Hi again! Chapter 25 now, and after this there should (stress the word should) be only three more chapters. I am determined to finish this before the end of the summer holidays! Anyway I'm afraid that this chapter does not offer the 'complete' explanation I promised, still another couple of chapters folks! Thanks to Mia Kyra Callwel and Arwen16 for reviewing the previous chapter, as always they are appreciated.

Disclaimer: As much as I hate to say it I do not own A.T.O.M. however I do own Wolf, Hyena, etc, etc...

Answers?

Wolf's pov

Wolf's fists clenched as the source of all this fear and shit appeared in the doorway. He smiled, a damn smug yet malicious smirk, as he casually leaned against the frame. After what seemed like hours of just standing there he finally peeled himself off and swaggered fully into the room, door swinging shut behind him.

"Well, well. Long time no see Wolfie!" The smirk morphed into a full sadistic grin as he stood there surveying her, arms folded in a cocky pose. His trademark pair of sunglasses obscured his eyes still, although in all fairness the room was rather blaringly white.

A low growl was all she mustered in reply; she kept her eyes off his face and seemed almost as if she were addressing his shoes. This did not bother him however, though it did serve to impress some of the graveness of the situation on the other occupants of the cell.

"What's that? Couldn't quite hear you there…" The man squatted down and observed the expression on her face, smiling again before he straightened up. "Well perhaps now would be the time for the true explanation. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, heh Wolfie?"

Another growl; bad reference, bad joke. Then again he was not noted for the quality of his humour, only the sadistic nature of it. The adverse reaction only seemed to please him more. "Well! I'd say if anyone here had reason to be huffy it should be me! In fact, I ought not to say anything more until you are in a more amicable mood…"

He turned to leave, but moved slowly as if he expected to be called back. Both he and she knew that no such move would be made, on her part anyway. But he was counting on the curiosity of the two teen tourists; they seemed completely in the dark about this. And, of course, he was proven right.

"Don't we deserve some sort of explanation here? We are nothing to do with whatever is going on!" Axel shouted, jumping to his feet in exasperation.

Even though his back was turned to her Wolf could sense the change in smile that would make; that was one thing most madmen had in common, they never stopped smiling. Her teeth gritted, anything that came out of his mouth would only be infuriating or nonsensical.

"If you have no idea what is going on, then how do you know for sure that you have nothing to do with it?" He turned his attention to them, unseen eyes boring into them. Logic, undeniable logic, was one thing he did have on his side, even if it was sometimes warped beyond measure.

After a short pause, as if for a reply, he continued "You are Americans right? That is a good enough reason for me to dislike you right there…"

Wolf rolled her eyes, still with the habitual hatred for anyone originating from America or any of his other so called 'stuck up' countries. When it came to grudges 'Mystery-Man' was an exceptional case of endurance and blanketing.

"Anyway," he continued "I suppose that you want to know all about why you're here, what's with the killings, etc, etc… But quite where I should start? Well you boys are merely, as the saying would go, 'caught in the crossfire'. If you didn't have a connection to the Shadows then you, most likely, wouldn't have been dragged into this. Although of course, I don't like Americans. Especially know it all righteous do-gooders, which I have found out you two are… So, you are really not part of the main goal of this operation, merely an extra bonus."

Being dubbed an 'extra bonus' did not seem to go down well with either of the pair, however the annoyed Axel took the lead, again, in his quest for answers. "So what is your 'main goal' then?"

"Hmm…" He paused for a moment to consider the reply, stroking his chin in what he hoped to be an intellectual pose. "You're Axel Manning, aren't you? The son of an annoying little American spy… Why I ought to have you disposed of right now! After all it is goodie two-shoes like your father that ruin perfectly legitimate operations run by people like me…"

Seeing the immanent danger of a certain martial artist going overboard King decided to speak up and switched the track of the conversation. "Who exactly are 'people like you'?"

"Perfectly legitimate and respectable citizens who happen to make successes of their lives, but because we come from honest, hard working countries your stuck up countries think that we must be doing something illegal and set out to ruin us!" Quite a sore subject it seemed.

"Come off it, you are anything but legitimate and respectable. People of that sort do not get caught doing bad business and get sent to prison." Wolf spoke up at last; her voice was steady although she clearly had to hold it thus. Her fists clenched and unclenched as she looked contemptuously at the hated man.

"Oh you would think that, wouldn't you Wolfie? After all you don't want to admit that everything you stand for is wrong now do you?" He waved the comment aside lightly at first but his tone darkened.

"Right back at you. Besides your suspicions in that respect are unfounded, I am a mercenary, not an agent." She crossed her arms, alibi painfully, and tried to get full control over her emotions once more.

"I find that hard to believe Wolfie, after all, you were always so keen on making mummy and daddy proud." The man goaded, her parents were a sore issue on both sides although for slightly different reasons.

"As if; I respect them for what they were, nothing more. Nor do I wish to be anything like them…" Wolf shook her head slightly sadly; why did their shit have to land back on her doorstep?

