Chapter 11: Vacancy

A/N: The product of my week's sojourn sans Internet at my grandparents' house. Hope you enjoy.

When Yassen panted into the hotel room at 12:30 am and found it empty, he was hardly surprised. He gave it another quarter of an hour, then phoned Julia Rothman.

'Ash is gone,' he said without preamble. 'Do you want me to get out there and look for him?'

'We already have a team on the case,' the smooth voice replied. 'They are already on his trail. I don't think he really expected to evade us for long.'

'And when they catch him?'

'He will be dealt with. I believe he has outstayed his usefulness as an assassin.'

'Of course.'

'And now…' Yassen stiffened at the subtle change in her tone… 'I understand that you and he made an assassination attempt this evening which was not successful.'

'That is correct.'

'Mr Gregorovich, what went wrong?'

'It was…difficult to coordinate.' She took the hint.

'You were not satisfied with Mr Howell as a partner, were you?'

'It was not ideal, no.'

'I would have thought you would be able to put old grievances aside, Yassen.'

'I have no grievances against him. He bore the grudge.'

'I'm sure it was trying for you. And you are quite sure it was his attitude? No old grudges – or attachments – of your own?'

Yassen was tired of this word play. 'The target was not the Rider boy,' he said brusquely. 'There is no reason why I should feel reluctant to kill a girl he has befriended for purely operational reasons.'

'Of course not.' There was a pause. 'I suggest that we wait until things have calmed down a little and then make another attempt. I think we should dispense with the accident pretext, however. Simply shoot her. But wait for my say-so. If Rider is still with her…if we plan this carefully, we may be able to dispose of both her and the agents assigned to her at once.'

Yassen murmured an assent, flicked off the phone and stood, staring into space. After a few minutes he knelt and set his suitcase on the bed. He opened it and lifted out the false bottom to reveal the violin, nestled in its black velvet. He lifted it out, set the bow on the strings and began to notebash the parts Jane had played earlier that night. On an acoustic violin they sounded more sorrowful, lacking the bright drum and piano accompaniments. He frowned, playing more slowly, assessing the tone. It had been a long time since he'd used the instrument. It was too cold, for a start, and out of tune. He couldn't tune it properly without a piano, but he got the strings to harmonise with each other, at least, then spent some time rosining the bow and checking the violin over.

He would never allow Julia Rothman or anyone else to kill Alex Rider. If and when the time came for him to act on that decision, he would face the consequences. Until then the rules that ordered his life would stay the same. He would complete the assignment and continue the life he'd chosen at nineteen. Briefly he recalled Alex, Clara and Jane, dancing on the stage as they sang Alex's rambunctious number. Alex would probably never forgive him. But he wasn't looking for redemption from this job.

* * *

From now on, all first person is Clara's POV unless stated otherwise.

Immersed in reading, with the comfortable silence of the library around me, I could convince myself that everything was OK.

It was a pattern that had served me well for years, so why should it suddenly be wrong?

'…getting rid of all these potted plants, they're getting too scraggy, this palm has really got to go,' I heard the librarian say.

'Oh Miss, you can't kill the tree, that's mean!' Jane's voice drifted over from the non-fiction section, where she was shelving to earn brownie points.

I reapplied myself to the newspaper. My fingers were calloused from all the piano practice I'd been doing.

'Look Clara, I'm saving trees,' Jane announced, marching past with a huge pot in her hands.

'That's good.'

'Not just good, Clara, that's outstanding.'

I smiled faintly and looked back at the newspaper I was reading.

'Anything good in there?' Jane asked me.

'If by good you mean entertaining, yes. But factual? I don't know.'

'What's the latest story, then?'

'That my boyfriend…that's Rob's blue-eyed fish…tried to do me in after a bust-up between us, but there's a new angle. This journalist is banging on about the horrific rise of knife crime and now gun-crime in our society. Two rival gangs engaging in open warfare at a youth disco. They're saying that the whole place should be shut down, that modern youth is a disgrace…wasn't like the guy was so young anyway, just blame it all on the teenagers…wait…what?'

