Chapter Text
It had been starting to get light when Yassen and Alex had walked up the steps to the flat, and it was full daylight when they left. Now Alex walked out of the door with a new colour for his hair and a new identity in his pocket. The sun wasn't high enough over the buildings for them to be walking in sunlight, but it looked like it was going to be a nice day from the clear blue sky above them. Alex looked around as though this was the last time he was ever going to see blue sky again. That was nonsense, of course, but he still looked wistfully at the quiet houses. When would he see an English street again? Was this really the right thing to do?
Yassen looked back at him. 'Come,' he said.
Alex obeyed the order but was surprised when Yassen did not stop beside the car they had arrived in.
'Isn't that...?' he started.
'No,' Yassen said, 'we have a different car in the next street.'
That would be security, Alex thought. If anyone was tracking the car from outside his house in Chelsea that would only lead them here and not to where they were going. Somehow he knew this was going to be part of his life from here on in. Living undercover, always mindful of who knew where he was and where he had been.
The streets were starting to come to life. A couple of cars passed them. Alex tried to stay calm and casual, but he felt as though there was a big sign over his head saying 'Escaped boy! Criminal!'. The cars didn't stop. Of course, they wouldn't. People carrying suitcases early in the morning is a common sight all over London.
Yassen turned into a side road. There was a small block of flats at the end with the dark entrance to an underground carpark visible. Alex bet himself that this is where they were heading. There was a red post box on their side of the road with a Post Office van parked beside it and a postman pulling envelopes from the pillar box and putting them in the familiar grey sack. Alex felt a surge of affection for this sight of British activity, somehow it seemed to encapsulate everything that he was leaving behind.
Yassen gave the postman a searching glance as he walked past, but the man barely looked up from his task. That is until Yassen was a step past him when suddenly the postman was holding a yellow taser, there was a bang and Yassen dropped twitching to the floor.
Two men appeared from the Post Office van and jumped on Yassen, pinning him to the floor. Alex took a step forward to help the Russian when he was pushed from behind and slammed into the side of the post box. As he struggled for breath, strong arms surrounded him and pressed him in place against the red metal. He wriggled, but it was no use. A large hand pulled his face towards his attacker and a piece of duct tape was put over his mouth. He got a glimpse of blue eyes looking at him from behind a black hooded mask and then a hood was put over his own head and he was in blackness.
He fought down panic and tried to struggle. His arms were pinioned, but he tried to kick, but nothing connected. Hands pulled his arms behind his back and more duct tape was put around his wrists. His ankles were grabbed and fastened together. Then he was lifted up by arms that didn't heed his wriggling and bucking. He was dumped on the floor of a vehicle. There was another thud beside him. He heard doors shut and the sensation of movement as they drove off. He guessed he was inside the Post Office van.
He forced himself to breathe deeply, but slowly, trying to calm himself as Ian had taught him. It had been so quick and so silent. He had no doubt that he was in the hands of people who knew what they were doing? But who were they? And what did they want with him?
+++
Tap TAP. Yassen's fingers moved against his hand with varying pressure... TAP tap tap tap. TAP tap TAP tap.
'A, B, C' Alex's mind supplied the answer. It was Morse Code.
Alex pressed his fingers against Yassen's hands. Tap TAP TAP, TAP, tap tap TAP tap. 'W,T,F'. Then 'R, U, O, K.'
'K, N, I, F, E, L, E, F, T, P, O, C, K, E, T'
Tap, TAP, tap, Alex replied. 'Roger'.
Yassen twisted so that his hip was towards Alex. At least, that was what Alex understood him to be doing. Alex shuffled closer to him and tried to find the right spot.
It was a nightmare. Even if the situation had been ideal, trying to move both hands up to the right level pulled terribly on his left shoulder, but he tried to ignore the pain as he tried to feel for the knife in the pocket. He just got a finger on it when the van moved quickly in a long curve. Alex was shunted to the side with Yassen bumping beside him. 'Roundabout,' Alex noted, it had to be. They seemed stable in their new position and Yassen twisted again and Alex tried to find the knife again.
He felt like a bumbling amateur. Every time they got close, it seemed that the van moved and they had to start again. The driver was either taking corners at speed deliberately to disrupt any escape attempts or just didn't care that there were people among the post bags. Alex wanted to scream in frustration. He shuddered to think what Yassen was thinking with his best means of escape in the hands of a teenage boy who couldn't get his fingers in his pocket.
Never mind. Keep trying. Where skill won't work, persistence might.
The van kept straight and seemed to be going slower from the engine noise. Alex found the knife finally and started working it up through the fabric to the opening in Yassen's pocket.
He could do this. He was doing this.
The van made a sharp turn that sent them tumbling again. Alex ground his teeth, he had been so close. Then the van stopped and there was silence.
