When Alex returned in May, it had been more quiet and serious than he had left. When he came back from Russia in the last days of July, it was all the more pronounced.
Helen had expected it. She had still desperately hoped she would be wrong. He was more quiet, more serious, and far older. It made her heart hurt and her chest tighten – because it was necessary, because her child had been forced to learn to kill – but she pushed it aside and focused on making sure that Alex knew he was home and loved and protected no matter what.
Between her and Matilda, Alex mostly returned to his own self again over the course of a few weeks. Some of it still lingered, though, and Helen knew it would never entirely vanish. Lost innocence. Another thing to blame on MI6 and Blunt and SCORPIA.
School began in the middle of August. Helen was part grateful, part anxious. It would be good for Alex to see other children his own age on a daily basis. He would enjoy the challenge and the chance to be social, and Helen was not qualified to homeschool him on a permanent basis. Anxiety still settled like lead in her stomach at the thought of Alex away for so many hours of the day after his weeks in Russia.
She never let it show. Just bought the supplies he needed and prepared like any other parent would and did her best to soothe Alex's own quiet worries about a new school and new classmates.
On the first day of school, the house quite abruptly felt much larger and much more empty.
Helen and Matilda adapted. Alex settled in.
Once more, their world found a new equilibrium.
By autumn, the rumours were persistent enough that Yassen could not longer stay silent. The whispers that Hunter had always been SCORPIA's weapon were hardly new, but they had grown stronger since Zurich. Still not strong but … persistent. Quiet, but with more weight than they had carried before.
Yassen had pointedly ignored it during the time he had spent with Alex in Russia. It was vacation and training and a chance for Alex to spend time with the man he had always seen as his brother, and Yassen would not bring work into that. It gave him some time to consider his approach as well.
Yassen confronted Hunter a week after Alex returned to school. It was obnoxiously bright and sunny for Helsinki in late August, and Hunter seemed determined to take full advantage of that.
"I assume you are aware of the current state of your reputation."
It was not a question. Hunter was the one who had taught him the value of rumours in the first place, and Yassen could not fathom a situation in which he would not keep track of such things.
Hunter leaned back in his lawn chair, a cold glass of something bright pink resting on the table next to him in a small puddle of condensation. The concoction had a straw and fruit chunks and a cocktail umbrella, and Yassen would have mistaken it for Alex's but for the fact that there were four of the glasses around. It would have been five, but Yassen had turned down Hunter's offer and ignored the predictable amusement that came with it.
Sometimes, even Yassen had a hard time joining the reputation of Hunter with the image of John Rider.
"That I'm actually working for SCORPIA?" Hunter replied and didn't bother to wait for a response. "Those rumours started to pick up not that long after Zurich when SCORPIA didn't increase the bounty on me, but they didn't really start to gain strength until back in January. Maybe someone helped that along, maybe they didn't. The seed was always there."
He took it calmer than Yassen would have in his situation, but he had also had time to adjust to the thought. Not merely that he worked for the very people who had targeted his family, but that everything he had done since he left – every job, every impossible assassination – had been in SCORPIA's service. That his reputation, hard earned and carefully guarded, might now boost SCORPIA's instead.
Yassen didn't mention that, though. Hunter was well aware of just what those rumours meant.
"A careful balance, to feed such rumours without drawing unwanted attention to the source," he said instead.
"More careful than quite a few of the Board are capable of," Hunter agreed. "Most of them would have upped the bounty instead. My best guess is Three. He's got a terrifying grasp of psychology. Grendel, maybe. He's sharp, even sharper than most realise, and he's got the patience for that sort of thing. It's got Three's fingerprints all over, though. Subtle, insidious, and sharp enough to hurt."
Calm. Casual. Like it didn't matter that SCORPIA might possibly claim years of hard work for themselves with little more than rumours.
"You plan to let them?" Yassen's words were harsher than he had planned, the bitterness that he had told himself had long since vanished, and the thought that Hunter would just permit it was – unacceptable.
"What do you propose I do, then?"
There was an edge to Hunter's voice; a sharpness Yassen rarely heard, and he stilled before he could voice the rest of his objections. The seconds stretched on, the uneasy tension, and then Hunter sighed and the moment passed.
