A/N: This is mostly talk. I blame Hunter. He doesn't shut up.
MI6 had the information by Wednesday. It was both painfully slow as any trail or evidence would long since be gone but also remarkably fast, Tulip would acknowledge as much. It had been pure luck. An upper-class home reduced to stone and ashes, with four dead bodies in the backyard burned to a point where only DNA or dental records would offer any chance of identification … it had gathered quite a lot of interest but no one had much to go on. The Morrison family was mostly average by the standards of their social circle. A stay-at-home mother, a successful father working with investments, two young children and the grown son from the father's first marriage. No trace of anything criminal in their past, nothing worth a second look … but there were still four dead bodies in their garden and no trace of the family. The last time any of them had been spotted was Caroline Morrison's car crossing the French border, presumably with both her children, though the quality of the surveillance tapes made it impossible to tell for sure.
It could have taken months to figure out what had happened. As it was, MI6's agent stationed in Switzerland had looked through the files out of obligation and vague interest and had recognised not Séamus Morrison but the nurse who had watched over him for six weeks in a private hospital in London after a mission gone catastrophically wrong. A little older, with a different haircut and style of clothes, but Caroline Morrison was very clearly Helen Beckett.
He forwarded the information along with everything else the local authorities knew. The desk officer in London took a look at it – a British national under a potentially false identity, involved in an incident in Switzerland – and dutifully set about writing a memo.
One check of Helen Beckett's suspiciously thin file -
- RIDER, HELEN; née BECKETT
INTERPOL YELLOW NOTICE
Security clearance: SC (09-01-1983), withdrawn (21-04-1987)
See: OPERATION: ORCUS
See: RIDER, JOHN
See: SCORPIA -
- And he did the sensible thing and forwarded the whole damn mess to his boss, who was paid to deal with that kind of headache. His boss took one look at the word SCORPIA and kicked the mess upstairs.
The file was on Tulip Jones' desk within two hours of the message from Zurich.
With Helen Rider's identity established, it didn't take long to identify the rest of the people behind the Morrison cover. John Rider had clearly had a touch of plastic surgery and his body language was leagues from the agent that MI6 and SCORPIA had prized so much, but that was not enough to hide his identity when someone knew just who they were looking at. Of the three Morrison children, MI6 had a file on Alexander John Rider and while he had been no more than two months old in the most recent photo, the details all matched. Matilda Morrison was only two, and James Morrison …
… James Morrison. Tulip had almost laughed at that from sheer disbelief. Who but John Rider would have the sheer audacity to steal away one of SCORPIA's most promising students and give the boy a new identity as his barely-legitimate son?
MI6's most recent photo of Yassen Gregorovich was several years old and showed the man in disguise, but the photos of James Morrison left little doubt they were one and the same man.
John Rider had been hunted by everyone from SCORPIA to MI6 for seven years, had become one of the best assassins in the world and trained the man who would very likely take over that position one day … and all the while played house with his wife and children and Yassen Gregorovich in Geneva. Less than four hundred miles from Venice and Malagosto and Julia Rothman.
It was so outrageously John that Tulip's heart hurt for a moment.
For a moment. Her finger brushed the photos briefly – Alex, who looked so much like his father that it hurt; Matilda, who took more from Helen but the eyes were all John – and then she packed the file back up along with that lingering regret. However much she liked John, however much they owed him, he was still Hunter. Still one of the best contract killers in the world.
A quick call to Alan's secretary confirmed the man was in his office. A few minutes and one floor later, Tulip placed the file on his desk.
"John was in Geneva."
Alan paused. Opened the file. The office was silent but for the sound of shifting papers as he read through the report. Unlike Tulip, he did not linger on the photos, though she hadn't expected him to, either.
The file completed, he returned to the summary in front.
"Seven years," he said, and there was a touch of – something in his voice. The ghost of approval. John had been everything MI6 had wanted, everything SCORPIA had wanted, too, and he'd had a remarkable ability to somehow get on decently friendly terms with just about everyone. Maybe MI6 had failed him in the end, maybe John was an internationally wanted assassin now, but Alan had still been genuinely fond of him … in his own Alan sort of way. And what John had managed with no resources but his own wit, money, and connections was impressive.