'They're blaming in on the inflaming nature of rap music?' Jane expostulated, right in my ear. 'Were they even there? We were playing ABBA.'

'Nit. And look, apparently I'm some chav tart, leading on two fish at once. 'The promiscuity of today's modern teenagers'…beautiful tautology there, nice to know our reporters can actually write…so it's all my fault if someone decides to shoot at me at a disco. Apparently.'

'Stupid, really,' Jane summarised, straightening up again.

'Sod it, I'm finding Rob,' I declared. Swearing felt good after a week of soft-spokeness, but it quickly brought on pangs of its own. I headed towards the door.

'Hi Clara.'

Oh God.

It was a cluster of the Cool Girls who'd been so mysteriously inhabiting the library lately, standing by the desk with their faces stretched into smiles of greeting. It looked horribly painful to me.

Oh come on, did they really think I didn't know they loathed my very nature? I would have been much happier to skip the pleasantries, just to get it over with. It wasn't like I was going to refuse to answer if they just asked the question

'How's your, uh, band thing going?' the girl at the fore enquired.

'Our band thing is fine, thanks,' I said shortly.

'That's cool. Um, is Alex anywhere around?'

'Sorry, he had to go back up to London for personal reasons.'

'Oh.' Her smile flickered, but she hauled it back for a few seconds. 'Do you know when he'll be back?'

'No!' I snapped. 'And I don't have his number, either.'

'Oh, that's a shame.' Her smile turned slightly sneering. We were back into water I knew. 'He was a brilliant singer. Have you found someone to fill for him?'

'Not far to look. We have Taylor.'

'But he's not exactly very good, is he?'

I stared at her coldly. 'Not good?'

'Well, Alex has actually had lessons, hasn't he? So he probably knows how to do it better,' she explained to me. 'Anyway, won't you need another guitarist?'

'Actually, Alex was, technically, a bassist.'

We both looked to see Roberta approaching us like an angel in black leather. She smiled at the girls, who shrank together slightly. 'As Josh' (Josh appeared in all his menacing Emo glory at her shoulder) 'can't play drums and bass at the same time, we might need a new bassist. Or I could play bass, or teach Taylor here to play it, or Jane could play the drums instead.'

'Jane plays the drums?' one of the girls demanded, all pretext of civility abandoned.

'Damn well,' Rob told her coolly. 'C'mon, guys, let's sit down somewhere. You got any comfy chairs in this library of yours, Clara?'

I led her over to the blue chairs as the Cool Girls stormed/fled out of the library.

'Fishing again, were they?' Rob asked me.

'Yup. One feels almost sorry for them. Hey Jane, look who's braving the library!'

The five of us – a darn uncomfortable number, I realised it was – settled down in a circle. Rob got out her guitar and began to strum very softly.

'Oh, you would not believe the blatantly obvious way we were chucked out of the music block,' Taylor told me.

'Yeah I would, that woman is the-'

'We need to talk,' Jane announced.

We all turned to look at her. 'About what?' I asked, playing for time.

'About you nearly getting shot and Alex disappearing off the face of the earth, what else?'

'I miss him,' I said slowly.

'Yes. That's my point. I wouldn't have thought I'd have felt the lack of him this much, but, you know, I do. Not just as a friend, as a band member, which is odd because with all due respect he was only a beginner.'

'He was a member when we formed it,' said Rob, 'therefore he feels like an integral part of the group dynamic. Also there was the way he dragged his feet. We all tried really hard to motivate him, it made us more motivated too.' (Rob is a psychology student).

'I'll buy that. It would explain why we haven't rehearsed in a week.' I agreed.

'I did like him, though,' said Taylor. 'Not just as a motivator or whatever.' Rob nodded.

'Oh yeah, I liked him too. God, I miss teaching him. We'd almost got far enough that he could have carried on on his own, but I'm afraid as it is he'll just fizzle out.'

'And forget.'

'If he ever cared at all,' Taylor said bitterly.

