A/N: A bit overdue and with massive thanks to Ahuuda for putting up with my drafts and making the fic much better for it.
Helen Rider had always known that life with John was on borrowed time. She had agreed to his undercover mission with SCORPIA with the knowledge that the risk was significant and the odds that they would grow old together would be just as significantly worse from it.
Neither Alex nor Matilda had been planned but she had never regretted it for a moment. She had simply held her children for the first time and quietly acknowledged among a surge of love and worry and hormones, that she might one day need to raise them as a widow.
The terrible potential reality of it still arrived too soon. She had known and she had lived with that risk every time he left on a job but now, in SCORPIA's grasp, it was a terrible weight she was not ready to bear.
She and Matilda had said goodbye to Alex on Friday evening with the promise from Rothman that they would return again in the morning, and that had made the parting marginally easier to bear.
Alex, so brave it made her heart break, had hugged them and kept up that determined front that everything was okay, and Helen had smiled and ruthlessly pushed aside the horrible suspicions she had about the timing of it all.
Those suspicions had only grown increasingly insistent by the complete lack of Rothman and Three upon their return to Malagosto the following morning.
Rothman, with her relentless games, had been nowhere to be seen at breakfast, and the boat that had brought them to the island had not been her private yacht like previously. Three's absence had been glaring as well, and certainly after she had been blackmailed into the job as his new assistant.
No one had told her anything but she could do the maths just fine, and everything added up to a board meeting. John's future, then. All of their futures, because whatever happened, the fallout would be significant.
If Three and Rothman's absence was not enough of a hint, the odd tension of the day would have sealed it. Alex had not been sent to classes. Instead, the three of them had spent the day together. Alex and Matilda had played in the woods and on the obstacle course, first under the watchful eye of Malagosto's security and later on with Yermalov for company.
Helen did not ask for information she knew better than to expect. Yermalov did not offer any. Instead, they both avoided the topic with the caution of people familiar with the dangers of their world.
The afternoon was quiet, the sunlight bright but not terribly warm. It was perfect weather for outside classes but Helen had seen none of the students.
Up ahead, close enough to ease Helen's gnawing fear, Alex helped Matilda climb the crumbled remains of what had once been a low wall, stones now scattered in piles and fragments on the ground and half-covered by vegetation. It was not a bad place to spend a while.
"Avoid the cemetery if security doesn't keep you away," Yermalov said. "Not all the bodies are old plague victims."
Helen nodded. "Yassen told me about it. A convenient way to dispose of inconvenient bodies."
His first task on Malagosto had been to bury the body of the man who had brought him there and failed Julia Rothman. Helen had never forgotten the too-vivid mental image of a starved, abused nineteen-year-old slave sent to dig a grave as a lesson. Yassen, she learned, had never forgotten the blisters in the palm of his hands from the hours of shovelling wet soil. There were no scars, he had surprisingly few of those, but the memory lingered.
Yassen Gregorovich, Helen had understood painfully well between the lines of his quiet reminiscence, had trained to shoot at Malagosto with blisters on his palms and grave-dirt beneath his nails. Had learned the foundations of his lethal close combat skills those first days with the bone-deep ache and dull throb of muscles still strained from heavy tools and backbreaking work.
SCORPIA considered it a lesson. Helen considered it another reminder of the people she was surrounded by. Yassen's training had happened under the sharp eye of the previous principal but she doubted the new one was any better.
On the crumbling wall, with the grace and tenacity of a mountain goat, Alex scaled the last bit and held out his hands to let Matilda use them as support. Younger, smaller, far more unsteady, but Helen could already see the improvements from earlier in the way she moved. Alex's attention and Matilda's insistence that she could keep up with him did wonders for improving her sense of balance.
"He has been trained well," Yermalov noted.
From Three or Rothman, the words would have been unwelcome; the opening gambit to an unwanted game. From Yermalov, a man who watched Alex and Matilda with the instincts of a parent and not an instructor, she could accept them in the spirit they were meant.
