Chapter 11

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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of Kudos and BBC. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.

>>> <<< 

The whole wood seemed running now, running hard, hunting, chasing, closing in round something or - somebody? In panic, he began to run too, aimlessly, he knew not whither.

- The Wind in the Willows

She could not believe how easy it had been to get past the main office and from there, exit the doors that led into St. Barnabas’ inner courtyard.  As the woman hurried through the path leading to the rugby fields, she smiled.  She could see two groups of young boys running around the field in the distance and her eyes immediately spotted the dark-haired boy in the middle of a huddle among the group closest to the edge of the field.

It wasn’t unusual to have parents come and watch their children in the middle of the day, cheering them on, especially for the children in the early grades.  Many of them suffered from serious bouts of homesickness.  The woman behind the desk at the visitor’s office had simply directed her towards the east field where the games were being held.

As the visitor hurried through the path, heading to the north field to join the other parents on the sidelines, she pursed her lips and whistled.  It was a loud whistle, and as the boys from both groups playing their separate games looked up, the woman wanted only one boy’s attention.  

Liam George, who had been in a huddle with his teammates, a mop of hair obscuring his vision, looked up and he flipped his head impatiently to get the bangs away from his eyes.  The boy scanned the faces sitting among the bleachers, searching for the source of the familiar sound.  

Normally Liam would see his mother among them, but he knew she couldn’t whistle.  Only one person could whistle like that, he thought.  His face broke into a grin when he saw her and he waved.  

The coach signaled a break and the children left the field.  Liam ran towards her and brought his arms around the woman’s waist.  He had grown another inch since she had last seen him.

“Where’s mummy?” He asked as the woman ruffled his hair playfully.  She wore a smile but it seemed frozen on her face.  She was trying to hide the nervousness inside her, her eyes scanning the fields behind them.  She had to act fast, she thought, yet be as calm as possible so as not to alarm the boy, or the school officials for that matter.

“She’s at the office,” Nadia Ravin said.  “She sent me to pick you up.”

Liam frowned.  “Headmaster Jones didn’t say anything about mummy picking me up.”

Nadia shrugged and bent down, her face in line with Liam’s.  “She’s in a meeting right now, otherwise, she would have been here,” she said in her thick Russian accent.  

She’d been working very hard in learning her English and so far, it was working.  Two nights a week, she attended the local college, having enrolled in a course that was designed to enhance one’s knowledge of the English language, and possibly, rid oneself of an accent.  As far as her accent went though, that was a different story.

“Should I get my things?” Liam asked.

Nadia shook her head.  As she spoke, she hoped Liam could not tell how much her voice was quivering.  “You should be back in two hours. Your mum just wants to have lunch with you.”

Liam looked towards the direction where his coach and the rest of the boys were.  Some of his classmates were laughing and playing around, tossing the rugby ball at each other.  His coach turned towards his direction and gave him a wave, beckoning for him to return.  Liam began to turn away from Nadia but she grabbed his arm.  

“Don’t you want to have lunch with your mum?  I’ve already spoken to the headmaster about it.”  She lied, her voice suddenly urgent.  

Across the field, she saw a black car stop at the edge of the visitor’s parking lot.  Two people got out, their faces scanning the field before them.  They first observed the group closest to them before directing their attention to Liam’s class at the farther end of the field.  Nadia’s chest tightened as the faces seemed to freeze towards their direction, spotting them.  

“Liam, listen to me,” she whispered as she brought the boy closer to her.  “Remember when your mum told you about bad people?” 

The boy nodded.  

“There are some very bad people looking for you now,” she said as Liam looked at her, his eyes wide.  “They’re over there, in the black car and they’re heading this way.”

Liam looked across the field and saw them, striding purposefully across the field.  Though they were quite far away from them, Liam felt something inside him stir.  He frowned, glancing around them.  No one had noticed the two strangers  yet.  

“Can’t we call the police?” He asked and Nadia shook her head.

