Hello, sweet readers! Look at what I wrote because my brain didn't want to produce anything for SpyFest. Please review, I desperately need the attention... (I'm stuck inside sick while my friends are all having fun together...)
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VII
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"Follow mine and Snake's lead," Wolf orders as the task force closes in on the cabin. "And wait for my word. This is going to be messy. Shoot to incapacitate. We want them alive, but don't let them get away."
When they cross the final few yards and round the corner of the holding cell, Wolf realises how the MI6 agents were planning on dealing with the consequences of assailing two SAS soldiers.
They hadn't been planning on sticking around to deal with them.
The door of Cub's holding cell is thrown wide open, and parked beside the cabin is a black van – the one Cub had been brought here in, and the one they were seemingly planning to use to smuggle him out of the camp. Two of the agents and both guards are in Wolf's line of sight. The guards have their hands full, hauling along an uncooperative figure with bound hands. They whip around at the sound of the soldiers, faces stricken.
Wolf raises his gun and doesn't hesitate.
The fight is quick and brutal. Even if they hadn't been outnumbered and vastly outgunned, an MI6 team would be no match for one and a half trained SAS units. Wolf and Snake both go for the guards first, shooting them in the leg before they can reach for their own weapons. There are yelps of pain, and the guards drop Cub like a dead weight. Wolf is about to signal to hold off, in case Cub gets hit by a stray bullet, but no sooner has Cub hit the ground, he's rolling away, propelling himself out of the line of fire and into the nearby bushes.
Smart kid, Wolf thinks with a flash of pride, and then turns his attention back to his captors.
"Take them," he growls.
Leaving the injured guards for T Unit to deal with, Wolf launches himself at nearest agent, who happens to be Agent Ryan. He doesn't have time to run, only to react to the fist Wolf sends flying at his face with weak block. Wolf brushes it off and catches him with a hard punch to the ribs that sends him reeling back and smashing into the wall of the cabin. Ryan doubles up, and Wolf finishes him off with a knee in the gut that makes him crumple to the ground. Wolf yanks the agent's hands behind his back almost effortlessly, and binds them with the same kind of zip tie that they used on Cub.
Glancing across, Wolf sees the other agent and the guards in the same position, subdued, with T Unit's guns trained down on them.
Wolf opens his mouth to tell one of them to check the cabin for the final, missing agent – the leader, the interrogator – but before he can do it, he helpfully makes his whereabouts known. The low rev of an engine cuts through the air and the van screeches into action, back door flying open haphazardly. Already in the driver's seat, the agent must have decided to abandon his fellow operatives and try to make a getaway.
He doesn't get far. Before Wolf can even say anything, Snake is on it, shooting out the tires. The vehicle flails wildly, forcing the driver to slam on the brake. The van skids to an abrupt, shuddering stop. When the agent emerges from the driver's seat, he doesn't even have the chance to put both feet on the ground before there's a bullet in his leg. He falls on his face with a cry of pain that doesn't make Wolf feel remotely sorry for the man. He's the one who cut up Cub. He deserves everything that's coming to him.
And just like that, it's over. The lingering sound of the gunshots is already fading from Wolf's ears. A hushed, questioning silence falls over them as Snake goes over to arrest the final agent.
"Take them to Cabin 10," Wolf instructs. "And fetch the Sergeant. Now!"
But when they begin to escort the agents away, he holds out a hand.
"Wait a second."
Wolf strides up to one of the bound operatives: the guard who tortured Cub.
The guard's face is contorted with pain; he looks up at Wolf with fear in his eyes. Wolf draws back his fist, pulls together all the anger in his body, and punches the guard square in the face. His nose breaks under the force of Wolf's fist with a crack and a splattering of blood that would be sickening, if it didn't give Wolf a vindictive surge of satisfaction.
"Wolf," comes Snake's voice in his ear, low and urgent voice. "Cub."
Wolf doesn't waste any more time.
"Get them out of here," he growls, and then it's over; the agents are dealt with, and the only thought on Wolf's mind is Cub.