"This is SCORPIA's way to save face and make some kind of profit from this whole disaster. My existence has always been a thorn in their side. Arguing will do nothing at best. Anyone who believes those rumours wouldn't believe my objections, anyway. At worst, SCORPIA will decide I've become too much of a problem and target Helen and the kids to make an example of me. As long as the rumours do their job, SCORPIA can't outright target my family without raising unwanted questions, and my reputation is valuable enough that pointed revenge like that along with the boost to SCORPIA's standing is worth marginally more than the time and money it would take to hunt us down and target us directly."
"Unless they find you through other means." Like Hunter's wife and the children in Zurich; sheer bad luck, nothing more and nothing less. SCORPIA would not turn down another opportunity like that.
Hunter shrugged. "Of course. They're not going to call off the bounty or stop following up on leads. It just keeps the incentive to start an all-out manhunt in check. Any other situation, they would probably have gone for a larger bounty to hunt me down but they can't afford another fuck-up like Zurich. Once can be explained away – the attack was carried out by overly-ambitious subordinates who didn't know about my SCORPIA affiliation, and the Board let me get even rather than handle the clean-up themselves – but another mistake like that could damage their reputation. This is as close as it gets to a truce with the Board. A Cold War sort of truce, sure, but they won't escalate things if I don't."
And for that, Yassen realised, Hunter would keep his head down and not speak against those rumours. Because whatever it cost his reputation and personal pride, it was worth the bit of additional protection for his family.
Politics.
The thought settled heavily in Yassen's mind, bitter and unwanted. He doubted Hunter felt much better about it.
Politics. It always came down to politics.
At the other end of the garden, Helen entertained Alex and Matilda in the sandbox, surrounded by colourful plastic toys and sandcastles and a wide moat. It was a chance to reconnect after a full week of school for Alex. Outside of his trips with Yassen, it had been almost a year since Alex had been away from home.
Helen had survived one attack already and kept her children safe through it. She had also had the element of surprise on her side against an ill-prepared team of whatever a lower-level administrator had been able to scrape together with very little notice.
They would not be that lucky a second time.
Hunter's wife was not a match for a trained assassin and SCORPIA would not underestimate her again. Their survival and continued security was always a matter of being one step ahead of SCORPIA. Quiet. Anonymous. Not quite worth the money or resources it would cost to actually hunt them down and not merely rely on the bounty on Hunter.
Politics. And within a few years, Yassen would need to deal with such games himself. He was already a target but he was well aware that Hunter still served as a shield for the worst political machinations. He still advised, still understood the language on an instinctive level that Yassen struggled to grasp.
With Hunter retired, Yassen could still seek him out for advice, but in the end, the responsibility would be his own. The pull Hunter still had as Cossack's mentor, the ability to redirect the worst of such games to himself … it would fade in retirement.
Would this sort of decision be what Yassen might one day himself have to make? Swallow his pride, lower his head, and allow SCORPIA their victory?
The thought did not appeal. Even less did the realisation that just like Hunter, he would be unlikely to have a choice. He would be one man against a behemoth. If SCORPIA genuinely wanted something … what chance did one person stand?
"You'll be all right," Hunter said. There was a small, wry smile on his lips when Yassen glanced over; the acknowledgement that he had already guessed Yassen's thoughts, and perhaps it was not entirely unexpected. Hunter knew him well. "It's not personal with you, not in the same way. A good part of this is revenge. I screwed them over, this is the price. It'll be easier when I retire."
"It is always personal with the Board." In theory, SCORPIA preached business first. There was no language more important than money. In Yassen's experience, that philosophy only applied to subordinates, because the Board certainly had any number of more or less petty grudges they clung to like a particularly disgruntled horde of toddlers.
"There's a difference between grudges and obsessions," Hunter said and unknowingly echoed Yassen's thoughts. "I was always a legitimate target to the Board. I was an undercover agent and screwed them over resoundingly in the process, and then I had the audacity to survive. You, on the other hand … you were twenty when you left SCORPIA, I was your teacher, and for all you knew, SCORPIA could very well decide to execute you for my treason if you returned. You could easily have gone with me because you had nowhere else to go. You're a target because of your skills and potential, but making it personal will cross that line to obsession. It can't be justified, and that sort of thing makes people a liability."
