Chapter Text
Alex Rider was feeling deliciously full, his teenage appetite pleasantly satisfied after sharing a meal with Jack at a cosy restaurant in the embassy district of Abu Dhabi. Sagitta had insisted on the location, Marcus reasoning that with so many other security personnel in the area it was a relatively safe area for a spur of the moment celebratory meal.
Alex, or rather, Orion, had completed his second ‘graduation’ assignment with the death of Warren and the complete destruction of his home in Australia. He had also survived the debriefing with Dr Three afterwards, something he hadn’t been entirely sure would actually happen. He had been fairly confident that Yassen would be accepting of the way he’d completed the mission, knowing as he did Alex’s feelings on the matter of torture, but Dr Three . . . well that was another matter. One that had happily come out in his favour for once.
A celebration was in order, Alex decided as he embraced Jack. Neither had enjoyed their forced separation and the hug was long and heartfelt, a tension Alex hadn’t even been aware of easing with her in his arms. He was taller than her now, he noticed in amusement.
“Marcus, we’re going out for dinner,” Alex announced, to the collective disapproval of his security team, Sagitta. “You can pick, I know how you feel about these things,” he continued, feeling magnanimous in his euphoria of, you know, not being dead.
After a tasty meal, Alex mentally snorting at how Yassen would disapprove as he selected fried fish and chips (with extra chips), they decided to walk it off and headed off towards the nearby riverfront. Ivey was ahead on point, Marcus behind Alex and Jack, and Shale and Mace were behind him, while Jarek and Adams took the cars down to the waterfront. Alex was laughing at something Jack had just said, imagining Smithers’ face when he received the necklace she’d sent him, when he saw Ivey suddenly spin around towards them. His face was contorted.
“DOWN!” he screamed.
It was probably only sheer instinct that allowed Alex to react so quickly. In one swift movement he had pushed Jack sideways towards the wall, sheltering her body with his own. A second later there was an enormous roar. Time seemed to slow down. Bright, white light flared blindingly. The roar expanded, growing even louder, then came the noise of showering glass and debris and falling people – was that a body? Was that Ivey? At the same time Alex felt himself being lifted into the air from the force of the - bomb? Was that a bomb? - Jack falling in front of him, then all went dark as his head slammed into something hard and concrete, and he knew no more.
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The first inkling that Yassen had that something was wrong was when he heard a guard reporting an explosion to Dr Three, across the bay, in the center of Abu Dhabi.
“Hmmm,” Dr Three mused thoughtfully, “We don’t have anything scheduled for this area anytime soon.” Yassen looked across the dining table at him, rising to his feet abruptly and pulling out his phone.
“Orion is in town having dinner.”
The call to Alex went unanswered, as did the subsequent calls to Marcus, Adams and Jack. Security teams were dispatched to the scene for an assessment, while Yassen paced back and forth, waiting for Alex to get in touch. After what felt like an interminable wait, Yassen’s phone lit up with an incoming call from Marcus.
“Status?” Yassen snapped.
“Orion has vanished.” Marcus shouted into the phone. “We need back up.”
“Vanished.” Yassen’s voice was like ice. “Explain.”
But Marcus continued to shout down the phone.
“I can’t hear you; my hearing’s been blown by the bomb. We’re on Al Yaqout Street near the entrance to the Embassy of Lebanon. The place is a mess, you need to get here ASAP.” The phone went dead in Yassen’s hand as he snapped orders to Hill and Danube, striding towards the exit as he did so.
Danube scrambled to keep up with him. “Sir,” Hill began, then hesitated, clearly thinking that it wasn’t safe for the executive to go, but nervous about contradicting Yassen Gregorovich.
"It may not be safe for you. Perhaps..."
Yassen stopped. Fixed him with a cold expression. Hill cleared his throat.
"I'll get additional security..."
They left, Hill not at all happy with the situation but unable to overrule Mr Gregorovich. He did what he could, then simply hoped that nothing else would occur with this mess.
The street looked like a war zone when they arrived, with each end having been cordoned off by the police. A smoking crater stood in the center, twisted shards of the remnants of some sort of vehicle scattered and smoking around its edges.
The front of the Lebanese Embassy was gone. It had been torn open; the rear of the building exposed on every level. Papers and other unidentifiable debris flew lazily through the air, rising and falling as they moved through the patches of hot air generated by multiple fires both in and outside of the embassy.
