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.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story covers the timeline of Season 7, with events occuring between episodes 2 and 3. I apologize ahead of time for all the angst and the hiding behind the sofas...
Broken continues with the final chaper (is an "epilogue" counted as a chapter?) which takes us to the end of Season 8, episode 8. Coming soon :)
Once again, thank you for reading this far and for commenting and voting. I appreciate all your comments and am grateful to all of you for joining me in my world - and most of all, to the Alternate Universe of Lucas North :)
*Tring is the location of the psychological ward and is also a rehabiliation center for MI5 personnel.
>>> <<<
Jools was reading the newspaper when his wife came to visit him. A respected barrister, Hillary Watt QC had risen to the position of Queen’s Counsel because of her intelligence, tenacity and ambition. She had been the primary counsel against Zoe Reynolds when the MI5 operative went on trial for conspiracy to murder and involuntary manslaughter, successfully convincing the jury to sentence her to ten years in prison.
Born to working class parents, Hillary had always thought that she had truly risen above her station despite her own hard-won successes by marrying into the ready-made aristocracy that was Jools Siviter. But that was before his sentencing to a life in prison that morning.
She had worked out a plan to appeal the case, convinced that Jools had been framed from the very beginning by the very people who had always been jealous of his power and position as head of MI6. Jools could be pompous, arrogant, rude and condescending, but he was still a outstanding man who worked hard for what he wanted and, she believed, did things by the book - mostly.
That was until she saw the video evidence presented to her the day before, when she had convinced the prosecution to show it to her in her private quarters ahead of time.
“I need to make sure it’s authentic,” she had told the prosecutor, whom Hillary had worked with for almost fifteen years. “Besides, even if it is real, I’d rather not have my mouth hanging open at the tribunal.”
She watched the videos in silence, replaying key moments to make sure that she was indeed looking at Jools. She recognized the firm set of his mouth when he was thinking of something to say and the way he sized up his opponent with the way his eyes looked up and down before he’d smile and say something entertaining to detract from what he was about to really say or do.
She knew then that Jools had lied to her all this time. All those trips to Europe had included not just actual work that went into his operations, but also in the assisting and brokering of sales of nuclear weapons between hostile countries. He knew his voice, the way his words seemed to slip out of his mouth so smoothly and with such wit that anyone listening would seem he was paying them a compliment before realizing, or never even realizing, that he’d just followed it up with an insult.
That was the Jools she knew.
It was then that Hillary knew that she had no choice on what to do next.
How could she continue working in court when her reputation would be tainted by a husband who had fallen so far from grace and was about to spend the rest of his life in prison? Would she be able to look back at the people who would gaze upon her with pity or hatred, and in the process, be effective at what she did?
Hillary could not even defend her own husband even if she had wanted to for even she knew, as a former barrister for the defense, that the evidence against him was just too damning.
She had read the report that had been submitted nine years earlier. And although Hillary thought that she could successfully raise the issue of reasonable doubt, considering that the person who had filed the report, along with its evidence collector, were all deceased, and the messenger of the report considered psychologically unbalanced, it was the presence of the newly acquired video and audio evidence that made her defense impossible.
She did not want to further jeopardize her career in the queen’s court by defending a traitor to the realm, one who apparently had been betraying the country for over fifteen years, much longer than their own marriage.
So Hillary Wyatt found herself in a quandary.
And when Jools instructed her to send messages to a man who proved too shadowy for her taste, her own suspicions had been aroused, though she realized too late that Jools had just used her to send an order to execute a mother and son. So he was guilty, she thought then. For why kill the woman he kept insisting had been the messenger all along? Why did Jools hate the young woman so much?
And so Hillary decided to take matters into her own hands.
The longer Jools would live, even if he were behind bars, would mean that she would never be respected as a queens counsel ever again. But if something happened to him before he would have the chance to appeal, it would look like someone had wanted to silence him. Hillary had defended too many of the guilty to know how such things worked.
Procuring what she needed had been easy. She simply had to tell the same man Jools had sent her to relay the message that she wanted to make sure that somebody else was not going to talk. He hadn’t even bothered to ask who. He simply gave her the clear liquid in a vial, instructed her to smear the lip of the glass with a cotton tip or rag, or if nothing was available, her own finger but just to be sure that she washed her hands very well afterwards.
