Chapter 5: Captured

Cammie woke up in the morning surprised to still be on Alex's chest. She would've thought that the spy would've pushed her off long ago, as she could tell he usually didn't get much sleep. When she glanced up at him, he was still asleep and his arm was still curled protectively around her. Unwilling to wake him, she tried to slowly detach herself, ready to get the other girls. His eyes opened briefly but he closed them drowsily.

"Please stay," he mumbled. "So far, you're the only thing that has managed to keep the nightmares at bay." Cammie nodded and settled back down.

"Alex, did you mean what you said last night, about not wanting to live through this mission." He nodded tiredly.

"What I'm doing now can't be classified as living. I'm merely here, surviving, and only just. They tried to get me to talk to a shrink because my PTSD has caused severe insomnia. I only ever get an hour or two a night, if that, before the nightmares come back."

"What are the nightmares? Maybe it would help if you talked to someone," Cammie suggested. Alex smiled, opening his eyes to glance back down at her. As she gazed at him, she finally saw through his mask to see the truly haunted boy behind, the soldier that she had been catching glimpses of, and she could finally see that his smile held no warmth, no humor, just emptiness and the hint of what once was.

"People. . . From my past," he finally answered her after a long pause. "My best friend Tom who finally gave in to the rumors circulating school about me and turned his back, my friend Sabina and her family, who died because of me, because I tend to bring my work home with me unintentionally, my godfather, who my friend Ben shot in self defense, Ben himself, who's given up almost everything for me, my SAS unit who's not seen me now in some time but whose members email me every once in awhile to make sure I'm okay, and finally, my housekeeper, like a sister to me, who came with me on a mission and died. They all blame me for something and I accept their blame as just and well deserved." Alex's eyes had taken on a far away look in remembrance of those he mentioned. After a minute, he shook himself, and his smile seemed to become almost more genuine, though Cammie could still see through it fairly easily.

"Well, better get the girls up," he said. "I'll let you do that. I'm gonna get dressed and head down for breakfast. Get down there when you can." Cammie nodded, moving into the girl's room to wake them up and get dressed themselves. As she pulled the door shut behind her, she caught one last glimpse of Alex's scarred torso.

As soon as Cammie was gone, Alex changed as quickly as he could, grabbed his gadgets, and headed down for breakfast. He managed to catch an elevator by himself and he pressed the silver button on his watch.

"The girls and I arrived in California last night. We are going to do recon on the Scorpia meeting today. If I don't radio in within the next 24 hours, send someone. And Mrs. Jones, I sincerely hope you're more prompt than Blunt was if it comes down to it." That was his last sentiment and he pressed the button again, effectively ending his transmission. The elevator doors slid open and he walked over to the breakfast buffet the hotel made each morning. Soon, he was joined by the four girls.

"So Alex, just curious, how long did you train before field work?" Macey asked. Alex glanced up from his jam and toast.

"Train? Uh, a week. You could say it was a crash course," he said, clearly uncomfortable with sharing more info about himself. He realized however, that if they were going to do a mission together, they had to trust each other and it is hard to trust someone you don't know hardly anything about. He had read all their files. It was only fair that they got a sneak peak at his at the very least.

"A week!" Bex exclaimed. Alex nodded.

"Yeah, with the SAS. It's basically the British version of your Navy Seals. I worked with K-unit and my code name was Cub because I was so much younger than any of them. None of us were allowed to know the actual names of the others. However, I've worked with them a couple other times so I know all their names now, but we pretty much call each other by our code names. Ben's the only one I call by his real name," Alex explained.

"So what's his code name?" Liz asked.

"Fox." Soon they were done with breakfast and they left for the recon mission. It didn't take them long to find the building they knew the Scorpia's meeting to be in. They walked into the building adjacent and a guard stopped them.

"What are you kids doing in here?" He asked

"We came to visit our aunt Jessie," Alex answered, spinning the lie easily. Erin had been set up in this building so they had a plausible excuse to be in it. She wouldn't be here today however. If the bored guard had bothered to check, he would've seen that she called in sick. She was in fact, on her way back to England, now that her job was done. She would send a resignation when she got back. The guard waved them on and they continued up to the 13th floor, the one that Scorpia would be having their meeting on in the building just across the street. Knowing that Erin's office would be empty and would have a good view of Scorpia's building, they used her office. Once in, Alex shut the door and pressed the silver button on his watch to disrupt any listening devices hidden in the room. Then, he grabbed a pair of binoculars that Erin had strategically left for them in a drawer of her desk.

