Ben Daniels had come to pick Alex up from school. Alex was spending summer holidays at Hereford, more precisely SAS RHQ Credenhill. Alex guessed SIS wanted to test out just what Yassen had taught him. Alex was now in full on surly teenage mode. He spent the journey listening to loud rock music on his discman. Andrew had given him a selection of proper rock CD's and passed on the band t-shirts that he'd grown out of. Alex was wearing his favourite 'Generation Terrorist' T-shirt. Alex had perfected teen communication skills; grunting, huffing and sneering.
Ben had taken the silent treatment in his stride during the journey to Hereford. There was no force on earth like a difficult teenager.
The gate at camp proved to be the first obstacle. Ben had handed over his ID, but all Alex had said was "Bite me".
"It speaks" Ben had answered, before he grabbed Alex's bag to hand over Alex's passport.
Alex exited the car and had immediately lit up. Ben did not know how Alex had gotten the russian cigarettes. They made their way into the Sergeant's office for assigning of quarters and timetables.
The Sergeant made no comment on the smoking teen.
"Welcome back, Fox and Cub. You will be training as a two man team on standard special ops evaluation. You may go to medical for evaluation then stores. Rooming in Barrack C, Section 6."
Fox and Cub stood side by side buck naked for their full medical. Alex had checked the other man out and noted the new scar on Ben's shoulder, which looked like a bullet wound. The later psychiatric exam with full inkblots was conducted with Alex answering the docs questions in quick fluent russian, german, french and spanish.
Fox could only surmise that training would make or break the teen.
Alex turned up to dinner still in civvies with a copy of And Quiet Flows the Don in the original russian to read while listening to Garbage on his personnel stereo so loud that most of the room could hear it. The general disquiet in the canteen was stopped when Steve, AKA Frog stepped up and greeted Alex, along with Marco 'Leemer' and Riley 'Squirrel'. They were all part of E-Unit. Alex had some friends. Alex told them about already taking his GCSE's a year early, and that he was taking Russian, French, German and Spanish for A levels.
When Fox called him Cub several others were heard to mention double o nothing, but Alex had already been recognised as that kidnapped kid. Wolf had spread the word that Cub had been a teenage operative, who MI6 had screwed around.
Alex was again allowed a reduced weight backpack and a more generous time allotment for the basic fitness test and combat fitness tests . Alex pushed himself to keep up with Fox. He finished with good job from the Sergeant.
Alex was called into the Sergeant's office the next morning.
"Sit, Cub." The Sergeant then poured two mugs of tea from a large, battered thermos.
"Look, I know your only here because its supposedly the safest place for you. You should be off on holiday with your school chums, chasing girls, getting drunk or high or both. You got a bum deal last year. You need to take stock." The Sargeant then took a long drink of tea.
"You don't need to be the best, hardest, most badass here. I know what MI6 want. You can do hand to hand combat, firearms, basic fitness and recon evaluations, but you're not undergoing EE or RTI at Brecon and definitely no Killing House. I know you've been refusing therapy here. Would you please reconsider?"
The Sergeant looked earnest and worried. Taking Alex's silence as a request for more information
"I've talked to medical. Doc Prichard is a good egg. He's helped more than a few of us out of a bad spot here. Talk to him. I'd like you to spend at least two nights a week away from Daniels and the grunts. The nurses will look after you. We've discussed video nights, pizzas/takeaways. Frog was most insistent that you have time out. Some normal activities away from the rest of us nut jobs. We are not here to complete MI6's master plan. You're not a killer and I'm not going to turn a fifteen year old kid into one. I'd be happiest if you decided you wanted to be a market gardener or a sculptor. Anything to get you away from what that Bastard Blunt wanted."
"Sculptor?" Alex laughed "Obviously you haven't seen my results in art class. The best thing I did all year was a paper model of an AK47. Even that was crap and I got detention for it." Alex sighed. "OK, I will go back to medical today for a full evaluation and I won't pull their chains this time."
"Good Lad."