Then the flicker of approval was gone and things were back to business again. "Conclusions?"
Because Tulip had been John's handler, the one who had recruited him in the first place, and probably the one person in MI6 who knew him best … for a given definition of that term. John Rider had been social and a master at small-talk – and, in the end, even more of a master at saying nothing whatsoever that could actually be used against him.
"They had obviously planned for this sort of situation. They had seven years of anonymity but never let down their guard. John trained Helen," Tulip said clinically. It had been a mad thought, Helen Rider taught by the man who had been one of SCORPIA's best assassins and instructors, but the evidence was substantial. "He would want his family as protected as possibly. A safe room in the basement, extensive surveillance, the best defences money could buy that would still be able to blend in – the house was better protected than some of our safe-houses. And the attack itself: Four people, all shot in the head from somewhere on the roof – John trained her. To protect her and their children, certainly, but the same training he himself received. If he hasn't started to train Alex in some sort of self-defence, he will do so now. Presumably Matilda will learn as soon as she is old enough as well."
Whatever it took. That had always been John's approach. Once, it had seen him rise in the ranks within SCORPIA with unparalleled ambition. These days, that approach would be aimed towards keeping his family safe.
John Rider had never suffered from the same male chauvinism that Tulip had faced in her early years with MI6, that condescending attitude she still saw in some of their agents, and Helen Beckett had been a ruthlessly pragmatic woman. John would want her to have every advantage he could give her.
SCORPIA, Tulip remembered, sudden and unbidden, had some exceptionally successful female operatives.
"Gregorovich?" Alan asked. "Rider himself?"
"Unknown," Tulip reported. "Phone records show that Helen made two short calls on the way to France; the phone has not been used since and was likely discarded afterwards. The local authorities have tracked the numbers but it was a dead end. All evidence indicate that they were not at home, though. Presumably the calls were to let them know what had happened and where Helen and the children planned to go to ground."
The phone numbers would already be abandoned as well, Tulip didn't bother to point that out. It was common sense. The Riders had obviously planned for such an emergency. Tulip doubted there had been anything left to connect the family with the Morrison identity by the time the house was destroyed. The fire would have removed any remaining evidence.
Alan was silent. Tulip wondered what went on in his mind. Alan Blunt and Helen Rider had never seen eye to eye. She had been a particularly persistent annoyance to Alan when she should have been satisfied with classified and endless months of silence, and he had in turn been one of the few people Helen had actively loathed by the end of John's SCORPIA assignment.
"Your assessment?"
Tulip paused for a moment. Glanced at the file. Whatever else John Rider might be, he was also Hunter, and Hunter had learned the lethal politics of international crime from SCORPIA.
"He can't – won't – allow to let the attack go unanswered. This was a direct attack on his family; a lack of response will imply a weakness he can't afford." She paused. "He is also John Rider. We didn't pick him for Operation Orcus because he was a paragon of virtue. Someone targeted his family. He'll want revenge."
A slight nod. Agreement with the assessment or approval of John's likely course of action. Maybe both.
They didn't have much to go on and Tulip knew it. They had what the local authorities had uncovered so far, along with the benefit of their own records on John and his family but … it wasn't much. How had the attack taken place? No one knew, just how the four attackers had died. Had there been more? Another unknown. The fire had claimed anything useful, and what was left was guesswork.
'Guesswork', Tulip supposed, was a decent description of intelligence work some days and in this case it wasn't even a surprise.
If it hadn't been for their asset in Switzerland, they might never have known John had been in Geneva. This had been between Hunter and whoever had been behind that attack. MI6 were the intruders, trying to piece together the truth based on nothing more than shadows on a wall.
"SCORPIA would be the first suspect," Alan said, "but this lacks their efficiency. Someone would have died for a failure of this magnitude."
And it wasn't like John was short on enemies. Tulip had seen just how much her former colleague was worth. More than enough to tempt even the most sensible people into taking that risk if the opportunity presented itself.
The silence stretched on. Finally Alan spoke again.
"Put out a general alert for any usual incidents. When he retaliates, I want to know."