I stared at him silently for a moment, and then went across and hugged him.

'He must have liked us. He must've. No-one's that good an actor.'

'I think you're all skating round the real issue,' Josh announced, ignoring the emotional moment going on under his nose.

'Yes, and that is?'

'Monster. We can't do it the way we planned without an extra person, and rehearsing it will mean accepting that.' There was a painful truth in his words. They didn't apply just to Monster but to Alex's disappearance. Rehearsing without him would mean finally acknowledging that he wasn't part of the band anymore.

'Josh is right,' Jane said. 'So maybe we can't do Monster without the absent frog. Or, more specifically, we can't do it in all its glory without said frog. So maybe we'll have to pull it from our set, but oh well. Better people than us have fallen into the trap of getting obsessed over one tiny thing. So let's look at the bigger picture and be bold. We've got to have a rehearsal. Tonight.'

'That garage is bloody freezing,' Rob moaned.

'We'll go to my house then,' I offered. 'We can use the piano.'

'No drum kit,' Josh grunted.

'You'll be playing bass,' I told him shortly. It hurt to say it. We were filling in the holes. I remembered the last time I had seen him, through a haze of tiredness and adrenalin, framed by the psychedelic walls of Josh's garage. It didn't even look like a very plausible picture anymore.

'Are you scared?' Josh asked me.

'Yes. I have nightmares. I have nightmares about them coming for me, every single night. I have nightmares where Alex gets dragged off kicking and screaming by those soldiers, and ones where he walks off laughing. That other man with the dark hair I glimpsed across the club, I have nightmares where you and Rob turn into him. He had those haunted eyes.'

'Clara,' Rob whispered, 'I'm really, really sorry about thinking that guy was fit. I feel so stupid every time I think about it…'

'It's cool, Rob, I thought he was pretty fit too.' Rob brushed something from her eye and then said shakily:

'But you said he was too old, you said he was a superannuated non-fish.'

'I just didn't want you ending up in bed with him, that's all-'

'Clara!'

'-but a girl can dream.'

'Are us local fish not good enough for you?' Taylor pouted.

'You are very fine fish, but there's only two of you.'

'Stupid in absentia Alex,' he grouched as the bell rang. 'The three of us were quite a fighting force, I thought.'

'But two just looks stingy.'

I walked side by side with Taylor, like we did in the days when the rumours about him had started and the Non-Conformists weren't together yet. If it was Alex-less, at least it was comforting and familiar. I was thinking. The disadvantage of forming a group where you don't care about society is that they stop caring about you.

Alex had been the guy all the girls fancied, the guy everyone could relate to. How ironic, that he should be the normal one. And what we all knew, deep down, was that without him we could go on and play a chart-shattering set, and the audience would clap and cheer, but no-one would really care.

* * *

Jack was worried. Once again, it was because of Alex's assignments, but this time it was different. He'd come back without a scratch on him, but silent and brooding and carrying a truly magnificent guitar. He'd spent some time strumming at it in his room, but more time simply lying on his bed holding it, his eyes far away. She didn't really understand what the mission had been about, some girl who needed protection or something. Did they think he was a bodyguard now as well as a spy?

Jack hacked violently at the onions on the workbench, taking out some of her anger. She diced them much more thoroughly than usual before shaking them violently into a large pan in which chicken was already frying. It was Saturday, just before lunch, and she was making chicken and noodles for the two of them.

She whisked the finished noodles off the hob, and right on cue Alex appeared, mooching into the kitchen with the guitar in one hand. He stood it against the wall, eyed the salad speculatively for a moment and then began to rummage in his rucksack.

'You hungry?' she asked, trying to break the silence.

'Uh huh.'

'Alex, why do you never play that thing properly?' She nodded towards the guitar. 'You're always just lying around holding the thing.'

'Well, you see when I was playing it before I'd always be learning,' Alex said. Cryptically. 'I don't really know what to do with it now, I only know a few riffs that don't sound good on their own, but I want to keep up…' his voice petered out. His hand, still stuck in the bag, was still. Slowly he withdrew it to reveal a thin, battered booklet.

