating singsong quality to her voice.
"But you won't tell me."
"I would, but Piper's the one running this baby, and I'll let her do the honors."
"The honors of what?" Piper's grumpy voice came from the doors to the kitchen, surveying the teenager and young woman sitting in the pub.
"Just telling Michael here why we're waiting for you to come before I can explain today's special events," Lina said with a grin.
"Hmf, good," Piper grumbled. Alex realized that he had actually caught Piper in a good mood the day that she had hired him, and man that was weird.
"So Piper, I'm dying to know, what's the surprise?" Alex asked, leaning back in his chair. There was nothing about his body that could possibly project a lie, or any kind of deception; it was a good act, as good as the one Alex had pulled in Uganda to fool a series of gangsters and finally get close enough to kill a psychotic dictator.
It was a hundred times better than the pathetic floundering that had nearly gotten him killed going after Sayle. Alex knew that nothing short of his age had saved his ass.
"Well, the Queen's Apple likes to have auctions every now and again," Piper said. "Just to… supplement our income, keep the joint running. Why don't we step into my office, and discuss this further?"
As it turned out, Piper's office was in the basement of the building, full of cluttered filing cabinets and piles of unorganized papers. Post-it notes covered the wall behind Piper with notes with dates and times, some written in pen, some in pencil. Some just had simple phrases like 'fix toilet number 3' or 'write Lina's paycheck.' As far as Alex could tell, she hadn't taken any of them down for a good few weeks.
"I always mean to clean up whenever I come in here," Piper growled, moving a stack of papers off her chair and sitting down. "And then I made a note to hire someone to do it for me, and somehow that just seems stupid once I'm no longer in here, so…"
Alex shrugged.
"Hey, doesn't matter to me," he told her. "So, you were saying?"
"Yes," Piper said, folding her hands over a pile of documents. "I know that you have… unique… skills, working for the people that you do."
Alex froze.
No way. No fucking way Piper knew who he was. Yassen had guaranteed his documents were foolproof, and Piper – a fugitive from Brazilian justice and the cartels – hardly had the kind of resources that MI6 could bring to bear. If she could get through his cover –
"I have no idea, what you mean," Alex said, taking a seat with a smile. He needed to know what Piper thought she knew, and this was the way to do it. Hell, she was probably trying to rile him up just to shake the tree and see what kinds of secrets he was hiding.
"Oh please, I had you made the second you walked in my door," Piper rolled her eyes. "You're carrying, a 9mm at the small of your back, and a knife up each sleeve. You grab your forearms when you feel threatened, and I could see the bulge."
Interesting. Piper either hadn't noticed the gun at his leg, and the knife under his shirt, or she was trying to put him off guard. Her next statement made Alex relax minutely.
"I mean seriously?" Piper continued. "I looked into you. Teenage runaway, no dad or mom to speak of, living on his own, working to put himself through his exams… well, you're prime meat for recruitment. So, what gang feels that I've infringed on their territory, because I know for a fact that nobody working this area is in my business?"
And suddenly, there was a gun in Piper's hand, and the situation got a lot more dangerous.
Piper was – compared to most of the people Alex had faced off against – an amateur. She was little league compared to Alex's normal jobs, and she didn't know even a quarter of what she thought she did. She was a sociopath and an evil bitch, but Alex had far more experience taking people like her down than she had trying to defend herself from people like him.
So he slumped, caught out.
"Hey listen, it's not like that, okay?" Alex asked desperately. "It was a stupid decision, and they wanted me to come in and just shoot you!"
Piper's eyes narrowed.
"But I know you've got a better business going," Alex continued hurriedly. "Come on Piper, I ain't gonna rat you out, and like you said, I've got skills. I'm strong, I'm smarter than your regular thug, and I need help. I wasn't lying, okay? I just… Please?"
Piper considered him, and Alex knew she was going to put the gun down before she had even made up her own mind.
Piper liked people who deferred to her brilliance and skills. She liked people who needed her, who relied on her and gave her dominance over them. Alex had just handed her the rope to hang him with, and she was too high off the idea of control to even want to kill him before she figured out how to exploit it.