They find him a few feet away, lying motionless. The first thing Wolf does is pull out the knife from his belt and cut through the ties on his wrists, letting them fall to the ground. He can't help his grimace at the sight of the raw, bloodied skin underneath, even though he knows it's far from the worst of Cub's injuries. He hears Snake's sharp intake of breath when they roll Cub over and he sees the mess they've made of him.
"We need to get him somewhere with more light," Snake says. "And a flat surface. I need to check him over properly."
He's glancing back at the holding cell, but Wolf shakes his head.
"Not there," he says. "He's spent long enough in there. I know where to take him…"
Minutes later, they're throwing open the door of K Unit's old barracks, and Wolf is laying Cub down gently on his old bunk. Snake flicks on the light switch, and something in Wolf twists when he sees the state Cub is in.
"God, what did they do to him…" Snake mutters.
Cub is half-conscious, his eyes closed but restless beneath his eyelids, his lips moving weakly. He's littered in bruises, some from the fall he took a few days ago but some of them fresh. The bullet wound isn't just a bullet wound anymore: it's been hacked at, picked apart, surrounded by so many lacerations that his shoulder is a mess of bloody tissue. And now that he's looking for them, Wolf doesn't miss the fucking cigarette burns on his arm.
Wolf swallows down nausea.
"He needs water," says Snake, an order behind his words, and Wolf pulls himself together enough to comply. He crosses the room, fills the cup beside the sink and passes it to Snake, who carefully presses it Cub's lips and makes him drink.
"Get me a bucket and a medical kit."
Snake goes into full medic mode. His voice is calm and cool as he treats Cub, his hands moving expertly to clean away the blood. Wolf can't do much but fetch items for him, and watch. Sometimes Cub's face twists in pain; sometimes he falls so still that Wolf's heart skips a beat.
Cub stirs to consciousness when Snake is rinsing blood out of the cloth he was using at the sink. His eyes flicker open blearily, roving over the ceiling before they land on Wolf. He looks confused.
"What… are you doing?" he manages to mumble.
"We're fixing you up, Cub."
His frown deepens, uncomprehending, but before he can say anything else, Snake returns, sinking down at Cub's side.
"Try to keep still, alright?" he says softly, his Scottish accent pronounced, and Cub's eyes slip shut again when Snake begins pressing the antiseptic into his wounds.
Time passes strangely over the next hour or so. Snake works tirelessly, treating every one of the cuts individually, and then bandaging and re-bandaging them when the blood continues to seep through nonetheless. Fuck, he's lost a lot of blood. He's so pale, and he's gone so still now, no longer restless but listless and looking far too deathly for Wolf's liking. The Sergeant turns up at one point, and he goes pale himself at the sight of Cub. He doesn't stay long, but he informs them that high command has given them custody of Alex Rider for the foreseeable future.
Cub is away from MI6. Now, they just need to see if they can fix everything that MI6 has done to him in time.
The ambulance arrives from the air. The helicopter touches down onto the camp's helipad, and then paramedics are rushing Cub onto a stretcher, with Wolf following closely behind.
"We can only take one of you," shouts one of the paramedics over the roar of the propellers, when Wolf climbs into the chopper right behind them.
Just try to fucking stop me, Wolf thinks. The devil himself couldn't drag him away from Cub, after all this. But when he looks back to the ground, the Sergeant has arrived, and he gives Wolf a short nod of permission.
The SAS camp shrinks to a doll's house in the distance as they rise into the air.
"Jesus," says one of the paramedics, from Cub's side. "Someone really did a number on him."
They really had. In more ways than the paramedic could possibly know.
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Wolf stares at the blood that drains through the tubing and into Cub's veins through a needle in his arm. It's Wolf's. When they told him that Cub needed a blood transfusion, he'd volunteered off the bat. Now, it hits him abruptly that this really wasn't how he pictured an interrogation assignment to play out.
Cub was in surgery for so long that Wolf's stomach was working itself into knots of worry, and he was just about to pull one of the nurses aside and ask if something had gone wrong when the rather weary-looking surgeon finally exited the room, pulling off her gloves.
"He's stable," she'd told Wolf, and he'd almost had to sit down in relief. "For now. Your medic prevented any infection from setting in." She looked Wolf up and down, and shook her head. "I don't want to know how someone so young ended up in that state. You're with the Special Air Services, aren't you?"
