Not many people reviewed last chapter. Thanks to those that did!

Alright, so part of this was written during a business studies lesson in which I was stuck on my coursework (damn Lucozade!), and couldn't be bothered asking my teacher for help. At least I was doing something productive, though.

Sorry about not posting in a while. A lot of stuff has been going on over the last week and a half; college is starting to pick up pace as we get closer to exams, so more homework has been set. Grr. Not only that, but I've also started to Beta many stories (about 4/5), so I'm spending time doing that. I do enjoy Beta'ing their work though - it means I get to see previews… always a good thing

WARNING: I may not be posting for a few weeks once after this chapter. This is because I want to get ahead by a few chapters so that I can update more regularly… I may take two or three weeks off from posting. I do intend to finish this story, so don't think that I'm abandoning this story.

Just like to thank Kermita for her great ideas on this chapter and future chapters. Honestly, I wouldn't have a clue were this story was going if not for Kermita.

Sorry, again, in advance of any mistakes (punctuation-wise, grammar-wise and any mistakes that I've put in my story that didn't happen in the book). I haven't bothered to look back over this chapter, and the bottom third of it was written within an hour at around half 11 at night.

Escape Chapter 7: Ready and Waiting

Alex knew that he couldn't trust what soldiers said; soldiers followed orders, and as such, Alex was positive that their orders were to capture him and bring him back to England. And if a white lie was told in order to detain him, then so be it.

So when the soldier told him to go to Parc Saint-Pierre, Alex kept that place in his mind and nodded to the Sergeant, as if he was going to go along with the mans 'secret' order. Even if it did sound slightly genuine.

Alex pushed the man away from him, keeping hold of one of his arms, before pulling him back and simultaneously kicking out with his right foot, straight into the older mans stomach.

Winded, the Sergeant folded to his knees, before Alex turned to his side and brought his foot round, his toes pointing out, to smack straight into the side of the soldiers face. With the force of Alex's kick, the soldier was pushed to his side, landing on his arm unconsciously on the floor.

"One left," Alex muttered to himself, looking up at the remaining soldier, a glint in his eye.

Shark didn't know of any changed orders; only that he needed to capture Alex, and as such, kept his gun trained on the boy.

"Come on kiddo. I don't want to hurt you, but you gotta do what I say, and I say step away from the Sarge and put your hands in the air," Shark said, trying to put as much authority in his voice as possible. In this situation, though, with his two fellow soldiers knocked out by a teenager who was quite obviously trained in martial arts, authority wasn't an emotional that was portrayed well in his tone.

Alex smirked, stepping away from the Sergeant and towards Shark, his hands at his sides as he kept his eyes trained on the man.

"You're not going to hurt me. I know your orders. Capture me. Take me back to England. I very much doubt that seriously maiming or even killing me was in those orders," Alex paused, thinking, but continued to take slow steps forward. "Maybe you'll try to knock me out, so you'll hurt me a bit, but you won't do anything that I won't be able to fight you against."

Shark, finally grasping that Alex wasn't going to be swayed by a gun being pointed at his face, put his weapon away in it's holster at his hip.

"Alright then. If I have ta fight ya to capture ya, then so be it." Shark replied, his northern-accent coming through strong as the man become slightly nervous at the impending fight. Leaning forward slightly and spreading his legs shoulder-width apart, creating the standard pre-fighting stance so as to help him obtain the most balance he could, Shark watched Alex as the boy moved silently even closer to him.

Without warning, Alex punched towards the mans face with his left hand, his fingers in a fist, following up almost simultaneously with a hit towards the mans solar plexus, using a shotei uchi palm-heel strike .

Shark, believing Alex was going for his face, blocked the first punch using his forearm to push the strike away from his head, totally missing the second punch. Collapsing from the excruciating pain of the palm-heel strike, Alex used a mae geri kick, bringing his knee up and forward, his heel and toes pointing forward, before snapping his leg outwards and towards Sharks head.

As Shark became unconscious from the head strike, Alex turned his back to the man and saw the on-lookers looking at him with awe, fear, confusion and a bit of anger from the adults as they saw a teenager attacking a soldier. Alex just shrugged his shoulders, uncaring, before turning back to the three unconscious soldiers.

"What to do with you lot now," Alex murmured to himself, considering his options before picking Shark up under the mans arms and dragging him to the side of the train, opposite the travel-coach.

He then moved to do the same to the Sergeant and Lizard, putting all three of them an arms-width apart so that, in the event that they would awaken, they wouldn't be able to move without Alex noticing.

Finally, after all was done, Alex reached into his sleeve pocket and pulled out the gadget he had grabbed from his bag. Mobile phone, model 5, courtesy of Smithers during his third mission, Skeleton Key.

Although it's initial purpose was to keep Alex in-touch with MI6 - whether he was in space or underwater; or in this case, underground - when Alex was working with the CIA, Blunt wanted to keep in-touch with Alex because, as Smithers put it, 'you can't trust those Americans… and they have no sense of humour.'

