Harry spotted the two men before Ros did, and knew right away that Jools had sent them, just as Malcolm had suspected. They were sitting in a dark sedan parked just outside the opened wire gate, its padlock hanging open. As Ros drove in, turning off the headlights, they could see the two buildings and just beyond it, the refinery.

A black Range Rover and a black car were parked side by side next to first building, probably the office building of what was once an oil refinery that had long since closed down its operations and moved to its new home a few miles away. These days, it was a haven for graffiti artists, their artwork splashed in just about every inch of bare walls, mostly metal pillars and drums.

As Ros had driven the ten miles back to Purfleet, just hours after she'd left it that afternoon, through the quiet streets of the town slowly waking with the coming of dawn, Harry listened as Malcolm relayed the details of the phone's signal just before it had disappeared.

"It's the old Gordon Refinery that closed down years ago," Malcolm said. "There are two office buildings in the property and the refinery facility itself."

"Thank you, Malcolm," Harry said as he glanced at his watch. Dawn was fast approaching and he could see the cars filling the streets, workers heading for the main refinery a few miles ahead. "You should head home."

"I think I'll wait here, sir," Malcolm said. "I'll monitor the communications in the area. I understand Six sent some men over."

"Really?" Harry wasn't surprised. Knowing Jools, he was going to cover his tracks and make sure there would be no trace of Nathaniel George having been back in England. Nathaniel would be proof of the nontraditional arrangement they had been set up years before, and Harry was certain that it was an operation that Jools would not want on his record. Not after this.

"Keep me abreast then, if anything new comes up."

"Yes, sir," Malcolm said before Harry hung up.

Outside the air was bone-chilling cold and Harry pulled up his coat collar above his neck to ward off the chill. As he and Ros walked towards the first building, he could feel unseen eyes watching him. Jools' men, Harry thought.

"How many do you think?" Ros asked, breaking the silence between them.

"Maybe two, possibly four," Harry answered. "But I can't be sure."

"Should we be worried about Jools?"

Harry shook his head. "We should be fine, Ros, unless Jools has something bigger than Nathaniel George that he's hiding from me. Which I doubt."

Ros turned to look at him, surprised though the expression faded from her face as soon as the information sank in. "How come I'm not surprised," she said wryly as she pulled out her gun from her holster and walked ahead of Harry the moment they closed in the distance between them and the cars.

The cars were empty, frost gathering upon the windows. As Ros turned the corner towards the doorway, she stepped on something and looked down. It was a phone. She picked it up and turned it on.

Lucas.

Pocketing it in her jeans, Ros moved ahead of Harry, and stopped just before the back door. She cocked her head towards the ground, where a sliver of light was visible beneath the door frame.

Harry took a deep breath, steam forming in front of his face. He wished he had back up, but knew that it was too late to call for one. Though Ros didn't say it out loud, Harry knew that she considered this too personal for Harry to be objective about. He should have been clear-minded enough to request back up for something such as this. But now was not the time for wishful thinking, Harry thought.

Now was simply a time to act, even if it meant it would be just him and Ros.

>>><<<

For the three men and the little boy inside the room, time seemed to stand still. Nathaniel continued to stand a few feet away from Lucas, still sitting on the metal chair with his hands behind his back, while Liam stood with his back against a tall blonde man who went by the name of Yuri.

Yuri had arrived in London with his brother Goren, who had just left the room with the thumb drive he hoped contained the information they had come here for. Their job had been to escort the man known as Sergei Fenix to London and make sure that he got the thumb drive before MI5 did.

It had been such a coup, the new intel that Arkady had relayed about the thumb drive having been found to be in the hands of the girl they'd allowed to get away years earlier. What had been the search for Sugarhorse in the beginning, one that would have allowed FSB to uncover every mole within the Russian government had turned into the recovery of Tiresias, Russia's even grander plans for England, that had fallen in the wrong hands.

But until they were certain that they did have Tiresias, all contained in a thumb drive that had been hidden for so long, it was a waiting game. And as he stood there with his gun trained at the boy's head, Yuri waited patiently, hearing the faint sound of a computer beeping just outside the door. A few minutes later, he heard the sound of the back door opening and closing and then silence.

She would be first, Yuri thought, wondering if it would even be necessary to shoot the girl as she had been unresponsive when they pulled her out of the wreckage. That she didn't wake up in the next room told him that she probably wasn't going to make it through the night.

She was pale, her skin cold and clammy, when he last looked in on her. Even Sergei said that she may have had suffered some internal damage and would not make it for long. But Goren would still have his orders, as did Yuri, who now eyed Lucas intently, realizing the man's gaze had moved from the boy to him.

Lucas North was watching him like a hawk.