Helen did not know where Yermalov's family was, did not know if they still lived or how many people he'd once had around him, but she knew without the shadow of doubt that he had once been a parent. Still was, wherever his child – children – were.
She would not ask. It was not her business. But she appreciated the presence of someone else on the island who might not be an ally but who understood young children in the way that only another parent could.
"We wanted them safe. We always knew they might become a target some day because of John. We trained him from as early as we could. Matilda is still too young but … she will need the same protection."
Even – especially – with Rothman's unwanted attention. Whatever protection Rothman and Three might promise, it came with even more of a threat than John's career had ever posed.
"His results on the range are excellent. Hunter's influence, I expect. His reputation as an exceptional instructor remains even now."
"He has always been a wonderful teacher," Helen replied honestly. "He always enjoyed that part of his job."
In another world, he would have thrived as an instructor, Helen was sure of it. With the Paras, with MI6, even with SCORPIA. He had always enjoyed seeing his students grow and learn.
Yermalov shifted, attention focused on the narrow path that led to the impromptu playground, and Helen tensed as she saw an unfamiliar guard approach. No raised weapon, no hostile appearance – it was something urgent, then, but not a danger. Not an immediate one, at least.
"Sir, ma'am," the man greeted them. "There has been an incident. The school is now on lockdown. I'll have to ask you to return to your rooms."
Incident.
It told her nothing and she knew she would get nothing more if she asked. Instinct took over, cold adrenaline and sudden fear as her world narrowed down to her children again.
"Alex, Matilda, we're going -"
- where? She didn't know. The man was one of Malagosto's guards, not one of Rothman's people that had accompanied her on the boat, and everything in Helen fought against the idea of leaving Alex behind on the island alone, in the middle of an unknown situation.
"The boy has been given a room of his own," Yermalov pointed out. "More than large enough for all of you."
Relief, gratitude, because she would not have to leave Alex behind, and -
- "Thank you," she said and knew Yermalov would understand the weight of the words. "Alex, sweetheart, you'll have to show us the way to your room."
An incident.
Where was John? Given the timing and the Rider luck, probably in the middle of it. Helen didn't ask. Her first responsibility was Alex and Matilda's safety, and even if the guard had known the answer to her question, she would not risk anything that might bring the wrong sort of attention to them.
Yermalov's expression had sharpened but he didn't look concerned. The latter was no surprise. He was an established instructor and more secure at the school than just about anyone because of that. As for the former … something about that sharp expression made Helen doubt that incidents bad enough to justify a lockdown was a common thing.
Whatever had happened, it had been enough to make Malagosto – and SCORPIA – resort to little-used protocols. That was not a good sign.
"They have instructions," Yermalov said in a voice low enough not to carry to the guard. "Follow them and you will be unharmed."
Helen nodded once, silent appreciation for reassurance he did not have to give. Matilda reached her side, Alex a few steps behind, and Helen easily picked her up. They both bore the stains and scratches from a day of being just kids and that was the first glimpse of normality Helen had seen in days. There and gone again, the brief moment of respite destroyed by – whatever had happened.
Yermalov headed in the direction of the staff quarters, well into forbidden grounds for the students. The guard remained with Helen.
Alex slipped his hand into her free one and tugged lightly on it as she followed along to the room that Rothman and Three had arranged for him. To the room they left a nine-year-old alone in, with no one else for company, and Helen's heart hurt for the reminder that there had been no one to tuck him in or offer bedtime stories. No one to talk to about everything he had done that day, the way he had always loved.
Helen could do nothing to change that, nothing but play along with SCORPIA games, but at least he would not be alone for now.
She squeezed his hand slightly in silent reassurance, and Alex squeezed back. And if his grip was a little tighter the rest of the way to the room, well, so was Helen's.
Breathe.
John's eyes burned when he tried to open them. He instantly regretted it when his only reward was more darkness and the sting of dust in his eyes.
Breathe.
