Hi everybody!!! Did you miss me? Lord knows I missed you. So, here's my nice long update. In terms of the main plot, not a whole lot happens, but in terms of the little side plots, this is pretty major, so pay attention. Oh, and thanks so much for all the help you guys gave me in your reviews by answering my questions - I really use that stuff, you know?

So, did everybody read Harry Potter? Took me 13 hours and 17 minutes. I finished at 6:43 a.m. after having woken up at 4:30 the morning before. For all those paying attention, that's 26 hours and 13 minutes without sleep! Eight spent on a train, thirteen spent reading... I slept 'till 3:30 this afternoon, my mom thought I'd died or something.

Anywho, here we go-

Disclaimer: I tried to send a letter to Anthony Horowitz offering to buy Alex & Co., but my letter got lost among the millions of similar requests being sent to J.K. Rowling. So, for the time being, I still don't own any of it. And, apparently you can't actually buy countries... so Colombia isn't mine either.

The bus arrived in Santa Marta at sundown. By some odd twist of fate, it just happened to be the day of the town's annual Las Fiestas del Mar (The Festival of the Sea). As one of the locals on the bus explained to the "tourists" they'd missed the jetski shows and beauty contests during the daylight hours. But, now that it was dark, the parades and he parties would begin.

The contrast of the reactions of the five British tourists was almost comical. Alex looked curious, as any teenager would at the idea of a city-wide party. Wolf looked totally disinterested, as if this happened every day. Snake looked slightly apprehensive, as the only one in the group who regularly thought with caution. Eagle and Fox just looked thrilled beyond belief.

As they departed the bus and said farewell to their fellow passengers, the group of five began wandering the streets a little aimlessly, just taking in the celebration around them.

The first things Alex noticed, before anything else, were the banners. There must have been thousands hung throughout the town, judging by how many Alex had seen so far. Hung from string hanging across the streets, across alleys, hanging out of windows, draped over cars, they were everywhere. And, despite coming in countless colors (sea green, light orange, turquois, silver, etc), materials (plastic, paper, tin, tarp, etc), and sizes (from some bigger than cars to small playing-card sized ones being handed out to passer-byes), Alex noticed that they all read the same thing:

"Santa Marta, la magia de tenerlo todo." ("Santa Marta, the magic of having it all").

After he took in the signs, the next thing Alex noticed were the lights. Like the signs, they were everywere, and seemed to have no set order to them. Most were strings of outdoor Christmas lights, draped across gates and wrapped around trash cans, but there were small sidewalk bonfires and movie-set lights, and colored lanterns as well. The millions of tiny lights all over the streets created the odd effect of managing to light everyting up while still keeping the scene dim and flickering at the edges, creating an almost mythical atmosphere.

Next Alex noticed the noise, and as soon as he did, he wondered how he was only just noticing it now. There was noise everywhere. Even though they had walked several blocks now, the noise never changed. It was almost as if there was a large speaker playing a soundtrack for the whole city to hear. Everywhere there was talking and shouting and laughing. The unmistakable sound of hundreds of bodies rustling next to eachother as they passed eachother on the street. The sound of firecrackers going off every few minutes, which was accompanied by several oohs and ahs, and delighted cries from any children lucky enough to witness it.

There was the sound of venders on both sides of the street, calling out to those walking past, encouraging them to but whatever food, clothes, jewelry, pottery, or any other trinkets they happened to be selling. Where there was food being sold, there was the sound of grilling meat, which, of course, brought the smell of grilling meat.

And there was music. Despite Alex's earlier thought that the sound didn't change from street to street, he now realized that the music did. Depending on which small group of musicians there, or which radio had the loudest speakers, the music changed periodically, as the group moved through the fiesta.

They stopped to watch a parade go by. It was incredible. There was more music, some played by bands, dressed identically down to the shoe laces. Some came out of speakers on floats. There were dancers, some traditional, some... not so traditional. There were male dancers and female dancers. Their constumes ranged from simple and single colored to more complicated and vain than a peacock. There were important-looking people in shiny expensive cars, some old and some new. And the floats themselves were extraordinary. They were extravagant to the point of gaudiness, and clearly reflected hours and hours or hard work. Of course, keeping to the title (Las Fiestas del Mar) everything had an underwater theme. Paper mache seaweed, baloons meant to look like bubbles, girls dressed as mermaids sitting on top of trash can lids that had been painstakingly converted into giant oysters...