Nearby buildings on both sides of the street had also been blown open, and every vehicle in the street was either on fire, smouldering or had been blown apart. A few bodies lay scattered around the area, burnt beyond recognition apart from being vaguely human shaped. Survivors sat in ambulances, being triaged by the paramedics as they stared vaguely at nothing at all.
Some of team Sagitta were huddled at the edge of the destruction, just outside the police cordons with Jack. They were all covered in black soot, ash and blood, with various wounds. Yassen felt his misgivings rise at the sight of blood running from their ears. That didn’t bode well for what state they might find Alex in. A frissen of unease uncoiled in Yassen’s core as he took in their surroundings. Where was Alex? Was he badly injured - or was he dead? Where was he?
Mace, completely ignoring his own, milder injuries, was working on Ivey, who had extreme burns all over the back of his body. He was unconscious, and a lot of blood was oozing out of a deep gash on the side of his head. Shale, also only slightly hurt due to his position with Mace behind the rest of the group when the attack occurred, was trying to apply a bandage to Marcus, who was shouting at him angrily and trying to push him aside with one arm, his other arm - which had clearly been injured in some way - hanging uselessly at his side. Jack was patting Marcus on his shoulder, she and Shale both trying to get him to sit down so they could check him over. Paramedics, having seen the weapons on blatant display and observed Mace and Shale’s competence, had passed the group by, moving to assist other victims at the scene instead.
The group caught sight of Yassen as he approached. The expression on his face made them shrink back at once. Marcus turned; and flinched back as Yassen came to a halt in front of him.
"Report." The anger underlying Yassen's tone was palpable.
“Sir! A car exploded further down the street from us. It knocked us all out and when we came to Orion was gone,” Marcus shouted, his hearing still affected by the blast. “Adams and Jarek are searching for him now.”
Yassen flicked a look at his escort, and the Azov and Baikal teams immediately left to search for Alex as well. Danube stayed with Yassen, stationing themselves around him in a clearly protective manner.
“Show me,” Yassen ordered Marcus tersely. Glaring at Shale who had been trying to treat him, Marcus stepped out onto the footpath. Cradling his injured arm, he staggered a dozen meters closer towards the zone of destruction. A policeman started to stop them, took a good look at them and visibly decided not to bother, stepping aside and letting them through.
"Orion was here. Ivey saw something ahead and turned back to warn us," Marcus stated, his voice still louder than normal. "I turned to cover Orion, but it all happened so fast - there was no time." He visibly swallowed; glanced at Yassen as if expecting immediate reprisal. When none came, he continued. "It's a bit of a blur what happened next because we were all knocked out, but we think Orion hit the wall here..." He stepped sideways, pointing out a wall to Yassen's right. There was a smear of blood starting slightly higher than Alex's height. Yassen's eyes traced the smear downwards, towards the ground. "But when we came to, Orion was gone," Marcus muttered. Yassen could hear the guilt underlying his tone. He didn't comment.
Yassen looked around. There was blood and unidentifiable pulp on many of the walls and surfaces in the area, dripping and slowly sliding downwards. Chunks of charred and smoking flesh scattered around the ground. But Yassen's eyes kept coming back to the smear of blood on the concrete wall that Marcus had pointed out to him. Alex's blood.
"Vo etu pizdets." The curse had slipped out before he could stop it. The control Yassen had so carefully cultivated throughout his life had somehow evaporated in an instant with the knowledge that Alex was gone. What the hell had gone wrong?
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The smell of smoke, the taste of metal and burning flesh in his mouth.
Dull roaring and simultaneous ringing in his ears.
Pain. Aching, throbbing, stabbing pain.
Eyes fluttering, struggling to open.
Something holding him down.
A sharp prick in his arm.
Oblivion.
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Back at Malagosto, Dr Three was viewing the real time results of Alex’s tracker when Yassen strode into his office without bothering to knock.
“He’s in Iraq,” Dr Three informed Yassen.
"Iraq?" How had he got there so quickly? It had been less than three hours. Yassen swore internally, falling into the chair opposite Dr Three a good deal less gracefully than he usually did. Dr Three eyed him, and then turned back to the screen.
“He’s moving. Given the speed and trajectory it appears that he’s on a plane.” Dr Three shared a look with Yassen. He understood, as much as Yassen did, that this was not good news.
Dr Three’s assistant touched his hand to his ear, then moved from where he was standing behind the doctor to turn the large TV mounted on the wall in front of them on.