"We can speak freely," Alex said, raising the binoculars to his eyes and looking across the street. He could already see a group of people getting ready to start. "I've disrupted the signal of any listening devices in here so no one will be able to listen in."

"Wait how..." Liz began.

"My watch," Alex interrupted. "It's one of my gadgets. It has button that'll turn off any listening devices within a couple yards of me," he explained. He decided not to tell them about the one-way radio, at least, he wouldn't tell them right now. Liz's eyes lit up.

"So that's what you did in the interrogation room!" She exclaimed, suddenly understanding. Alex just snorted.

"You call that interrogation. That was more like both sides asking questions and nobody really answering any of them. Plus, it wasn't nearly as violent as my experiences with interrogation." Cammie paled at his words, remembering the scars that were abundant on his torso. He noticed and shot her a look that clearly told her to keep it to herself.

"Well it's genius!" Liz praised. "Did you make it? You'll have to show me how! Do you have any other gadgets on you?" Alex held up his hand to stop the barrage of questions. He was feeling a little overwhelmed by them all.

"Wow! One question at a time!" He exclaimed smiling. "No, I didn't make it. My friend Mr. Smithers makes all my gadgets. He likes it because he has to try to hide them in things a teenager would have. He's MI6's tech expert and he designs all sorts of stuff like that. And yeah, I have two other gadgets, expanding bubble gum and sunglasses."

"What are those?" Bex asked. Suddenly, everyone was curious and Alex again felt uncomfortable at being the center of attention.

"Expanding bubble gum is chewed for ten seconds and then you stick it in a lock and it'll expand until it breaks the lock. My sunglasses can see any hidden weapons on someone." He turned back toward the window, once again lifting the binoculars. He was startled to find that the meeting had already started.

"What's happening?" Cammie asked. Bex had grabbed the pair of binoculars they had brought with them and was standing near Alex.

"They're just talking," Bex said. "How are we supposed to tell what's going on?" Alex hadn't heard her. He was busy mouthing something to himself.

"Alex?" Macey asked.

"Hmm?" Came the distracted reply.

"Are you lip reading?" Liz asked. Alex nodded.

"Yeah, but it's harder to do in Russian. I've only picked it up within the last year or so. Can someone hand me my sunglasses?" Cammie dutifully handed him the sunglasses and he put them on and looked through the binoculars with them and smirked.

"What?" Bex asked. She had handed off the second pair of binoculars to Macey, who was trying to figure out what they were saying as well.

"They don't trust each other. Every single one of them is carrying a firearm and I'm almost positive they all brought 'escorts.'"

"Wanna give me a turn?" Cammie asked. Alex nodded and handed her the binoculars. When their hands brushed, there was a moment of eye contact before Alex moved away, trying to act normal. Cammie fought to keep her face straight.

"Oh, tension," Bex said slyly. Alex, who had filled a cup of water choked on it and Cammie smiled, turning towards the window to conceal a fierce blush.

"Hey Alex," Cammie called. "I think they got to the part about their plan." Alex walked over to the window and Macey handed him her binoculars. Looking through it, Alex saw a PowerPoint of the plan. Unfortunately, he couldn't make out enough details. Only that it was big. Scorpia was obviously trying to ramp up more support and business for themselves. Alex knew if he could terminate this plan, they would lose support altogether and Scorpia would have gone from being the world's top terrorist organization to being disbanded. It would completely destroy them. He handed the binoculars back to Macey and turned to Liz.

"You're a tech genius right?" He asked. She nodded, blushing. "Do you think you could log into their system and download that file?" Liz paled.

"Uh, I don't know. I've never tried anything this big before. Just little training exercises." Alex smiled at her reassuringly.

"That's all this is. Just think of it as a training exercise. I need you to download the file and send a copy to MI6. Do you think you can do that?" Liz nodded uncertainly.

"I can try." She said timidly. Alex nodded as Liz got onto the office computer. She started clacking away and Alex found it fascinating. Macey and Cammie kept watching the meeting. Suddenly, Liz gasped.

"Oh no! Alex, I've been discovered!" She exclaimed, panicking.

"It's okay," Alex said calmly. "I'm sure they have a really complex system. It was the world's number one terrorist organization after all. Just keep going. We need that file. There was a few more seconds of clacking before another panicked voice broke the otherwise silence of the room.

"Alex, they're pointing over here," Macey informed.

"What?" He asked, grabbing the binoculars that Cammie held out to him. Macey had spoken the truth. The room was starting to fall into disarray as the group panicked but there were more than a few people pointing at their building.