'Alex? What's that?' Jack asked, hurrying round the table.

'I've still got Taylor's chord book.' Alex sounded dazed.

'Taylor? Who's Taylor?'

'He was a boy I met while I was on my assignment…dammit, he'll be wanting it back…' Jack saw to her alarm that Alex was near tears. Even when he was small, he'd hardly ever cried. Whatever was wrong, it must be bad.

'Alex,' she said firmly, 'come and sit down.' She pushed him into a chair at the table and sat down facing him. 'Now tell me what's bothering you. What happened on this mission? Go on, spill!'

Alex told her everything. He outlined the circumstances, the poetry and the assassination attempt, even the fact that Ash and Yassen had been responsible. He felt a twinge of guilt as her face paled, but there was no point lying. Then he began to describe the Non-Conformists. He told her about the guitar lessons, the painted garage, the footie matches and the concert. He tried to explain what it had been like to belt out that song into the microphone, and the peaceful feeling of belonging he had felt as they lounged in the library or on the field, enjoying a mix of highbrow discussion and low humour. Jack was silent for a long time after he'd finished, twirling her cold noodles round her fork.

'So that's why you're in such a foul mood,' she said at last. 'You've been missing these kids.'

'I'm sorry, Jack. I didn't mean to make life difficult for you.' She gave him a brief smile.

'And you told them about your spying? You must have been either very mad, or very sane. And then that Blunt guy dragged you bodily back to London?'

'He would have done if I'd made him.'

'And the whole reason he assigned you in the first place is because he wanted you to shoot this guy Yassen, who turns out to be alive?'

'Uh, yeah, pretty much.'

'That bastard! He has got it in for you, I swear! I've got a mind to go down there and give him a bollocking! Has he actually forbidden you to go back to Essex?'

'No, but put it this way, I doubt he would condone it?'

'Hmmm.' Jack pondered. 'This Clara.'

'Yeah?'

'What would she suggest, do you think?'

'She would say…go down there and give him a bollocking. They all would."

'What you say that's what we do?'

'I like the idea. In principle. But we need some kind of plan, he's got all that government clout and other crap-'

'Don't swear, Alex.'

Alex was still rolling his eyes when the doorbell rang. 'I'll get it,' he said, hauling himself to his feet.

'If it's anyone from MI6 we can bollock them on the spot.'

'And she tells me not to swear,' Alex sighed as if to himself as he left the room. Jack shook her head and swallowed a mouthful of cold noodles. She thought he already looked happier, just from getting it off his chest. She liked that. It made her feel, if only for a few minutes, not entirely useless.

* * *

In the hall, Alex pulled the door open and froze.

'Eagle!?' he yelled, then slammed the door in the man's face. An insistent knocking immediately started up on the other side.

'Cub, be reasonable, open up.' Alex opened the door again and the SAS man stumbled across the threshold and landed in Jack's arms.

'Alex, who the hell is this?' she demanded, shoving him off her.

'He's one of the guys from the SAS unit,' Alex glowered. 'Eagle, we call him. God knows why.'

'So he's with MI6?' Jack asked, her eyes glittering.

'Involved, yeah.'

'Right.' She took a step towards Eagle, who eyed her with alarm. 'You can just get back to your cold conniving self absorbed boss and tell him-'

'Wait, wait, I don't know why you're going off on me now!'

'Hello, you're the ones who dragged me kicking and screaming away from my friends just last week!' Alex snarled, though he was having doubts as to whether he actually had the right to dress Eagle down. The man had helped to wrestle Wolf off him, and he was still sporting impressive bruises where Alex had kicked him.

'Why are you here?' he asked more calmly.

'I'm a deputation, I guess. The guys – I mean Fox and Snake – and I have been thinking about the way Wolf went off on you, and, uh…look, can we sit down?'

Alex had never seen anyone looking so awkward. The sight of the big SAS man cringing like this was pretty comical, in fact. They ushered him through to the living room and settled on the sofa, while he took the armchair opposite them.

