A/N: I know it took forever, I'm sorry about that, I really am. I don't have a good excuse this time, not really except that this chapter was the bane of my existence…

However, on a more upbeat note, I want to take this moment to thank everyone who read and/or reviewed this story. I really appreciate it! Now without further ado…

They arrived outside a very large building, a skyscraper that almost seemed to be made entirely out of glass. They stepped out of the car and walked up to the door in silence. While they were still in the car, Grey Fox had warned Alex not to talk unless it was absolutely necessary, though she wouldn't say why. There was a valet service at the door, which was frankly quite odd, because after all, wasn't this supposed to be some sort of secret organisation? Well this was evidently a very big deal because they were pulling out all the stops; there was even a red carpet and doormen in very fancy suits that greeted Grey Fox and Cane with, what seemed to be recognition. Behind them, other people were arriving too, dressed just as nicely. It reminded Alex of all those red carpet events that the celebrities are always seen at, only without the paparazzi and the autograph signings.

The trio went through the doors, which had been opened for them. They walked all the way up through the lobby and into the lifts. Grey Fox leaned against the wall as the door closed and Cane pulled out a small key, which he put into a keyhole on the control panel. As he turned the key, the button for the penthouse lit up. Cane pressed it and the lift clunked before it began to move. They ascended for a long time, no one spoke a word during the journey; Alex had been warned that the lift would be bugged and basically that he should keep his mouth shut.

Finally, the lift stopped and Grey Fox straightened. The doors opened and Alex got a first glimpse of the real underworld.

It was…surprising.

Men and women were scattered around a grand room, all dressed to the nines. The glamour was striking and made the whole thing look very civilised and not to mention like a regular company party.

Grey Fox and Cane walked out of the lift and into the room and Alex followed. Alex shifted his shoulders uncomfortably in his newly made suit, it was tight across his shoulders; Cane had said it was supposed to be, but Alex wasn't so sure.

They made their way past small groups of people, talking in friendly voices, and over to a table that held a sculpture of an angelic figure with her hands held up towards the ceiling. Grey Fox surveyed the room critically, with her arms crossed.

"You see anyone?" She asked Cane, speaking for the first time since they stepped inside the building.

Cane shook his head. "Nah, not yet."

Grey Fox grunted and then spied someone, a man, who was walking towards them. "Ah, speak of the devil." She muttered just loudly enough for Cane and Alex to hear.

"Well, if it isn't our favourite dynamic duo." The man said as he sauntered up to them. "And who's this?" He asked, looking down at Alex with sincere interest.

"No one that you need to know, Ace." Grey Fox said sternly.

The man, Ace, quirked a smile. "No need to get so aggressive about it. I'm just being polite, that's all. You know about politeness, right?"

Grey Fox sighed, "Why are you here? We don't have anything to talk about."

"Actually, that's where you're wrong," Ace corrected her, "King wants to see you."

"I know." Grey Fox nodded.

"Hmm, yes, we all have a lot to discuss, don't we?" Ace asked.

"We?" Grey Fox asked with a quirked brow, "We won't be talking about anything. Whatever, the King wants to discuss is between him and me. You are not involved."

"Don't be so sure. I'm just as important as King in my own division, I have as much right to be there as he."

Grey Fox ignored him and scanned the area.

"Looking for someone?" Ace asked.

"None of your business." Grey Fox replied tersely.

"Well since we're here, do you mind telling me where Cane has slipped off to?" He asked.

Grey Fox and Alex both turned around in surprise to see an empty space where Cane had previously been.

"I guess you scared him away, Ace." She told him.

Ace made a doubtful grunt as he pursed his lips. "I don't agree with having you two teamed up so closely. It's almost like you're conspiring against the organisation… Is that it? Do you desire the downfall of this system? "

This got Grey Fox's attention. "If you'll recall, Ace, it was King who put the two of us together in the first place; I had nothing to do with it, I was just following orders." She replied with heat in her voice.

"Yes, that is true, but I don't think that King ever intended for Cane and you to have such a strong and long lasting alliance."

"Well, it appears he made a bad decision then, doesn't it?"

