Author's Chapter Notes:
A bit less exciting than the previous chapter ... consider it the calm before the Storm! And if you have not yet read No Mistake, you'll hopefully want to check it out after this chapter!
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Chapter 7
"What do you mean, not only Scorpia is tracking me?" Alex demanded after Yassen had gently placed him on a bench in the back of the Luton, which was absolutely full of electronic equipment and screens. "And I can't stay near you! Right now, Scorpia already know we're together."
Yassen smiled indulgently at Alex's garbled words. He knocked on the partition to the driver's cab, and Alex felt the van lurch as they pulled off. Then Yassen gestured vaguely around the van. "On this screen you can see the signal the authorities have been tracking all day. It's not a very precise trace, but good enough for them – and for me – to find you. Right now, we are heading far underground, little Alex. I know of a maintenance slipway in the Blackwall Tunnel that has come in useful many times – you will be out of their range down there."
That bastard, Blunt! Alex recalled a conversation in the hospital a few weeks ago. Blunt had said something about ensuring that Alex could not be kidnapped again. At the time, Alex had ignored Blunt's words as empty promises; now he scowled at the revelation that MI6 had seen fit to tag him without his consent.
"Were you looking for me?" he asked Yassen.
"I hoped to find you, yes. I have located several MI6 signals in London, but when both police and military started chasing the same signal, I knew it had to be you." Yassen smiled. "You must tell me why MI6 is so intent on finding you. Why was a British soldier willing to severely injure you to bring you in?"
Alex bit his lower lip until it felt raw, then blurted out: "I really fucked up. MI6 think I'm … "
He trailed off and fidgeted with the loose cuff still dangling from his right wrist. He wasn't quite sure what MI6 thought of him at the moment - mad, churlish, unpredictable …out of control.
"You always get yourself into these strange situations, Alex," Yassen commented. "I had my own reasons for wanting to find you, but now it seems that getting you away from MI6 is another good one."
He had taken out his gun and was looking down the barrel very studiously. "So you have both Scorpia and MI6 interested in you for various reasons – your uncle would be proud." Yassen's words came out measured, careful, but Alex could hear the accusation and the hint of hurt in his expression. He also noticed how Yassen's grip on the gun had tightened.
"Not like I had much choice. On either account. I can't please anyone, it seems. There's just no way out of this mess. Why did you want to find me?"
"There is always a way," Yassen said, ignoring Alex's query. "How is your leg?"
Alex stretched it as slowly as possible, wincing at the pressure on the joint. "Damn. I think it's badly damaged. I only just … only just came out of hospital a few weeks ago. I can't believe that bastard broke it again!"
"Yet you wouldn't see him die?"
"No," Alex acknowledged. "He was just doing his job."
"Like your father?"
Alex looked up to meet Yassen's cold gaze. He found himself drawn to the scar that ran in a thin white line along the side of his neck. "Yeah. Like my father."
The straight line of the scar broke as the assassin turned to look down and catch Alex's eyes again. "Your father was very good at what he did."
"Killing people?"
Yassen almost looked pained for a moment, but then his features settled back into that familiar neutral expression. Alex was relieved to note that he'd at least had laid aside the gun.
"He was good at killing people, it's true. But I meant that he was good at lying to MI6. MI6 had doubts, I think, until the very moment they brought him in. Of course, Scorpia had doubts, too. A man's true intentions are often hard to understand, as Julia Rothman found out to her detriment. She believed that John had betrayed us."
But Alex wasn't interested in discussing John Rider again. "I know. I read his file. What about Ian?"
Yassen shook his head, turning away from Alex. "Clearly, he was even better at lying."
Alex rubbed his knee thoughtfully. "Yeah, he had you all fooled for years, didn't he? Just like my father fooled MI6. I guess that's fair payback."
Yassen did not answer. Instead he got up and stretched. He was tall enough that he had to stoop to avoid touching the top of the van.
"You have grown a lot, little Alex. I hope you can forgive me for what I did."
"You murdered him when you found out he was reporting back to MI6 and feeding disinformation to Scorpia, didn't you?"
