As promised: another chapter by the end of the day. It's time to see what happened to Ben after the van took off with is precious cargo inside.
Maya: thank you so so so much for reviewing and for giving me your opinion on the mature content subject. I'll keep it mind! I hope you enjoy this chapter as well… let me know!
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Chapter 7: Off duty
Ben woke up with a start, a fierce burning pain making his shoulder pulse in rhythm with his heart. He groaned when he tried to sit up and brought his hand up to apply pressure on top of the wound. He glanced at his watch and saw that he had been unconscious for perhaps ten minutes; his unconsciousness due more to blood loss than the many hits he received in the head. He'd had worse, so that's how he knew the men that had attacked him and Alex weren't as trained as he was. Although fighting so many of them with a bullet wound on his shoulder had cost him, and they had managed to take Alex.
He heaved a sigh. What was it about Alex that made him always the target? He swore the kid had the worst luck out of anyone he'd ever met and, soon, images of what could be happening to him right at that exact moment flashed through his mind. He needed to contact MI6 now. It didn't matter that Alex no longer worked for them; this obviously had something to do with Alex's time as a spy. What else could it be if not that?
He cursed the dizziness that threatened to make his earlier dinner reappear and reached for his phone inside his pocket.
"Welcome to the Royal and General Bank-" the automated answering machine began to greet, but Ben blurted out his identification number, knowing the machine would recognize the code immediately and patch him through to someone actually working inside. It didn't matter what time it was in London, there was always someone at the ready to answer the phone.
"Agent Daniels" a female voice said "Status?"
"Off duty. Injured. It's an emergency. I need to talk to Mrs. Jones" he demanded. He was sitting on the floor of a dark alley with his back against the side of a building. His vision kept swimming in and out of focus but he swallowed several times and worked on keeping his breathing under control. He needed to act professional right now.
"She's not available at this moment" the detached voice said.
"Yes, she is" Ben replied, a dangerous tone to his voice "I don't care what time it is, I said it was an emergency!"
"Like I said-"
"Tell her it's about Alex Rider!" Ben tried desperately, knowing the subject would be too appealing for her to turn down his call. There was a moment's pause in which Ben's labored breathing was the only thing that could be heard over the line, and then another deeper voice replaced the one that had been talking to him before.
"Daniels" Mrs. Jones greeted him, her tone as unwavering as ever "What is this about?"
"Alex's been taken" Ben said urgently, glad that he could finally get a hold of her "We were attacked in Kiev, maybe thirty minutes ago now, and some Ukrainians took him"
"I see" Ben waited for her to elaborate on her statement and, when she didn't, his temper rose to the surface.
"What do you know about this!?" he asked "We weren't randomly attacked. I was shot from a distance and they were clear about taking him. What have you gotten him into? Is it an old enemy from one of his missions?"
"As I understand it, you and Mr. Rider were on vacation so, knowing him like I do, he probably went looking for trouble where he shouldn't. He never held any contact with the Ukrainian people while working with us" Mrs. Jones finished. 'Knowing him like she did?' Who the hell did she think she was to say she knew Alex at all!
"He wasn't looking for trouble. We have only been here for two days!" he felt the need to defend his ward against the woman's accusations but, as the pain in his shoulder and the dizziness reminded him, he didn't have much time to argue about whose fault it was. He needed a solution "How are we going to proceed?" he asked, bringing his tone down a notch.
"You are free to do what you wish with your free time agent Daniels"
"Wait… what?" he was confused, for a moment there, he thought Mrs. Jones was telling him he was on his own.
"Mr. Rider no longer works for us and since this incident doesn't seem related with the missions he worked with us, I can't spare much resources into finding him. You, however, are free to do so"
"You can't possibly be serious! You drag him into this world in the first place and when he truly needs your help, you dispose of him like that?" Ben was livid now, his tone of voice rising higher than ever before. He was sure he would be waking up the people from the buildings surrounding him some time soon. If there was one positive outcome about his anger, was that it provided him with the necessary adrenalin rush to clear his foggy brain and put the tiredness and pain to the back of his mind "How am I going to find him on my own? I need your help. I need the resources" he stated simply. For a moment, he thought he may have managed to stir something inside the other woman, since there was a pause in the conversation.