Alex concluded that this was by far the most amazing thing he'd ever seen.

After the parade passed and people started walking in the street again, Fox and Eagle turned to the others.

"We're hungry," Eagle stated, as if this would assure them food.

"So?" Wolf asked.

"Ah, well... We were gonna go eat, you know..."

Wolf's stern look demanded more of an answer than that.

"And, um... the guy on the bus said the night clubs here are really good, so we figured...?" Fox trailed off hopefully.

"Fine. Meet us back here in two hours," Snake said. After checking for landmarks and such so that they could find "here", Eagle and Fox departed looking incredble pleased with themselves.

That left Wolf, Snake, and Cub to wander through the streets, stopping occassionally to watch a firecracker or listen to a song.

Wolf found himself glancing at Cub every few minutes. The boy had the most amusing look of undisguised wonder on his face, and if Wolf hadn't known better (and I mean really known) then he would have though Cub to be like all the other countless children walking around with that same look on their face, as if afraid to blink and miss something...

For Wolf, this fiesta was no big deal. He'd seen dozens like it at home, hadn't he? At this though, Wolf shook his head. He wasn't sure whether he was irritated or amused that after all these years he still didn't think of England as his home, despite having lived there for all but eight years of his life. Apparently some part of him refused to leave Nicaragua, for whatever reason.

And, of course, like he'd always felt at the festivals at home, the packed, bustling, shouting crowds made his chest tight, and the smell of over-cooked and burnt food made him want to gag. This all resulted in a general shortness of breath and unpleasant feeling.

They paused at a corner to let a small parade go past. Once again Wolf glanced at Cub, finding that he couldn't get enough of seeing that look on the boy's usually all-too-serious face. For some reason he just couldn't help looking over to see it again and again, and when he did he forgot the crowds and the smell and thoughts of home.

As they crossed the street, Snake started talking to him about how they managed to have so many parades going without ever colliding, and so it was longer than usual before Wolf got the chance to glance down at Cub again.

When he did, he suddenly found he couldn't breathe at all - and he was pretty sure his heart had stopped too - and it had nothing to do with the crowds or the smell.

Cub wasn't there.

He was nowhere to be seen.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Jack, it's me, Tom. Again."

"Oh, hi, Tom."

A pause.

"Um, so, no Alex yet?"

"No, not yet."

""I just figured I'd call and check, you know, in case he was back and just didn't go to school or something..."

"Right."

A sigh.

""So, uh, could you tell Aled, I mean, when he gets back of course, could you tell him to call me. We could go see that movie we missed. You know, if it's still playing..."

"Okay, Tom, I'll tell him."

"Thanks. So, I guess I'll see you later..."

"Sure."

"Goodbye."

"Bye, Tom."

Jack hung up the phone and felt the sudden desire to go clean something. In the days that Alex had been gone, Jack felt as if she could have scrubbed the entirety of Buckingham Palace twice over. Anything to make her forget.

If only for a little while.

When they'd stopped at the corner to wait for a parade to pass, Cub was trying to take in all the different shades of blue somebody'd managed to use when painting one of the floats, when a very pretty girl wearing a bright magenta hat standing next to him said, in a heavily accented voice "It's beautiful, yes?"

Knowing that she'd spoken English under the assumption that Alex (like many foreign tourists) didn't speak Spanish, Alex answered her in her own language - without an accent, much to her pleasure.

"I can't believe all the colors."

She smiled. "I kow, it's always my favorite part."

"I'm Alex."

"Hello, Alex. I'm Pia," the girl replied, holding out her hand.

The two continued talking, and Alex realized that (although it'd only been a few days) he'd really missed talking to someone his own age. Usually while on a mission he was so busy and stressed that he didn't notice this, but this mission was starting out so slow, that Alex was frankly a little, well, bored.

Of course, the reasonable side of his brain acknowledged that this was much better than the alternative. Bored is always preferable to dead.

But still, he enjoyed talking to Pia.

After about five minutes, Alex realized that Wolf and Snake were probably really bored now, and a little irritated, so he turned to apologize, and froze.

They were gone.

Assuming that they hadn't noticed he'd stayed behind was preferable to the thought of them having abandoned him on purpose, so Alex thought it prudent to stay put and wait for them to come back. Of course, this was convenient, as it meant he got to continue talking to Pia.

A few minutes later three very large boys probably a year or two older than Alex walked up. Pia introduced them as Manuel, Arturo, and Roberto, friends of hers from the neighborhood.

