Chapter 9 – Without a Trace

"You mean that you work with the SO?" The sergeant asked, his heart sinking with realisation with what that could mean for him.

"No shit Sherlock." Alex said turning on the sergeant. "No if you'll excuse me, I've got a call to make." He said walking out of the room picking up his phone off the table and scrolling through his contacts to find Mrs. Jones.

"Nice name for her," Ben said chuckling under his breath looking at Alex's phone over his shoulder.

"Mmm well I couldn't just list her as Tulip Jones could I?" Alex murmured.

"Yeah but just Bitch..."

"I thought it was fitting. You should have seen Blunt's if you think this is bad!"

"I don't even want to know. Anyway, I'll leave you to make that call then." Ben smiled and walked back to the Sergeant.

Mrs. Jones froze as the phone in her back pocket began to ring. That it itself was not a particularly weird thing, peoples phones ring all the time. The thing that made this one so different was that it was her phone. Not many people even had he personal number; especially no one from work. She just didn't trust many people with it. All it would take is one foolish person and her number would be accessible for all.

What was even stranger was that she had given each of her contacts a different ring tone so that she knew who was calling. This wasn't someone she knew. Her number couldn't be guessed as it was no ordinary number, it was far too long, but it also needed a code to actually get through to her phone.

She pulled it out of her back pocket and stared at it for a few seconds just to confirm her doubt before answering it. She signalled to her assistant to start tracing the number. As soon as she answered the person at the other end began to speak.

"There has been a breach of security at the Brecon Beacons regarding Sergeant Phillips. Immediate assistance and orders are needed. Have a nice day Tulip, Oh and don't try to trace this number. It won't go down well." A man stated clearly, but with a light Russian accent, before hanging up. Mrs. Jones stood in shock, holding her phone before her still registering what had happened.

"Did you get a trance?" Mrs. Jones asked her assistant who had quickly scrambled together a team who were currently furiously tapping away at their computers, each of them typing a couple of lines of code before being caught with a password to hack. After about a minute of this one of the computers crashed and a message saying 'I told you so' came flashing up on the screen. Then one by one the signal of the number was lost from each computer as they continued to trace it.

"I'd say no. By the looks of it, it was untraceable anyway but the signal has been turned off now. We won't get it back now that we've lost it." Mrs. Jones sighed and turned back to her computer to see what was actually going on at the Brecon Beacons.

"Mission accomplished. Now I just have to get out of here before Jones gets here. Tell L-unit I had a family emergency or something. And keep him locked up until she gets here will you?" Alex asked as he walked back into the room.

"I will. Oh and Al? Be back by the 19th will you." Ben winked as Alex smiled at his comment muttering the words 'I'll try' under his breath.

Ben smiled at him for the last time and Alex nodded before turning and starting to jog away into the hills. Within minutes he was out of sight.

Ben just sighed, it was hard to believe that only 10 minutes ago he had still thought that Alex was dead.

"I'm in deep trouble now aren't I?" The Sergeant asked quietly.

"Yeah, you are. Why did you even try to spy on us to start with?" Ben commented.

"I don't know. Jag has just been a mystery from the first time he stepped foot here and I guess I just wanted some answers. If you don't mind me asking, who is he?"

"A dead man walking; the best of the best; the last of the family with the luck of the devil; the only agent with a 100% success rate. It's funny, even when he 'died' about a month ago, he still had to send in the information he was sent to collect just to keep up his record." Ben smiled sadly before turning away. "Jones should be here soon, she'll want to interrogate you, do us a favour and don't mention Jag will you." The sergeant nodded questioningly.

"I thought he worked for SO?"

"As a manner of speaking, yes he did do missions for them, but he never worked for them. He's not under any of their records, apart from other people's." The Sergeant raised a questioning eyebrow at this but Ben just shrugged it off. "Then he 'died' and came here to escape without them knowing so I think he would very much appreciate it if you didn't ruin it all for him."

"So he's not working for them?" Fox paused for a moment before nodding slightly. "He 'died' to escape them? Is that even possible?"

"For him? Yes definitely. For anyone else? They'd never get away with it."

"But doesn't it mean that he's like probably an assassin now? I mean who, with those kinds of skills doesn't work for SCORPIA?" Ben noticeably winced at the name.

"No he's not an assassin; his morals are way too high. He hates working with a gun. And trust me; he would never ever work for SCORPIA. Not after everything they've done to him" Ben muttered the last part but the sergeant still heard it. He sent Ben a questioning look but he simply shook his head in response.

"You might want to be thinking of a more convincing story by the way. Jones is never going to fall for that." Ben called as he left the room. "Time to hack that footage now then I think."

Hi guys,

I have to say a massive thanks to everyone who reviewed, alerted, favourited and even just read this story because otherwise this update would probably never have come. I was just reading through the story and just said to myself 'this is so crap' and with my exams and then the start of a busy summer holiday I just never got back into it.

Then I saw that people were still reading and reviewing and realised that I had to finish it for you guys so here goes. I will get this finished no matter how long it takes me. I promise.

Anyway I know that this one was short but I just wanted to get it updated and didn't know how to get it to flow onto the next bit. Sorry about that.

Please read and review. I love to know what you guys think and it really will help.

Cat