'Look, Alex,' Eagle sighed, 'we were jerks to you in the Beacons. We didn't even have anything against you, we just sat back and let Wolf rip it out of you because he was the leader. He's a quick thinker, you know, brilliant in a crisis, but he's damn unstable if you ask me. All he thinks about is his profession; you saw how he reacted when you told your friends the truth. We think he's got away with crap for too long, so we thought you might like to know we're going to be standing up to him a bit from now on.'

'Ri-ight,' Alex said slowly. Beside him Jack's face was still dark with suspicion.

'So anyway, we thought we should make it up to you somehow?'

'Oh God. Like how?'

'Well, Fox thought we could maybe take you on a pony ride along the beach sometime…'

'What beach? Anyway, I hate riding.'

'Well aren't you a ray of sunshine? Anyway, we overrode him, no pun intended. So from all the kicking and screaming…and jaw-kicking…I take it you didn't want to leave the school?'

There wasn't much to say to that. 'Nope.'

'How'd you like to come along with me and blackmail Mr Blunt this afternoon?'

'Sounds like fun. When do we leave?'

'Right now, if you want.' Eagle stood up. 'Is that OK with you?' he asked Jack.

'Yes, and I will have your bag ready when you get back and if you don't bring him back I will not rest until I have hunted you down and sawed off your head with a rusty spoon.'

Eagle gulped. 'You have my word,' he vowed. 'C'mon, Cub, let's get going.'

Eagle drove them down to Liverpool Street in the same jeep they had used on the assignment. As they drew up outside the bank Alex saw Snake, Fox and Wolf waiting for them. Snake and Fox looked nervous, Wolf livid.

'Hi, gents,' Eagle said, marching up with a hand on Alex's shoulder. 'Let's do this thing.'

'You stop this now or I swear you'll regret it!' Wolf snarled, stepping in front of them.

'Pack it in, man. We owe this to Cub and you know it.'

'Cub,' Wolf said. 'Don't be an idiot. You're a professional spy now, you can't just go blowing the Official Secrets Act whenever you feel like it and getting attachments all over the place-'

'Like a Swiss Army knife,' Eagle remarked.

'These men are risking their careers just to get you back to your friends-for-five-minutes…'

'What?' Alex blurted, stopping dead.

'Don't listen to him, Cub, we can make our own choices,' Fox said softly. They entered the building, leaving Wolf fuming on the pavement. After a moment he stormed after them.

They halted outside the office that Alex had been brought to so many times before. He'd always entered before or after a mission, at the beck and call of MI6. Only once before had he come here of his own violation, with Sabina. That had ended well…not. Would this time be different? He hoped so.

Wolf came hurrying up the stairs. He came to a halt in front of them, glaring.

'You boys want to think about this,' he said.

'Blunt knows when he's on to a loser, Wolf-man. He can be reasonable.'

'I hope you're right.' Wolf was calming down a bit. 'You've been a good team, I wouldn't want to lose you.'

'Wolf, are you actually paying us a compliment?'

'Hey, you know what they'll do to me. They'll give me a whole bunch of rookies to lick into shape. Lots of little Cubs.' He rolled his eyes expressively.

Snake was knocking on the door. 'Right, you guys all ready?' he asked. Alex saw him swallowed and wondered exactly what it was K Unit were planning to do.

'Come on, Wolf,' Eagle said suddenly. 'Do something decent for once in your life.' The door opened. Eagle seized Wolf and, ignoring his protests, dragged him into the office. Once they were in side they all fell silent. Alex looked across at Alan Blunt, sitting composed as ever behind his desk, Mrs Jones at his shoulder.

'You wished to see me?' he said.

'Mr Blunt.' Eagle seemed to be elected spokesperson. 'I wanted to tell you that if you don't allow Cub back to see his friends, I will be handing in my notice.'

'That is a great shame for you. And your colleagues, what do they have to say?'

'We'd just like to reiterate Eagle's ultimatum,' Fox said calmly.