The air was heavy, a cacophony of smells so sharp that it burned all the way into his lungs. Melted plastic from electrical wiring, scorched stone and bricks, the distinct smell of smouldering wood somewhere. Something indefinable John couldn't grasp but instinctively knew was the remnant of the explosives that had brought down … at least part of the building. The corner, at least. Where the board room had been.
Breathe.
He didn't want to, didn't want the painful coughs it wrenched from his lungs, but he forced himself to do it, anyway.
He couldn't move. He couldn't see anything. Everything and nothing hurt in that hazy, distant sort of way when too many injuries added up to nerves unable to focus on any particular one of them. He could – think. Sort of. Enough to hope that there hadn't been so many flammable materials in the old building that he was about to burn to death, but with the quality of the air he was breathing, that might very well kill him first.
He couldn't hear much. Everything was muted and fuzzy, either damage from the sound of the explosion or a result of being buried under the rubble. How many tons of stones were above him now? He wasn't sure. The room had been on the top floor but the roof had been large and ornate, too.
Breathe.
He could move his fingers and his feet, so that was something. He couldn't move enough to do anything but it didn't feel like permanent damage, at least. He didn't feel like he was bleeding out, either.
He could do nothing now but wait, for whatever would happen. Breathe, slow and steady, and keep the fear and panic and claustrophobia at bay, because that would kill him as surely as a fire would.
Breathe.
Exhaustion claimed him again.
The isolation of Alex's room was broken by a knock on the door shortly after dinner.
They had been left alone all afternoon, with only the arrival of afternoon tea and dinner to disturb them. Matilda was asleep against Helen on the couch on the lower level of the room and Alex was curled up against her as they watched a children's show in Italian. She should get up and get Matilda to bed, but she didn't want to and … that was all the reason she needed in a situation like the current one, when every moment could be on borrowed time.
The knock was obviously just a courtesy, because the door unlocked a few seconds later and Dwale stepped inside, a small stack of papers in his hand.
The knot of anxiety in Helen's chest tightened, a flare of fear and claustrophobia and a hundred terrible possibilities of what his presence might mean.
The man's expression gave nothing away as he descended the stairs, as calm and affable as Dr Three undoubtedly expected of him.
Alex stilled on the couch, eyes trained on the intruder in their little bubble of calm. Matilda didn't stir.
Dwale stopped in front of the couch. Even up close, his face revealed nothing. Just like Three and Rothman. Was that a requirement of the job? It seemed like a terrible way to live, always with an iron grip on every emotion, but now she wouldn't have a choice. None of them would.
"The doctor," Dwale said, "is unavailable on account of executive board business. He had a two-hour lecture planned for tomorrow morning that you will need to take over. Idle hands are hardly good for our students."
A two-hour lecture. By Dr Three.
Helen swallowed. She could vividly imagine just what kind of topic a lecture like that would cover and she wanted nothing to do with it, but that was not the answer she could give. She had agreed to become the doctor's assistant. This was part of it.
"Of course," she agreed instead and kept her voice calm and even. "What is the topic? Are there any notes I should use?"
Dwale shook his head slightly and handed her the small stack of papers. Helen accepted them, careful not to disturb Matilda.
"He prefers to lecture without notes. It is his belief that the students retain the knowledge better in an organic setting. You have free hands to choose a suitable topic for them. I have a copy of the curriculum for you to avoid repeating anything they already cover elsewhere but beyond that, I leave the students in your capable hands for the lesson."
For two hours. Was this a test? Would she be judged on the topic she chose? Almost undoubtedly so.
"It has been arranged with Professor Yermalov that your children will spend the morning with him while you lecture," Dwale continued. "The students have half the Sunday off. As such, you will be able to spend the rest of the day Alex and Matilda."
A lecture and … a reward for doing it well? At least her children wouldn't have to listen to it, though only Alex was old enough to really understand. That alone was a relief.
"Thank you," she said and meant it.
Dwale offered her a brief, polite smile. Then he left as silently as he had arrived and they were alone again.
Alex glanced at the papers in Helen's hand. Then he deliberately looked away again. He understood terribly well just what sort of things that would be hiding on that list.
