Sergeant Harry Dixon took the call from Liverpool Street. This time it wasn't a mission or need for personnel, but news of a one time member of K-unit. The Special Forces Training Centre at Brecon and Hereford, did not normally keep track of those MI6 sent through before missions. There were exceptions, normally only when a solider crossed from the regiment to being a full spook. The current exception was the one teenager had trained there the previous March, Cub had passed the course that broke many full grown and full time soldiers.
The sergeant put down the phone and then put on his beret, to march across the quadrant to disturb K units training.
The Sargent entered the lecture hall and listened to the end of the talk on IEDs. Tomorrow was a practical on the variations on explosives and detonators in both remote and suicide devices. Harry noted the group of four men he was after. The distinctive tall figure of Eagle, with Wolf and Snake sat on either side. Slightly to the back was Terrapin, the replacement for Fox, the ex-SAS man who had been snapped up by MI6s black ops unit. Harry wondered how Wolf would take his news. The last gossip about Cub had been his dangerous antics at that school in France just weeks after the incident at the Science Museum. Wolf had found out the kid was a full deep cover spook at 14.
As the talk ended, the sergeant moved forward and watched as the the assembled soldiers stand to attention, "at ease, gentlemen. I just need a word with K Unit." The four remained at attention as the others filed out.
Wolf then growled "What's up, Harry? Bad news, I guess."
"I'm afraid so. You can go T, it's before your time."
The three were the remains of the original training unit in anti-terrorist operations. Snake spoke in his native soft Scottish accent "It's either Fox or Cub. Please tell me it's not Cub?"
"It is, poor lad's poorly."
"Another accident during an operation or another appendicitis?" Snake said scathingly, Wolf had been treated at St. Dominics in April after being shot in France. The team had guessed it was the usual treatment centre for those who worked for the Bank and the medic had spoken to the nurse there and found out Alex had been shot.
"Leukaemia, he's at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Not a great place for an orphan. He asked after you bunch of jokers, but requested you don't go and scare the other kid's on Elephant ward. His current course of treatment is due to end in December."
"Full time in hospital, shit. Poor kid. Is he having a bone marrow transplant or just aggressive chemo?"
"Ring the hospital, charm the nurses like usual Snake, his doctor is Trevor Conway, if you need to speak with the consultant."
...
Nothing had happened on Thursday, just the routine of the ward and Alex laid in bed working through his French, Spanish and German coursework. He found this the easiest of all his subjects. Miss C had popped in but had left Alex to it, She spoke French but not as fluently as her fifteen year old student. Alex knew if he did the boring part of getting the paperwork decent, he was guaranteed an A or A* in these subjects. His timetable had him finished and ready to take exams in January, not that he thought he would be able to.
On Friday morning Alex had a visit from the Psychologist. The man normally bright and cheerful, but this morning he looked pensive.
Alex broke the ice, "I guess you had either a visit or a phone call from the nice employees of the Royal and General Bank."
"No, a not so nice gentleman insisted I go for an interview at their Liverpool Street premises. I have to say Alex how the hell did you get involved with those sort of people?" The doctor looked thoroughly rattled. "I would have passed your case on only I talked to Dr. Pritchard, a Harley Street Psychiatrist who normally deals with 'spooks' and 'special operatives'." The clinical psychologist had been working with children for over ten years, but he had never come across such a horrific case of government sanctioned child abuse. "Your ward notes say you were extremely upset after a visit from those people on Wednesday. I can relate to that, I truly can. They scare the bejesus out of me."
"Is that a clinical term, doc? Crawley and Jones are the 'nice' face of MI6, you should have met Blunt, he was a real motherfucker." Alex was so glad that bastard had not come to act concerned. "As I told Marian, my dad and uncle worked and died for those people and their very twisted ideals on the greater good. You have to understand to fight people with no morals, you don't have the option of having them yourself. I am so glad I had the option to tell them that I would not, could not ever do them any favours ever again and just to set the record straight I did not volunteer. They used a lot of stick to force me to accept their little jobs."
"They got everyone you love killed."
Alex fought to keep from crying, with a few stray tears crept down his face. "Yes they did."
"Its OK to be upset."