His question was answered by Yassen's lack of response.
"You murdered your lover." Alex felt the pang of loss coming back and clenched his fists to fight the emotion. "Can you forgive yourself?" he wanted to know.
"Never," said Yassen, finally turning around to look at Alex. His face was drawn with remembered pain and his hands shook a little. "But Ian understood the stakes. And I promised him, before he died, that I would always protect you. Always."
Alex felt his breath hitch a little. "Well … thanks, I guess. Though I'm not sure that sending me to Scorpia was the best plan, really. Why does Scorpia want you so badly, anyway? They set up this whole crazy kidnap plot just to blackmail me into digging up Ian's past and go looking for you."
After a long silence, Yassen answered. "I never told them what Ian did. Herod Sayle was the one who realised Ian was … not what he seemed. But Sayle thought only of himself. I killed him before he told Scorpia the truth. The board members became suspicious about the circumstances of Ian's death. After all, they had not ordered it, and Scorpia is not the type of organisation that tolerates rogue agents. When Damian Cray hired me, he was told that I was expendable. After I survived that attack, I knew that it was time to disappear."
Alex studied the man's expression and decided he was telling the truth. "Scorpia – the Australian guy – told me you were alive."
Yassen picked up his gun again and let his fingers dance up and down the barrel. "Scorpia are never far behind, Alex. You should know this by now."
"They wanted me to find you," Alex said.
Yassen cocked his head to one side. "In that case, I want you tell them that I have no interest in coming back to them. I work for myself now, and Scorpia should be thankful that I don't take revenge for its betrayal."
Yassen's tone turned icy as he spoke. Once again Alex felt a rush of confusion. He was terrified of MI6 or Scorpia catching up with him, but he still did not understand why Yassen had wanted to find him.
He asked again, but Yassen gave the same cryptic shrug. "As I said, I promised Ian that I would not let you come to any harm." He turned to what looked like a small keyboard and started typing. "For now, I will scramble the signal of the MI6 tracker. It will throw them off by a few kilometres when we come back out of the tunnel. Enough to make it harder for them to find you; especially in London."
"Can you get rid of the signal completely?" Alex asked hopefully.
"For now, this will have to suffice. In my safe house I have better equipment. We will need to physically locate the tracker to fully immobilise it."
Alex wanted to ask where the safe house was, but the van driver suddenly knocked on the partition. Yassen slid open a panel. "Da?"
The driver spoke in very fast Russian. Yassen answered just as quickly, then paused to look at Alex before saying a few more words and closing the panel.
"What?" Alex immediately demanded.
Yassen shook his head and checked the security of his handgun. "We have company - Scorpia."
Alex's heart leaped up into his throat. "I thought you said no one would find us down here?"
Yassen shrugged. He holstered the gun and drew out a hunting knife instead. "Perhaps they got lucky by tracking your last location before we entered the tunnel system."
He looked from the knife to Alex with an expression that made Alex shiver inside.
"It can't be removed, you know," Alex said defensively, instinctively holding a hand to his stomach. "Maybe it would be best if we split up …"
He didn't like the way Yassen still seemed to be looking through him. Then Yassen smiled coldly. "You stay with me, little Alex. It is time we faced Scorpia together."
His words did not make Alex feel any better, but once again it seemed that he had no choice in the matter. They waited in silence for what felt like an eternity but couldn't have been more then ten minutes. Alex wasn't sure what they were expecting – an assault team like the one that had captured him in the Brecon Beacons, maybe … or—
His thoughts – and all other senses – were cut short as the van was suddenly thrown into the air by a horrific explosion.
Alex hit the floor, or maybe it was one of the sides, and a searing pain shot through his head. He could hear the driver shouting in Russian and then there were gunshots. The world around him was rocking and he felt seasick. He opened his eyes carefully, wincing at the pain in his head. The van was lying on its side - the back doors had been blown off.
Yassen was gone.
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Chapter End Notes:
To be continued ...
If you want to know exactly why Ian had to die, why not read about it from Yassen's point of view? == No Mistake
