Chapter nine
Am I dreaming?
Alex awoke to his father's voice." I'm dead. I'm in heaven" Thought Alex but the excruciating pain brought down to Earth and made him realise he was definitely alive. It was for how much longer that was questionable. "Alex you're awake. I can't believe it! My son alive and with me!" Slowly Alex peeled open his eyes and allowed them to react to the dim lighting. As his vision improved he could see the outline of a man bent over him, his head partially blocking the light of a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling above him. There was no doubt about it, as Alex looked into the man's eyes he knew that despite the matted hair and spiky stubble, he was staring at John Rider, his father! "They wouldn't give you any painkillers but at least they bandaged your wrists up well. I had a look at them while you were unconscious; the breaks are not compound at last. They will heal in time." He smiled as he spoke but his eyes showed the questions he was bursting to ask. "Alex, how did you get here?" Alex tried to reply but his mouth wouldn't move and his head felt as if someone was bashing it with a mallet. He couldn't think, how did he get here? For a start where was here? He couldn't remember a thing; pain clouded his mind and it impossible to search his memory. All he knew was that he was with his father and that somehow he would make everything alright. His eyes were so heavy and the blackness of unconsciousness looked so enticing. He let go of everything and let his mind turn blank… His last thought was a question. Can my father possibly be real? Or is he just a hallucination?
"You let a fourteen year old boy give his life for mine! What were you thinking?" Alan Blunt was pacing across his office at the royal and general bank while Mr Cold sat on the chocolate brown leather sofa in the corner.
"Alan, you know we had no choice. It was the boy or you?" Cold's voice showed no regret that he had probably just sent a young boy to his death.
"I would rather be dead than have to live my life knowing my existence on this planet is only thanks to the sacrifice of a teenager. No, my brother, this time you made the wrong decision! By now they will have killed Alex, they wanted him for revenge we betrayed them by sending in John as an undercover agent and so this is a way of proving to us not to mess around with them. I suppose it's pretty ironic, John Rider tr5ying to save the world and instead getting him and his own son killed!" At that moment the door to the office burst open and Smithers large form squeezed itself through.
"Um, begging your pardon Mr Blunt Sir, but I thought you would want to know about this. Do you know the radio receiver and transmitter we hid on Alex as a tooth well we have just received a conversation through it. As far as we can make out Alex is still alive but so are John and Helen Rider. Now the shocking thing is that Helen seems to be working for Scorpia. I mean we can't be certain, the signal is absolutely terrible on these things but we are pretty sure it was them." Smithers rushed speech was received with quite a bit of confusion from Blunt.
"You mean John is working for Scorpia too?" he asked.
"Yeah, it seems that way but we only aught a couple of words from him before we lost the connection completely."
"Have you tried talking to Alex?"
Smithers looked shocked. "Of course I have but he is unconscious it seems he has been injured quite badly, we didn't hear him say anything but John was talking to him so we presume he was alive!"
"Thank you Smithers, if you could keep us updated and try to regain communication with Alex." Smithers took the hint and closed the door behind him. As he walked back down to his lab Alex's last words echoed in his head "None of you had any intention of getting me out of here did you? As long as Blunt was safe! You knew when you sent me in that here was no way of me getting back out." Smithers was going to get Alex out and he had a bone to pick with John.