Besides, Piper hadn't called him here the day of one of her sales to make a scene. She wanted a recruit, not another body to hide.
She smiled.
"I knew you'd say that," she told him, putting away the gun. "It so happens I do have a job for you. It's even better money than you'd make now, and it's probably even easier. You ever seen a slave auction?"
Alex's stomach twisted, but he smiled.
I will kill you, you horrid bitch.
"No," Alex said. "Mostly ran drug deals, that kind of shit. Selling coke to high school students, it's like giving candy to a baby, I swear."
Alex's laugh was earnest.
"That's just little leagues," Piper assured him with her own smile. "I mean sure, addictions a good market, lots of repeat customers, but you have to stay in one place for a long time for it to be any good, and we're a bit more mobile than that. We're also quite a bit larger in scale. We have buyers coming all the way from China and the Middle East just to get a hint of the action here. We're exclusive, and every deal we make earns us quite a bit of money."
So maybe Piper was a bit of a bigger fish than Alex had given her credit for. Still, the bigger the criminal, the harder they fall, after all.
Alex was going to look forward to his Brazilian mercenary friends dragging Piper and her buyers off to face justice. ABIN would have a field day executing the criminals they could get away with killing and then turning the rest over to the ICC.
As soon as Alex knew where the site of the buy was, he'd tip them off and then get the hell out of there. Easy.
And he still had more backup than he ever had working for MI6.
"So how much do you actually make off each sale?" he asked.
"Anywhere from fifty to five hundred grand, depending on the kid" Piper replied.
"What's the profit margin on that?" Alex asked. His skin was crawling at the very thought, but he knew that wrapping up the whole operation was more important than just killing the bitch in front of him. His happy fantasies of smashing her face in against her own desk would have to remain fantasies. For now, anyway.
"Well, we snatch the kids on our own, bring them in over a couple batches and a few days, and generate about 2k expenses on each job, sometimes less, sometimes more. The earnings are split based on how much work you pull on a job."
Alex nodded, because that gave him an extra few seconds to stop himself from trying to kill the woman in front of him.
"The best is when we get the rich kids though," Piper continued. "Sometimes we'll call the parents to pay a ransom, and send Lina or I or someone else in as a 'cop' to negotiate their release. The parent's will cough up the ransom, but we sell the kid to another buyer anyway, and half the time I'll have a parent sobbing on my shoulder, thanking me for doing everything I could, while I'm sitting here thinking… this job just paid for my home in the Bahamas."
Alex had been wrong. Piper wasn't a terrible person. She wasn't just morally reprehensible. She was downright evil.
"Sounds like a sweet gig," Alex grinned, though the smile was a bit late in reaching his eyes. "Ever get caught?"
"Nah, we move around once a year, usually switch countries," Piper said. "Mostly we try and stick to homeless kids, you know, the ones nobody's gonna miss."
"Then I just have one more question: where do I sign up?" Alex asked. He'd passed hurdle number one – Piper had no clue who he really was, and was just about ready to reel him in.
"You're in," Piper told him. "Like I said, we have a sale coming up today, and I'd like to give you a test run. But before we go, there's just one thing."
Piper pulled open one of the cabinets and pulled out a suit. Armani. Alex could identify it by look alone.
"We're walking in some pretty swanky circles kid, and the whole gangster thug look won't roll in these leagues," Piper explained.
If I had a nickel for every time a rich psychopath gave me a nice suit, I'd have enough money to buy my own, Alex thought with a mental eyeroll.
…
Alex got into a car with Piper. Apparently Lina and Richard and whoever else on their staff was involved with this auction were going their own way (though Alex was just assuming, he was hardly going to ask and make himself look even a little bit suspicious).
"One more thing though," Piper said, pulling out a strip of cloth. "I know you're on board, but I also know that you're a thug, and you can go running off on me at any point if you actually know where we are. Also, your phone?"
Alex handed over the device without a word, and tied the blindfold over his own eyes. If he showed even a hint of resistance, Piper would just shoot him. She wanted easy control, and he would be exactly what she wanted.