Wolf nodded. Being the nearest hospital to the SAS camp, they must be used to seeing some unconventional injuries.
"Someone will be around with the Official Secrets Act soon enough," he'd told her. She shook her head again, looking thoroughly unhappy with the situation, despite having saved her patient. Wolf had hesitated, but spoken again, as she was turning to leave. "It won't be happen again," he'd promised, as much for his own ears as for hers. "I'll see to it."
Wolf was in Cub's room as soon as they'd allowed him in.
Unconscious against the stark white sheets, the bruising on Cub's face stand out more than ever; his hair messy and his face smoothed over with sleep. He looks his age. They've separated him from the other patients; this ward is airy and empty save for Wolf, Cub, and the assortment of IVs pumping various liquidy concoctions into Cub. Wolf supposes that someone from high command will arrive soon, and he'll have to explain things. Perhaps he should write something down beforehand; Wolf had never been the best at speaking when he's put on the spot. Wolf gnaws on his lip. No, this definitely wasn't how he had pictured the interrogation going. And the truth about Cub is still as much of a mystery as it had been at the beginning.
"M-mmm…"
Wolf's eyes snap over to Cub. He's beginning to stir. Wolf is just moving to call for the doctor when he hesitates, his training kicking in. The last time Cub was fully conscious, he was being tortured. Wolf needs to be tactful.
Cub blinks awake slowly, noticeably wincing against the brightness of the white hospital walls. When his eyes find Wolf, they widen slightly, and Wolf thinks he sees apprehension flash through them before a wall of impassive blankness comes down over them like a mask. Cub's eyes shift to the IVs, the blood bag, and he realises where he has been taken. Then his head falls back against the pillow, his eyes slip shut again, and he lets out a long breath.
"Hey, Cub."
"Is this how Blunt is going to play it then?" Cub says quietly. His voice is hoarse. He sounds utterly exhausted. Wolf's chest aches in pity for the kid. "Torture me, then fix me up? Over and over again? Fucking hell, I thought he would at least get it over with quickly."
Wolf knows that he needs to set the record straight immediately.
"Cub, Six are out of the picture. The agents that tortured you are under arrest. You're in SAS custody now."
Cub's eyes shoot open. Doubt practically radiates from him as he searches Wolf's face.
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"Why would they be under arrest?"
"Because they were using some pretty unacceptable methods on you. It didn't sit well with me. Nor with the Sergeant. And besides, you're only seventeen. You shouldn't have been there in the first place."
"My age has never stopped them before," Cub says sharply. "Why should it matter now?"
"Maybe it doesn't matter to Six, but it means something to the SAS. And they brought you onto our turf. You knew you were being held at Brecon Beacons, right?"
He knew Cub had recognised the cabin the moment he'd woken up in the holding cell.
Cub's eyes are still wide and round and sceptical, as if he doesn't dare to believe it.
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" he asks, although it sounds like he's starting to wonder if it can possibly be true – that he's out, that it's over, that he's safe.
Wolf shrugs. "Wait and see, kid. The Sergeant will be here soon, and someone from high command should turn up in the next few days. But you won't be seeing any MI6 agents in the near future."
Cub's eyes fall to the hospital sheets. Wolf can see him struggling to take it in. He gives the kid privacy, averting his own eyes as Cub processes it all. He gets to his feet and fetches a nurse, telling her that Cub is awake, she returns with Cub's surgeon. Wolf hovers at the side-lines as she checks over Cub, running through questions about pain and nausea and dizziness and a dozen other frightening possibilities. Cub replies to every one with short, quiet answers, his eyes downturned and his mind clearly elsewhere, and when she's done, she leaves them alone again.
A long silence falls between them, so long that Wolf begins to notice the faint ticking of the clock on the other side of the room. He idly watches the spider on the opposite wall painstakingly making its way towards the open window. He sure as hell isn't going to force Cub to talk if he's not ready.
"Why?" Cub asks, when he finally speaks. His voice is strained. "Why would the SAS want to help me? Why do you want to help me?" His gaze is piercing. "I'm an assassin."
Suddenly Wolf's throat is uncomfortably tight.