"Alex, they're tracking the signal back to this computer," Liz informed.

"What have you got so far?" Alex asked, trying to determine if they would have enough time to finish downloading the file and send it.

"75% done. The rest of the download will take about three minutes and sending it will take another two." Liz dutifully replied. Alex tried to do the calculations in his head. It would probably take Scorpia about five minutes to get over to the building. It would take another two minutes or so for them to ride the elevator up.

"Keep it going. It'll be a close shave but we're gonna save the world a lot of trouble if we pull this off. Precautions, everyone stay away from the window. We definitely know they all have guns and I can attest to them all being excellent marksmen. I trained on Malogosto, in their training facility once. It's a long story that I'll tell you about later." Another few minutes passed by and everyone anxiously watched the clock.

"Done downloading," Liz called out. Nobody took their eyes from the clock. Two minutes passed, then two-thirty.

"What's the hold up Liz?" Alex asked, starting to sweat.

"It's not letting me through. I need a code of some sort to send it," she replied. Alex swore under his breath, jumping up to look at the computer screen. The screen displayed a three word password.

"What'll happen if I get this wrong?" He asked Liz. She shrugged.

"Maybe nothing or it may turn off the whole computer and we'd lose everything." Alex sighed, running his hand through his hair as the thought. Three words, the first with five letters, the second with three, and the third with seven. Suddenly he had an idea.

"Alright, let me try." He leaned over Liz, reaching around her for the keys. Slowly he typed Royal and General, then pressed enter. There was an agonizing second where the processing wheel came up and he thought he got it wrong, but then the light turned green and it sent. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and sprinted out the door with Alex taking up the rear to make sure they all stayed together. They made it to the elevator on the opposite end of the hall and pressed the down arrow. As the doors to their elevator opened, so did the doors of the elevator they'd rode up in. Out came two men, both with Scorpia tattoos on their shoulders. Alex gasped as they were spotted and pressed the close button about a hundred times while someone pressed the ground floor button. As the elevator started it's downward track, Alex ran a hand through his hair again.

"Come on, come on!" He whispered under his breath.

"That's your other tell isn't it?" Macey asked.

"Hmm?" Alex asked distractedly.

"When you're stressed. You said you have two main tells. Running your hand through your hair is the other one isn't it?" Alex glanced at his hand blankly for a minute. Then blinked.

"Oh. . . Yeah," he said. "I sometimes don't even realize I'm doing it." The door dinged open and Alex ushered everyone out. "Go go go!" He practically screamed. "If something happens to you guys Cammie's mom will kill me!" The guard stopped them.

"Just where do you think you're going?" He asked.

"We're going out to get stuff for our aunt sir," Alex replied politely. The guard nodded.

"Yeah. . . Right!" He said sarcastically. Alex was a little confused by the guard's sudden animosity toward the group. Then he saw a silver scorpion on the man's shoulder that he hadn't noticed before. He swore

"Shit!" Suddenly, there were multiple men surrounding the small group and a rag was placed over Alex's face. It instantly made him feel dizzy and he realized it must have chloroform on it or something of the like. Cammie would say later that it was the same feeling as when the Circle had tried to kidnap her. All of the members of the group tried to fight back but it was useless and their struggles got weaker and weaker. Alex's vision soon faded to black but the rag was removed too soon. It was too late though. His judgment was too impaired. If his head had been clearer, he might have just lied still so as to figure out more of what was going to happen to the captives and possibly escape. Instead, the one fuzzy thought in his head was, "Is Cammie okay?" Instead of lying still as he should have, he lifted his head to find her, and one of the men noticed. The cloth was put back over is nose and mouth and his vision faded again, along with all of his thoughts.

A/N: Hey guys. Sorry I kind of dropped off the face of the earth for a little bit. I don't really have a good excuse to give you either (please don't kill me!). The sad part is that I'm on vacation all of next week and there won't be any internet connection so I won't be able to update then either. For those of you who are wondering, no I have not given up on Never Play Dead in favor of this story, I just kinda hit a wall with it that I'm trying to work through. I'll have the next chapter of that one up for you as soon as I can. In the mean time, I'm going to post a few chapters of this one. Thanks to everyone who has supported me thus far and who has continued to read up to this point. This is the part where I beg you to read and review! Please. It means a lot to me to hear from you guys.

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SkaterGirl- Thanks so much for your review. I'm glad you liked it. Hopefully I didn't let you down with this chapter. Please keep reviewing! I'd love to hear from you again