They drove for about fifteen minutes before stopping, though Alex judged that the place where the auction would happen was only about five or ten minutes away, given that he could tell Piper was engaging in some serious defensive driving. He felt left turns without signals, and sharp U-turns designed to confuse and ditch a tail. Alex hoped the Brazilian authorities weren't stupid enough to follow Piper's car now, with him in it, because the best they would do is get themselves and him killed.
Piper got out of the car and went around to Alex's door. She pulled him up by the shoulder and led him into the building.
"Just a moment, we're headed down some stairs, and then I'll take off the blindfold," she told him sternly. "Come on."
Alex nearly stumbled on the last of a series of steps on a spiral staircase. The floor was plush carpet, which read residential house more than restaurant.
He heard a door close right behind them (heavy wood, probably inlaid with metal, from the sound as it closed), and then Piper pulled the blindfold free.
The huge basement was spacious, with a gleaming wooden floor decorated with ornate rugs. A crystal chandelier was hanging from the ceiling, glittering with light, and men and women in starched white shirts and well-fitted vests were preparing platters of mini-quiches, bits of lobster, and champagne. A string quartet was setting up in the corner, getting ready for the big event.
This basement was the perfect gathering place for illicit deals.
What really made Alex's blood boil, however, was the fact that along every wall, a series of cages had been built. Each one housed anywhere from one to three children, totaling around twenty five, though Alex couldn't be sure because their battered, filthy forms were huddled together with fear and exhaustion.
Alex had to fight his instincts to turn around and tear Piper's throat out. He was a spy, and he would do the job right, and while he desperately wanted Piper dead, his instincts were telling him to wait until he had the buyers rounded up. He glanced around, fighting back the bile.
There were two entrances. One was the door behind him, and the other was on the other side of the room, leading to some kind of kitchen, from what Alex could see as people went in and out with their platters of food and wine. Alex didn't know if there was a way out through the kitchen, but if he was given even the slightest chance to find one, he would, because that door was looking less and less viable as an escape route, what with Richard standing right next to it, presumably armed to the teeth.
"So where do you need me boss?" he asked instead.
"We got a last minute shipment in," Piper said. "Some government type. She was poking around our business, and we don't like that much. She's yours for the night – you keep an eye on her, make sure she stays put. I need to give you explicit orders how to do that?"
Alex's stomach plummeted.
"Nah, I got this," he said.
"Good," Piper said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Stick to her like birds on a rhino. I got other business to take care of before our buyers show up. She's over in the corner."
Alex made his way over, across the polished floor, and stared down at a young woman who was chained inside of one of the cages. She'd been gagged, and her bright red hair hung over tanned skin in knots.
She looked up at him, dark eyes wide and expressive, and Alex thought for a second that his heart had stopped.
Agent Yedit Shalom was staring up at him.
"Man, you have a serious gift for pissing important people off, anyone ever tell you that?" Alex asked casually. "I'm Michael, and you are in trouble."
Alex smirked in that self-centered, stupid way thugs had about them when they made a quid that they thought was particularly clever.
Yedit rolled her eyes, and Alex turned away. He couldn't risk any more conversation with that. Given that he was here, Yedit already knew that there was help on the way, and given that he was Alex, she already knew that he would do what he could to get her out of this.
About an hour later, the room started filling up. Men and women in expensive suits and dresses were filling into the room, mingling and chatting as they eyed the merchandise for sale. The string quartet picked up a soft, cultured tune that rose above the chatter and filled the room. Servers walked in and out of the kitchen carrying their platters. Alex kept a close eye on the door through which he had entered, a huge, mahogany carved door.
This is so sick, Alex thought grimly. When exactly an hour had passed, he took a few steps into the crowd, stumbling over the foot of one of the bigwigs that had just put away his phone. He apologized profusely, and got a glass of water before returning to the cage where Yedit was being held, just in case someone was watching and wondering why he had left his post at all.
"How's it going Michael?" Piper asked, passing by Alex a few minutes later. "Saw your tumble there, do I need to remind you to be on your best behavior?"
"No ma'am, I'm sorry," Alex looked down submissively. "Just needed a drink is all, didn't see the guy until I nearly fell on him."
"Well 'that guy' is one of my top buyers, so why don't you just stay here and try to avoid antagonizing any of my other guests?"