The silence stretched on, but there was an intensity to it that told Helen that Alex had something to say. She stayed quiet and let him take the time he needed.
"… If the doctor isn't around because he's busy," Alex asked softly. "Then what about dad?"
Because Alex was nine, not stupid, and he could put the pieces together far better than Helen wished at that moment. Because there had been an incident and the doctor was busy and – Helen had done what she could to keep her own anxiety from showing, but it hadn't been enough.
"I don't know," Helen admitted just as softly because she couldn't bring herself to lie. Not about that. "He was supposed to meet the board today. I think he's still with them, then."
She hoped. The most likely alternative was not one she wanted to linger on and absolutely not one she wanted Alex to worry about. He probably did, anyway, but she could at least do whatever possible not to make it worse.
Alex didn't answer. Just curled up against her again and watched the TV in silence as Helen stroked his back and the minutes inched along.
It had taken the first responders less than twelve minutes to arrive after the explosion. That had been the easy part. The rescue and recovery process that followed … that could take days depending on the conditions they faced.
Roberto had taken over command as evening fell, with new personnel and additional equipment as the operation slowly carried on. Sunset had not made it any easier. Difficult already thanks to narrow roads and spaces never meant for modern rescue machinery, the loss of daylight was another blow to the operation. It was no matter. Roberto's people still had a job to do.
The fire had been easy to put out, at least. The rest of the building still stood. For all of its delicate decorations, it had been built to last, and the stones had stood their ground when it mattered. Only the southern corner of the structure had collapsed, reduced to a pile of rubble in what had been an obvious terrorist attack of some sort.
That meant Roberto didn't just have to deal with an unusual and unwanted number of news-hungry vultures on his rescue site, but also far more police and SISDE agents than he had any desire to work with.
Their questions were useless. No, he didn't know anything. No, they didn't know how many more people were still unaccounted for. No, there had been no surveillance records found so far and no witnesses to the explosion – no one willing to admit anything, anyway. Yes, there were survivors. There were bodies. There were – more questions than answers, frankly.
Roberto's job was to ensure that every last being in that pile of rubble, alive or dead, was recovered. The pissing contest he would leave to the intelligence agencies and local law enforcement.
Let them decide their own conclusion, he had long since learned. They were all corrupt, anyway.
Helen carried Matilda to bed a little after nine, before Alex could fall asleep in front of the TV as well. Alex had followed reluctantly, though that had been reluctance to move from the couch to brush his teeth more than any real objection to sleep.
By the time ten rolled around, both of Helen's children were asleep against her and she slipped back out of bed again as carefully as she could.
Matilda objected for a moment, still deep in sleep. Then she calmed down and Helen risked a light caress of her hair before she moved downstairs to the living room on silent feet.
The TV turned on silently, the volume already lowered to a whisper before Helen had originally turned it off. She had not dared risk anything but the child-focused channels, not with the word incident so prominent in her mind.
Now, though, she clicked through the channels, one after the other, until she found an international news station. Her Italian was rudimentary at best. If anything bad enough had happened that it had made the news, she wanted it to be a language she actually understood.
There was nothing immediately useful. International politics. The financial markets. The weather in a dozen places she had no interest in.
Helen had expected nothing else. She should start on her notes for the morning lecture, Dwale and the doctor had made their expectations clear and she did not dare to fall short of those, but she couldn't focus. John was somewhere out there, maybe alive and maybe dead, and no one had told her anything, and even the news channel might not give her the answers she needed.
Maybe the incident had been an assassination attempt. Maybe a strike by the Italian authorities. Maybe a dozen possible things that had nothing to do with John's situation but something in the back of her mind, some instinct or another, told her otherwise.
It was worth the hour it would take to cycle through the news.
Helen left the TV on as she made herself a cup of coffee in the flickering light of the screen, whispered voices droning in the background. They were still droning on as she settled back down, caffeine slowly returning the energy she would need to prepare for the morning. Upstairs, Alex and Matilda still slept, a part of her mind constantly aware of their presence and even the slightest sound they made.