A news report filled the screen with images of the devastation, a reporter standing at the end of the street where it had been cordoned off.
“. . . the number of dead is not yet known. Authorities are saying that the suicide bomber drove a vehicle filled with explosives down the street at approximately 10.15pm. The target was the Embassy of Lebanon, and the nearby embassies of Pakistan, Morocco, and Tunisia were also damaged.
The Taliban has already taken responsibility for the attack, stating that it was a direct result of the withdrawal by the UAE of their offer to host a Taliban embassy.
The UAE withdrew their offer when the Taliban refused to meet the three conditions set . . .”
Dr Three’s assistant muted the sound as an operative knocked on the door, entering immediately after.
“Sirs. There is no sign of the MI6 agents known to be in Abu Dhabi. Persons fitting their descriptions were seen boarding a plane one and a half hours ago at the international airport, accompanied by a stretcher with a body strapped to it. Our informant said the body appeared to be an unconscious youth with blond hair.”
“Get me all surveillance footage from the area of the bombing, as well as between there and the airport,” Dr Three ordered, turning to Yassen. “He only arrived back today. I don’t have high opinions of MI6, but I don’t think they would blow up several embassies just to capture Orion.”
“No,” Yassen replied heavily. He could still see the smear of blood down the wall in his mind. He could feel his control slipping away, robbing him of his usual cool, calm demeanour. Alex was gone, was out of his reach, and there was nothing he could do about it. Yassen was shaking as he tried to repress his emotions. Tried, and failed. “How the fuck did this happen?” he ground out. “Did MI6 manage to capture their most wanted target by blind luck?”
“At a guess I’d say they were just in the right place at the right time. Probably shadowing Orion while he had dinner and were just close enough to take action once the bomb went off. Clever of them to think on their feet like that,” Dr Three mused, earning himself a dirty look from Yassen.
As the hours passed while they watched the tracking results, it became clearer and clearer that Alex was on his way to London. Yassen’s mood, dark to begin with, deteriorated as time went on. All he could see was that smear of blood, sliding down the wall. All he could think of was Alex, back in the hands of MI6. The people who used a child with no regard for his safety. The people who failed him so completely, time and time again. Alex, his Alex, back with those monsters. Yassen growled internally, restraining himself from throwing his coffee cup at the wall, as he spun about suddenly, jabbing a pointed finger angrily at Dr Three.
“I will move heaven and earth to get him back. I will make them pay. He’s mine. He’s fucking mine. And nobody, nobody, lays a goddamn finger on him without my permission,” Yassen snarled.
Dr Three blinked mildly, before opening his mouth to reply. “Ours.”
“What?” Yassen snapped.
“Ours,” Dr Three repeated calmly. “He’s ours. And oh yes, we will make them pay. We will make them pay dearly. An example will need to be set.”
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Alex woke slowly, cracking open heavy eyelids that were crusted shut with something. He squinted and blinked groggily, trying to lift his arm to scrub at his eyes before abruptly realizing that he was unable to move. A moment of panic followed, thinking he’d been paralyzed in the - oh shit that was a bomb, is Jack OK? Ivey! Oh my god Ivey! He looked like he was dead what the fuck is going on - before he realized that he was sitting in a chair, with his arms, chest and legs restrained somehow. Blinking his eyes clear, he looked up and around the room, noting a man sitting in the corner near the door. The red lights of a camera shone in the corners of the dim grey room, and a mirror filled the wall opposite him.
A heavy feeling of dread uncurled in his stomach as Alex recognized the room. It was the very same one that they had thrown him into, all those years ago when he first found this building. Somehow, he was in the hands of MI6, back in the Royal & General Bank in Liverpool Street. Back where it had all begun. Alex had no idea how it had happened, but he was in London. In the hands of MI6. In the hands of Blunt. Fear rose within him before he could stop it, making him feel more like a teenager than he had in a long time. What would they do to him? He’d betrayed them. Chosen Scorpia over them. Killed people.
No. Alex stopped that line of thought. Blunt had caused that. He had caused it all. Blunt. Not me. Blunt had made the choices that led to me fleeing them. He was responsible, not me. Pushing the fear away, Alex allowed anger to grow in its place.