Of course, judging by Manuel's proximity to Pia, and the undisguisable hostility in the look he gave Alex, "friends from the nieghborhood" was not the title he would have chosen.

"Manuel, Arturo, Roberto, this is Alex, another friend of mine." Alex look of startled pleasure at being called a friend by somebody he'd only just met clashed with Manuel's expression of jealousy in an ugly way under the dim lights, and the conversation after that was stabbed with many left-handed comments from Manuel and awkward silences.

Having not seen Wolf or Snake yet, Alex anxiously glanced at his watch. They were supposed to meet Eagle and Fox in fifteen minutes. Making a quick decision, Alex said goodbye to the four: quick and polite with Manuel and his sidekicks, and genuinely regretful with Pia. He then turned the corner and started walking towards the meeting spot.

Of course, in the crowds, he could be exused for not noticing the three large boys following him.

Alex was about a half a block away from the meeting place when he was suddenly pulled into a stereotypically dark and empty alley. He was swung around and pushed against the wall before he'd registered anything. Alex blinked and found himself looking intot he face of Manuel; Arturo and Roberto were standing just behind him.

"So, you think you come all the way from London and talk to my girl, huh?" Manuel snarled.

Alex nearly rolled his eyes. He suddenly realized why he'd associated missing other people his age with his own boredom. Whenever there were two or more teenagers together, things neve got boring.

Ah well, it was still better than men with machine guns.

At the knock on his office door, Alan Blunt calmly called, "Enter."

Mrs. Jones did so, not bothering to close the door behind her. For a company who's entire business was secrets, the employees at MI6 worked daily in an atmposhere of combined paranoia and naivety that was simply impossible to describe to an outsider.

"News from Ngyuen?" he asked, seeming to the casual observer to be more Head of MI6 than human. Perhaps it was impossible to be both...

"Yes, and it's not good. He's sure his cover's been blown, Alan, we'll have to-"

At that moment, Blunt's secretary, Miss Watson, walked in. An office door left open was a silent message to others that it was safe to interrupt. Furthermore, due to Mrs. Jones's high rank, it was no wonder that the secretary didn't wait for a more private time to deliver her boss's mail.

"That package you were expecting from Algeria, a letter from Kabul, and the first payment from Colombia, sir." Miss Watson listed dutifully, depositing the mail on Alan Blunt's desk.

"Thank you, Miss Watson," Blunt murmered, and more a minute he seemed almost aprehensive. The secretary left the office with a cheery smile, totally oblivious. It was safer to remain so.

"A payment from-?" Mrs. Jones asked sharply. "But the only going on in Colombia is-"

Blunt didn't bother to say anything.

"Why didn't you tell me about any payments?"

"I assumed you'd be better off never knowing." Blunt replied, totally emotionless.

Mrs. Jones froze. Then she asked, almost hesitantly, "Alan, this isn't- I mean, you haven't... set them up, have you?"

Alan Blunt's cold eyes locked on hers, and he paused, as if judging her. Finally, he blinked, and said, quite calmly:

"I don't know."

Mrs. Jones's eyes narrowed, then widened, then returned to normal. She stuffed a peppermint into her mouth, but it seemed her mind wasn't even aware of the act. She sat down, uninvited, placed her hands calmly on her lap, and said, "Explain. Everything."

"Very well. A few days ago, before I recruiting Rider and the SAS, I was contacted by-"

Miss Watson entered the office carrying paperwork that Blunt signed silently.

When the secretary left, Mrs. Jones got up after her and locked the door before sitting down again.

"As you were saying," she prompted her boss.

"Of course. As I was saying..."

"Okay, when was the last time we saw him?" Snake asked. Wolf couldn't seem to understand how Snake could be so calm about this.

"I dunno, before we started talking about parade routes?" he growled, scanning the crowds almost feverishly.

"Relax, Diego, it's not as if he's six. We'll find him." Snake said reassuringly.

"When did we start talking about parade routes?" Wolf demanded, as if he hadn't heard his friend's last remark.

"When we saw the parade," Snake replied, still calm, but scanning the crowds anyway."

"Snake," Wolf growled deeper.

"Back at that corner about two blocks down."

They headed in that direction, Wolf nearly bowling people over in his distraction, leaving Snake to apologize again and again, following in his wake.

"He's not here. He's not here. He's not here." Wolf kept repeating when they reached the corner.