"I get that but this place is a gold fish bowl. Even my room, I need a place to sit and think or cry or let out how fucking angry I am. I need to talk about the shit I survived and I guess I really have to start at the beginning, but now I'm able to talk about everything and anything, more than ever what I want to do is talk about teenage stuff, friendships and moving forward not dwelling on my past mistakes." Alex moved to sit up straight. "Then again, I also want to talk about a man called Yassen, who last year said he loved me. I guess I'm a bit dense emotionally, but I finally figured out he meant as in truly, madly, deeply. I was fourteen at the time and did not have a clue." Alex wished he'd had more time with the strange Russian, who his father had befriended. "For some reason I feel a deep connection with him. He and Jack were the only ones who wanted me to be a normal school kid, not the spy my uncle had been training me to be since I was a toddler. So where to start?" At this point Alex took a large drink of water. It was good that he was no longer on a drip or oxygen. "1. I'm dealing with a series of PTSD inducing situations. I have bad nightmares, but I don't think I have a day to day problem with coping or are about to have a breakdown. Number 2. Grief. Well that's on going. I miss Jack enormously but I think it's the whole deal that she was my lifeline to normal. Well, any hope of normal is out of the window now. I kind of hate Ian, I would punch his lights out if he were still breathing. I'm just so angry about him and his buddy Blunt. Yassen died last year. I'm conflicted over Yassen, he was not a nice person, but he was ok with me. He was what you would call a serial killer, he killed people for a living. How did he put it... Nothing personal but I've killed lots of people. He was also 30 plus, but oh so very beautiful, hot in fact. 3. I want to keep positive. Can we just go on day to day problems and adjustments if I promise to go for longer sessions after my chemo has finished. I want to be a normal school kid but I fear that ship has sailed. I know better than anyone there is no such thing as normal where adults are concerned."
"Two things to consider. Happy and Healthy. Health is your issue here, but that's physically and mentally. There are no hard and fast rules with therapy. I may want to go over certain things with you, but you have a lot to deal with. You need connections and you have friends, a sort of foster family and the support network here and that will continue as an outpatient. You have all these bad, horrific and traumatic things to deal with from before. You are also completely normal as you are exploring your sexuality and the possibility of relationships. We will talk about whatever you want or need to talk about. First off is your need for space for bring allowed to let off steam. There are a few places here to do that when you're up and about. The courtyard is one also the chapel. We have resources here for complementary therapy and treatments. Massage, yoga, breathing exercises and meditation. Mind, body and soul. So, Alex you were very upset over your creepy visitors the other day, please confirm that they were not here to force you to keep silent or to keep working for them?" Neil Harrison was positive with therapy, all the hurt and guilt could be placed in perspective. Alex was bright, articulate and so very not a teenager.
Alex's body language changed from a touch confrontational and cocky, to closed off, as he seemed to shrink in on himself. "They came and spoiled my idyll. They intruded into this space, my space, my safe environment and its broken my carefully constructed barriers of here and now being kept very separate from all the shit that happened before. That upset me, they were actually trying to be compassionate and considerate. I can't accept nice from people that have hurt, used and blackmailed me. I told them not to come back. I now need to get my shit together again, get back into the flow of nice routine. It's kind of calming the fact it's all so structured and that my medical needs come first. My own personal goals are doing amazingly well for my GCSEs just to stick two fingers up to my old school who failed to notice I was being abused, hurt and trapped by the situation I was in. I was bullied, ignored and rejected as hopeless case. You can see I'm just a bit jaded here."
"Justifiably so. Just to keep you informed I will discuss general concerns with your clinicians and your placement team at social services. Your complaints about your last school will be logged. You need to talk with Jeff if you want to appeal your rejected reapplication to Brookland?"
"I like the tutor here. I'll see what my options are but I will definitely lodge a complaint about both teachers and the bullying at Brookland. I can email Jeff about that." Alex felt better now he was cleared to talk. "So fixed sessions from now on or just when I get completely frazzled that I need to talk."
The psychologist smiled. "You already made the first step by admiting you needed to talk. I think we keep our conversations short, but frequent, How about half an hour three times a week. You don't even have to talk about you past or present, we can just talk about anything. No hard and fast rules. Most important is keeping you in your zone of positive thinking."
...
Sabina threw herself on her bed. First week of her Final year in High School over. She had finished her homework and had the whole weekend to relax. It was late as she logged on to her emails. One email from Alex. It sounded like he'd had one hell of a week with an infection and several visitors. Alex was praying for a quiet weekend. She worded her reply carefully trying not to sound smug or too happy. She knew she was very lucky. She and her parents owed Alex a debt of gratitude, but also they owed to help him move past his impulsiveness and reckless disregard for his own safety.
She had enjoyed his description of Tom delivering his 'true loves kiss' to Alex in full view of the lovely Marian. If only she had a photograph to capture that moment. She made up her mind to buy a camera and send it to Alex, so his emails would be illustrated with action shots as well.