“There is no time.”  Nadia’s grip was tight around his arm.  “Is there any other way to get outside the school?”  Nadia asked.  

Liam nodded, turning to face her.  “There’s always ways outside,” Liam said.  He’d heard the older boys talk about ways to get out of the school, and he’d even seen them draw their maps as they sat around the dining table, their heads huddled together, whispering.  But for now, he knew there was only one quick way out from where they stood, and they would have to do it in full view of everyone.

Taking Nadia’s hand, Liam began to run as fast as he could towards the row of bushes that bordered the street side of the field.  Behind them, they could hear the coach yelling Liam’s name, his lone voice suddenly joined by other voices, shouting this time as people started to scream and scatter throughout the field.

>>> <<<

Ros and Jo arrived at the visitor parking lot of St. Barnabas just before the screaming began.  Two men were running towards the group of people on the northern edge of the field, and as Ros and Jo rushed after them, they could see people scattering everywhere, hear them screaming as the two men barreled through the children playing touch rugby.

Ahead of them, running towards the line of trees bordered by a  fence that separated the field grounds from the street outside, were a boy and a woman.  When the boy turned to look back towards them, Ros saw his face and recognized him from the photographs on the wall at Alexa’s flat.  Liam.

They were too far away, Ros thought.  The men would be upon Liam and the woman by the time Ros or Jo would ever close the distance between them.  Ros turned back towards the car, leaving Jo to chase after the men.  

She gunned the engine and sped across the lawn, the wheels spitting grass and earth behind her.  Ros drove the car through a clearing in the field that was thankfully free of children and adults.  The coaches of both teams were yelling out to their students, getting them to run towards one direction and like a team united, they seemed to follow orders despite the screaming all around them.  

Suddenly one of the men turned and raised a gun towards the car and Ros ducked as the first bullet ricocheted off the side of the window.  As bullets continued to bounce off the car, Ros pulled the steering wheel sharply to the left, sending the car skidding across the grass, the wheels spinning and throwing grass and mud everywhere as the wheels struggled to gain traction against the soft ground.  

Ros heard more shots ring out just as she pulled the hand brake, feeling the car careen towards the fence.  This time, the shots hadn’t been aimed at her.  From the corner of her eye, Ros watched Jo approach a figure lying on the ground, unmoving, her gun still drawn in front of her.  

As Ros turned her attention back towards the fence, she saw that Liam had climbed over the fence first and now the woman was just swinging her leg over just as her pursuer reached out to grab her arm.  Ros stepped on the gas pedal again, heading towards the fence.  Just before she would hit the fence, Ros stepped on the brakes, pulling the hand brake at the same time as she pulled the wheel towards the right and sending the car swerving towards the fence, slamming against it with a loud crash.

Ros slipped out of the car and using the car as a platform, climbed over the fence.  She could see the man in the distance, and further ahead of him, Liam and the woman.  Who was she?  Ros jumped the fence and ran after him, pulling out her phone and dialing the Grid.  If they were on foot, Ros thought, they should be heading towards the nearest Tube station.

“What’s the nearest station by St. Barnabas?” Ros asked the moment Malcolm picked up the phone, barely able to squeeze in a coherent greeting.

“Hammersmith,” Malcolm replied quickly.  “Is everything alright, Ros?”

“Tell Harry that someone got to Liam first but they’re heading to the Tube.”  Ros could see the man straight ahead of her.  “I’m going after him.”

She hung up the phone and kept on running past the cars and the people meandering along the sidewalks.  As Ros turned the corner, realizing too late that the man could be waiting for her, she heard the shots ring out and felt the shards of glass breaking from the windshields that shattered within inches of her.

The shots missed Ros by mere inches.  She crouched down behind the cars and peered out.  The man had slunk behind a pillar and she fired two shots towards him, giving herself enough time to seek a more secure cover.

All around her, pedestrians screamed and sought cover, scattering like flies.  Though it was almost noon, and most people were at work, there were still a number of pedestrians on the street.  As Ros peeked from behind where she hid, two more shots rang out and she ducked again, cursing as she watched the boy and the woman disappear around the corner.  