Breathing deeply to regain control, he took a moment to look at his own reflection in the mirror, noting without surprise the gash across his forehead and the dried blood that had dripped from it into his eyes and down his face. His head ached and he probably had a concussion, but he wasn’t expecting medical care anytime soon. Black, brown and red grubbiness was smudged everywhere he could see, and his hair was covered in it too. He stank. Alex hoped it was all his own blood and not Jack’s or any of Sagitta’s, but the memory of bodies hitting the ground rose to mind unbidden. He shoved it aside ruthlessly, suppressing yet another bad memory.
Keeping his movements as unobtrusive as he was able to, Alex flexed his arms and legs in turn, straining only a little against the cable ties that secured each limb to the chair. Shackles on his wrists. A strap ran across his bare chest and another across his upper thighs, which were thankfully enclosed in boxer shorts, but not the ones he’d been wearing - great, some bastard has undressed me again. He could feel that his feet were bare and what felt like handcuffs were secured to each ankle. What he could see of his arms was bruised, cut and grubby, blood and black soot or ash or something smudged all over them, just like his face.
Alex tilted his head from side to side, flexing his neck muscles to relieve the tension he was feeling there. He lifted his shoulders and moved them in small circles as he did so, a throbbing pain in his forearm suddenly making itself known, probably from when he’d hit the wall – oh god Jack, Ivey! Moments later the door opened, and a man entered the room. He was dressed in a simple, conservative business suit, and was unfamiliar to Alex.
“Alex Rider,” The man stated in a faint European accent. Alex kept his face blank and stared at him, not speaking. It wasn’t a question after all. He tagged the man as Stooge #1 in his mind.
“We have some questions for you. Will you answer?”
“I will speak with Alan Blunt,” Alex replied calmly. A look of surprise crossed the man’s face before he regained control.
“I don’t know who that is. Tell me about Scorpia. What has been happening with the executive board members?”
Yassen would be so disappointed in me if I was that easy to read, Alex thought to himself, as he ignored the man and looked up into the mirror, choosing a spot in the center, slightly higher up. He gazed steadily at that spot and didn’t speak. The agent repeated his question. Alex again ignored him. A second later the agent had crossed the room and slapped Alex, hard, across the face.
“Look at me, boy. This isn’t some game you’re playing. Answer the questions or you’ll face the consequences.”
Face the consequences? Alex thought hysterically, trying not to laugh. What are we, back in school again? Am I going to get a time out? He returned his gaze to the same spot and didn’t say anything.
Stooge #1 tried; Alex had to give him that. He shouted in Alex’s face. Slapped him a few more times. Thumped him in his chest, which did cause a gasp as Alex realized he was injured somewhere there, near his hip around the back. Some sort of gash maybe? It was a stabby sort of pain, anyway, annoying but easy enough to put out of his mind. It didn’t feel drippy so it probably wasn’t bleeding too badly. After a few hours of yelling, the man finally left. It was a pretty lame attempt at interrogation, Alex thought. Dr Three would be disgusted.
Alex didn’t think Stooge #1 had read his file, as he’d basically just ranted at him like he was a teenager, probably just to see what Alex would do. Alex hadn’t said another word, just stared at the same spot on the mirror the whole time.
Inside the viewing room, Alan Blunt stood and stared back at Alex. It was unnerving, the way the boy’s eyes bored directly into his own. Blunt knew that Alex couldn’t possibly see him through the mirror and shouldn’t have any idea where he was being imprisoned, but still . . . it made his skin crawl, and not many things did that.
After Stooge #1 had left, Alex stretched his neck muscles again, repeating his earlier tensing and flexing throughout his body. Completing his exercises, he simply sat, thinking about how long it had been since the explosion. Probably less than a day. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious, and London was about 7, maybe 8 hours away by air. There’d been an injection at some point too, hadn’t there? Looking down at his inner elbow he saw a red dot. Alright then.
His stomach wasn’t growling yet, so yeah, probably less than a day so far. Pressing his back against the chair he was bound in; Alex couldn’t feel any particular pain there. The tracker was most likely still in place then, so Yassen and Scorpia would come for him sooner or later. He was suddenly glad that there hadn’t been time to get it removed yet.
Alex reviewed his memories of what had actually happened – had he been the target? He didn’t think so. The explosion was further down the street, in front of Ivey, and whoever was behind it had only needed to wait a few more minutes and they would have been right there, right next to whatever it was that had exploded. He was desperately worried about Ivey, and Jack. Even Marcus had been close by. The thought of losing any of them like that, without warning, just gone . . . he mentally shook himself and refused to think about that anymore.
