Alex Rider & the World Cup

Author's note: Oh. My. Gosh. I actually stayed in one week deadline! Hooray! :D I had really fun writing this, but I'm afraid Alex might be a little out of character in this chapter. Please review and tell me where you find those part and - if you have ideas - how to turn them better. But really, thanks for everyone for reading and extrasuper thanks to all those who have alerted of faved this story. I love you guys!

Disclaimer: I still am not Anthony Horowitz, but I'm not sure if anything in this actually resebles you of the books so this might not be necessary in this chaptie but why not, to play sure.

Chapter 10: The Bomber Man

Tom's empty stare would have been worth seeing at any time other than this. What Alex had just told him caused no reaction what so ever. They'd stayed quiet for a while and De Lange who was standing behind Alex, was starting to get impatient. He let a breath out when Tom took one in, ready to talk. "Okay, I'll use my video camera so you won't miss the match."

Alex felt his jaw dropping and he couldn't work a word out of his mouth, Tom laughed lightly at the look. "Hey, I know I'm not sharpest knife in a drawer but at least I know you. To be honest I guessed something's wrong from the way you acted on the drive to Heathrow Airport," Tom explained. "Besides, you've been all engrossed with something during our whole vacation and there aren't that many options for that, at least not the kind you wouldn't tell me about. That's the reason I bought myself a video camera on the airport."

Alex was still quiet when Tom brought the camera out of his back bag. He had given the other boy too little credit. "OK then. I'll come back here soon enough," he promised as he and De Lange ran out of the stadium to a car waiting them there. Mansel and Nebel stepped out heading to where the two had just come from. They couldn't leave the stadium to be supervised by Anthony alone. As Alex took his seat next to De Lange he tiredly laid his head against the passenger seat's window, closing his eyes. All these big things were happening in such a short time that it felt like it was draining him. He also felt bad for many things: Tom was alone and in danger in the stadium, he had threatened everyone's lives for one childish spur and he still hadn't called Jack. At that thought he reached for his phone looking up Jack's cell number.

"Alex! Are you all right? Why didn't you call me, it's not because of that Blunt, right? Because if it is I'll go out there and show him a new way to use household supplies!" Even being as tired as Alex was, a warm smile crept in his face. "Jack... Jack! Calm down, I'm alright, I'm calling you now, aren't I? And I'm sorry for not calling you earlier but I couldn't really sleep in the plane so I just fell asleep as soon as I stepped in the hotel room. When I woke up again I was so excited about the match that it just slipped out of my mind. Something that happened on the field a moment ago reminded me about you and that cake from last Christmas so I decided to call you."

"We promised we'd forget about the cake. So have you remembered to eat? And -"

"Jack, please. A long distance call, remember? So could we just finish this soon? You can ask all those question when we come back on Sunday." The noise that was made in the other end of the line told in an international language that Jack wasn't fond with the idea, but she knew better than raising his phone bill higher than it already was. "Fine, just don't forget to look after yourself; you tend to get into troubles."

"I know. Thanks. See you on Sunday," he waited for her goodbyes before closing. De Lange was watching him. "She really cares about you." Alex's face set in a bitter smile. "Yeah," he admitted. "a lot more than what's good for her."

"Does she know your job?"

"As little as possible, and even that's too much." The unhappiness to his situation was written on his tone but he didn't bother hiding it. De Lange looked worried. "Just how did you end up in a job on this area?" he asked taking his eyes off the road to read Alex, which was hard when he could only read as much as Alex let him. A bitter smile got a dark snort to its company. "That's classified." De Lange wasn't happy with the answer. "Just tell me, won't you? It's hard to think there are any legal ways behind that." A lightning flashed behind Alex's brown eyes bringing a bloody cold shade in them. The teen had had enough with his prying. "Here I am doing a work you can't handle by yourselves. I've gotten you one suspect to question, I've gotten you information about how the havoc is going to happen and I've also brought a bomb apart and am the only one of the team who can take care of other bombs also, now might not be the best time to insist for information you're not allowed to get."

The scary part in this talk was not the lightning or the bloody cold eyes, they had glassed over in a second; or that Alex was angry, it was that nothing in the boy showed the feeling the words were implying to. His face was like a mask and his voice calm, he could have been saying anything with a face like that and not giving away a hint when he was lying. De Lange was convinced and turned his eyes back to front.

They drove in silence to a close-by police station because they couldn't give out they were with SASS in case someone from the Messengers of Hunhau was checking on their suspect. Alex followed De Lange to a question room's door. The room was nothing like one sees in police dramas, there was no one-direction window and inside he could see a shelf with some papers on it, beside the basic small table and two chairs. Alex looked at the man through a window in the door, it was the definitely man he'd seen kneeling by the bomb. The square face and curly brown moustache couldn't belong to anyone else. Besides, the shirt with checks and a Yankees fan cap were so stereotypical for an American tourist that they were screaming fake.

"What do we know about him?"

"Not much, we got his family information because he's been arrested before from some smaller crimes so we already got some knowledge of him. Oh, and we got that that tape you requested earlier. Would you like to listen it?"

"Yes, please. And could you show me whatever information you got of him," he thumbed towards the door. De Lange nodded beckoning him to come with him. They went into a room with many desks and computers on them. One of the computers was already open and a familiar face was showing on the screen. Jonathan Brewing, as the name beside the picture told, had a daughter at the age of 17 and a wife. Several small crimes like opposing the law enforcement, street fights and small thieving. Not much to pick up, like De Lange had said.

A tape recorder materialized next to him on the desk. "There you have the questions you asked for, damn creepy guy if you ask me," De Lange cracked a little smile but got no response from Alex who took the recorder and pushed the play button. When the tape was rolling, Alex could not stop a wry smile appearing. He was getting good at profiling, thanks to all crazy people he'd met because of Blunt. Most of the tapes content was what he'd expected. "Mind letting me in the question room? I have couple words for our guy."

