II
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"Give you a hard time, did he?"
The guard outside Cub's holding cell is lighting up another cigarette. The end glows against the darkening sky.
Wolf blinks against the sudden cold. His head is too full of the encounter he's just had to formulate a response, but the guard grins reads it in his face, and grins around a mouthful of smoke.
"Habit of his?" Wolf asks, wondering what this guy knows about Rider. He is MI6, after all.
The guard shrugs. "Wouldn't know really, mate. I've never met the kid before. But on the way up here he got one of our agents to take his cuffs off. He was half way out of the van before anybody noticed."
Wolf flashes back to France all of a sudden, recalling how the kid's face had crumpled into tears before that security man, only to lash out at his neck the second he hesitated. His throat tightens uncomfortably. Maybe he's too old to pull that card now, but the guard's story is still all too easy to picture. Injured, bleeding Cub, eyes wide and full of pain, pleading…
"Fucking assassins," he mutters. The guard laughs aloud.
He declines the offer of a smoke, heading to the mess hall instead. He hears the chatter of the soldiers before he even smells the food. The place is crammed to the brim tonight, with bodies squeezed onto every bench. A familiar face jumps out at him every so often from the throng. There's Leopard, who Wolf shared a tent with for five weeks on a mission, chatting with the cook. Jaguar from L Unit has a bunch of new recruits hanging off his every word. And that medic Scarab is eating with his head down in the corner.
At the table nearest to him, a group of men are collapsing with laughter, clapping one of their teammates on the back. Suddenly, Wolf doesn't want to be there.
Fairly sure that no-one has seen him, he slips from the hall and retreats to his cabin. With the door decidedly locked, he flicks through the meagre file that the Sergeant provided for him. There are exactly three pages about Alex Rider that the SAS has been deemed worthy of seeing, and a good third of the lines are blacked out with infuriating strips of tape. What's in there is virtually useless anyway, wildly disjointed and surely exaggerated. By the time he's on page two, Wolf is doubtful that he can trust any of it.
Damien Cray. Yassen Gregorovich. Unanticipated success but extensive collateral damage. July/August unauthorised: Venice. Debrief recording deleted.
Names and dates and places. They don't match up into one coherent story - not one that Wolf's willing to believe. It's the draft of a spy thriller that got rejected by every publisher, probably with "unrealistic" scrawled in the corner. Nothing that tells him who Cub is. He throws the thing down on his bunk and runs a hand through his hair.
Rider mentioned Scorpia. But that's literally all Wolf has to go on - that, and a handful of memories of a kid who doesn't seem to exist anymore.
There's no point trying to make any more sense of it tonight. But even with the events of the day weighing heavy on his bones, it's hard to find sleep in his old bed. Memories play out across the ceiling, flickering between the shadows, and there are crosshairs behind his eyes when he closes them.
.
.
The second time Wolf enters the holding cell, Rider is conscious. Surprisingly so – the camp is as quiet as it ever can be at this hour of the morning, free of the sounds of gunfire and engines. Wolf raises his eyebrows at the shadows under Rider's eyes when he sees him awake.
"Sleep while they're still letting you, kid," Wolf advises him, earning himself a weak scowl but no snappish retort this time.
Wolf settles down in the same seat as yesterday.
"So. Remembered those names yet?"
Rider's stare is professionally blank, but he can't quite conceal the irritation that must be itching under his skin, making his jaw tighter than it was yesterday.
"That's a shame. When as the last time you ate anything?"
Ah, a flicker. Wolf's strangely glad to know that even teenage contract killers get hungry.
"You're not going to let me starve," says Rider, but there's a thread of doubt in his voice nonetheless. Of course MI6 won't, but they'll use anything and everything they can to squeeze information out of him, and it sounds like he knows it.
"Come on, Cub. The food might be shit but it's better than nothing, right? We can do an exchange. Tell me who put out the hit, and I'll bring you some breakfast."
Rider's lips part tellingly. If that isn't a hint of temptation, Wolf doesn't know what is. But it's fleeting.
"Sorry. I don't give in that easily."
Frustration bubbles up inside of Wolf again. It's a feeling he's probably going to have to adjust to, he thinks with an inward sigh. Luckily, he has more than one route that he can take with this. Cub is trying to prove he isn't a rookie; fine, but Wolf isn't either.
He starts with more general questions this time. Unimportant ones that won't give him anything of value, that Cub hopefully won't have any reservations to answering. The hum of the lights fades into the background, a low buzz in Wolf's ears against the slightly rough tone of Rider's voice. He talks a lot more than Wolf expected, his answers short and more than often sarcastic.
The meeting the government worker was attending was private. How did Rider know where he was going to be? The people who hire him don't take chances; everything is coordinated. So they had contacts in the government? Of course they did, that's how they knew who to kill. Did he meet the contractor in person? Yes. Shockingly, a lot of people don't believe his reputation until they see it in the flesh. Rider couldn't guess why.
How did he slip a gun past security? Like every hitman does.
"Is that what you think you are?" Wolf asks curiously.
Rider shrugs. "What else would I be?"
"I don't know. What were you before?"
A strange expression crosses Rider's face. Regret surges up in Wolf, before he remembers that he's not supposed to feel anything in the region of guilt concerning what he does to Rider. If anything, he's being soft on him. Any other interrogator would have brought out the sharp objects by now…
And yet, seeing the conflict behind Rider's eyes that he's not quite talented enough to hide, Wolf almost wishes it was possible to give him space. Except this whole situation is designed for exposure: Rider's tied down with the wires; illuminated from every angle with the lights. Every thought and emotion belongs to Wolf, with nowhere for him to hide them but his mind. And to do that, he needs to stay one step ahead of Wolf at every turn.
It's exhausting just looking at him.
"I was whatever anybody needed me to be," Rider says eventually. When Wolf scoffs, he turns defensive. "What?"
"Okay, kid. If you were thirty, I might take that for an answer."
Something dark crosses Rider's face. "You think your holy government is above using children, Wolf? Think it's a completely new concept to them?"
"Using? I've read your file, kid. You agreed to all your missions."
Rider stares at him like he's a madman.
Apparently he's hit a nerve, because Rider refuses to speak another word. Wolf realises that he's not going to cooperate after ten minutes of solid silence, but he soldiers on, throwing questions at him until his voice is hoarse. By midday, he's tried every angle he can think of. Personal life, childhood, family, friends.
Eventually he gives up, leaning back in his chair and scrubbing a hand over his face.
"There's only so long you're gonna be able to keep this up, you know. MI6 will send in one of their lackeys. They won't go soft on you like I am."
"MI6 can go fuck themselves," says Rider, breaking his silence with true venom in his voice. "You can tell them that. And tell them I'll kill any operative they try and send to torture me."