Snake checked his watch. "It's just about time to meet the others, maybe he went back there to wait for us?" Snake suggested.

Without replying, Wolf lunged immediately in that direction, leaging Snake to apologize to the pretty girl wearing a bright magenta hat that he'd knocked over.

Wolf was muttering to himself as he practically ran down the street, compulsively scanning the crowds and looking into windows and alleys as he passed. The only bits Snake heard were "...wasn't watching... ...five minutes... ...already gone... ...not again..."

Wolf jerked to a halt so suddenly that even with his military-trained reactions Snake still walked into him.

"What-?" he began, but Wolf ducked into the alley next to them, shouting "ALEX!"

Snake honestly wasn't sure whether Wolf was happy to see Cub, angry at losing him, scared at having almost lost him, or confused as to what he was doing in a random alley with three uconcious boys laying at his feet. Snake suspected a mixture of the four.

"What-? Where-?" Wolf seemed unable to get his questions out. As he usually did when real life got to be too complicated, Wolf reverted to the simplicity of military dicipline. "Report!" he finally demanded.

Even though Cub had only had two weeks training in the SAS, he responded as quickly and as naturally as somebody who'd spent years there. Subconciously or not the boy straightened to attention before explained what had happened.

By the end, Wolf looked pretty much livid, though at who it was impossible to tell. Playing it safe, both Snake and Cub remained quiet and waited for their teammate to get over it on his own.

And he would have, except that at that moment Eagle and Fox appeared in the alley, looking slightly confused at the location of their teammates, but over all rather cheerful, which seemed to irritate Wolf even more.

"Hey, sorry we're late. We ended up in this little night club, and you wouldn't believe what these girls were doing Wolf, they- Hey, what're you lookin' at me like that for? I was just minding my own business, getting a drink; wasn't my fault there were two really freaky chicks right next to me..." Eagle trailed off, looking confused at Wolf's mood.

Forgunatelly for Eagle, Snake responded to that before Wolf could.

"'Freaky chicks'? God, Neil, you're sounding more like Todd every day" he replied, jerking his head towards Fox, who was attempting to look innocent.

"Fine with me," Eagle said, in a decidedly glum manner. "That boy is made of gold, I swear. He had three senoritas dancing with him in two minutes flat. I don't understand it"

"Yeah, well, while you were off drinking Tequila, Alex here got mugged," Wolf grated, having finally composed himself sufficiently to attempt human speech.

Alex protested. "I beg your pardon, but I did not get mugged!" He turned to a confused Eagle and Fox. "I was the victim of an attempted mugging."

"An attempted mugging?" Fox asked blankly.

"Yes."

"Oh. Well, that doesn't sound to serious, Diego," Eagle said bracingly, slapping Wolf on the back.

Let me tell you, if looks could kill...

Watching Wolf warily, Eagle removed his arm and asked, "How many were there, Cub?"

Snake smacked him for using the wrong name.

"Three."

"By yourself?"

"Yeah."

Eagle sighed. "Too bad. You should have saved one for Diego. He looks like he could use a good fight."

"Oh, shut up," Wolf grumbled.

So, there you have it. You might have noticed that I whimped out on the fight scene. Frankly, this chapter is so frickin long that I didn't bother forcing myself to come up with a decent fight, you know?

I also realized how similar this is to the chapter where Fox and Eagle get lost in the airport. But, while that escapade was really only there for humor and Wolf-Cub bonding, this one actually served a constructive purpose to the plot.

Next chapter they start hiking, and so here are the questions I'd like y'all to answer in your LONG AND DETAILED reviews - which of course I always love and appreciate and depend on:

1) The hike is three days. Should I each day specifically, or just sort of brush over them as one really long hike? Any suggestions are welcome.

2) Though I haven't decided whether or not to have anybody captured at all, if somebody is captured, who should it be. A name is necessary for this one (as in, 'I dunno, somebody' is not what I'm looking for. Specifics are what I'm looking for).

3) For the sequal, who do you think would make a better character to toss into the mix: A six year old French orphan named Adeline, a teenage runaway from Southern California named Josh, or the teenage son of the Afghan ambassador named Amir.

Believe it or not these questions are all essential to my plot, so please answer them!!!

By the way, I'll be updating Permanent Assignment tomorrow, in case you're wondering. I only had time to do one today, and I'd already written half of this chapter, so...

'Night y'all.