"Sure, but he hasn't said a thing that would help us in any way. What do you think you can get out of him?" De Lange looked dubious. Alex gave him the first honest smile since they'd met. "Then maybe it's time to try some new ways to get to him." De Lange lifted his eye brows. "If you think it helps us then feel welcome to do your magic. Do you need a hat, a rabbit or a wand to help you?"

"Nah, I think I manage with this little helper here," he brought the recorder up. "I got a nice little trick my dear uncle had thought me." A smirk rose to the man's face. "Show me what you got, kid."

Brewing turned to look to the door as it opened and he saw a teen walking in. His eyes blew as open as they could. "What did you come here for, boy?" The boy stopped to look at him. "Oh, nothing much, we teens are a curious kind. You should know."

"You know about my family. Just who are you?" the blond boy walked couple steps closer, smiling sweetly, looking like any teen model you could find in a clothing catalogues. "Don't be so uptight, I'm but an average teenager."

"Don't even try to feed me that. No average teenager is allowed to same room with an arrested criminal, god knows what they would learn." The kid cocked his head to a side as he sat down opposite to Jonathan. "Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't but I highly doubt you could teach me anything I didn't already more or less know."

"An expert criminal at that age? I pity you."

"No need, I'm perfectly happy with my life, if you leave couple things out of count. At least I don't go around killing innocent people to please some imaginary creature."

Jonathan smiled. Now he knew what to expect. "And here it comes. I was waiting for when you'd get to this. It was their time; we only do as we're told."

"Really, 'it was their time'? That's the best you came up with? From what did you decide it was their time? From their characters? No, they were different. From their occupation? Nope, that's not it either; there was variation from slum dogs to business owners. Then it was the time they were out? Of course, that's it. Death Gods helpers must move around in dark, otherwise, what's the idea?" The teen leaned forward. "Did you help killing many of them? Of course not, if you were in any important position, you wouldn't have been the one planting the bombs. It is, after all, the job you can get caught the easiest."

This was starting to nerve Jonathan out; the kid was just way too creepy. It must have been only a good logical thinking but no teenager was supposed to go through that kind of train of thought, they just hadn't been through enough in their life to do that.

"But you were part of some deaths, weren't you. That was to keep Hunhau happy. You needed to do your job. Which collections were you taking part in? The business man in forties? The young student girl? The bit over twenty years old check boy of a kiosk? The man well over fifty getting out of a bus?"

The boy couldn't possibly read thoughts now, could he? Had Jonathan somehow made Hunhau angry and this was his punishment? "It must have taken some guts to kill that young girl. She did have similarities to your daughter. The reason she was out that late out on Friday night wasn't because she was partying, she had an essay due Tuesday and no time to work on it during the school hours. That's why she had to stay late that evening. If it really was her time then why couldn't Hunhau order her to be collected after she'd returned that essay, all her hard work went down with nothing just because she left the university around midnight?"

How could the boy speak out small parts of information he shouldn't be able to find from files? The TOD was never that accurate, unless the body was found instantly after murder and her had been found but in early morning.

"And that man over fifties, oh he was something special. You had a personal reason to think Hunhau was thinking you hadn't done enough of his dirty job: your family - your wife, was ill and you didn't want Hunhau to take her away from you."

He couldn't take it anymore; the boy had to be cursed and could read through his heart. Jonathan jumped over the table to get to the teens throat. Hunhau only knew what the boy would find if he didn't stop this.

When he was sitting straddled over the boy fingers curling around the thin throat. A man wearing a black suit and a tie ran in, similar looking man questioned Jonathan before sending the boy in. Jonathan couldn't remember any names but the three officers following him could, they yelled one of them out loud asking for orders.

The agent grabbed Jonathans arm, trying to shake it off the boy whose smaller hands were fighting with Jonathan's fingers, trying to get them from his airways. Then the boy's right hand's fingers found Jonathan's thumb nail and took a good grab of it starting to pull. This caused pain and to keep his nail still on its place, his hold reflexively loosened little. Only little but it was still enough to give the boy a chance to do what he'd planned. A leg flew up behind Jonathan hitting him hard on his back throwing the hands far away from the pale throat with red markings now showing.

The police officers took hold of Jonathan and sat him back to the chair, chaining his hands to it and his ankles together by using handcuffs and the suit wearing man kneeled next to the boy. "Are you alright? We got enough information, you can stop now," he whispered to Alex who slowly shook his head. "This is not all my magic can bring up," he talked loud enough so Brewing could hear him. "I still have many tricks in my pocket."

De Lange realized that the tape recorder hadn't been showing yet. "So you're going to keep going?"`

"Why of course, I'm totally enjoying this," Alex huffed massaging his throat before rising from the floor. He sat back to his chair. "Now look at you, that getting angry did you no good. Maybe we should change the subject. What would you like to tell me about your boss?"

"Nothing at all," Brewing spit the words out like poison. Alex put the sweet smile back on. "Do you mean in the same way you didn't like to tell me a thing about those killings? That didn't work out too well now, did it?"

The man blanched when his mind reminded him what had caused him to be cuffed in the first place. "I don't know much about him. Only that he hears the call of Hunhau and tells us where to head to, he's the only link to our god we have."

"A link, are you sure? I believe his just a conceited power-wanting cheater." This was when Alex pulled the recorder out. "Care to listen what he told us. Must be that he hadn't thought our woman was wearing a mike, he just wanted to make her realize how awesome he is. Quite stupid in my opinion, you should always be ready to be taped when someone comes to ask you questions. Never blabber just because no one in jail understands your wonderful plans."