And SCORPIA did not tolerate liabilities. Not even on the Board. Yassen did not doubt they would turn on their own at the first sign of weakness.
What do you propose I do, then?
It was not a choice Yassen approved of but there was no realistic alternative, either. The bitterness still lingered but somehow the knowledge that Hunter disliked the situation just as much made it ease just slightly. The knowledge that Yassen was not the only person who saw the smug manipulations, the politics, and loathed every bit of it. Hunter played those games exceptionally well. That did not mean he enjoyed them.
Across the garden, Alex looked up. He caught Yassen's eyes and lit up in a smile, bright and genuine, then returned to his moat.
Something in Yassen's chest twisted in response. The awful knowledge that Hunter was right.
He did not have to like it but for Alex and Matilda and Helen – for his family – he would allow SCORPIA their victory. Dark, bitter, and hollow, but worth it for a bit of safety.
A good assassin had no habits.
That was one of the first lessons John had taught Yassen, but he would also be the first to admit it was a bit of a flexible truth. It was impossible to avoid habits. The trick was to be aware of them and minimise the risk they posed.
John had frequently missed birthday because of work – mostly his own and Helen's – but he had always been home for Christmas since Alex was old enough to notice that sort of thing. Sometimes he returned just a day or two before. Sometimes he would have been home for weeks. It was a conscious decision, both to be home and have those days with his family as a normal father, but also to do everything he could to ensure there was no predictable pattern to his travels even if someone did try to use it to track him down.
John returned home three days before Christmas. Complications meant that the job had taken longer than expected, but he had erred on the side of caution in his time estimate. The extra week had been annoying but he was still back in Finland with days to spare.
It was well into evening by the time he returned from the airport. As he turned down the last stretch of road, the houses were mostly dark but for the Christmas decorations. It was late enough that most sensible people would getting ready for the night. Their own house was the same though John caught a glimpse of Helen in the kitchen as he turned into the driveway.
She met him in the hallway as he stepped inside, and then his suitcase was forgotten on the floor as his world narrowed down to the scent of her perfume and the taste of her lips and soft arms wrapped around him.
"Missed you," she whispered, and John pressed a kiss to her hair.
"Missed you, too."
Helen took a step back. Put John's jacket away as he got his shoes off and dragged the suitcase into the living room. "How've the kids been?"
"Good. They've missed you. Maddie had learned to draw circles; she'll want to tell you everything about them. Alex is settling in well at school. Antti and Johannes have been by a lot."
John recognised the names as kids from Alex's class. He was making friends, then. That was a good sign. Ian and John himself had both been sent off to public school and had thrived there – intelligent, from somewhat old money, charming when they wanted to be, and adaptable by necessity – but it was not the sort of school John wanted for his own kids. Connections had been useful for the Rider family. For Hunter and his family, it was entirely different kinds of connections that mattered.
It had been a month since he had last been home and the house looked different. Christmas decorations had appeared everywhere. Thick blankets were folded up on the couch. There were two steaming cups on the wooden table and the smell of coffee in the air and something about it felt like home the way nothing else did.
He smiled, emotion taking over where Hunter had been, and Helen smiled back.
The house was silent, the kids asleep, the world beyond the windows still and dark. It was quiet. Calm. Home.
John felt a twinge of regret that he would have to ruin it.
There were a couple of plastic bags in his suitcase. One with gifts that he put aside for the moment; the other taken up by a large hardcover book, brightly coloured and so new it still had the smell of fresh ink and paper.
He gave it to Helen. Watched silently as she ran a hand over the cover and got a better look at the title. Bright, soft, colourful. Meant for children, not adults.
"Anatomy: A Primer for the Youngest Students," she read and glanced over at him. She had talked about finding a book on anatomy for Alex, something that could be a foundation for medicine and first aid and other useful things along those lines, but she hadn't found one she liked liked yet. Alex was curious by nature and she wanted to encourage that curiosity, not crush it under dry, droning textbooks.
John knew she had glanced at the author, too, but he would have been surprised if she recognised the name. He didn't say anything, though, and Helen returned to the book. Opened it at random somewhere in the middle and skimmed some pages before she picked another spot. John didn't have her medical background but he knew enough to know that it was well-written and thorough, and he would have been surprised if anything else had been the case for that, too.