However, Smithers being Smithers, had put a little extra punch to the mobile and had added in a drug inserted into it.

Opening the phone up, Alex moved towards the soldiers and bent close to the Sergeants neck. Pressing the aerial of the phone close to the mans skin, Alex pressed 999, and a needle darted out, instantly drugging the man with chemicals that would keep him unconscious for at least another half an hour - more time than Alex needed for the train to stop in France and to have at least 10-15 minutes of time to escape.

Manoeuvring to Shark's neck, Alex did the same with him as he had done to the Sergeant, another needle shooting out into the mans' blood veins. Likewise, he did the same to Lizard, using the last of three needles.

Moving away from them, Alex threw the phone in the air, and as it fell, slammed the top side of his foot into the phone, kicking it into the side of the train, smashing it to pieces upon impact.

He didn't know if there was a tracker system placed in the phone, but didn't want to leave it to chance so he knew he had to destroy it.

Searching in the bag he had dropped earlier, he pulled out anything he believed could hold a tracking system. In all actuality, almost all of his gadgets could hold tracking systems, but he knew he might have need of some of them in the future, so only destroyed the Sony Discman from his second mission and the inhaler from his sixth with Paul Drevin. He debated about his special trainers from Smithers, and took them off. Shaking them, he listened for any sounds of anything loose, anything to signify that anything extra was in them. Not hearing anything, he put them back on, deciding they were safe enough.

Pulling out the night vision, infrared goggles Smithers had given him for his second mission, knowing he would need them when he entered the dark streets of France.

The audience that had gathered around him started to talk, murmuring amongst each other, wondering who he was and why soldiers had wanted him.

They figured that because the army wanted him, he must be a teenage terrorist of some sort, someone high on England's wanted list. The boy was obviously dangerous; being able to take down three soldiers, as well as some sort of gadgets proved that.

And so, they concluded that the boy sitting on the floor watching the soldiers intently shouldn't be bothered by them. They were just in the tunnel for a trip to France, not to capture a child. That was for the army to do, not members of the public. And if the army couldn't do it, well, they certainly weren't going to.

For the remaining time that it took for the Euro-train to reach Port-de-Calais, Alex watched the soldiers for any signs of movements. Luckily, none were made, and when the train's doors were opened, Alex walked forwards and into the night of France.

***

Through the training of many years spent with his Uncle Ian, as well as his experience of being an unwilling spy for just under a year, Alex knew how to move silently amongst the stone pathway of France's streets.

Not only that, but his Uncle Ian had brought Alex to France plenty of times during his first 14 years of life, often using the Euro tunnel to commute between England and France. For Alex, this meant that he knew most of the roads surrounding Port-de-Calais, as well as the fastest way to get to Parc Saint-Pierre.

During his time spent watching the unconscious soldiers on the train, Alex had plenty of time to think, even if he knew he shouldn't; one second of lost concentration from watching the soldiers could be imminent death, or most likely he would be captured. The soldiers would have a vendetta against him because of their embarrassment of being knocked out by a kid in front of witnesses, and so would not capture Alex without pain coming to him.

However, he rationalised these thoughts with the 30 minutes knock-out poison that the men where under, and so allowed his mind to debate on what the Sergeant had told him he was to do.

Firstly, Alex knew that Blunt was most likely the man that had sent out the SAS to search for him.

Secondly, Alex knew that Blunt would want Alex back in Britain's hands, as England couldn't do much once Alex was on French soil; if the French military and government were to find out that a British spy was on their turf, accusations could be pointed at England for spying on their neighbours. This meant that Blunt couldn't risk asking the DGSE, - Direction Générale de Sécurité Extérieure - the equivalent of MI5, to help him bring Alex back to the U.K, because it was a risk that would include them finding out about Alex, and so could not ask for their help in his capture.

Lastly, Alex knew that soldiers would lie in order to complete what orders they were given. This meant that Alex wouldn't go to Parc Saint-Pierre because the soldier had told him to. Instead, he'd stick with his original plan, and get as far away from Blunt and his plans as possible.

Hopefully.

After Alex had stepped off the platform that the Euro train had stopped at, he used the light provided by lamp posts structured around the site to see where the cars where going to be moving to within minutes. Following the road, Alex climbed over a gate that the cars would be stopped at as they had to punch in their tickets that they received in England to prove that they have paid, and moved towards the shadows that streets provided.

He moved quickly, using his night-vision goggles regularly to help read signs to help direct him away from Calais. He past a Holiday Inn and the Hotel Belazur, tempted slightly by the idea of a warm bed, but wanted to save his money for emergency situations.

Passing along many streets, Alex came across Rue Richelieu, a street he knew led to the Office Tourisme Intercomm which he would need tomorrow; the office was closed at the late hour, so Alex continued onwards, memorising the street names as he travelled among them so he would be able to find his way back the next day.

Continuing onwards, he soon came to a Station Service Elf that was open. Alex firstly took off his goggles, placing them in his bag then walked into the store and browsed the shelves, picking up some familiar chocolate bars, a water bottle and a light roll-up cover that he could easy stuff into his backpack.