Ros cursed beneath her breath.  She were running out of time.

Two more shots rang out and this time the glass behind Ros shattered and she felt the pieces of glass sprinkle her hair and neck.  Then two more shots, this time coming from behind her.  

Ros turned to see Jo seek cover behind a Volvo.

“He’s headed into the station,” Ros  yelled.  “I’ll cover you.”

The man ran ahead of them again, still in pursuit of Liam and the woman and this time, Ros emerged, training her gun on him.  She was tired of the games.  As the man turned towards them, his arm raised and ready to shoot again, Ros saw her chance.  

She pulled the trigger and fired three shots in cold succession.  One. Two. Three.

>>> <<<

They were almost there.

Nadia slipped off her coat and draped it over Liam.  The boy shivered as he stood with his back leaning against her, standing between her legs as she sat, her back straight, on one of the seats facing one of the train doors.  They had just spent the last twenty minutes in sheer terror every time the doors swung open at every stop between Hammersmith and Westminster stations, Nadia’s eyes darting back and forth between the doors to see if anyone was coming after them.  

They had heard the gunshots behind them as they fled the field, but Nadia could not risk looking back to see who was shooting whom.  She only knew that they were both unharmed, though the little boy was scared.  He held her hand the entire time, never letting go even when Nadia struggled to get the passes required for the train fare.

Liam did not speak, his eyes wide with fear as Nadia held him the entire time inside the train.  He knew something was terribly wrong.  He saw it in the young woman’s face, the way she paled when she saw the two men begin to run towards them from across the field and asked him if he knew a way out of the school.  He heard the fear in her voice, feel it vibrate in the space between them.

Though Liam knew everyone considered him too young to understand many things, like what Found Hope, the foundation his mother had started a year earlier, was all about, or why he never had a father to call his own, he understood a lot more than people assumed.  

Liam understood that a bad man had once caught his mother, and that she had been held against her will for some time and that people did bad things to her, things he could not understand yet.  But if he could not understand the things grown people did to each other, he perceived them as a child imagined how a dragon could kidnap a princess and keep her in a cave, while a knight in shining armor came to rescue her.  But until that knight arrived, the nightmares were always there.

Liam had heard the nightmares from inside his mother’s room whenever they came at night.  She would scream and cry, and call out a name for help.  She would plead and beg in the darkness for the monster to stop what he was doing.  

And from the quiet of his room, Liam would often climb off his bed to lie next to her.  He’d touch her cheek, usually damp from tears and sweat, and tell her in his little voice, that everything was alright.  His mother always awoke whenever his little fingers touched her cheek.  Then she’d gather Liam in her arms and thank him, her little munchkin  hero, for saving her from the dragon.  

And though Alexa had never spoken of her nightmares to him, Liam knew that one day they’d come back again, and this time, they would no longer be bound to her dreams.  

They would all be real.

>>> <<<

They arrived at the Westminster Tube station without incident and quickly exited the train, hurrying up the escalator steps.  Liam gazed at the massive tubes that criss crossed the space above them, the cement and steel architecture brought to life by strategically placed lights all over the station.  

Liam remembered arriving at Westminster station once when Alexa brought him to Thames House to visit Harry less than a year ago, just before he started attending St. Barnabas.  Harry had always discouraged visits to the MI5 headquarters, but his mother had been quite upset over a decision Harry had made without consulting her and so they had made the trek to see Harry by taking the Tube.

And while Alexa hardly noticed the architecture of the massive underground station, Liam found himself enamored by all the gray cement and steel that surrounded him, the cylindrical tubes that seemed to float high above them and stand around them, as if holding the high ceilings up.  Chains appeared to hang from up high, with no apparent purpose other than to give the station a noir feel to it.  And whenever Liam spoke, even in awed whispers, he heard his voice bounce along the walls, as if he were in a cathedral.  Only this one was completely made of cement and steel.  