Almost five hundred pages, all of them in colour, with child-friendly explanations of the more difficult words, about a dozen large, folded posters to supplement the book, and a separate workbook with age-appropriate experiments, colouring pages, and a number of other activities. The only thing in it that might in any way hint towards the author was the chapter on the dissection of small animals, with plenty of instructions and drawings and explanations, but even that wasn't unusual in school books. To all intents and purposes, the book was absurdly expensive but otherwise normal.
Dr Three had been a busy man.
Finally Helen closed the book and looked back at him.
"It's very good," she said. "Intuitive explanations, detailed and accurate, and enough interesting facts to make a child fascinated enough to keep reading. Alex will love it, probably even the colouring pages. Some of them are exceptionally detailed. Maddie is a little too young but it would be something to start to read together when she's older. Four or five, maybe. Where did you find it?"
John's smile was grim, the echo of the knot of fear he had carried around for two weeks, and Helen tensed in response. "The usual channels, believe it or not. Dr Henry Roberts is one of Dr Three's several known pseudonyms. There's nothing illegal about this one, nothing alarming, nothing to make anyone who doesn't know him suspect a thing, which means that his primer there can actually be found in regular bookshops. Specialised bookshops; it's hideously expensive and not exactly bestseller material, but normal, legal bookshops."
Helen stilled for a moment, familiar with SCORPIA's executive board from John's meticulous files, and John continued.
"Check the dedication."
She didn't want to; the second of hesitation proved she already knew it was bad news, but she opened the book and found the page. John didn't need to read it again. The words were already burned into his mind, black on blindingly white paper.
For Alexander and Matilda, and the next generation of curious minds.
A second. Another. Helen closed the book. Closed her eyes a second later. Took several deep breaths -
- Fear, wild and desperate; a surge of adrenaline and cold sweat and the frantic staccato of his heart -
- before she opened them again to look at him.
"How bad is it?"
She didn't ask if there were anyone else Three could possible be referring to with those names. She knew as well as he did that the odds were so small, they were practically non-existent. Like John himself, her first thought was her family and the second, right at the heels of that, was their contingency plans.
How bad is it?
It was a distinct message. Bad enough, certainly. But that wasn't what Helen asked.
What do we do, was the unvoiced question beneath the words.
Would they have to leave? Was this the last warning before an attack? It was barely more than a year since Geneva and while Helen didn't show it, John knew the memories were back, as stark and vivid as they had ever been.
John had bought the book two weeks ago. He'd had a lot more time to consider the situation but still didn't have much of an answer.
"Bad enough and – I don't know." The truth, like she wanted, and John continued. "Three enjoys his games. He enjoys testing his own skills. If his prey gets spooked and flees, he'll just consider that part of the challenge. That book is a message. He wants us to know he's hunting us, and if we panic and make a mistake big enough that he can find us, so much the better. Does he know where we are? Not yet, or we would already have been attacked. Does he have a general idea? I don't know."
They hadn't even been in Helsinki for a year and they had been careful. John didn't think even SCORPIA could hunt them down in that short amount of time but … the thought lingered. The sinking realisation that they would need to move again sooner than he had hoped. That Alex wouldn't get two or three years of stability but a year and a half at the most. Matilda had adjusted well but Alex was only just starting to get used to things. It would be less of a traumatic move than Geneva had been but they would still have to start over from scratch. A new school and new friends for Alex, and Matilda was getting old enough to want proper friends, too. New names, new background, new lives. And again a year later, two at the most, when John retired.
There were really only two options. Run, and they might slip up enough to leave a trail. Stay, plan a more careful relocation, and run the risk that Three might track them down before they could move. They had to take the threat seriously. It was too much of a risk not to.
Alex and Matilda obviously had Three's attention and that was never a good thing. Moving would be rough. The alternative was worse. It would be too much of a risk to stay until he was ready to retire.
Politics.
John had learned to thrive in that sort of environment but sometimes, he really understood Yassen's visceral hatred of those games.
The rumours of his involvement with SCORPIA only made it more complicated.