'All of you?' Blunt raised his eyebrows. Fox glanced over his shoulder at Wolf and sighed.

'Not quite all, I think,' he admitted.

'I see.' Alex thought he could detect a note of smugness in Blunt's voice now. '

'Alex.' It was Mrs Jones speaking now. Alex sensed that the argument was over. She was moving in to pick up the pieces. 'You must understand that we simply cannot allow such flouting of our security policies. Once the assassination attempt had failed, it was no longer an economic use of our human resources to have you there…'

'I wouldn't say it was an economic use of your human resources to chuck away an entire SAS unit either,' Wolf growled.

Snake clapped him wordlessly on the shoulder. No-one else moved or spoke. Blunt's face hadn't changed, but where it had been still before, it was now rigid. Alex saw that the balance had been tipped. They might be able to part with three rank-and-file soldiers, but not a unit leader.

'If he has already told them, it can't do any more harm…' Mrs Jones suggested quietly. Blunt considered briefly.

'While the immediate danger is over, I am sure that Scorpia will make another attempt in due course. It might be…beneficial…to have you all back in the field until we can eradicate the threat once and for all. All arrangements regarding cover and accommodation are still in place. I want you back down there as soon as possible.' With a nod, he indicated that the interview was over.

* * *

'Oh, so now it was all his idea,' Alex grumbled as soon as they were outside.

'Don't knock it, Cub, at least he did what we wanted.'

'True. Guess he can't afford to lose that much face. You guys totally swung it for me, thanks a lot.' Alex knew better than to praise Wolf lavishly. He just grinned at the unit tout court.

'Aw Cub, don't,' Eagle exclaimed, pretending to blush.

'Come on,' Wolf grunted, 'if we've got to tail after those kids for another month we might as well get going.'

Jack was waiting in the hall when they got back, Alex's bag packed up at her feet. Alex felt a twinge of guilt at the veiled worry in her eyes.

'Don't worry about me,' he said softly, hugging her. 'This really isn't dangerous compared to the other stuff I've been doing. I'll call every night if you like.'

'Bye, Alex. Just don't…don't get caught in any explosions, OK? Or…side tracked into anything more dangerous.'

'Contrary to appearances, I don't actually have a death wish, Jack.'

'Clean your teeth.'

'I always do.' He jogged out to the jeep, slung his bag into the boot and scrambled in next to Eagle.

'Could have fooled me about the teeth,' the man muttered, poking him. 'Move over, you're squishing me.'

'You wouldn't be squished if you weren't so fat,' Alex quipped back – one low blow deserved another, in his opinion. He twisted round to wave to Jack. Standing in the doorway she looked very alone, the last outpost of his old life. Briefly he wondered what he was doing, flinging himself willingly back into the world of espionage.

Waterloo, couldn't escape if I wanted to…

Was it really his fate to lead this life? Alex felt a twinge of misgiving. It was always when he thought his assignments were over that he was plunged into the most dangerous part. But this was different. He just wanted to see his friends. And he wouldn't get sidetracked.

A/N: I invite people to guess at where this story is going, because it gives me a sense of power (it also subtly guides my hand… knowing what you are inferring influences my decisions!) Any aspect, big or small, from the entire plot to an individual punch-up, romance, whatever. Just so I can gloat. :)

Rider Girl9: Glad you found it fast-moving, rather than ramble-and-disect-songs-ish. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Wolfmonster: Glad you picked up on the 'they don't know if he likes them' thing. When Blunt and K Unit first came they didn't know, but Wolf jumped to conclusions because he is a career maniac, and their reaction proved that they knew. I'm not sure if Blunt would slap people, but in recent books we have seen cracks appearing from time to time, and to me it just seemed to fit.

It's debatable whether not shooting a person makes you good...he's certainly not as evil as he would like, though.

Questions: Are you an Ash fan who would like to see him make good in the end? Earlier on you said I should change my summary, is that because it is suggestive of Mary Sues and cliches? I want to know what's wrong with it.