For the first time, Ace and Fox seemed to have come to an agreement. Ace nodded and muttered, "Yes it seems that he always makes bad decisions when Cane is involved." He seemed to shake himself from the thought and readdressed Grey Fox. "Well, I must go; there are people to see, connections to establish, you know the sort of thing." And with that he briskly walked away, leaving Alex baffled about the whole exchange. It all had seemed quite pointless, why come over if he was just going to exchange a few insults and leave.

Alex decided it was time to break the short-lived 'no talking' rule. "Who was he?" He asked quietly.

"Ace," She replied without looking over at Alex. "One of the heads of this organisation… I presume Cane told you about them?"

Alex shook his head. "He mentioned the guild briefly, but only outlined what it did. He didn't really talk about the people."

Grey Fox nodded. "No time like the present, I suppose. Ace was the head of the information retrieval department—"

"—You mean, torture?"

"…Yeah, sometimes but usually, he just gets his underlings to infiltrate or go undercover. His specialty is biological weapons; stuff like anthrax and other virus', I don't know what the appeal is myself, but he's good at his job and even I can't deny that he's practically a genius. He deserves your respect, Alex, even if he is a complete idiot outside of work.

"Then there's Joker, he's originally from England—London, actually. A very good man… a bit over enthusiastic, perhaps. He's the first person I met that was from this organisation, brought me over to America and introduced me to everyone. He's a bomb expert, a fantastic artist if you're in to that sort of thing, but he gets on too well with a very good friend of mine—and I'm always wary when that happens. She makes bombs too, you see, and the effects can be…explosive." Grey Fox chuckled to herself at the last sentence.

"A friend?" Alex asked.

The mercenary nodded with a smile. Alex was about to enquire about it when another person approached them.

She was an older woman; her hair had once been black but was now mostly grey. She was slim and held herself like a lady with money but she had the beginnings of frailty in her features. The old woman wore a long sleeved dress with sparkly fibres in it that was clearly label. Her eyes lit up when she saw Grey Fox and she rushed up to meet her. She smiled warmly, the skin around her eyes and mouth wrinkled. She and Grey Fox shook hands.

"I haven't seen you in too long, how are you, Grey Fox?" She asked, sounding genuinely pleased to see her.

Grey Fox too, mirrored the good humour and for the first time since they left her apartment, she actually looked happy. She grinned. "Queen," She greeted back, "I'm good, and yourself?"

They exchanged small talk for a little while; talking about pointless things that Alex had no interest in. He took that opportunity to look around the room. Everyone was scattered about in small groups of ones and twos, or threes and fours. He noticed that there seemed to be three main types of people, although they were all dressed up and looking their best, it was clear that there was different classes. One group, although dressed up, were almost rough looking; they didn't seem comfortable in their suits and dresses and they shifted from foot to foot, making uncomfortable talk in an attempt to keep their voices low and civilised. Then there was the group that seemed to fade into the background; they looked like police trying to look inconspicuous; they almost made it work, but somehow you just knew they weren't with everyone else. They didn't seem to be partaking in conversation apart from the occasional few mutters to each other as they passed. Finally, there was the group that seemed to be made up of people like Ace and Queen and Grey Fox. They all had an air of power among them, and an unconscious sense of danger emitting from them. They seemed to float around the room, going from group to group and displaying their superior confidence. It was clear that the last of the groups mentioned was the one that held most power, yet it was clear that Grey Fox wasn't a part of that. Despite the fact that she was obviously on the same social standing as the rest of them, Cane had assured him that Grey Fox wanted nothing to do with them. So where did she come in? Alex was beginning to get an idea, but it was like a piece of a jigsaw rather than a picture.

"And who's this?" Queen asked looking at Alex.

Grey Fox answered for him. "My new protégé." She told Queen, "He's one of my best." She said proudly and Alex was surprised to see that she actually seemed to mean it.

"Ah, I thought it might have been. Everyone's talking about this mysterious young man—but you know that, I'm sure. I must admit, I find myself interested in some of the rumours about where you got him. A certain governmental agency, perhaps?" Queen asked mischievously.

But Grey Fox wouldn't take the bait to continue on with that conversation. She shook her head with a grin. "Now where would you have heard that?" She asked.

Queen made a vague gesture with her hand. "Oh, around…" She said with equal vagueness.

"Hmm, well it couldn't possibly be true, could it? I mean, what would I be doing with a governmental agency?" She replied innocently.