It took fifteen minutes for her patience to be rewarded. The images were unfamiliar, the place nowhere she recognised, but the report made her still the moment she registered the word Venice.
"- No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but authorities confirm that Winston Yu, the British-Chinese CEO of Unwin Toys, appears to have been the target of the explosion. Yu, a former major of the British armed forces, was recuperating in Venice after a medical procedure in -"
Helen froze.
Winston Yu. She knew that name.
She held her coffee cup tighter to stop the tremor in her hands and watched through a haze as emergency personnel went through the rubble of what had once been part of a beautiful, old building. The sort of opulence she had come to expect from the Board, based on Rothman.
It had taken SCORPIA no more than half an hour to put the school on lockdown after the explosion, a small, clinical part of her noted. An incident, all right. If a direct attack on the Board in Venice itself did not warrant that sort of action, she did not know what did.
Yu was dead, then. And – somewhere in that rubble, alive or dead, was her husband. She knew that without a shadow of a doubt. Trapped somewhere under a mountain of shattered stones and bricks, claustrophobic and suffocating and -
Helen took a shuddering breath. Put her cup down, careful and deliberate with trembling hands.
Then she turned off the TV and simply sat there for long minutes and forced herself to breathe, slow and steady until the surge of anxiety passed.
She couldn't afford to break down. Not now. Not with Alex and Matilda depending on her. She could do nothing for John, nothing but protect their children the best way she could.
Make herself valuable to SCORPIA. Make sure Three had no reason to rescind his offer. Make sure that their children grew up with at least one parent and not just the unwanted influence of SCORPIA's most powerful.
The coffee had grown tepid by the time her anxiety had finally settled enough that she could bring out Dwale's unwanted gift of paperwork. It gave her something else to focus on, and she had precious little time to prepare.
It took longer to read than it should have but she was grateful she managed to get through it at all, everything considered. The curriculum was exactly what she expected based on her knowledge of Dr Three and John's own experiences at the school: grim, gruesome, and dressed up in pretty, academic words like that somehow made it a science and not the playground of a sadist with too much time and influence on his hands.
What was she supposed to teach the students? She barely knew the basics of most of Three's curriculum, much less enough to expand upon it. Her own lessons for John and Yassen had been medical in nature; things to keep themselves – and potentially others – alive if things went wrong. First aid, medical care, basic surgery. Some of it, the very basics, were already covered at Malagosto. The rest was hardly something the doctor would want her to waste their students' time on, much less in one of his lessons.
Whatever she chose, she would be judged on it. If she could not be trusted to act according to his wishes, she would be useless to him, and there would be no one in a position to protect Alex and Matilda.
She had no time to read up on the numerous subjects she knew by title alone. With no notes, she had no idea of where to even begin. Three's knowledge was detailed enough to simply wing an entire lecture based on his mood that day. Helen could have done the same with a number of medical subjects but not with this.
Half-forgotten memories of her own classes lingered at the edges of her mind as she grasped for anything she might be able to use, and -
- A case study, then. She remembered those from her own classes. Welcome breaks between dry lectures and doctors who treated them like dirt.
John, then. Hunter. And – Zurich. The statement that John himself might not have shared the details of, but which she had found out just as well on her own. She knew exactly the thoughts and considerations put into it, and she knew which ones to avoid speaking of in a place where her children's future depended on her ability to pretend that Hunter never left.
A lot of political considerations had gone into that planning but most of that could be twisted to support the illusion that they were always SCORPIA's. That John had acted as an independent contractor on the Board's command, unknown to all but a dozen people. And – they needed that. The students. Helen had seen them and most were in their mid-twenties. Not children but also not adults experienced enough with that sort of world to understand the politics their lives might depend on in the future. People who might one day be ordered to 'send a message' with no further instruction and no real idea of the considerations behind it but what they might have managed to pick up by chance through experience.
It wasn't what Three would have lectured on, but it was something Helen could live with, something she could manage with short notice, and something that the doctor would hopefully accept, and – that was the best she could do.
