Thanks for your reviews – I'm taking all your comments and suggestions on board, so keep 'em coming! Chapters will be more frequent during weekends, but I'll try to update as regularly as possible. Xxx Anne Phoenix
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DURING ARK ANGEL
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Things had moved so quickly after Alex's surgery. His first memory was waking up in the hospital, heart hammering with terror and sweat coating his skin. His first thought was that he had to be dead. Then he wondered why he had to be dead. He remembered only leaving the Royal and General, bright lights, screams … nothing else …
Luckily, Mrs Jones turned up to explain what had happened – a teenager, targeted by a professional hitman, right outside MI6. Mrs Jones seemed to feel sorry for Alex, but apparently not sorry enough to prevent Alan Blunt from setting him up once again, and seeing him off on another mission.
One good thing about the speed of everything was that Alex never had time to stop and feel sorry for himself. He was too busy trying to survive to let the reality of his situation get to him. Between all the madness, there were a few blissful days in which Alex and Paul were able to be just teenagers, enjoying the sea and the surf without the weight of the world resting on their shoulders. But in reality, both boys were far from normal and the darker sides of their lives quickly caught up with them.
Alex wished things could have gone differently with Paul. Maybe one day they would meet again in better circumstances, although no doubt Paul would blame Alex for his father's death. Alex wished many things could have gone differently. He'd rather not have had the experience of Kaspar's grotesque death in Ark Angel – some night Alex could barely sleep for the memory of Kaspar's blood floating around the space station. He'd rather not have had to go into space at all, in fact; especially as he would no doubt be left out of the history books as the first teenager to go into space, to walk on a space station … the first murder in space, the first bomb, the first …
Alex shook his head. He'd made it back, hadn't he? He was OK. He didn't need any pity – not his own and not anyone else's. And anyway, he could already hear the choppers coming to pick him up and get him out of this claustrophobic pod.
Time to look brave again …
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They didn't allow access to the news in high security isolation. No televisions, no radios, no newspapers, no gossip …
If he'd had access to the news, Yassen would have known about the explosion of the Ark Angel space station. Of course, he still wouldn't have known anything about Alex's involvement. As it was, the days melded into nights into days into nights. The light in the cell was always the same, and when Yassen closed his eyes he could still see the halogen strip etched in the insides of his eyelids. The faint smell of disinfectant from the chemical toilet was also always the same, the metal grinding of the door was the same, the two uniformed guards were the same, and the Strategic Operations agent in charge of security was the same …
As much as the monotony grated on Yassen's nerves, he also knew that routine invariably resulted in weakness. It was just a question of patience.
And patience is always a virtue.
"Brought your grub," the uniformed guard said as he pushed the metal tray through a flap in the door. Like everything else here, the meals were grey and monotonous – some kind of mash – but Yassen's plate was always returned spotlessly clean. And not a crumb of his daily bread roll ever remained.
Today Yassen didn't respond to the guard. He stayed where he was and didn't even twitch.
"Oi, you Russian bastard!"
Yassen didn't rise to the insult. He just turned on his side were he lay on the floor and vomited, groaning and drawing his legs up to his belly.
The guard cursed and fumbled for his key card. Like all other access points in the building, both a key card and an authorised fingerprint were required to open the door, which slid open with its usual deafening screech.
"What's wrong with you?" the guard demanded. He tried to come across as tough, but sounded nervous. After all, he wasn't a medic and Yassen Gregorovich looked pretty ill: the Russian's face was pale and glistening with sweat.
"Why didn't you call for help? Oh man, can you sit u-"
The guard's words were cut short as Yassen suddenly sprang, cat-like, from the floor. The guard had no time to react before he found his mouth stuffed with a bread roll and taped shut with the surgical tape from Yassen's chest wound. His arms and legs were swiftly bund with the sheet from Yassen's bed.
Without looking into the young guard's terrified eyes, Yassen flipped him onto his belly, weighting him down until he tired of struggling. Then Yassen took the screw he'd removed from the back of the toilet – the one he'd been carefully, silently sharpening for over a week now, chiselling its point into a deadly weapon – and swiped downward.
The sharpened nail cut easily through the flesh and tendons and ligament that formed the second knuckle of the guard's right index finger – there was no bone to cut and the finger came away easily. The guard's muffled screams would have been heartwrenching to any normal human, but Yassen was not a normal human. He was one of the best assassins in the world. The guard was luckily to be alive.
Silently, Yassen removed the key card from the reader on the wall outside his cell. The cell shut behind him, effectively cutting off all sound from inside. Yassen knew it would be twenty minutes until the other guard returned from lunch. The Strategic Operations agent was not due until the next morning. It was the same routine every Friday, as the Special Operations agent was at another building on that day, and that day only. Routine equalled weakness.
Using the card and the fingertip, Yassen unhurriedly made his way out of the building, always making sure the path ahead was clear before moving into the next section. Sealing every door behind him, Yassen then carefully poured the grey mash he'd been served every day into the card readers, making sure the sticky food was smashed into the electronics so that the doors could no longer be opened behind him.
By the time MI6 figured out what was wrong with their security system and called up the CCTV logs, Yassen Gregorovich was long gone. The guard's white finger tip was found in the gutter outside one of the side entrance's to the building. It had served its purpose.
For Yassen, it had been child's play to escape, proof once again of MI6's misplaced arrogance …
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To be continued …