Queen laughed. "That's the thing though, isn't it? No one knows exactly how involved you are with all of those people. You could be the president of Tibet, for all we know."

Grey Fox frowned. "Isn't Tibet ruled by a royal family?"

Queen shook her head. "You know very well what I mean. But enough of that…I have to go, matters to attend to and the like. I'll see you later; King is adamant about that, let me assure you."

Grey Fox rolled her eyes. "When isn't he? There's always something."

Queen smiled and bid them a formal good evening before going over to a small group of people across the room.

"That was Queen." Grey Fox told Alex in a low voice so that the passing people wouldn't hear. "She's also one of the heads of the guild. I'm quite fond of her, she's an easy person to be around, but don't be fooled by her personality; she's a low lady…do you know what that is?"

Alex shook his head. "I've never heard of it, doesn't sound good though, does it?"

Grey Fox shook her head. "No, it's not. It means that she specialises in poisons. They're tricky to be around, those low ladies. Most of them carry pins or needles tipped with poisons. Problem with pins is that they can be hidden practically anywhere; you wouldn't even know she had one until you got a prick and even then it would be too late. I normally wouldn't even shake hands with a low lady in case there was one under her nail or something; low ladies are almost always immune to their own poisons, so it's quite possible for that to happen."

"Why did you shake her hand then, if it's so dangerous?" Alex asked.

Grey Fox smiled. "I'm in her good books at the moment; I helped one of her people out a while ago and she owes me a huge favour because of it—even if she'd wanted to, she couldn't kill me until that debt had been repaid. It's just the way of things. But enough of that, I was telling you about the heads of the guild. Jack is next. He takes care of all the files and accounts of the organisation. It's a huge responsibility and a very important job. It's not just about numbers either, he has to make sure that the right people stay uninterested in the guild and at the same time make sure that there's a certain amount of curiosity surrounding it, to keep people interested in it and to raise the numbers if we lose over a certain amount of people. Of course, it's also his responsibility to hide away any documents on the guild while making them accessible to anyone whose interested in looking at them, provided they have the clearance, naturally."

"Did you ever consider becoming one of the heads?"

Grey Fox shook her head. "It's not my style, too much responsibility and there's a lot of red tape that they have to deal with every day. I'm a bit of a rogue by comparison; it wouldn't set a good example… I was asked though, once. Queen wanted me to become her protégé, but I declined, poisons aren't my thing—too messy. Anyway, finally there's King. He's the head honcho of the guild; he oversees everything and says what goes and what doesn't. He used to be some army general or something but left after something bad happened, I'm not sure of the details; it's all a little vague. But Cane tells me that he's really edgy about it."

"How would Cane know?" Alex asked with a frown but Grey Fox ignored him and continued on with her little explanation of the Guild.

"That's the five guild heads and each one of them have a team behind them. Kings team are called the Spades, Queen's are called the Hearts, Jack's are the Clubs, Ace's team's called the Diamonds and Joker's team are just called the Wildcards. You've probably seen some of them; they don't look like they fit in here. King's lot are always aloof looking and Ace's team are always suspicious of everyone else and they never speak during these things to anyone but Ace. The other's seem to fit in most of the time though, especially the Wildcards, they don't seem to care at all about image." Grey Fox looked around, an approaching man caught her attention. "Oh," She told Alex, "Here's Joker now."

Joker was sauntering up to them leisurely with a huge grin on his face.

"How's it going?" He asked Grey Fox in an Cockney accent as he neared.
"Not bad, Joker, what news?"

Joker laughed a strange laugh that sounded in between a titter and a chuckle. "You've been a very busy girl haven't you?" He asked good-naturedly.

"Naturally." She replied with a shrug.

Joker continued on. "You've got everyone talking about you—not to mention King is going crazy. Though perhaps you didn't pick the best time for this to happen…"

Grey Fox frowned. "Oh?" She asked, "What do you mean by that now?"

Joker shrugged with a coy expression. "You'll find out soon enough I'm sure. King wants to talk to you about that too."

"I didn't realise I'd become so popular."

"That wasn't the word I would have used…"

Grey Fox sighed. "Don't I know..."

"Well, I just thought I'd better give you the heads up, you know when you'll be standing in front of us, I'll have to act all badass on you."