Walking to the till, Alex was served by a middle-aged man.

"Juste ceux-ci, s'il vous plaît" Just these, please Alex said to the server, using French to try not to seem as a tourist.

"Le peu en retard pour vous être hors, le ce n'est pas? C'est-à-dire 7.69€

" Bit late for you to be out, isn't it kid? That's 7 Euros 69c. The man replied, ringing up his purchases.

Alex handed the man 10 Euros that he'd managed to snab from Tony when the boy hand't been looking; Alex felt it was only fair - he had given the boy money to keep quiet, in return, Alex took his euros as a fair exchange.

"Je continue un voyage d'école et ai oublié demain d'obtenir quelques choses." Alex smiled sheepishly, "Rien n'aime les dernières courses du soir." I'm going on a school trip tomorrow and forgot to get a few things. Nothing like late night shopping. Alex laughed quietly, trying to look embarrassed.

The shopkeeper smiled in return; to him, children these days always leave it till the last minute, then they're in a rush to do everything at once. Not like back in his day, when he'd receive a smack round the head if he was so foolish to not be prepared days in advance.

With a quick 'merci' to the elder man, Alex left the station and walked around the street corner onto Rue du Tertre before opening the water bottle and taking a mouthful, then ripped into one of the chocolate bars and wolfed it down. After not eating since around mid-day during lunch at his school, Alex hadn't eaten anything since and was fairly hungry; running, coming up with plans and beating up three soldiers would wear anyone out.

Deciding that he should continue on and not risk the shopkeeper seeing him in the streets, Alex walked for another ten minutes until open gates appeared in front of him.

Within the gates, Alex could see many trees and flowers, lit up by street-lamps posted every five metres or so, a gravel pathway and he could hear the trickle of water that he assumed came from some sort of water fountain. There was also the sound of traffic, but Alex dismissed that as it was outside of the Parc.

Inside of Alex, he felt panic rising up, dread taking over as he thought of what would have trees, flowers, a gravel pathway and a water fountain; a park.

Listening carefully for anything that sounded suspicious, Alex thought of his options; he could turn around and head another way, or he could head into the Parc and have a bed; parks usually had benches, and as such, Alex could use one to get himself off the ground and sleep on it.

Then Alex thought of the Sergeant, and where he had told Alex to go to. Parc Saint-Pierre. Although Alex knew that the soldier was lying when he said his orders had changed and he was helping Alex, Alex couldn't help but feel curious about what would be awaiting him inside of the Parc. Alex was, by nature, a curious being, and if he was curious about something, he would more than likely check it out. This usually led up to the situations Alex had been in in the past; shot at, in pain and on the barrel-end of a gun, but still, Alex couldn't help but want to know what was waiting for him in the Parc. After all, the soldier might have been telling the truth, and someone could be there to help him.

On the other hand, someone may be there to capture him or worse, kill him.

But if there was one thing Alex was certain of, it was that he was going into that Parc and seeing if there was trouble or no trouble.

Moving forwards, Alex stepped towards the gates, and could see, imprinted onto a sign, the words 'Parc Saint-Pierre'. It confirmed Alex's suspicions. This was the place the Sergeant had told him to go to.

Taking a deep breath, Alex reached into his bag and grabbed the Harry Potter book. He didn't need the goggles; he could see perfectly fine with the streetlamps lighting up the way. Staying away from the lights, however, Alex moved into shrubbery to keep to the shadows. He circled the place, watching and waiting.

Not seeing anything, Alex climbed a tree and decided to stay put. The tree he was on was placed pretty much in the centre of the Parc, and as such it allowed Alex to see around him. Keeping an ear out, he listened to everything that was going on around him; the trickle he'd heard earlier was slightly louder now, closer to him, the sound of traffic in the distance also fairly loud now. He guessed, in France, it was approximately 8o'clock at night, so traffic would soon be slowing.

Settling in for the night, Alex waited for hours before he heard anything productive.

Footsteps, many of them, where in the Parc. Hitting the gravel, Alex could easily tell which direction they were coming from, and Alex turned his body that way, watching and waiting to see who was going to appear beyond the tree line, the Harry Potter book ready in his right hand to be used at any given moment, in the left the bug spray that he'd took out his bag earlier in the evening in his left.

A/N Yes, I know the phone would have only had 1 needle, but I needed 3, so I made it have 3. Simple.

Like I said at the top of this chapter, I won't be publishing for a while because I want to get more chapters written. Instead, I think (if I can plan it to go this way), I will be publishing a small chapter - somewhere around 1,000 words that will be a link to the next chapter, but it won't be in Alex's POV. It'll be in someone else's POV, that IS important to the story. However, although I have an idea of what that 1,000 word chapter is going to go like, I don't actually know if Alex's POV won't be included, because his POV may be needed to make the mini-chapter sound right. Although I have got an idea of what I'm going to publish for that chapter, it is unwritten - normally, I start out with a kinda-idea of the chapter, which then sounds nothing like what I'd originally thought of. Meh.

Review, me cherubs, review!