"Hmm… You do sound rather convincing… But then that would make my entire line of logic in this area wrong, and that can't be so." The logic argument again; another sign of a madman is their supposed inability to be wrong.

"So cocky… Prison really didn't change you much did it?" It was time to change the subject, make him feel uncomfortable, if that was possible. But Wolf knew that this man would not be made uncomfortable, not by her at least.

"Oh lord no! God forbid that I should be unjustly changed by that grim place!" He waved it aside; prison was just another place, in his mind.

"Your imprisonment was perfectly justified, what you were trading for Christ's sake! You seriously can't be so sorely warped as to believe that was acceptable?" Wolf nearly shouted at him, anger outstripping all other emotions for the moment.

"I supplied for the demand! That is the whole principle of economics!" Again came the inability to be wrong.

"Not when you're trading in…" She began, but had no chance to finish her sentence as the speakers came back to life with a new voice.

"Sir, a situation has arisen that you ought to attend to." Crisp and businesslike, one would not be able to distinguish such a voice from a crowd at the stock market. You wouldn't guess what such a voice was in charge of or who such a voice willingly worked for.

"Ah!" He sighed in mock misery. "It looks like this talk will have to be cut short. And just as we were starting to get somewhere…"

Giving everyone one last look, changing the expression slightly for each he turned on his heel and yanked the door open. Before he disappeared through he called over his shoulder "Until next time!"

And then, the door was shut, he was gone. Wolf sighed; relaxing as fully as she could given the circumstances, the first meeting was over so perhaps the next would be less worrying. The two others however seemed to have tensed up during the meeting and didn't look capable of relaxing at all anytime soon.

"Who was that?" King finally managed tersely.

She sighed before biting the bullet and answering "Mystery-Man; real name Dexter Hadrian, a Brazilian businessman who formerly ran several people trafficking, drug and weapons operations and apparently the person responsible for the contract killings of at least fifteen people. And the brother of my late father."

Hyena's pov

"So, Dexter Hadrian… Just what are you up to?" Hyena muttered to herself as she perched on the edge of an office chair, face leaning into the computer screen before her.

It had not been so long ago that she had woken up with a rather uncomfortably large gap in her memory and a painful throbbing in her head. After a while she had managed to figure out where she was and the main points of what had happened. One of the 'Big Boss's' grunts had been more than happy to tell her just what a fool she'd made of herself while high on painkillers. She had seethed on that for quite a while.

One of the things that had bothered her most though was the complete absence of Vulture. He wasn't the type to just go off for a nice little walk, especially on the main streets as the city started to wake back up. Something was definitely off. But once she had found the room in which the security footage for the entire complex was housed Hyena decided that the grouchy man could wait.

So there she sat, scanning through the complex labyrinth of footage in search of… Well come to think of it she wasn't really sure what she was looking for, just whiling away time by watching camera footage. Some feeds were completely snooze worthy (broom cupboards for Christ's sake!) while others were significantly more, to put it simply, riveting.

After finishing up watching what a secretary had been up to a few hours ago Hyena switched feeds again. Picking completely at random she landed on the one covering the underground car park and a thought stuck her. She could find out just how bad she had been! Oh, and perhaps see where Vulture had wandered off to as well.

She clicked on the necessary buttons and watched as the footage rolled rapidly back to the requested time. Once it got to the right place she let it play back at ordinary speed and watched, rather impatiently, as a certain black van pulled up. For a few minutes nothing happened, but then as the 'welcoming party' arrived Vulture got out. A small discussion ensued although she couldn't hear a word; there was an annoying lack of audio with the footage.

The final statement seemed to have been made as the grunts went to unload the van; she waited for herself to get out and almost missed the dispatching of the Romanian. "Holy shit!"

Quickly she rewound it and watched closer as the grunt raised the gun, pulled the trigger and began cleaning up the mess. This time she missed the presence of herself and the prisoners as the corpse of her partner was lugged out of sight by an uncaring thug. "Shit!"

Okay, as much as she hated to admit it, Hyena cared about Vulture. Not much and not in any sort of close relationship way, she just cared in the way one cares for a colleague, even if slightly less than normal people would. But on the other hand…

If the 'Big Boss', AKA Dexter, had disposed of Vulture with so little thought then maybe… Her head gave a small throb of protest as she started to think more quickly. What was it that had been constantly stressed? 'No money until everyone on that hit list is gone'. Everyone on the list.

"Oh God!" She cried as the full realisation hit her. Leaping up she backed away from the computer as if that were the enemy. Thoughts were not quite so logical now, all that she knew was that she had to get out of here and get out fast, if she valued her life.

Plans formulated swiftly in her brain but they all came crashing down when she heard a voice from behind her. "Going somewhere?"

I like cliff-hangers too much, but then again is this so much of a cliffie? Anyway we, and the characters, do get some answers but the chapter after next is when we get the reason for the whole fiasco. There is slightly more action next time when we go back to the others. We find out what 'buggers' Flavia has 'got' and what the deal is with 'Sparky Electrics'. See you there!