As expected. Tulip nodded, left to handle the report and practical parts of the order, and pushed aside the part of her that remembered a charming smile and a young nurse and a time when John Rider had been just another agent.
John Rider arrived at the safe-house on Friday afternoon, a week after the attack.
Helen's early dinner preparations were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell, then three sharp knocks. The first sound made her freeze. The second, the pre-arranged signal, sent her heart racing as hours and days – a week – of worry bore down on her, and she moved, salad forgotten on the kitchen counter.
Yassen reached the door before she did. An achingly familiar voice, a flash of brown hair and clasped hands, and then he was there, alive and well and home.
The next few minutes were a blur to Helen. John's embrace, strong and warm and familiar. Calloused hands and the lingering scent of his aftershave and then Alex and Matilda were there, twin hurricanes of blonde hair, and Helen buried her hands in his jacket as the full weight of everything hit her.
For a week, she had known nothing. Yassen had been there, but John had been half a world away and Helen had had no way to know if he was even still alive. She had been strong for Alex and Matilda, had split the nights with Yassen so one of them was always, always awake, and she had dragged herself up every morning, pushed it all aside, and gone about her day because her children needed their mother. Needed that bit of normality in a world that had just disintegrated around them.
Minute by minute. Hour by hour. Day by day.
And now he was home.
"I love you," John murmured, low and fierce and as desperate as Helen felt, "I love you, you're incredible, my god -"
- And Helen hugged him tighter, one hand still in his jacket, the other wrapped around Alex while Matilda rested in her father's arms.
Helen wiped her eyes; the tears she had not allowed to fall since Geneva. Missed you, she didn't say but knew he understood and John's eyes were suspiciously red as well. Then Alex wanted his attention again, and Matilda hugged him tighter, and Helen felt something in her chest slowly ease as she watched her family, finally complete again.
She glanced over and met Yassen's eyes. He was still Yassen, still half a step separated from the family – by choice or trauma, and Helen had learned to respect that – but there was relief in him, too, the whisper of slowly easing tension as well as the last bit of their small puzzle fell into place again. There was still a whole new life to figure out, a new home and new identities and how to explain it all to Alex, but for now -
- For now, John was home.
It was well into the evening before things calmed down enough that Hunter had the opportunity to look through the file Yassen had put together. Helen had gone to bed early as a full week of exhaustion had finally caught up with her, but Yassen needed little sleep these days and Hunter – Hunter wanted answers.
Yassen's file on the attack was factual, to-the-point, and every bit as detailed as anything short of a crime scene technician with a fully equipped lab could manage. Malagosto had focused on the practical necessity of not leaving evidence. Hunter, without the backing of a terrorist organisation, had turned it into an art. Malagosto's lessons had been perfectly fine for a comfortably employed assassin with a network to do the hard work. Hunter had taught him the whys and the hows and the technology; the theories behind and the art of intelligence work and anything else that might help Yassen stay alive and undetected later, and that investment was returned in full now.
Hunter watched the surveillance records twice. Opened the folder and read through the file in silence. Once, then once more with the photos on the side and scribbled notes to himself. Only then did he put the papers down and focus on Yassen.
"This is exceptional work," he said and kept his voice low in the silence of the living room. "You spent … what? Thirty minutes there?"
A curl of warmth in Yassen's chest at the honest praise, a response he had never quite managed to crush and had mostly just learned to accept. Their history was complicated but – the admiration had never quite faded. Hunter was a virtuoso. His praise mattered.
"Twenty-five," Yassen said. It was all he had dared risk. "Helen's observations account for most of the details about the attack itself. She is … meticulous."
Yassen wouldn't call her cold-blooded but it took strong nerves to manage the detailed observations she had in the middle of an attack on their home. Calm under pressure, with a sharp mind, and merciless when required. She still reminded him of Dr Three at times like these.
"She's a nurse," John murmured. He was focused on the file again but there was warm admiration in his voice. "She's more observant than some agents I knew. And she worked in the classified ward. Half the time, they only got what MI6 deemed the relevant parts of the story and had to piece it together themselves. God forbid they admitted to something unsavoury."