"I know you are," he acknowledges, trying to keep his voice neutral, and forcing himself not to look away. He had known, deep down. The MI6 interrogator had treated Cub like a traitor. There had to be at least a grain of truth to the accusations against Cub; they couldn't all be lies, even if they'd been distorted by MI6. Cub was a contract killer. "Still doesn't make it right, what they did to you."
Wolf shifts in his chair, wondering how to phrase this.
"Listen, Cub. You're safe for now, okay? If you don't want to talk about anything, nobody's going to torture you into it. Six kept us pretty much in the dark about you. The things they did tell us were exaggerated, mixed in with a few lies. But if you can tell me anything that would help, about how you went from being Special Ops to… to Scorpia. It might help, if the information comes from you, rather than someone else." It will make you look less guilty, hangs in the air, unsaid.
Cub turns away from him, sinks back into the pillows. Wolf notices the blood bag is empty now. The last of the red drains from the tube into Cub's system, and then only the dregs remain. For a few minutes, he doesn't respond, and Wolf doesn't think he will talk. But then...
"It was six months ago," says Cub. His eyes are fixed firmly upon the opposite wall. "Blunt sent me to Russia. There was a hostage situation… it wasn't good. There were kids involved. Three of them had already been killed, because the agent Blunt sent before me was bloody incompetent."
Wolf has heard one side of this story already, from Snake.
"Anyway, we got them out alive, but I ended up in hospital. I took a few too many risks. Got myself pulverised."
"Why?" Wolf questions.
He sees Cub take a deep breath.
"To be perfectly honest, I didn't really care what happened to me. A week before the mission, I got back from another one, and I… I found my guardian dead on the kitchen floor." Cub's eyes have a glassy, deadened quality to them. "I was always scared about someone targeting her. One of the enemies I'd made. But that wasn't even it. She'd just had an accident. Fallen from one of the counters and cracked her head on the tiles. She'd already been dead for two days. But the paramedics said she might have had a chance, if someone else had been with her, to call an ambulance. If I'd been with her."
"Shit, Cub," Wolf mutters. No wonder the kid was borderline suicidal. Wolf had seen soldiers carrying that kind of guilt around with them, when they came back from deployment; he'd seen what it could do to a person. "I'm sorry."
Cub shakes his head, and anger twists his features.
"You know what Blunt said? He said it was unfortunate. Then he sent me on another mission six days later. I missed her funeral."
Jesus, Wolf thinks. He was never going to complain about the Sergeant again.
"Anyway, I got myself fucked up on the hostage mission, and Scorpia came to me when I was in hospital. They sent in one of their agents in disguised as a nurse. We didn't exactly, uh, see eye to eye before then. Me and Scorpia. I ruined one of their operations, a few years back, and they tried to have me assassinated for it. I thought they might be looking for revenge again. But that wasn't it. Turns out they'd been keeping tabs on me… and they wanted me back."
Wolf's eyebrows go up in surprise. The name Scorpia was associated with ruthlessness and vengeance, not forgiveness.
"They wanted you as an operative?"
Cub shrugged, and then immediately winced as the motion dislodged his shoulder. "Kind of. I had a pretty high success rate. I made a bit of a name for myself, over the past few years. But mostly, I think they wanted to piss off MI6. 'Look, we managed to turn your teenage agent.' Maybe they'd been hired to make the British Intelligence look incompetent, or weak, or something. I didn't ask."
"You joined them, though."
Wolf thinks he sees shame weigh down Cub's eyes.
"I just… I just couldn't stop thinking about what Blunt had said. Like Jack dying was a fucking inconvenience for him. And the things the Scorpia agent said – that Blunt was running me into the ground. She was right, to be honest. I couldn't go on like that for much longer… I just didn't want to be his fucking pet agent anymore." He pushes a hand through his hair. "I was stupid. And angry. I knew they were using me to spite MI6, but... shit, I wanted to spite them just as much as Scorpia did."
Wolf can understand that, alright. "Why go with Scorpia though, Cub, if you wanted out? Why not just run away from everything?"
Cub shakes his head. "You don't understand what MI6 are like. I didn't start working for them by choice. They told me they'd deport my guardian. And where was I supposed to go? There wasn't anywhere that they wouldn't be able to find me."