Grey Fox nodded. "Thanks for that."

"So how's Anna keeping herself?" He asked, changing the conversation.

Grey Fox smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Oh come on, it's not like that—and you know it."

"You just appreciate her artistic abilities then?"

Joker looked indignant. "Of course. It's purely professional."

"Yeah well, she's too young for you."

Joker gave Grey Fox an exasperated look. Grey Fox just rolled her eyes with a sigh. "She was doing well, the last time I saw her. But that was almost a year ago now." She told him.

"Why leave it so long before contacting her?"

Grey Fox shook her head. "It's not like I haven't tried; last two times I contacted her all I got back was white noise."

Joker's face transformed into a frown. "I hope she's alright."

"She'll be fine," Grey Fox assured him, "She's with the others and she has an eye for keeping herself out of trouble, she's grand."

"I hope you're right." Joker muttered, "I wouldn't want to lose my bomb buddy." He looked over his shoulder at the arrival of someone else who was motioning for him to come over. Joker nodded to the man and turned back around to Grey Fox.

"It's time for me to go badass, see you later." He said as he turned.

Grey Fox nodded and watched him go.

"Are you in trouble for breaking into the bank?" Alex asked.

Grey Fox nodded, "I'm always in trouble for something, but obviously King wants to see me about something else as well, I can't imagine what though."

"Maybe he's got a job lined up for you?"

Grey Fox shook her head. "Doubt it, he never gives me work."

There was a moment of silence between them. Grey Fox seemed to have gone into her own little world, staring at a fixed space on the ground to her side with an absent look in her eyes. It wasn't until a man neared them that she blinked at focused her eyes. She looked at the man expectantly.

"You've been summoned." He told her with a gruff voice.

Grey Fox nodded and then motioned for Alex to follow her. They walked across the room towards a door at the opposite end that Alex had missed previously. It was odd that he had missed it, since it wasn't particularly camouflaged or anything but maybe the two big guards standing in front of it had been unconsciously noticed. After all, they seemed terribly familiar to him. The door was held open and he and Grey Fox went through it. It was shut promptly behind them.

Alex found himself in a long corridor with paintings of men and woman on either side. The red carpet was soft under his shoes as he followed Grey Fox's long stride.

Soon they reached another door, which Grey Fox herself opened and she briefly mentioned to Alex to close it after him. He did as he was told and when he turned back around, he realised where he was.

The room itself was big, though not nearly the same size as the one they had just been in. On the far side, there was a wall made entirely out of glass and Alex could see the city and all of its fantastical lights outside of it. It was strange to see tiny car lights in the distance and a poster for Calvin Klein on a building; it showed that people were continuing on with their everyday lives, when he was in a meeting with killers. But back to the room, it was very bare. The only furniture in it was a long desk with seats and people in them. In front of the desk was a wide-open space, where Grey Fox stood straight backed, facing them. Alex took his place by her side. There was a long silence and what seemed to be a staring competition between Grey Fox and a man who Alex guessed was King. He took that moment to look at the people. He had already met Ace, Queen and Joker and he could only assume the man in the middle was King so that meant the skinny man at the end of the table was Jack. He wasn't a very interesting looking person and was easy to forget about. Alex figured that it was an extreme advantage to him in this line of business. Jack appeared to be an average looking person in every respect of the word. And yet, there was still something about him that made Alex's spidey senses tingle. It was the face, Alex concluded, definitely the face. It was the kind of face that held a smile assuring everyone that he was their favourite uncle, while his eyes promised that he'd kill their whole family in front of them. He was a dangerous man and from what Grey Fox had told Alex about his job, he guessed Jack was well suited.

"You know why you've been summoned?" King asked in a loud booming voice that was alarming after the quiet.

Grey Fox, as cool as cucumber nodded. "I suppose I have a good idea."

"You suppose?" King asked in disbelief. "You suppose? Do you know the damage that you could have caused from the act alone, never mind the fact that it was the sloppiest performance I've ever seen. Any rookie in there could have done a better job than you did. Your father may have founded this guild but don't think that because of that you are above out rules! What kind of mental illness do you have to think that targeting Evergreen Bank was a good idea?" King's voice became louder and louder the more he spoke and by the end of it, he was shouting.