He focused on Yassen again. "Tell me your conclusion."
Yassen didn't quite hesitate. More … wanted to find the right words. He had considered the case for the past six days and was no closer to a firm conclusion. "I want to say SCORPIA but this is – rushed. Impulsive and ill thought-out. It lacks the planning and the care."
John made a low hum of agreement. "They'll go through a lot of effort to keep up that image of infallibility," he said. "But that's all. An image. A very valuable one, but mistakes happen. You're right, this doesn't quite have the feel of it, but I still think this was carried out using SCORPIA resources."
Carried out using SCORPIA resources. Those were his exact words. Not was carried out by SCORPIA, and there was a difference. Hunter was careful about his words.
"The strategy and approach were familiar," Yassen agreed. Hunter didn't speak and Yassen hadn't expected him to. It had been a while but he remembered Hunter's way of turning things into a lesson for Yassen to work out himself. "It is a contradiction, though. The attackers had SCORPIA training but there were fewer people than I would expect, the expected clean-up did not happen, and there was an unforgivable amount of evidence left behind."
Well, there had been, anyway. The fire had handled that. The only useful evidence left was the file in Hunter's hands. The remnants of the house and bodies there would yield little of use.
"It looked – unauthorised," Yassen finally said. "It looked like an attack planned by someone without the practical experience."
Hunter nodded.
"I think," he said, "that SCORPIA shot themselves in the foot with my bounty. That was a team of grunts. Trained grunts, sure, but nowhere near the sort of skills expected of an operative. Soldiers, not trained killers. Not too many people have the authority to order around operatives, but grunts like that are a little more available. I think someone took a risk and overstepped their authority. Probably the assistant or right hand to a station chief. Someone who's got the authority to handle smaller issues in his boss' name but not enough for a larger operation."
Yassen paused. Considered the words. It seemed reasonable. It made several of the pieces fit where they hadn't before as well. And Hunter's bounty was – significant.
"Greed, then."
"Greed," Hunter agreed. "My guess? Someone made the connection between the Morrison identity and us. How, I don't know and maybe we never will. Probably pure dumb luck, we were pretty careful, but that's how it goes. Probably some low-level grunt somewhere got lucky. So grunt does the sensible thing and goes to his boss with the intel. Maybe he knows about the bounty, maybe he doesn't, it doesn't matter. Maybe his boss has a decent rank, maybe it has to go a few more levels up, but the point is that sooner or later it gets to the desk of someone who can actually make a decision. Possibly a high-ranking operative but more likely a station chief somewhere. Now, someone like that is a busy person so they've got assistants to pick up the phone and sort through their mail. Assistant answers the phone, gets the intel, looks up the name, and sees two-and-half million dollars staring back. And he's not going to get a cent of that. His boss will handle the retrieval and get the bounty, the grunt will probably get five or ten percent for the intel, but all assistant there did was pick up the phone. And two-and-a-half million dollar is a lot of money."
Even for them, and never mind one low-ranking criminal of middling ability. Yassen didn't speak. He did not have Hunter's experience with the inner workings of SCORPIA but it sounded disconcertingly likely. It made a lot of things fall into place.
"Now," John continued, "the lowly assistant to a station chief can't arrange a full-out attack without his boss' permission, but he's got some leeway with smaller stuff. They have to be able to handle the things that are too insignificant for the higher-ups to bother with. So assistant takes a look at things and realises that we're both elsewhere and all he has to deal with is a housewife with two children. Easy targets for a kidnapping. Hand Helen and the kids over to SCORPIA as bait for me, and he'd be rewarded. He can't call in an actual combat team or operatives for it, but he can use some of SCORPIA's local resources. So that's what he does. It's a risk if it goes wrong, people have been disposed of for less, but it's a lot of money and it looks like an easy job. Except Helen is not an easy target. She kills the team sent to handle it, assistant panics and flees, and nothing happens like it's supposed to. No clean-up, evidence still around, and the targets escape. Four of SCORPIA's people dead, a valuable target spooked, and he's going to have to explain it."
Explain it. It was no wonder if the assistant had fled. A mistake of that magnitude was a death sentence.