The pieces are beginning to fall into place in Wolf's mind. Cub was blackmailed into the world of espionage, and then once he was in the game, he was trapped in it. There was no quitting, no retiring. His only option was to switch sides.
"They offered me protection," Cub says, his voice small and full of shame. "I know what Scorpia is. I know how vile they are. But they knew me too. They only offered me missions I wouldn't object to. It was like you said. Cherry-picking. The people they sent me to kill... they weren't exactly great people. I guess they wouldn't have let a regular agent do that, but I don't think I was a long-term investment as an assassin. They wanted me for my reputation. To show me off to the world and all that. They probably would have killed me when the novelty wore off."
Wolf leans back. Finally, finally, he understands.
"I…" Cub is struggling again. "I regretted it. As soon as I fired the first shot, I regretted it. He was a fucking person. And I killed him." His eyes squeeze shut. "I only managed four hits. Then I couldn't take it any longer." He glances around at the hospital room. "You should have left me to MI6. I don't deserve this."
Wolf doesn't even know where to start with that. Before he can reply, though, something else that Cub said plays over in his mind, and catches his attention. He frowns.
"What do you mean, you couldn't take it any longer?"
Cub was apprehended, by surprise, during one of his hits...
Cub drags a hand over his eyes. "It was you that shot me down, right? MI6 knew where I was going to be because of an anonymous tip-off. That was me."
Wolf's eyes widen.
"Shit, Cub. That… that changes things."
He sees cold anger flit across his features again. "I knew they would torture me, but I didn't anticipate them using you. MI6 requested you, didn't they?"
Wolf nods in affirmation.
"That's Blunt's idea of a threat. Using you against me. Now that Jack's gone, maybe he has a fucking list or something, of people he can blackmail me with…"
Wolf has already heard this, back in the cell, when he was being interrogated by the agents.
"You said that was why you didn't tell me anything," he says. "Because you wanted to keep me away from all this."
Cub nods. Then he cocks his head at Wolf.
"Why didn't you stay out of it? You could have just left me to them."
Wolf's eyebrows go up.
"You think you're the only one who protects your own?" Wolf shakes his head. "You trained with us, kid. With me. No way I was leaving you to those bastards. And besides, this isn't just about you. If the head of MI6 has been exploiting you left, right and centre, he could have been doing all sorts of other shady shit. And those agents were fucking sadistic. If that's how Alan Blunt is training operatives to treat prisoners, then someone needs to step in. Special Ops is one branch of the government. They're not God."
A crease appears in Cub's brow. He blinks, as if that's a point he hasn't considered before.
Still, there's one thing that he isn't willing to let go.
"Wolf… I killed people. I assassinated four people in cold blood. I have blood on my hands…"
"And I'm not saying that's okay," Wolf cuts through him. "But you had a bunch of shitty choices. Jesus, Cub, you're seventeen. Most adults would have cracked in that situation. And you turned yourself in. You weren't planning on staying an assassin. That's gonna go a long way in your defence."
Cub is looking at him like he can't comprehend what Wolf is saying.
"Listen," says Wolf, leaning forward. "Let's just say that they wouldn't have sent me in as a sniper, if they thought I would miss."
Cub's eyes widen in realisation. Oh. Wolf digs his nails into his palms.
"We're not civilians, Cub. It's not like we haven't seen all kinds of fucked up shit before. You don't need to try and protect us."
Silence falls again. This time, though, it's one of mutual understanding.
"Thank you," Cub says quietly, eventually. "For getting me out of there."
"You're welcome, kid."
The sound of the door opening has Wolf looking over his shoulder. The nurse gestures for him to leave the room.
Wolf turns back to Cub before he does.
"Looks like the professionals are going to do their thing. But listen, Cub, I'm gonna be on the other side of the door until… well, until someone with a bigger gun than me tells me to leave. If you need anything, you call for me. You hear?"
Cub nods. Wolf thinks he sees his lips twitching, in what could almost be the shadow of a smile.
The exhaustion of the night's events hits Wolf as he sinks down into the chair outside Cub's room. But he doesn't sleep. He strips off his combat jacket and sits up upright, keeping watching and waiting. The fallout is just beginning. It's going to be big, and Wolf is going to be there for every single second of it.