"It was not I who chose this." Grey Fox defended, her right brow had creased with agitation.

"Then who? Which one of your lot are stupid enough for that?"

This time Grey Fox smirked. "Not one of mine," She told King, "It was your spawn who came up with it."

King's brow furrowed for a second. "You mean…" He trailed off before his frustration and anger came crashing back. "Where is he?" He snarled.

With impeccable timing, Cane was pushed through the door by one of the guards. "I found him trying to sneak out of the party, sir." The guard said. Cane gave a sheepish grin as he tried to gather up his moulting dignity and stepped beside Grey Fox.

"Coward." She muttered to him.

"Just trying to save my neck." He whispered back.

"Too late." Grey Fox told him, masking it by speaking into her hand as she moved a strand of fallen hair away from her face.

"Leave." King told the guard who complied immediately. King turned to look at Cane, who gulped.

"It was your idea to break into the bank?" He asked.

Cane scowled and shot Grey Fox a dark look. "Thanks, you rat." He said to her before addressing King. "Yeah."

"And why? What could have possessed you to do such a thing? And even then, why didn't you ask permission from the Guild? There wasn't even one thing that you did that was in any way clever."

"I dunno," Cane muttered, "I got loaded from it, that's something."

Both he and Grey Fox tried to hide their smirks. Alex was bemused to see how like school kids they were. In fact, he distinctly remembered two boys acting like that in front of the principle in Maths class a few months ago after they had been caught flicking papers at the substitute teacher.

"What was that?" King asked in a very dangerous voice that made Cane shut up.

"Nothing." He said solemnly.

King sighed a very long, weary sigh that came from somewhere deep within him. He looked defeated rather than threatening now. "You two aren't children any more. It's not like we can punish you and make you apologise, you're two adults. If either of you were anyone else, I'd have you punished; excommunicated from the Guild and banned from working anywhere near us again. But you are my son," He said to Cane, "And you are too damn important—especially now." He shook his head.

It was Grey Fox that spoke up next. "It needed to be done anyway." She told the heads of the guild. "If not when we had, later. There was more than just money that was being stored in that bank and frankly, it was dangerous for us to just keep it there. It's true that the plan didn't go as well as we had hoped…though I can't imagine why it didn't, but the end result was the same. My contacts made it sure that everything was hushed up and we got what we came for. We were never in any danger; you know I don't do unnecessary danger when I work. I may be reckless at times, but I am never stupid. You said that we are no longer children and you are right. But we haven't been children for a very long time so there is no need to treat us as such. I cannot comprehend what you thought you would achieve by calling us up here like delinquents but it has come to nothing. We did what we did because it was justified, because it was advantageous and because it was safe. I don't know why Cane didn't think to tell you, but it doesn't matter now, it's in the past."

"Besides," Cane added, "You never let me do anything anyway."

Grey Fox rolled her eyes. "Yes, thanks for that, Cane."

"I agree with Grey Fox," Queen said, "No action should be taken."

Joker nodded, "I'll second that."

"Me too." Jack said quietly.

"Well I don't," Ace fought, "I say send them to the dogs, hand them over to the authorities—or better yet, have her excommunicated."

King shook his head wearily, he wasn't as young as he used to be, he didn't have the energy for fighting like he used too. "You're out of order, Ace, and over-ruled." Once upon a time, King had hoped that Cane would take over, and he would be able to retire in comfort but that had clearly been nothing more than a fantasy. He looked to his son. Clearly, sending him to the army all those years ago had been a bad idea, it was there where he met Grey Fox and he hadn't been able to follow an order since then.

King nodded to himself. "Very well, next topic."

Grey Fox shifted her weight from her left foot to an even distribution. Now, this was what she was waiting for. This was what she had put up with all that mess for.

"Lately, we've received word from our sources that there has been a recent increase arms sales in the Middle East."

Grey Fox frowned. "That… is not uncommon. You know that, and what with the war and all—it's to be expected."

"That's what we thought at first too. But this has been going on for six months now, and the arms are not being brought into the Middle East, they're being taken out of it. Someone is selling guns from the East and is selling them into the West, into America where they're being shipped out back to places like Iraq and Afghanistan to the American troops."

Grey Fox's frown deepened. "That doesn't make sense, why would someone do that?"