Alex nodded profusely, promising to do just that. Once Piper was gone, he reached into his pocket and typed in Ginger's phone number in by heart. He sent her a message telling her to track the phone, and then dumped it into the trash can when he went to throw away his cup.
Ideally, Ginger, Lionel, and Fred would be here within the next twenty minutes. Meanwhile, he needed a contingency plan to get himself and Yedit out while the Brazilians cleared out the buyers.
Alex watched the crowd carefully, but he was distracted by Piper stepping up to the front of the room.
"Welcome, guests!" Piper called, smiling widely.
Conniving bitch.
"We have a good selection today, and I'm glad to see you all here," Piper said. "I'll turn things over to Lina to lead our bidding."
Lina smiled and took Piper's place, looking very swanky in a bright red dress with a daring cut, and a pair of painful looking heels.
"We'll begin with lot number one. Ten years old, male, brunette, middle eastern, in good health, recently taken to the streets. Do I hear twenty thousand?"
Alex's stomach twisted painfully again.
The doors slammed open.
"Everybody freeze!"
This was their plan? Fucking idiots, didn't they know anything?
Piper had drawn a gun and fired before Lionel got more than a single step into the room. Ginger and Fred could be seen behind it, swearing as they tried to seal the door.
"Everybody remain calm, our security will handle this, momentary distraction," Piper growled as she stalked across the room, talking quietly into her phone as Lina proceeded to regain control and continue the auction, soothing their startled guests. A series of gunshots from outside, followed by silence, spoke of the Brazilian's failure.
Bloody morons!
Alex wasn't sympathetic to the mercenaries' fates – they had gotten what they deserved, as far as he was concerned. Idiots got killed in the field, and that was how it always worked. Their plan had been stupid.
And now Alex was on his now.
Now we do it my way, Alex thought bitterly.
All of the waiters had taken up positions inside or outside the room, protecting it from outside harm.
Which meant the kitchen was empty and free for Alex to examine.
Knowing that Piper had bigger concerns than a rookie gangster at the moment, Alex took his chance in the confusion to slip away from Yedit, giving her a look that promised salvation just as soon as he could manage it.
The kitchens were empty, and Alex rummaged around, looking for anything he could use as a weapon. Nothing struck out at him as being immediately useful against a large group of people, at least until he found a container of ammonium nitrate.
If Alex could find some powdered aluminum, he could make Ammonal, a chemical explosive almost exactly similar to TNT.
He could lock the adults in this room from the outside, and blow the place sky high.
Well, if he could get out of the room, and if he could get the kids out, because as much as Alex wanted Piper dead, he'd rather let her and her scumbag friends free if it meant saving the kids.
There wasn't any kind of real exit from the kitchen, but after two sweeps of the room, another option caught Alex's attention: A large grate on the wall to his right. Some kind of air conditioning vent, Alex figured. But either way, it was large enough to accommodate Alex.
Moving quickly, Alex grabbed a pair of scissors and used them to take out the screws on the vent. He threw them into the sink and pulled the grate up after himself, ensuring that nobody who came in would know how he left.
Crawling through the enclosed passes, Alex, grateful that he was still at least small enough to fit through this one, no matter how tight a fit it might be (and it was pretty damn tight as it was – Alex had put on a lot of muscle when he hit puberty, and had only continued to fill out since).
He exited the vent in the entrance hall, breathing heavily from the relief that flooded him. He'd been terrified of getting stuck halfway through the vent and dying of starvation or dehydration, whichever caught up first. The good news was that it would be big enough to get the kids out.
If I were aluminum shavings, where would I be kept by a sociopathic rich bitch? Alex wondered to himself. Probably the upstairs kitchen or study.
His first try was the right one. Alex found a metal container full of aluminum shavings in one of the kitchen cupboards, and grabbed enough to blow the entire block, and pocketed them inside of the Armani suit.
I must so look like James Bond right now, he thought as he checked around the corners to see if there was anyone approaching. He could just hear the theme song in the back of his head as he went over to the door leading down to the basement. He knocked out the two guards there, stole their guns, and hid their bodies on the stairs before pulling a bookcase in front of the exit. Because of the way that the corner turned right next to the door, even if the people inside managed to push open the door, it would stay propped shut.