Helen Rider spent the rest of the late evening writing notes on Hunter and Cossack's murder spree in Zurich in the name of education, with her children asleep where she could see them and a dull pain in her heart where John and Yassen should have been.
Yassen arrived at a tiny apartment on the outskirts of Helsinki close to midnight on Saturday. Everything in him made him want to continue on to the Rider home but he knew it was too risky. It was too late; his presence might draw unwanted attention from their neighbours, and the darkness of night meant that any enemy forces left behind would be able to spot him through night vision long before he realised they were there.
The apartment, cheap and rarely used, was one of his safe-houses. His neighbours, polite people who didn't pry, believed he worked with sales and travelled much of his time. The apartment was a place to stay when he visited family, nothing more. A single room with a built-in kitchen and a tiny bathroom, but he didn't need anything else.
Yassen's first action was to turn on the TV to a news channel. He had been out of touch in Karachi and the newspapers he had picked up on the way to Helsinki were already a day behind.
The TV droned on in the background, late enough that it was blissfully free of various debates and discussions and with only regular ads to interrupt the stream of information.
Come daylight, he would have to visit the Rider home. He did not expect to find anything but even the absence of evidence could be a clue of its own. Hunter's warning alone was – damning. Not many people had the resources to track down Hunter, much less successfully strike against him. There had been no follow-up message, nothing since the brief warning. Based on that, the odds were that Hunter and his family were – at best – in enemy hands.
At worst … Yassen did not want to consider the alternatives.
Daylight. It would have to wait until daylight.
Yassen moved around the small space with only the TV to break the silence as he took stock of his resources and considered his next move. Weapons, surveillance gear, contacts who might be useful. He checked his usual communication channels with Hunter once more but found nothing new. He hadn't expected to but it still left a dull ache in his chest; the brief, deceptive hope that somehow, impossibly, a message would have come through.
The news were the usual sort, politics and war and unrest and everything else that Yassen had to be aware of to do his job well. Nothing he hadn't expected, either, and he was about to pack up for the night and go to sleep when the relentless barrage from the TV made him stop in his tracks.
"- luxury hotel in Venice. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but authorities confirm that Winston Yu, the British-Chinese CEO of Unwin Toys, appears to have been the target of the explosion. Yu, a former major of the British armed forces, was -"
Winston Yu. SCORPIA.
What were the odds that Yu was by chance in Venice and the apparent target of a terrorist attack at the same time as Hunter had gone missing? Not impressive. Certainly not something Yassen was willing to gamble on.
Geneva had been SCORPIA, too. An unsanctioned attack, but SCORPIA's people nonetheless. Doctor Three's book had been all but an all-out announcement that he was hunting. And recent rumours and political manoeuvring had made it clear that time and distance had not dulled the Board's grudge against the undercover agent in the heart of their operation.
SCORPIA had already been at the top of Yassen's list of suspects. The attack in Venice only added to that suspicion.
Yassen did not know the details of the attack or the politics behind it, and he didn't need to. Not for the moment. What he needed was a clear and extremely cautious look at the Rider home in daylight and -
- What, then? Venice, obviously, if his suspicions held, but he was one man. One man against the massive machinery that was SCORPIA and the well-protected Board that controlled it. If Hunter and his family were held hostage, that was an added complication, since they would undoubtedly be kept apart for security reasons.
Yassen had handled large-scale assaults before, but that had always been at Hunter's side or with other competent backup. Never alone. He did not have the intel or the firepower to manage, and if he made even a single mistake, it could get all of them killed.
Yassen had contacts but no one he would trust against SCORPIA. Hunter had contacts but no one that could be trusted against SCORPIA in such a situation, either, Yassen suspected.
What, then? He knew what Hunter's orders would be – escape, and never look back – but that was one instruction that Yassen would never follow. He could not imagine the alternatives, though. Alone, without backup, and -
- Maybe not. There might be one person, even if Yassen had never met him. If blood and loyalty still bound the Rider brothers together despite everything.
