Danger Nights

Chapter Eight

The tablets and hot soak didn’t get rid of John’s migraine completely, but the pain subsided enough to let him eat a light meal in their chamber after the bath. He picked carefully at a baked potato while Alexei watched with sympathy and concern.

“Just go to bed after you’ve finished,” the boy said. “With two armed men outside our locked door, I assure you that we won’t be escaping tonight.”

He sounded so much like Mycroft just then that John looked up from his plate. The glow from a nearby lamp played on Alexei’s hair, making the bronze highlights shimmer.

Exactly the way Mycroft’s did when exposed to light.

“You should be more careful what you say, Alexei. The room is probably monitored.”

“It isn’t, actually.” Alexei picked up the salt shaker and, to John’s confusion, spread a fine layer of its contents on the table. “At least not that I can detect. This place appears to be too old to support a surveillance system more modern than an ear at the door.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.” The teenager ran his right forefinger through the salt, forming letters.

No cameras, but listening devices likely.

After making an inane comment about being exhausted, John swept the words away with his palm, brushing off the fine crystals that stuck to his skin, and wrote back.

The Russian bloke. What was that about?

Keeping up the neutral verbal conversation, Alexei erased John’s writing and replied.

His shirt was partly unbuttoned and I saw a tattoo on his chest.

A tattoo? Of what?

Breast cancer ribbon. With Russian word for ‘Mother’.

So that was why Alexei had mentioned Elena out of the blue like that. The boy was making at least one of their guards see him as human, not a depersonalized asset.

He’s also afraid of other guard, Alexei continued. Acts nervous around him. Not committed to this scheme.

Daring to hope, John responded: You think he might help us?

Strong possibility.

The doorknob turned. Alexei swept the salt onto the rug, whose cream-coloured fibres easily concealed the grains. The glowering Scotsman came in while his Russian associate lingered in the doorway.

“I’m sure you figured this out already, but I’ll say it anyway,” he growled. “Mr. Mayberry’s order is that you be treated like guests. But the only thing missing from these trays had better be food.”

“We assumed the cutlery would be counted afterward,” Alexei replied. “Since there’s only two of everything to be accounted for, I’m sure your math skills will suffice.”

The Russian guard turned his face away, but not before John saw a smirk. The Scotsman wasn’t as amused. His hands gripped John’s tray so hard that the contents rattled.

“Little Soviet bastard. If you were my kid, I’d drown you.”

“I’m not Russian, I’m Polish. Half. And if I were your son, I’d drown myself.”

For a single, dangerous moment John thought the man would drop everything and go for Alexei. He still felt wretched, but enough adrenaline now flooded his body to let him spring to the boy’s defence if necessary.