Alex sealed the door. These people weren't getting out before he blew the place.
Returning to the kitchen, Alex began his preparation. There was enough equipment in here to make model number four from Yedit's little pamphlet on explosives one-o-one, and he went about it with smooth movements that belied his nervousness and urgency. He could hear the bidding continue in the other room as he boiled the ingredients, and his stomach twisted. He grabbed his stolen guns and quickly made his way into the room.
When he had what he needed, Alex poured the ammonal into several cans.
Ammonal burns when ignited in the open, detonates when confined, Alex remembered dutifully. He needed a catalyst for the explosion. Heat. Fire.
Alex lined the oven with anything flammable he could find, and put his cans of ammonal inside.
This was going to be the mother of all explosions.
How long would it take the open to get warm enough to start going off? Ten minutes? Alex decided not to chance it and grabbed the two stolen guns.
Showtime.
Alex moved silently into the room. He would start releasing the kids on the other side first, because they would need the most time to get out.
As he past cages, Alex whispered.
"As soon as you're free, get into the kitchen and climb to safety, okay?" he repeated that over and over as he headed to the farthest cage.
He fired, and the lock came free. The two kids shouted and ran.
All of the people turned towards Alex, who dodged two bullets that lodged into the wall behind him. He fired three times, opening two more cages.
Alex was grabbed from behind.
Kicking out, he sent Richard – his assailant - to his knees, twisting out of his grip and grabbing the man's gun as he went. Deftly, he bent and flipped the man over into the crowd and turned the gun on Piper.
He fired, and didn't miss.
Blinding pain pierced his side, and Alex had enough time to realize that he'd been shot before falling to his knees and remembering that his fuse was about to blow. He fired another clip, catching Lina in the leg and killing Richard and two of the serving staff. He stole another gun and shot the locks off each of the cages.
"To the kitchens, come on!"
Some of the buyers were making grabs for the kids, but bless their hearts, the kids weren't going easy. They struggled and screamed, and Alex killed every bastard that he saw grabbing at a child. Some shouted as they pounded on the door. Others went for weapons of their own, or called into cell phones.
No help they called would make it in time.
Alex turned the oven up to 600 degrees as he helped the kids get up into the air conditioning shaft.
"Keep climbing and when you get up, don't stop. Get out of the door and run," Alex told them. "The police will come if you hole up close by, they'll get you back to your families, or find you somewhere. Keep moving, and don't stop. Don't stop."
"If it isn't the rogue spy, playing the knight in shining armor," Yedit said from the entrance to the kitchen as Alex lifted up a six year old girl into the vent. She had a gun and was shooting from the entrance, covering Alex and the children as they fled. "So what are you using to blow the place?"
"Nearly finished ammonal and some other shit," Alex said. There were four children left, and he looked into the shaft anxiously, checking how far the last child had gone. "Come on sweetheart, don't be scared," he said kindly to a twelve year old girl. "You're going to be fine, trust me."
Yedit laughed softly as Alex helped the girl into the vent.
"You big softie," she muttered, firing twice more.
"Anyway, the ammonal will burn off and crystalize under the intense heat, since I don't have time to do that properly. We should blow sky high in about five minutes now, so if we could-?"
Screaming from upstairs cut off whatever Alex was planning to say.
"Please tell me you got them all from upstairs," Yedit said.
"Bloody everlasting fuck."
"Go."
Alex climbed faster than he ever thought was possible, urging the kids in front of him to move faster. He came out firing, killing the four guards that had stumbled on the kids who were fleeing. Six of them were dead, including the small girl Alex had assured would be safe. His blood boiled.
"Come on, Yedit!" He screamed into the vent. A few kids were injured. He took two in each arm, and herded the rest out the door. One intrepid girl was already banging on the door, screaming for help. An older woman emerged, looking frightened at the children filling the street.
Two more armored men came around the back of the house, and Alex couldn't believe they were going to try and regain control by shooting kids in broad daylight, especially now that their boss was dead, but seriously, what the fuck?
Alex put down the children in his arms and fired. One went down with a bullet in his knee, the other caught one to the pelvis. Neither would walk again (probably), and Alex kicked their guns away as the older woman screamed and more kids started sobbing.