Yassen had no solid intel but no time to waste, either, and he found the number before he could change his mind. It was still accurate to the best of Yassen's knowledge. Hunter had never updated it, at least, and Yassen knew he would have.
The voicemail was brief and simple, the best Yassen could manage on short notice. He didn't know if Ian Rider was at home or halfway across the world for his MI6 masters, but he had little choice but to try. He left no name, just the number of a burner phone. If Ian Rider could not work out the rest based on the message, he was hardly going to be of help, anyway.
If there was anyone in the world who might take on SCORPIA for Hunter's sake, it was his brother.
It was a gamble. Alone, against presumably all of SCORPIA, it was one Yassen was willing to take.
Helen Rider stepped into Malagosto's main classroom at eight exactly. Matilda and Alex had been safely delivered into Yermalov's care for the morning, she had meticulous notes and five hours of sleep and … that would have to do. She would be no more sleep deprived than the students, at least. It was practically like being back in school herself.
There had been no news. Dwale had not returned since his visit the previous evening. Breakfast had arrived at their door along with new, clean clothes, and – that had been it. Whatever had happened beyond Malagosto's shores during the night, she didn't know.
Even if she'd had the time for it, Helen would not have dared to turn on the TV to check the news, not with Alex there. He was old enough to put the pieces together and he had enough to bear already. He did not need that knowledge added to his burdens. Not until she had no choice.
The students already waited by their desks at her arrival, pens and notebooks at the ready. Silent and attentive. Malagosto allowed for nothing else.
What was their impression of her? She didn't know. She had interacted with no one but Nile, and how much of the situation he had figured out, she didn't know. At least he would know better than to share what was highly classified information.
She took a slow breath. Forced herself to ignore the fears and worries and anxiety and focus only on the next two hours and the students that paid attention to her every word.
"My name is Helen Rider," she began. "My husband is John Rider, known to SCORPIA as Hunter, and I am here to go through an example of the political considerations you may face in high-level operations in the field."
John's first impression was of exhaustion. Clean air and bright lights and, beneath it all, the artificial, heavy exhaustion of recent general anaesthetic. It was a struggle to keep his eyes open, even more so to focus.
Surgery, then. What kind and how bad, John wasn't sure, because he had also very clearly been given painkillers, but he at least still had all his visible limbs. That was a start.
Someone appeared by John's bed. Exhausted and with his sense dulled, it took him a painfully long time to notice.
"Mr Rider," the man said in accented English. "Good to see you awake."
Italian, John's mind supplied. A doctor based on his initial impressions, and almost certainly one of SCORPIA's based on the use of his name. The lack of other people in the room only added to that impression.
"… Sorry," John said. His voice sounded hoarse and his throat hurt when he spoke. "Everything is still a little hazy."
The man nodded. "Understandable. I am Dr Moretti. You are in Venice. It is current Sunday, February eighteenth, shortly before ten in the morning. Do you remember what happened?"
A bright flare and overwhelming sound; the smell of burned wood and scorched stone and -
"- There was an explosion," John said as the memories slowly came back. "We were in a meeting and … there was an explosion. Everything collapsed. I woke up under the rubble."
Moretti nodded. It was probably accurate enough, then. John tried to avoid any details. He wasn't sure what the current situation was but he knew that providing any real details about the meeting could only end badly.
"You were recovered from the rubble shortly after midnight. Your condition is well considering the circumstances. You had some internal bleeding that required surgery and several fairly deep wounds that have been stitched. You seem to have avoided a concussion but have inhaled significant amounts of potentially toxic smoke with unknown, long-term effects. If you smoke, I strongly recommend you stop as soon as possible."
He paused and John nodded to confirm he still followed along.
"Beyond that, you have a significant amount of heavy bruising. You will be sore for a number of days as you heal. You have no broken bones but your right shoulder was dislocated. It has been put back into place but will need rest. You will be given a sling to use for a few days and shoulder exercises to start afterwards. You are right-handed?"
"Ambidextrous. Mostly," John amended. "My handwriting is atrocious with my left hand, but my wife would argue that's the case normally, too."