Yassen would have matters in hand. He would be making plans; was probably on his way here already. Alex just had to wait. He closed his eyes and calmed his mind, preparing himself for whatever was coming next.
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Yassen startled as Dr Three dropped two folders down on the desk in front of him. He hadn’t been asleep, couldn’t sleep, but had drifted off in thought and zoned out, which was very unlike him. It had been almost three days since they’d lost Alex. Yassen’s rest since then had been less than desirable. He found it difficult to go to sleep, taking hours to succumb, and then seemingly minutes later would jerk awake, scenarios of what Alex might be enduring playing out in his dreams. Thoughts of what Alex must be feeling, imprisoned by MI6, the very ones that had forced him onto the path he never wanted. The image of Alex’s blood on the wall seared into his brain....
Finding it near impossible to reclaim his customary calm exterior, Yassen had settled instead for a terrifying anger, lashing out at anyone or anything that aroused his ire. Several guards and students were sporting vivid bruises or black eyes, and the entire compound had begun avoiding him, with the exception of Marcus, who seemed almost desperate for punishment for his failure to protect Alex. Yassen knew he had lost control, and despised himself for the weakness, so had retreated to his office and holed up there, obsessively working through different rescue scenarios for the recovery of his Second. He was itching to fly into action, to do something, anything, but had been told to wait by Dr Three, who was perhaps the only person who had as much of a vested interest in recovering Alex as Yassen did, aside from Marcus and Sagitta.
Frowning at Dr Three, Yassen looked down at the pair of folders in front of him. One was marked ‘Retaliation’, the other ‘Retrieval’.
“I will take care of the first,” Dr Three informed Yassen. “You will take care of the second.”
Opening the folder marked ‘Retaliation’, Yassen was confronted with a list titled MI6 Agents. Heading the top of the columns, the titles read Name, Intelligence Officer / Agent, Location, Support.
The rows were filled with information, pages and pages of them. Thumbing through the first bundle, Yassen quickly counted over 40 pages. A second bundle listed similar information, titled Safe Houses. He looked up inquiringly at Dr Three.
“There are currently 2,592 MI6 agents and intelligence operatives on active duty worldwide. Another 500 or so are in England. They have 854 safe houses in various locations, some of which are empty while others are in use. It matters not to our plans. I have suspended all Scorpia operations worldwide and issued new instructions to every operative and security team we have.”
“Instructions to do what?” Yassen asked, raising his eyebrows.
“To burn it down,” Dr Three replied. He had been wearing his customary small smile, but now it widened, conveying an ominous enthusiasm Yassen usually only saw when the doctor had thought of a new torture technique to experiment with. “To burn it all down.”
Yassen paused. To burn all what down? “Explain.”
The doctor adjusted his glasses, the impression of a schoolteacher prevailing even as he embarked on his explanation. “I have always been fascinated with the idea of orchestrating a Bellum Sacrum - a Holy War. Given my lack of faith it has proved an unobtainable dream, until now. They have taken Orion, our Chosen One, our heir. It follows as appropriate that we should destroy them utterly.”
Yassen paused again. “Isn’t that a little . . . dramatic?” he asked. “Retrieving him, of course. Killing those responsible, naturally. But the whole organisation? It seems a bit excessive, to say the least. Not to mention that they are a potential source of business.”
Dr Three raised his eyebrows. “Do you disagree, then?”
Yassen wanted to. But the idea had appeal. The thought of completely obliterating the annoying thorn in their side that was MI6. Wiping them from the face of the earth …. Taking revenge on the organisation that had caused Alex so much pain, that had caused Hunter so much pain …. it was oddly intriguing. “They will reform. It won’t stop them. It will probably make us a target again. It could even cost us clients.”
“So be it. Do you care?” Dr Three asked him.
“No.” It was the truth.
“Neither do I,” Dr Three replied. “So it’s decided. We burn it down.” That ominous expression again, accompanied by a cold glee that almost sent a shiver down Yassen’s spine, in spite of the fact that he was well used to Dr Three’s mannerisms and approach. But the next moment it was gone, replaced by a beam of a smile, as if Yassen had just given Dr Three ten years’ worth of Christmas presents at once - the doctor really had wanted this for a long time, Yassen mused, as he watched his colleague gather up his folder and leave the room.
Yassen began to read the contents of the Retrieval folder, feeling more like his usual self than he had in days.
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