… If that was what had happened, at least, and Yassen had no reason to believe otherwise. Hunter's reasoning was sound. MI6 had not sent him undercover to be an assassin. They had sent him to destroy SCORPIA and to do that, he would have needed to know everything about the organisation. To survive and to do his job. Both of his jobs.
If this was Hunter's conclusion, Yassen did not doubt it.
"… How do we respond?" he asked instead. Hunter would want revenge, Yassen didn't doubt that, either, and he agreed with that approach. It was a direct attack. If they did nothing, it would happen again.
Hunter took a slow breath. Turned his attention back to the file and slowly flipped through the photos again. "That's the question, isn't it?"
There was a seriousness to his words that echoed past lessons, the unspoken awareness that this was higher stakes than usual, and Yassen simply waited.
"It's a balancing act," Hunter continued. "If we don't respond, it'll weaken our reputation and invite additional attempts. Go too far, and SCORPIA will respond in kind, and we'll be caught in a rapidly escalating war. If this was an unauthorised attack, they will look the other way when we retaliate … up to a certain point, anyway. Odds are they'll even wait for us to act. What we choose to do can say a lot about us to the executive board, and they can always step in afterwards and clean up the rest if we didn't go for the right people."
Politics. Was that was he would have had to deal with, had he remained with SCORPIA? They had been insistent about his potential. How much of Hunter's political experience was part of his very deliberate strategy to work his way to the top of the organisation and how much was the simple result of being their best assassin?
Yassen's silence was obviously longer than Hunter expected because the man looked back up.
"Whatever else SCORPIA might be these days, it was founded by intelligence agents," he said. "Cold War veterans, black ops, analysts, interrogation specialists, government sanctioned assassins – their backgrounds were all a little different but they were all, without exception, some of the best in their field. Maybe it sounds like politics or petty little games to outsiders, but the board enjoys those games and it helps them keep their skills as sharp and deadly as possible. You want to know why there have been so few successful undercover agents with SCORPIA? That's why. This isn't a drug cartel run by your average criminal. These are people trained by the best instructors money and influence can buy and tempered by years in the field in some of the most hostile places in the world. Any agent sent undercover will be a rookie in comparison and sooner or later, they will slip up. All it takes is a single mistake. Just the slightest suspicion and they're dead. It's not just politics, Yassen. It's survival. What we do in retaliation will give them a good idea of our resources, our priorities, and our current situation. Whatever we do, there'll be a thorough analysis of it ready within twenty-four hours and we have to be sure we won't give them any information we can't afford them to have."
Politics, Yassen repeated to himself a little spitefully. Maybe it wasn't accurate but he could still blame it on that as the first whisper of a headache settled somewhere near his temples.
Hunter had thrived in that kind of environment. Yassen had little patience for it and he doubted it would have been any different if he had stayed with SCORPIA.
"A lot of effort to spend on one man," he said. A lot of effort the board could have spent on more profitable things.
"A lot of effort spent on someone considered one of the best assassins in the world along with his former apprentice who will most likely claim that position from him one day," John corrected. "All it takes is one lucky shot. One assassin skilled and lucky enough, and the board knows it. We're worth that effort."
Skilled and lucky, and Hunter was both. The luck of the devil. Yassen wondered if Alex and Matilda would inherit it, too.
Hunter shook his head. Packed the file together. "That's for tomorrow, though. Get some sleep. Clear your head. Then we'll look at it again and figure out a plan."
Part of Yassen wanted to argue. Another part, the one with the headache, knew that one more day wouldn't matter. This was about patience. About planning. They didn't even have the intel to know where to strike and even if they did, hasty retaliation would be suicide.
Instead he simply nodded.
Hunter probably knew his feelings on the matter because he gave him a smile, small and wry. "We'll figure it out. It'll take a while but it'll be safer that way. You did good. Now we'll make sure it won't happen again."
He made what would be a complex situation sound remarkably easy but it still eased something in Yassen. Hunter believed it could be done and that was all Yassen needed to know. For the first time in a week, they had an objective. Perhaps they would succeed, perhaps they would fail, but for the first time in an endless week, Yassen could actually do something.