"Ace, this is your department, you continue." King told the head of information retrieval.

Ace got down to business, straightening out his papers and documents as he spoke. "We came to that conclusion ourselves, it didn't make sense to have an arms factory in a country only to have it shipped out to the countries enemy, so I did a little digging. I found that the arms originated from a group of factories scattered around. Some were in Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and we found a few in Afghanistan as well. They all seemed to be connected to each other, so I sent in some of my men to infiltrate and spy on them. After just a few weeks, the reports told me that I had been right; they were all connected. But more than that, I found arms weren't the only things they were dealing with, practically anything you can find on the black market, could be found in those factories. I sent orders to my men to find out who the boss of all of this was and while I unfortunately lost contact with most of my spies, three of them reported back with these photographs of the boss." He held up photographs to which Alex could only see the white backs of them. "Apparently, the others that we lost contact with had been compromised, they're classified as missing, presumed dead."

"Show her the pictures." Joker said in a serious voice that made Grey Fox look at him in surprise.

Ace nodded and reached over to hand Grey Fox the pictures. Grey Fox took them and turned them over so that she could see them.

She turned white.

She just stared at the pictures in her hands. She knew that man, oh god she knew him. Cane noticed her look. "Fox, what's wrong? Are you okay, what's on those pic—" He stopped and bit his lip. "Oh." He said quietly.

At the sound of his voice, Grey Fox shook herself out of her little trance and pursed her lips while she flicked through the others. Alex managed to take a good look at the pictures. He figured that Grey Fox had to have known him for the reaction to be so startling because there seemed to be nothing amazing about the man in the photo. He was tall, a good few inches over the next tallest person in the picture, he had longish grey hair--though he wasn't old--that was tied neatly at the base of his neck. He had sunglasses on, so Alex couldn't see his eyes but even without it, he knew that this man was probably a killer. He certainly didn't look like a nice guy. He had bad skin that was clearly pock marked and he wore three gold chains around his neck. In the pictures he was wearing casual expensive looking clothes that were well suited for the climate, linen trousers and a half open shirt which allowed Alex to just about make out many scars running across his hairless chest. He was well built, this man, and, as Alex could see from a glimpse at one of the other photos he had no trouble with beating his workers up.

"So he's behind this?" Grey Fox asked after looking through the pictures thoroughly.

"At the very least he's involved, either way, its bad news for us."

"Do you know what he's trying to achieve? He's never been the patriotic kind and I'm sure that money isn't his motivator here."

King shook his head. "We were hoping you might know, after all, you know him better than anyone else."

Grey Fox shook her head; her eyes flickering back to the picture of him. "No, I haven't seen or heard from him in years, I thought he had gone off the map completely. This is… worrying."

"We've been looking into him, but we can't find anything about what he's doing."

"No, you wouldn't. He's too good to be tracked."

"So you don't think we can do it?" Ace asked.

Grey Fox shook her head again. "I doubt it. He's overly cautious when he works, its part of the reason he's still out there. Probably even killed anyone who knew him before he started this; it's the way he does things."

"But you do agree that he needs to be stopped?" King asked.

Grey Fox nodded. "Whatever he's up to, it's not going to be good for any of us."

"So then, you'll agree to do this?" King asked.

Grey Fox looked at him and without hesitation nodded. "Of course, I don't have any choice."

"I thought you said King wouldn't give you a job?" Alex asked.

They were on their way home, in the car. Grey Fox huffed and looked over at Alex. She had been previously staring into space out the window, contemplating everything that had happened tonight.

"This isn't a job, Alex, this is a duty." She told him.

Alex wasn't sure exactly why she considered it a duty but he knew she was economic with her answers at the best of times.

"So what happens now? Are we going to have to spend hours in some rotting old building researching this guy with the help of a hacker?"

"No need, I already know everything there is to know about him."

"Who is he?"

"A mad dog that needs to be put down. That's all that matters for the moment."

"So what are we going to do next? What's the first step?"

"First, we've got to pack our bags, Alex. We'll leave in the morning and we'll play it by ear from there."

"Where are we going?"

"Russia."

A/N: Well, that's the end of this chapter. Next chapter is going to be quite a big one too, plot-wise that is. Again I want to thank all my supporters and I will promise to have the next chapter posted much, much quicker this time. Cheers!