>>><<<

The lightbulb flickered just before she heard it pop, its filament burning out as the room plunged into darkness. Alexa was cold, and she shivered as she struggled to move her body from her side, landing on her back with a groan. She waited till her eyes got used to the darkness and looked around.

She reached for Liam but he was gone. How did he get here? She couldn't remember anything after the car crash, waking up only after hearing Liam calling her name again and again, shaking her shoulders, his little hands stroking her hair, his lips against her cheek.

"Mummy, wake up," he had begged her again and again. "Please, mummy."

When she finally willed herself to wake up, she found that she did not have the strength to get up, pain coursing through her body with each move she made. Alexa wanted to scream and curse, but she held her tongue, instead forcing herself to smile weakly as she held him and told him to be strong.

She was tired, her body burning with a pain she'd never felt before. The impact of the Range Rover had yanked her sideways first, before slamming her body towards the front of the car, only the air bags stopping the momentum of her body.

And though Alexa had no recollection of how she got here, in this dirty room, something told her that this time, there may no be no way out of her predicament. Their predicament.

As she reached out for Liam, stroking his hair and telling him that they were going to be alright, she forced herself to believe her own words, wondering where Lucas was and hoping that he was alright. For the first time in a long time, she wanted his help, knowing that this time, she was in no position to help herself.

Liam began telling her how grandpa had picked him up from Thames House, saying that she'd be there waiting for him. But as he peered at her, seeing the bruises that dotted her jaw, the reddish purple splotches along her chest, he asked, "what happened to you, mummy?"

And so Alexa lied, forcing a smile. "Mummy was pretty clumsy today, love," she whispered. "I fell down the stairs and daddy and I got into a nasty accident."

When Liam began to cry, she held him. "But I'm fine now, love. You're here."

But even Liam saw through her lies for Alexa knew her lip quivered as she spoke, her fear breaking through the tough facade she struggled to maintain around him. Besides, I must look like shit, she thought to herself.

"They have daddy in the next room," Liam continued. "Grandpa said he had to talk to him alone for awhile."

Liam's words seemed to fade in and out of her consciousness as the throbbing in her back returned, her neck and shoulders burning with a pain that seemed to emanate from deep within. She was running a fever. "Liam, I want you to listen to your daddy, okay?" she said. "Do whatever he tells you to do. Do you understand me?"

She looked about the room and noticed that he had some toys to play with along one corner, and a soiled mattress to lay on. Alexa felt the anger rise as she began to look closely about the room, remembering how her little boy suddenly seemed old as he looked at her with worry all over his face.

But something Liam said made her look at him again, her focus returning as the pain subsided. Wait, what grandpa?

"The man in the pictures, mummy," he replied when she asked him. "The one you tell me loves me very much even though he's in heaven?"

Alexa frowned. Liam must have gotten confused, she thought. Her father had died years earlier. She had buried his ashes herself.

"Liam, no matter what happens, I want you to trust daddy, okay? I want you do as he says." She squeezed his shoulders, exhaustion threatening to take her away again. She held him till she fell asleep again, unaware that she hadn't moved from her original position since the men had carelessly lain her on the floor hours earlier.

Awake again, Alexa cursed under her breath as she willed her body to move this time. Liam was gone and she was alone. She pushed herself up to a sitting position and as she did so, she heard Lucas' voice sternly ordering Liam to look at him from the next room.

Suddenly every muscle on Alexa's body tightened as she flattened her back against the wall, her ear straining to listen as Lucas told Liam to do everything he said. But then another voice filled the air as Alexa brought her ear against the wall, and this time she frowned, confused. She remembered what Liam had said, just before she fainted. The man in the pictures, mummy.

She knew that voice. Her mind struggled with the realization of who the man was, confusion filling every corner of her mind as she replayed her father's last days, his body so gaunt and frail. It was cancer that had claimed him, she thought. But as she heard his voice through the wall, something told her that nothing had claimed him then. It had all been a lie.

Alexa looked about her, scanning the room in the darkness, seeking outlines and familiar shapes. She had to do something, she thought. If it's the last thing I get to do in this fucking place, I'm going down fighting.

Alexa noticed an outline of something piled along the far end of the room and she crawled towards it, willing herself to ignore the pain that came with each movement she made. The pain would go away, she thought, as long as she kept on moving. It had to go away.

Her hands touched cold metal pipes, most of them as large as her thigh and too heavy to lift by herself. She began to feel the entire pile of them with both hands, almost frantic now as she heard a woman's voice speaking just outside the door. Most of them were rusty and too large to wield but her heart lifted when her hands wrapped around something small enough to hold onto, and long enough to use as a weapon.

It was a pipe about three feet long, rusty threading on either end of it. She grasped it, holding it in front of her, and made her way to the door, where she'd heard the woman's voice earlier.