To outsiders, Three's book could be anything from a thinly veiled threat to flat-out confirmation of Hunter's continued loyalty to SCORPIA. If he retired now, the immediate conclusion would be that he had gone to ground in response to Three's blatant interest in his children. It would all but confirm that Hunter was not, in fact, working for SCORPIA and would remove the slight veneer of protection those rumours had offered, too.
How fast could they relocate safely? They would need long enough that it seemed planned. That no one would question why they cut their lease short. People would wonder if they moved overnight. A family emergency serious enough to move on short notice was the sort of thing people remembered. A job offer was a safer explanation.
"John?"
John, not Thomas, because Helen was as shaken as John was and they would have to move again and -
- Sometimes, John was tired.
Sometimes, he just wanted to retire. Settle down somewhere for good, watch the kids grow up under new names but able to make friends again like they had in Geneva – have classmates and hobbies and maybe one day forget that they had ever been anyone else; trauma and loss and stress dulled by time and distance.
"John." Softer this time, more a sigh than anything, and then Helen was in his arms, hands in his shirt and soft hair against his skin.
His arms were around her before he was even aware of it, and he sank into her presence, warm and familiar and home.
For a long time they didn't move. Outside, the world was silent. Inside, only the steady sound of the clock on the wall broke the silence, heartbeat after heartbeat.
"… I never wanted this," John finally admitted. "Three years. Two. That was all I wanted. A bit of stability for all of you. Not this."
Helen's grip tightened slightly and there was a tremor in her body; tense muscles under John's hands. Then she took a deep breath and the tension eased.
"We're moving again, then."
"We're moving again," John agreed. Where they would move to, he didn't know. They would still need to figure that out, especially with Three's unwanted interest. The doctor was unnervingly good at predicting people.
Maybe they would need to be unpredictable, then. A list of possible countries, including those he had originally written off. Let random chance decide which one they would settle in. It would only be a year, two at the most before they had to move again. They could afford somewhere less than perfect.
"It might be a bluff," John continued, "it might just be a way to unnerve us to see if he can get us to make a mistake but we can't risk it. Three might enjoy the games for now but he won't call off the dogs just because we're hard to find. If we move … if we're lucky, we'll knock that search back to start. If we're really lucky, we'll end up somewhere he doesn't expect us to hide and we'll be out of there again before he can even think of expanding the search."
Because even Dr Three didn't have the resources to go over all of Europe – or the rest of the world – in the search for them. He was good but even he had limits. He wasn't a mind-reader. He didn't have endless resources. They just had to stay ahead for long enough. Once John retired, he would lose importance fast. Maybe the bounty wouldn't ever go away but it would decrease over time. He would no longer be a risk. No longer be worth the money or resources to find him. Once he retired and didn't have to travel and take risks and be Hunter, they could hide in a way they hadn't before.
A year. Two. Enough time to retire on his own terms. To make it clear that it was his choice and not the threat from SCORPIA and Dr Three.
Politics.
Hunter was a legend. He had enemies that would attack at the first sign of weakness. Two years. He would be forty, then. They had to stay ahead of the hounds for two years. Then they could vanish. Hunter would become a ghost, Cossack would claim his position, and they would start over elsewhere. As a family. Nothing more and nothing less.
The clock ticked on, slow and steady. Helen took a slow breath. Only John knew her well enough to spot the slight unevenness.
"All right." A heartbeat. "A job offer, then? Something too good to refuse."
Because Helen understood the game as well and that made John's life much easier now. A partner and an equal. Everything he needed.
"It's the easiest and most believable excuse. Security consultant somewhere – the former Yugoslavia, maybe. Things have quieted down enough in some parts that it's not too unlikely we'd move there if I got offered a good enough job. A home in Slovenia would make travel easier. Well-paid enough to make it worth moving again. No one's going to remember that in a year."
"Three months, then?"
"Less. I want us out of here by the end of February. That's long enough to make it look credible. We'll cancel the lease for the end of March just in case but … February. No later than early March. I got a good job offer while I was away, and we'd been talking about a more stable job, but I wanted to talk to you about it first. That'll work as a cover."
It would give them enough time to handle new identities and a new home and do it right. They couldn't afford mistakes. It would be expensive but not as bad as it could have been. Zurich had opened up for several new, well-paid business opportunities that John had taken advantage of, and they wouldn't have to leave everything behind.