Alex frantically tried to reach the knife in the pocket. The van doors opened and there was a sense of cold air. He didn't know if his captors knew he was trying to escape, but hands grabbed his legs and pulled him out of the van without warning.
He heard the rattle of a garage door closing as he was picked up and carried a few steps. Then he was set down on his feet. He felt movement at his ankles and the duct tape was pulled off. A knife sliced through the binding at his wrists and his blindfold was taken off. He blinked in the light. He brought his hands in front of him and began to peel off the remaining duct tape from around his wrists as he took in the scene.
He was in a large garage or workshop built from breeze blocks with a concrete floor. Five men, two of them big built were in the room with him. They were all wearing grey, baggy salwar kameez suits he recognised from news reports from Afghanistan. They were also wearing black scarfs, wrapped around their heads so only their eyes were showing. One near him was holding a taser pointed at him. Another one stood at the open doors to the Post Office van, keeping an eye on Yassen.
Alex moved his free hands to his mouth to move the tape, but the man with the taser moved it downwards in a clear instruction. Alex dropped his hands.
One of the men, whose exposed skin showed to be black, nodded.
'Okay, then, Alex. Strip, please.' He had a strong Birmingham accent.
'Whmmmf?' Alex said.
'Take your clothes off. If you don't do it, we will.'
Alex glanced at the other men, but none of them moved or showed any sympathy. Clearly, it was not an idle threat.
Alex took his jacket off and pulled his shirt over his head. 'Tike yow clowthes off,' he said in his head, mocking the accent. His only defiance was internal, but he held on to it. He got down to his boxer shorts and stopped.
'All of it,' his captor said.
Alex hesitated but complied. He stepped out of his underwear and kicked them to the side. He folded his arms and looked defiantly out at the men.
One of them stepped forward and waved a small device a few centimetres away from his skin. He covered Alex's whole body including his head. When he was done he stepped back.
'Clear,' he said. He also had a Birmingham accent.
The black guy pulled a bundle of clothing from a holdall beside his feet. He handed it to Alex.
'Here, put these on.'
There were fresh boxers, jeans and a plain, navy sweatshirt. Alex put them on, taking his time, making his captors know that they hadn't intimidated him. When he was done he folded his arms and glared at them all.
What happened was a step behind him and the hood was put over his head again. His wrists were grabbed and pulled behind his back. Alex made an effort to resist, but the hands that held him were too strong for a teenage boy, even one who worked out and knew martial arts. He was in their power. His only hope was to wait, harbour his strength and wait for an opportunity to escape. He was soon bound hand and foot as before.
He heard the rattle of the roller door going up. Then there was the sound of a car reversing, followed by the distinctive flip of a boot lid popping open. He was grabbed and lifted up. He was not surprised to be placed in an enclosed space. The boot. He heard it slammed shut. Seconds later the car started moving.
He was on his way to who knows where, but what worried him most was that Yassen wasn't with him.
+++
Alex felt around in the darkness, but couldn't find anything that was in the boot with him, not even a bottle of wiper fluid. All his fingers touched was the cheap, thin carpeting of the floor and walls.
He tried to work out who his captors were from the clues he had been given. Their accents said they were from Birmingham. Their clothes said they were of North Indian, Pakistani or Afghani origin. So were they Islamic terrorists? Alex felt sure he would have remembered pissing off ISIS or the Taliban. Had they heard of him and were trying to recruit him. Or hold him hostage. Images of horrific ISIS death videos came into his head.
But that didn't ring true to him. His instincts said military for at least a couple of them. The one who had held the taser. The one who had checked him for bugs. But if they were military why weren't they handing him back to MI6?
Were there groups other than SCORPIA who would be interested in a teenage spy? He didn't know, but if they were interested in recruiting why hadn't they approached him directly rather than snatch him from Yassen's hands? It was too complicated.
And what had they done with Yassen? The fact that they had taken him away separately didn't bode well for the assassin. Had they killed him as soon as Alex's car had gone? What lessons Alex had learned about the realities of life in espionage told him that this was the most likely scenario. He didn't pretend to feel for Yassen what he had felt for Ian, but somehow Alex felt the loss of another protector. He was on his own again.
Somehow that thought encouraged him. Being on his own was standard procedure for him now. Maybe this time the fate of the world wouldn't be on his shoulders. Trussed and blindfolded, he nevertheless straightened up and pulled his shoulders back. Whoever they were they could bring it on. He'd been there and done that.
+++
There had been another transfer to a different car in the journey, but Alex reckoned it been only about an hour and a half from leaving the garage before the car slowed down and the sound under the wheels turned to gravel. The gravel sound went on for a minute or two and then it stopped. They were there. Wherever 'there' was. Alex tried to brace himself for what was about to come. The confidence he had talked himself into earlier in the journey was beginning to ebb.