Alex saw Yedit diving out the front door just as the building went up in flames. He was knocked to his feet, hitting the ground hard. When he managed to get his bearings, Yedit was on the ground, unmoving.
On autopilot, Alex ran towards the assassin and pulled her arm over his shoulder.
"Alex? What?"
"Come on," Alex told her. "Police will be here soon, we need to be gone."
Yedit nodded, and the two of them limped together into the sunset, hiding in an alleyway as a police car passed.
"Those kids, do you think they'll be okay?" Alex asked. The bullet in his body was staring to take it's toll, and he needed something to distract from the pain that was beginning to cloud his mind. He would need to get it out of his body soon.
"For some of the younger ones, yeah, soon enough this will just be a bad nightmare," Yedit said. "For the others, especially the ones going back to the streets, I don't know. They'll hurt for the rest of their lives, but this shit is just the tip of a very nasty iceberg for them."
Alex nodded, unable to find the words anymore. The kids who had been slaughtered in the hallway because of his stupid decision to stay downstairs, rather than to first to clear the area and keep them safe…
Six kids would have gone home to their parents if Alex had managed to think that decision through. It was even worse negligence than that of the Brazilians, because at least they had only managed to get themselves killed in the process.
No, Alex had lived. But those kids had died because of his poor decision.
Still, he could do nothing more for them, and so he and Yedit kept moving as darkness fell.
…
The two of them tumbled to the grass in a local park, gasping for breath as they looked up at the stars.
"Are you still alive?" he asked the Israeli assassin. He could hear a snort from a few feet away, so he knew that she was okay. He knew she was probably burned from the fire, and battered from before getting captured and her intimate meeting with the asphalt outside, but she was going to survive.
"Good to know."
A hand found his, and they lay there together, holding on to each other. Both knew that their friendship was a bad idea. Even one human attachment could mean their death in the field. And even if they weren't used against each other, there was every chance that one day, there was every possibility that one day one of them would end up having to point a gun at the other.
And yet Alex couldn't help but hold onto Yedit's hand like a lifeline. It was a reminder that he was here, that he was alive, and there was a reason for him to stay free and on the run. It was a reminder that there was still a reason to keep fighting, because there was still some modicum of goodness and honor in the world.
They lay there, trying to get their breath back, trying to gather enough of their strength to make it back to their respective safe houses and lick their wounds.
"Do you ever wish things were different?" Alex asked quietly. "Do you ever wish that your father had never been director of Mossad, or that you would never have run away, or get involved with Muntasir, or rejoining the same organization that tried to kill you?"
"That's a lot of what ifs."
"Humor me."
There was only silence. And then-
"No."
Yedit's voice was amused, and when Alex looked over, he could see the smile on her face. "I do not regret any of those things."
"Why not?" Alex asked.
"Those things make me who I am," Yedit told him. "They make me strong. Do you wish that you have never been recruited to MI6?"
"No," Alex exhaled, and he was surprised to realize that it was the truth. "I can't even imagine what my life would be like now if I hadn't joined MI6."
That was true too. Alex couldn't imagine sitting in class, writing papers and taking tests and obsessing over current trends like some kind of normal kid. He had saved and taken lives. He had stopped wars and genocide and brought terrorist organizations to their knees.
Alex knew that he had done a great deal of remarkable and extraordinary things. Some of those things were terrible beyond words, and some too great for explanation. But every one of those things had shaped him into the man he was today.
"Hey Alex?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think there's a hell?"
"I don't know," Alex said, eyes tracing the constellations. "Whenever I meet people like Piper, I bloody well hope so. Then I remember that if there is, I've got my one way ticket to the fast lane down there, so maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge."
"If it makes a difference," Yedit murmured, sitting up and dusting off her pants, getting ready to keep moving again. "If they do exist, I think I know where you're going to end up, and I don't think its hell."
She left him there in the darkness, and Alex stared after her, smiling slightly despite the burn from his injuries.
At least people who killed other people for money thought he was worth the air he breathed.
That was something. Maybe.