Alex went back to barracks to collect his books and journals. He ended up spending the next four days in medical. The nurses spoiled him with microwave pizza and chips, chocolate bars and bottles of coke. His therapy sessions were long and intense. Doc Pritchard even contacted Marcus and Zac to compare notes. Alex's training plan was rearranged to accommodate his extended psyche sessions and time out.
Alex returned to a firearms session with Fox. The instructor picked on Alex as he had no firearms mentioned in his file and he had missed the introductory lecture. Alex could identify and state significant characteristics of all the firearms noted in the lecture he had missed. Then came the handling and disassembling, cleaning and assembling of various firearms. Alex was handed a filthy Browning pistol. Fox got an equally misused Walther PPK. He quickly and quietly went about his work. The others were given tips and help with particular peculiarities of their firearms. Alex finished just ahead of Fox and they both went to the front to have their handy work inspected.
The Instructor looked a Alex. "Cub, your file has no mention of firearms."
"Oh Yassen had me look after his guns. I tell you cleaning and resetting a sniper rifle is a bitch. Handguns are no problem."
Fox then whispered. "Too much information Alex."
The instructor followed "Have you fired a sniper rifle then."
Ignoring the MI6 agent, Alex prattled on "Yeah. I've completed sniper training to Yassen Gregorovich's exacting standards. And by the way the rumours are true."
"Rumours? What Rumours are they." asked the confused instructor.
"Yassen had five trainees prior to me. He does not accept mistakes. Its total commitment, obedience and perfection or death. I'm his only trainee who survived his teaching methods."
Alex was worn out at dinner. He ate without interaction and went straight to bed.
Fox woke in the morning to two members of E Unit standing guard. "Docs orders let Cub sleep."
Cub awoke at 10:30 and panicked. Breakfast was at 6:30. He'd missed two lectures.
"Calm down Cub, your timetable has been re-evaluated. Your in for briefing at 11:15. So eat up. We have a nice bowl of cereal here for you. Umm soggy cornflakes and warm milk."
Half the top brass seemed to be there as well as several department heads from SIS including Crawley and Smithers. His training regime with Yassen was discussed in detail. At least several of the soldiers actually looked sick and disgusted at what Yassen had made Alex endure.
Alex was glad when he'd been dismissed for dinner.
He'd remembered all of his training in the Ukraine vividly. As he walked across the quad to the canteen, he lingered over the memory of the day he stupidly challenged Yassen about his training schedule. His punishment had been the cause of Alex's claustrophobia and fear of the dark. Alex stopped walking and was suddenly lost in the memory of the dark tank filled with cold water, with no way out.
Yassen had used Alex's own nightmares about Port Tallen against him.
Someone was sobbing... Broken wails of pure pain and hopelessness... Alex knew it was him, but he couldn't quite connect the sound with his self. It was as it he'd separated his physical and conscious self. Someone was stoking his hair, holding him close. "You're safe Alex, No one will hurt you here".
Alex gasped in a breath, then calmed himself and questioned "Sergeant?"
"Bad one was it, cub? I had some mean flash backs after Kuwait. It happens to the best of us, you just get overwhelmed with some moment of pure terror. What triggered it?"
"Going over Yassen's training techniques. Get something wrong and he put me in the tank" Alex gulped back a sob and closed his eyes "underground, pitch black filled with deep freezing cold water, nothing to hold onto. You just had to hope that Yassen would remember to pull you out. You loose track of time. It seemed like an eternity holding back the panic and treading water. Afterwards he beat the crap out of me. That's how I learned not to talk back or make mistakes."
Two medics were approaching with a stretcher. Then Alex noticed the crowd milling about. As Alex wiped the tears, spittle and snot off his face with his hands "That gentlemen was a flashback. A common side affect of extreme emotional and physiological trauma. It has been approximately two weeks since my last one, most are transient and I get by with others not noticing. Normally it just looks like a thousand yard stare. I have approximately twelve weeks worth of PTSD inducing moments from last year to enjoy. Welcome to my life". Alex offered no resistance as he was lifted into the stretcher and was on his way back to medical.