Sweat gathered on Alexa's brow, dripping along the sides of her face. Her heart thudded wildly within her chest as something told her that this time, her survival, and Liam's, would hinge on what she'd do next. She willed herself to be strong , if only for Liam's sake.

He didn't deserve any of this.

Alexa gripped the metal pipe, breathing in and out through her mouth as she readied herself, as if she were waiting for the pitcher to throw the ball. What was that game called in America, she thought. Baseball? Right.

But this time, she thought only of cricket, a game her father used to play when she was younger. He'd taught her how to hold that bat, how to hit the ball lightly. But he'd also taught her how to hit that ball with everything she got, because back then, she'd been so little, so weak.

Alexa closed her eyes, hearing footsteps approaching. She saw herself as that little girl, once so little, so weak.

Because in this deadly game she found herself involved in, she was the little girl. But this time, Alexa thought as she gripped the pipe and lifted it above her head, she wasn't going to be weak.

>>><<<

The pipe hit Goren in the chest and he staggered backwards, gasping for breath. Without waiting, Alexa swung the pipe again, this time hitting his back, just along the shoulder blades. The second strike caused Goren to let go of the gun and it clattered to the floor as Alexa raised the pipe one more time, this time aiming for his neck.

But Goren was ready. He turned and caught the pipe, twisted his wrist and pulled the pipe towards him with such force that the threading cut through Alexa's hands as the pipe slipped from her grip. She felt the pipe hit her square across her shoulder and she screamed in pain, dropping to the floor yet scrambling to move out of the way as she saw him lunge towards her again.

In the next room, she heard the sound of a gunshot. For a moment she froze, her mind processing all the possibilities as Goren swung the pipe dangerously close to her head, missing her by mere inches. Alexa rolled away from Goren's next strike, which hit the cold cement floor so hard that she swore she could feel it vibrate beneath her and as she did, her hand felt the cold metal of the gun he had dropped.

Suddenly every thing that Alexa learned about focusing on her target during her visits at the range came to her, her vision narrowing in the darkness at the only thing that was coming at her. She heard only the sound of her breathing, everything else disappearing around her as the shadow approached her, grunting as he did so. Alexa lifted the gun and pointed straight at the moving shadow that now grew larger as each second passed till she pulled the trigger once, twice and the third time, the sound of the bullet casings rattling on the ground around her.

>>><<<

The gunshots broke the silence of the room where the three men stood, catching them all but Yuri by surprise. Yuri had heard the struggle and the yells of pain just seconds earlier, his finger tightening on the trigger as he aimed his gun towards Nathaniel first, just as the older man turned pale and shouted "No!"

"We had an arrangement," he yelled at Yuri, who only laughed.

"Plans change, Sergei," Yuri said and pulled the trigger.

Suddenly Lucas sprang up from the chair. With his hands free, he grabbed it with his right hand, and swung it towards Yuri, yelling at Liam as he did so.

"Liam, duck!"

The chair hit Yuri squarely across the chest just as Liam hit the floor, the chair barely missing the boy's head. Yuri fell backwards, firing another round as Lucas lunged at him.

From the corner of his eye, Lucas saw Liam scramble towards Nathaniel and together they ran out the door. Lucas' fist caught Yuri squarely across the jaw and the man's eyes rolled up into his head, his mouth hanging slack. The force of the blow knocked him out temporarily, and the gun fell to the ground. But as Lucas sprinted towards the door, he felt Yuri's hands grab his leg and he tumbled forward.

Lucas rolled onto his back, blocking Yuri's blows with his arms. He kicked Yuri in the face as he scrambled onto his feet. Before the blonde man could recover, Lucas charged towards him, hitting him with a right upper cut to the man's ribs. As Yuri doubled over, Lucas grabbed his head and slammed his knee against Yuri's face. Blood spurted from the man's nose and he groaned, staggering to the ground.

"Liam!" Lucas yelled, running out the door. The rest of the building was deserted, and next to the door, he had just exited from, Lucas saw the outline of a body in the darkness. Alexa! He opened the door wider, and as the light shone into the darkened room, with its piles of pipes piled on one end of the room, he saw Goren's body on the ground, blood soaking through the man's shirt.

"Alexa!"

Then from outside the back door, Lucas heard her. Suddenly he was running, heading towards the back door, calling out both their names. Behind him, the door opened and Yuri emerged, a gun in his hand. He fired two shots at Lucas, missing him as the bullets ripped through the door. Lucas fell backwards, seeking cover.

Suddenly the front door burst open and Ros appeared. Yuri turned to face her, his gun at the ready but Ros was already firing three rounds, two of them hitting Yuri in the heart.

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