"You will be granted clearance to speak to the local police as an ex-member of the Special Forces troops in the United Kingdom, which you were. So maybe they'll show some professional courtesy"
"Is that all?" Ben asked, now somewhat resigned to not exactly getting help from the MI6, but having an idea already popping into his brain.
"Whatever happens, I expect a check in within the next couple of days. Keeping tabs on the situation is the best I can offer"
"Yeah, sure" Ben said sharply before ending the call "Bloody MI6. Bloody Mrs. Jones" he muttered to himself before dialing another number. If anything, Jones's talk about him getting clearance as an ex SAS soldier gave him the idea to contact K-unit and ask for their help. Maybe they could actually get the Army to help him with the search. He prayed for Wolf to answer the Goddammed phone since the other man took ages in picking up the call and, once he did, he went straight to the point "Wolf, I need help" he knew there must have been something in his voice: urgency? Pain? Desperation? Because Wolf didn't even question him before answering his request.
"What do you need?"
Ben retold the story about how he and Alex had been ambushed on the street and the teen had been abducted. He told him about his conversation with Mrs. Jones and the plan that had already begun to take shape in his mind. He also left the part where he was injured to the very end of the conversation, wanting to give out all the important information first.
"Shit Fox. Sit tight. We're coming to get you. We'll take you to the base and speak with the sergeant in charge. We'll find Cub" Wolf assured him.
"Roger that" Ben's voice had become weaker after the urgency of letting someone else know what had happened was over. Now, with nothing else to do but waiting to be found by his team, because he still considered them his team even though he no longer worked with the SAS men, his strength was beginning to sap away again, making his eyes burn and his eyelids heavy with tiredness. He knew he was maybe only minutes away from going into shock, but he didn't have enough strength to keep his eyes open.
He lost track of time as soon as Wolf ended the call and, since he couldn't do anything else, he concentrated on the license plate number he had been able to catch from the van, repeating it over and over in his head and holding on to the little piece of information that seemed like the only thing that could serve as a connection to find Alex. Find who the van belongs to and you find the people who took him. 'Unless the van was stolen', a little devil's voice at the back of his head told him, but he pushed the thought away.
Even if the van had been stolen, they would still be able to track it through street and traffic cameras. The vehicle had to turn up somewhere and that somewhere had to lead to Alex. Not finding him wasn't an option. Ben found himself clinging into Wolf's words as strongly as he had been clinging to the license plate number. 'We'll find Cub'
'We'll find Cub'
'We'll find Cub'
"Hey man, don't worry. We'll find Cub" his head jerked up at the sound of someone's voice near him and suddenly he was aware of Snake's presence hovering above him in the back of a jeep. Somehow, he had missed K-unit's arrival and had been completely unconscious when they had loaded him into their vehicle, which was now no doubt heading towards their base.
"Wh-What?" he asked, disoriented. He could barely make out Eagle's and Wolf's silhouettes on the front seats.
"You were murmuring Cub's name while you were out" Snake offered as a way of explanation "Now hold still while I patch you up" being the field medic of their unit, Snake always carried the necessary supplies to address the most basic kind of injuries one could encountered in the field, and getting shot was about the most basic of them all.
Ben felt reassured at having his teammates around, knowing that they would also do whatever it took to get Alex back safe. He only hoped that would be in time to prevent whatever the Ukrainians had in store for him.
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I'm not sure I got Mrs. Jones quite right in their conversation, so I apologize if she seemed a little OOC. I just needed her to be uncooperative.
So now we've seen what happened after the kidnapping from both ends of the tale, Alex's and Ben's. Now, what's going to happen next? How will Ben and K-unit find Alex? And, will they be in time?
Thanks again for reading!