…
Somehow (and even days later, Alex was uncertain how he had found the will to managed it), Alex made it back to his flat, exhausted, injured, and in pain. He stumbled for the bathroom, because as tired as he was, he needed medical attention, attention that couldn't wait until he'd rested.
Alex hissed with pain as he reached to pull off his shirt.
Okay, that's not going to happen, he thought bitterly. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the medical kit from the bathroom and set it on the kitchen table.
Alex had to pause for breath for a moment, composing himself.
Step one, I have to get this shirt off.
Slowly, Alex cut his shirt away from himself, wincing as the fabric pulled at the edges of the wound. He dropped the bloodied and ripped up shirt into the bin, and examined the wound in the mirror.
I should go to a hospital
But he couldn't. Alex couldn't guarantee that MI6 wouldn't find him if he sought medical help, and so he was stuck patching himself up.
Next step, I need this bullet out of my body, or I'll risk lead poisoning and infection.
Grabbing the bottle of iodine, Alex poured some of the alcohol on his wound, to kill any surface infections. That was the last thing he needed. The pain had him hissing curses across five languages, trying not to wake his neighbors.
When he was in control of his breathing again, Alex reached for the tweezers. He poured the alcohol over the implement, already hating what would come next.
Steady, Alex told himself. You can do this. Nobody else can. You can't go to a hospital and all your allies are gone. So do it. The sooner you start, the sooner the bullet is gone and you can get better.
The tweezers halted over the site of his wound, and Alex was still completely shocked that he was stupid enough to try this on his own.
It's this or risk losing your freedom again, Alex told himself sternly, and reached for the wound. Don't be a baby, just do it!
The pain was incredible. It wasn't the worst Alex had experienced, not by a long shot (it was nothing like the pain he'd experienced getting shot in the heart - but that had been momentary. This fucking hurt, and all Alex could think was that he was essentially tearing apart his own skin.
Liberally relying on the mirror to correct his angle, Alex dug the bullet out of the wound. It took him almost a minute to find the bullet, which was deeply buried in his side, but with much cursing and self-inflicted pain, he caught a glimpse of silver. Alex tried to grip the metal with the tweezers, but it took him nearly four tries before he managed to drag the thing out of his body.
He was covered in a fine sheen of sweat and panting as though he'd just run five miles when he finally dropped the bullet into the sink.
"That wasn't so bad," Alex whispered to himself. Indeed, the ache in his side was reduced to an incredibly less painful throb, at least for the time being. He cleaned out the wound thoroughly, thankful that it wouldn't need stitches, and put a gauze pad over the entry site. Alex used surgical tape to bind it to his skin, and finally leaned back against the wall of the bathroom.
Behind his closed eyelids, Alex could feel tears welling up, trying to break free.
If only in the safety and privacy of his own head, Alex allowed himself to miss his family. He missed Jack's bright smile and unending energy. He missed all the mischief that Tom and he would get into together, and he even missed Ian. The man hadn't always been there, but he'd raised Alex, and Alex missed all the time that they had spent together. Even if the man was a grade A psychopath at the moment...
Alex knew what it was like to love and be loved and after that, being stuck up a creek without a paddle all by himself was frightening and lonely, and…
"And I want to go home," Alex whispered, letting one tear through.
But that wasn't possible. Alex Rider could never go home. Too much had happened for Alex to turn back. He no longer needed time to make his choice, because standing there in the kitchen of his flat, Alex knew that he had made that choice.
He would never go back to MI6. This wasn't a phase, it wasn't him needing time to make his choice, and it wasn't him making a choice by default, just staying away until he could never come back. Alex made the decision then and there that he would never work for MI6. No matter what carrot they dangled in front of him, no matter what stick they used to chase him around, he was no longer dancing to their tune.
Whatever the cost, he was going to be his own person.
Alex pulled himself upwards, packing away the first aid kit and throwing away all the trash. The kitchen once again clean, Alex went over to the bedroom and collapsed on top of the covers. Any other injuries he had could wait until morning to be taken care of, and honestly, Alex had been awake for so long he couldn't even stand it.
A moment later, he was asleep, undisturbed even as the clouds opened up and began to thunder and pour relentlessly onto the streets of Manchester.