The boot lid was opened and he felt fresher air on his skin. He became very much aware of his bare feet as he was lifted from the boot and carried inside. He was put down and his feet felt carpet under them. He felt movement against his ankles and the duct tape was removed.
A hand grasped the front of his sweatshirt. Not pulling, just holding.
'This way.'
There was a tug on his sweatshirt and a corresponding push between his shoulder blades from a hand behind him. There was carpet underneath his feet for a while and then the creak of a door. The surface under his feet turned to wood.
'There are steps down. Take it easy.'
Now the hands on him guided and steadied him as he made his way, step by step, down a staircase. The stairs felt like rough wood to him. As they hadn't gone upstairs before this then this had to be a cellar of some kind. He counted the steps. There were eleven before the voice said, 'Last step.' The ground turned to something colder and grittier. Alex thought it was a concrete floor.
He was led a few steps further and then they stopped. The hands that had been guiding him disappeared. His hood was removed and he blinked in sudden, bright tube lighting. While he was still squinting against the glare, the binding around his wrists was cut.
'Alex.' It was the same man and the same voice from the garage. 'Alex. I know this is scary. I know we haven't given you any reason for you to trust us, but you are in no danger. No one here wants to hurt you. We've brought you down here to keep you safe. It's not the Ritz here, but it's safe. You're going to have a boring couple of days, but then it'll be fine. I promise you.'
The man reached forward and removed the duct tape from Alex's mouth. Alex raised his hand to his mouth, it felt like part of his lower lip was still attached to the adhesive strip.
'Who are you? Where am I?'
'Just rest and wait, Alex. It'll become clear soon.'
The two men went up the stairs and left, the silent one holding a taser ready in case Alex had wanted to rush them. Alex had no such plans, at least not while they were so alert. Later on, it might be a different matter. When the door was shut, locked and bolted Alex peeled the duct tape from his wrists for the second time that morning and investigated his prison.
It was quite a big room, about the size of the ground floor of his home in Chelsea. The stairs took up part of one of the long sides. There were two strip lighting fixtures in the ceiling, too high to reach from the floor. There was an inflatable double mattress against the wall opposite the stairs, with a double duvet and a pillow. A bucket with a lid was under the stairs. When Alex lifted the lid the smell of pine disinfectant hit his nostrils. He guessed that made up the toilet facilities. Any hint of privacy was removed by the sight of a camera high up in one corner. It would have a good view of both the bed and ensuite facilities.
At the foot of the bed was a paper plate with an unopened Marks and Spencers' prawn sandwich on it. The was also a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, a Mars bar and a can of Coke. 'Well that's the major food groups covered,' Alex muttered to himself and grinned a little at his own joke.
That was it for the room. Alex sat on the mattress and put his back against the wall. So 'it' was going to happen in two days. Well, he had no intention of being there to find out what 'it' was. He shut his eyes and tried to envision ways of escape.
+++
The hours ticked by and Alex ate his sandwich and crisps. He kept the Mars bar for later as he didn't know how often he was going to be fed. He looked at the length of the stairs and wondered how he would be able to rush the door when it opened if the camera could see that he was waiting there. Maybe he should establish a habit of sitting on the stairs and being unthreatening when the door opened so his guards would get careless. He didn't much fancy the strategy because the stairs looked really uncomfortable to sit on. But there was literally nothing else in the cellar to use. He'd looked carefully. Twice.
He heard the bolts being drawn on the door and the key turned in the lock. The door opened.
Smithers walked down the stairs. He was smiling. Alex got to his feet.
Smithers beckoned to him. 'Come on up, Alex.'
'How did you find me?' Alex could believe Wolf or Crawley coming to his rescue but not Smithers.
Smithers just led the way up the stairs and Alex followed.
At the top of the stairs, Smithers stood to one side of the door and beckoned Alex to go ahead of him down the corridor. One of the men from the garage, face still covered in a scarf, stood in a doorway.
Alex turned back to Smithers, worried and confused.
'It's OK, Alex, go on.' Smithers gestured down the corridor. There was nothing in his body language to indicate any kind of trouble. In fact, he seemed happy, excited.
Alex walked tentatively down the corridor, keeping a wary lookout as he passed the masked figure. The man made no move towards him. Smithers came up behind Alex and ushered through one door into a living room.
It was an ordinary room, filled with a fat, brown three piece suite. A tall man and a smaller blonde woman were standing in the centre of the room.
Alex had no chance to do more than quickly take in the scene when the woman darted forward and grabbed him in a huge hug.
'Alex! Oh, my Alex!,' she cried.
Alex staggered slightly under the assault and looked up at the man who had taken a step closer and then stopped. He was tall, broad-shouldered with brown hair and brown eyes. Alex realised he recognised him. He had seen his face before so many times when he looked in the mirror.
This was impossible, wasn't it?
'Dad?'