As Liam looked around them, turning his attention to the stairs behind them, he noticed the man making his way up the steps towards them, a newspaper tucked under his arm.  As Liam continued staring at the him, the man looked up, caught his gaze and looked down.  But then, he raised his eyes up and stared at Liam, and the boy knew.  

The dragon had finally come.

He gripped Nadia’s hand and began walking up the steps faster, alighting at the top floor and hurrying along the large hallways, following the signs that would take them up to the street level.  Though he’d only been through here once, Liam saw that everything around him seemed as if he’d just been here yesterday.  He pulled at Nadia’s hand, forcing her to follow him as he made his way through the wide passageways, barely reading the signs for he already knew how to get to the street level.

Just one more flight of stairs and they’d be above ground, on the street, facing the Houses of Parliament.  Liam wondered if it would be a much safer place for both of them to be in, if they were being chased by bad men.  

“Where are we going, Nadia?”  He asked.  “Are we meeting mummy here?” 

All that time inside the train, he wondered if his mother would be meeting them.  He hadn’t dared ask Nadia then, for fear that bad men were sitting next to them.  Besides, both of them had been too scared to say anything, all their energy spent on watching the doors open and close, ready to bolt should anyone charge them.

Nadia shook her head as they walked onto the street, relief flooding through her body.  She looked around her and saw no sign of the man with the folded up newspaper.  For a minute she stood disoriented, and she looked around her, her face a mask of confusion.

Before her was the House of Parliament, tourists posing for photographs along the sidewalk.  She turned to Liam.  “Do you know where your uncle works?” She asked, rubbing her hands together nervously.

“Uncle Harry?” Asked Liam.  “Is that where we’re going?”

Nadia shook her head, grabbing Liam’s hand.  “No, Liam.  That’s where you’re going.”  

Nadia couldn't get herself to go with him.  She would walk him up to the doors and let him go in alone.  Then she would face the consequences for her actions, her betrayal. 

Most of all, she couldn’t leave Alexa to face her fate alone.  Her hand began to shake uncontrollably as the thoughts came rushing through her and Nadia stifled a sob.

Liam looked up at her and she forced a smile, but the boy recognized the fear in her eyes and his face crumpled before her.  He stopped walking and looked at her, tears welling in his large blue eyes.  

“Is mummy alright?” He asked, his voice faltering.

But Nadia couldn’t answer.  Her shoulders shook as she fought desperately to keep the tears at bay but it was no use.  The adrenaline that had propelled her through the last hours had ebbed away and she was left with only the fear that now took residence in her bones, seeping through her skin, chilling her.

She had known of Mikhael’s plans but had done nothing to warn Alexa.  For the five days, she had known Mikhael, the man who had tormented Alexa for months, was in London and she had done nothing.   She had been too scared.

And Kachimov.  Kachimov had been the worse of them all, terrorizing her and threatening to kill her if she did not cooperate.  Kachimov promised her that Alexa would not be hurt, that it was the MI5 man Mikhael wanted.  

And so Nadia had cooperated.  She had had no choice either way.  But when Mikhael said that he wanted the boy, too, Alexa found herself drawing the line in the sand.  

Not the boy.  Anything but the boy.  He did not need to see the same horrors Alexa or Nadia had faced for so long.  

Suddenly they heard the sound of a car screeching to a stop a few feet away.  Arms grabbed Liam from behind, wrapping around him and the boy started kicking and screaming.  Nadia threw herself at the man who had been following them, punching and kicking him but the driver of the car had emerged and was now taking Nadia by the waist, dragging her into the car.

People crowded around them as the driver punched Nadia in the face, knocking her out cold, calling for his partner in Russian to hurry and bring the boy into the car.  In the distance, guards began to run towards the commotion.

Liam felt himself being lifted and he squirmed, twisting his body wildly till his arms slipped free of Nadia’s bulky coat.  The man had carried him as far as the car door and as he tried to toss Liam into the car,

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