Alex Rider: Life goes on

The Battle

Alex looked horror struck at the dead man laying next to him. His eyes frozen with a look of shock across his face.

Alex jumped to his feet and took the gun from the dead man laying on the floor at his feet.

What had happened?

Slowly more of the SAS men were rising, brushing concrete and plaster from their clothes.

Then Alex saw out of the corner of his eye, a man raising a gun towards him through the hole the explosion had made in the wall.

He instinctively dived sideways to avoid the inevitable spray of bullets. He had reacted just in time and felt the bullets fly past his head missing him by millimetres.

However one of the SAS men was not so lucky. The bullets crashed into his stomach throwing him of his feet. He smashed into the floor and lay still.

Then Alex realised. It was an ambush!

Their attackers must have been lying in wait for then to enter this room and now had them surrounded.

The remaining SAS men were taking up positions around the room from which they could best defend themselves and each other.
But Alex knew that if they remained in this position it would be a slaughter.

It is is impossible to cover yourself from every angle.

More men were rushing into the room and Alex joined the SAS trainees in holding them off.
But they weren't going to last long.

Then Alex remembered. The rest of the SAS squadron were waiting for his command.

The original plan had been that Alex and his group of soldiers would storm the building, take the leader of the impostors hostage, and bring down any resistance they met along the way.

The other group of soldiers, along with the captain, would then cover their escape after they had breached the office.

Alex now realised what this meant.

There were a group of SAS men on the outside.

Surely they must realise what happened?!

Why weren't they helping them?

At that very moment Alex heard shouts and the hail of gunshots that had been showering them previously, ceased.

Alex slowly rose from his position and walked towards what once was the door.

By the time he had reached it he was joined by the half a dozen remaining soldiers.

They slowly and silently left the room and went out into the corridor from which they had arrived.

There were bodies strewn all over the floor. Blood slowly pooling beside them.

Stepping over the bodies they carried on down the corridor.

Just then a voice Alex recognised spoke.

"Freeze, drop your weapons and put your hands in the air".

Then the captain recognised Alex and the rest of his squad.

"You guys look a mess" was all he said.

The following evening Alex was boarding a plane back to the US.

The Pleasure family had received the message he had left for them but were incredibly angry at him for walking out on them. However the Pleasures (particularly Sabina) weren't very good at being angry at Alex and it was soon forgiven.

Alex was just taking a seat onboard the plane when he received a text. Assuming it was Sabina he opened it and was surprised to find the phone did not recognise the number of the person he was receiving the message from.

He began to read...

Hello Alex.
My name is Ben Rider.
I am your brother.
Meet me at five o'clock on Sunday the 9th June at your old house in Chelsea if you want answers.

I'll see you then.