He could feel the effects from the dust and smoke with every word. His throat felt like sandpaper and his lungs hurt if he breathed too deeply. Considering what could have happened, it was a small price to pay. A part of him hadn't expected to wake up at all.
Moretti nodded. "You will manage, then. I will let your superiors know you are awake. They have been impatient for your report."
John just nodded, and the doctor left again.
His mind was still foggy, the remnants of the anaesthetic like tar in his mind. He had to focus but every thought was a struggle.
Impatient. That would certainly be a word for it. Given how fast Moretti had left, he expected it was a matter of minutes before he got company again, this time much more unwanted.
John was a witness of the attack. An attack that must have killed at least a few of the Board, given the destruction. Depending on circumstances, John realised with sudden, icy clarity, he might very well be the only witness.
Had the gardens had surveillance? Had that exact area? With that kind of attack, odds were that they hadn't, or that something – someone – had ensured surveillance wouldn't be a problem.
The room had been located in the very corner of the building. The Board had faced away from the windows. The guards in the hallway had been on the wrong side of the building to see anything, and John had spotted no one outside but the attacker. If someone had been on guard duty and done their job, that attacker would have been seen. SCORPIA's security was supposed to be better than that.
John did not know the current situation on the Board. What he did know was that he had been given a sudden opportunity to prove his value – or to sign his immediate execution order if his memory and observation skills proved less than desired.
John had maybe five minutes to get his thoughts in order.
Hunter had worked with worse than that.
"When you joined MI6, Hunter gave you a Walther PPK and a copy of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Your family needs you."
It was the third time Ian had listened to the short message and it offered no more answers than it had the first time.
Until he had heard that message, Ian would have sworn that only two other people alive knew about the unsubtle gift from John so many years ago. John himself and Helen, because that was the sort of thing John would never have kept from her.
Now he could add Gregorovich to that list, because there was no one else it could be. No one else close enough to John – to Hunter – to be told something like that. The half-feral teenage assassin who had grown into a killer skilled enough to rival Hunter along the way.
MI6 kept Ian carefully away from anything to do with SCORPIA and his wayward brother, but that didn't mean Ian was without sources of his own, and Gregorovich had built up an impressive reputation.
Your family needs you.
It could be a trap. It quite possibly was. Ian hadn't been in any sort of contact with John since the single, short postcard he had sent so long ago; a harsh message from a harsh man and with no way to respond to it. If Gregorovich used that connection as bait, if he had a good enough reason to target Ian, John might even have offered Ian's phone number with his blessings. Hunter hadn't had any issues shooting Ian's colleagues when they had ended up on opposite sides of an operation, after all.
It could be a trap.
But – if it wasn't, if he refused, what was the alternative? Ian had loved his early years with MI6, full of danger and adrenaline in Her Majesty's service. Then SCORPIA had happened, SCORPIA and John and Helen's escape from London and … the intelligence world had grown abruptly darker and much less appealing when it was his own family tangled up in those dangers.
Ian had a nephew he hadn't seen in nine years, a niece he had never even met, and -
- He had a choice to make. To respond to Gregorovich's message was a risk and carried the very real probability that he was stepping into a trap. To ignore it, to carry on as he had the past nine years, entirely on his own, with no one at home, no family left, no one to miss him …
What did he have to lose? A career he had grown increasingly tired of, superiors that didn't trust him in an ever-growing number of cases because of John's association with SCORPIA, co-workers he barely knew?
Was he willing to look the other way and simply wait for the day when those rare glimpses of his family in the intelligence files simply stopped or worse, be called into Jones' office to be told that they were dead, killed, and he was entirely alone?
The moment he didn't show up at work and worse, left the UK with no warning and no legitimate reason, he would burn every bridge behind him. Whatever the future held, it would not be with MI6 or even in the country of his birth.
He had nothing in the UK left to keep him there. Somewhere, probably in Europe, he had a niece and a nephew and a brother and a sister-in-law.
Your family needs you.
Ian picked up his phone and dialled the number.