Helen didn't argue. She knew the necessity of it just as well as he did. She just let go and moved back to the couch to pick up the book.
John didn't doubt it seemed much more ominous now. The patient, friendly tone of the book took on an entirely different feeling when you knew the man and the research behind it. Even with assistants and editors to handle the bulk of it, Three had spent weeks on that book. Weeks, from a man on SCORPIA's executive board. Someone whose time might not be priceless but which was measured in millions of dollars. And it had been written with John's children in mind.
Helen opened the book and this time she read a good dozen pages before she spoke again. John didn't interrupt. Just waited for whatever had caught her attention.
"Who wrote it? A ghostwriter?"
It wasn't a question John had expected but he answered it the best he could.
"Based on the writing style and the contents … Three probably wrote it himself. I could be wrong, it could just be a very good ghostwriter with clear instructions, but I suspect Three with the help of a skilled artist for the illustrations. His normal books are gruesome but he's genuinely a very good teacher when he wants to be. The problems start when his students don't show the interest and dedication to the subject that he expects. He's a sadist through and through but he also has a strong interest in research and scientific experiments, and most of the people around him just want to know the fastest way to break someone in interrogation. It's not a good combination."
A number of SCORPIA's own people had learned that the hard way. Three was always in need of more subjects for his research, and now his attention had turned to John's family.
Helen nodded. She had been tired when he had arrived; the pleasant sleepiness of late evening. Now that softness was gone, replaced by the harsher lines of stress and exhaustion and the quiet resignation of the way things would have to be.
"I'm going to read it. If there's nothing objectionable, I'm going to give it to Alex. From what I've seen so far, it's an exceptional work and exactly what I've been looking for as a basis for medical lessons." She paused. "I want you to explain this to him, Dr Three and everything. Keep it appropriate, but he knows at least some of what happened and he will notice that dedication. He'll have questions."
It … wasn't surprising. She was a practical woman and the book was good, even John could tell as much. He still hummed, a low, non-committal sound.
"We would throw it away. Burn it, forget we ever saw it. There are other books out there."
"I won't risk it." There was no yield in her voice. "He wrote that book with Alex and Matilda in mind. He dedicated it to them and he did it knowing that you would see it. Yes, we plan to move, change identities, vanish somewhere else and hopefully never be found, but that is not a guarantee. He wrote that book for them, he spent months of valuable time on this, and even if this is just part of his game, that is not an investment he made lightly. He could have focused on his own research instead, or some SCORPIA business or another. He wrote this, with our children in mind, and then published it at production cost or barely above, because this was by no means a cheap book to print. He wants our attention. He will be delighted to see his work spread, I'm sure, but that book was meant for us. I won't have random chance put our children in his path, to be asked if they have read the book the kindly old doctor wrote just for them, and be forced to say no. I won't risk that."
It was the same conclusion John himself had reached on the way home, and not for the first time he was fiercely grateful for the woman he had married. A partner and an equal. Someone who understood.
"And secrets have a habit of escaping when they're the most inconvenient," John agreed. "I'll have a talk with him. It's an excellent book. It won't go away. Give it ten years, and some editor will suggest updating it for a new generation, and that dedication will still be there. I want them to know. Get the story from us, and not twenty or thirty years down the line when they find out by accident and we might not be around to answer those questions."
It wasn't a nice thought that their kids would be on their own one day in the future. John hoped he and Helen would live well into old age themselves and that Alex and Matilda would be adults and settled when time and inevitability came calling. He was enough of a realist to consider the risk that they might very well not be.
Based on Helen's nod, so was she.
For a moment it was silent. Neither of them spoke. Then Helen kissed his cheek.
"Go put your suitcase away. I'll put on another pot of coffee. I love you dearly but not enough to put up with lukewarm coffee."
Necessity had taught John to tolerate anything with caffeine. That didn't mean he didn't have distinct preferences and the thought of freshly-brewed, good quality coffee had haunted him through two and a half cup of the airplane variety.
"We'll figure this out," he promised, as much for her sake as for his own.
"We will," Helen agreed. "Together."
She headed off to the kitchen. John grabbed the suitcase and dragged it off to the bedroom.
The book remained on the table. Wherever he was, John was sure that Three would have been delighted if he knew just how thoroughly he had managed to uproot their lives again.