“She’ll have a heart attack. At least that’s how it’s going to appear.”
Hillary thanked the despicable man and went about her way.
As she kissed her husband on the cheek, telling him that their girls missed him and had wanted to come along but had been prohibited to by the tribunal, Hillary smiled and placed the bottle of mineral water on the table between them.
She was going to be damned if Jools was going to embarrass her anymore than he already had. She had come from a working class family who valued hard work above all else, and while aristocracy and old money were good to have, it meant nothing when it was tainted with the taste of betrayal to the country.
This way, Jools would still die a hero, even if Hillary would paint him as a tainted one after it was all over, betrayed by a psychologically unbalanced and vengeful woman named Alexa George, who would be dead within the hour.
>>><<<
Lucas frowned as he found himself staring at his mobile phone. After calling Alexa and listening to the phone ring once, he listened as she answered, only to have the line go dead. When Lucas dialed her number again, his call went straight to voicemail.
Terror gripped him as he sped through M25 till he arrived at Luton Airport, making his way to Gate 7 where he obtained clearance to enter the private charter area. Harry had taken care of all the arrangements during the last two weeks, making sure that the plane was ready to take off as soon as Alexa and Liam arrived. There would be no time for long good-byes and already, Lucas could feel his throat tighten at the thought that he would not be seeing Alexa and Liam for some time.
Lucas stopped the car and got out. Two private jets were parked in front of the hangar but no one was around, except for a petrol truck that was driving away from him, towards another mid-sized that was parked in front of a one-story building.
In the distance, the rest of Luton airport was teeming with activity yet the private terminal remained quiet.
Lucas heard that the terminal was undergoing some new developments and as he walked briskly towards the closest plane, its door wide open before the stairway, he could see that the new building was taking shape. The outer architecture was complete although as he turned to look through the glass, the interior was still undergoing some improvements.
Two men were installing some rows of seats in the first floor, ignoring Lucas as he walked past them just outside the window. Lucas glanced at his watch. Alexa and Liam should be arriving in the next five to ten minutes, he thought.
He dialed Alexa's number again, cursing under his breath as it went straight to voicemail. He dialed Harry, who answered on the third ring.
"Harry, have you been able to get in touch with Alex?"
"The driver just called me right now. He's outside the flat but no one's answering the door," Harry said.
Lucas cursed. "Then have him kick the door in, Harry," he countered as he climbed up the stairway towards the plane, stopping to release his gun from his shoulder holster when he realized that no one had welcomed him at the top of the stairs. The hairs at the back of his neck stood on end. Something was terribly wrong.
"Hold on, Harry," Lucas switched the ear piece on and tucked the phone in his jacket pocket. Holding the gun in front of him, Lucas made his way silently through the threshold, finding the silence within it disquieting as he walked towards the cockpit, clearing each space as best he could before advancing.
"Hello," he called out. "Anyone here?"
The silence that greeted Lucas' made his skin crawl and as he made his way to the front of the plane, he saw them. Three of the crew were strapped to the jump seats, a bullet through each of their foreheads and Lucas was grateful that at least, it had been quick for them.
Silently he continued his way to the cockpit, pushing the door open with his boot. The pilot and co-pilot must have been checking the controls when the killer came in, Lucas thought, shooting the crew first before shooting the men. They both were slumped over the controls, the lights still blinking beneath their blank stares.
Lucas felt the charge in the air as someone stepped behind him. As he slammed towards his left, hitting his shoulder against the wall of the narrow corridor, Lucas heard the muffled sound of the bullet just as he turned his head to the right. The smell of sulfur filled the small space between then and Lucas lunged forward, catching the man in the chest and together they tumbled backwards. Lucas slammed the man's arm against the floor so that the gun with its silenced barrel clattered away from them.
He recognized the man immediately. He was one of the men who had been recorded in Mikhael's apartment building almost fifteen years earlier, accused of murdering Mikhael's wife and son. He was a former MI6 operative who had simply disappeared fifteen years ago although Lucas suspected that the man worked primarily for Jools.
"Why?" Lucas shouted angrily, pinning his forearm against the man's burly neck. The thought that the man had been sent to kill Alexa and Liam drove Lucas to a point that he could barely control himself. Would this man truly kill a child, Lucas asked himself even though he already knew the answer. Didn't they kill Oksana and her one year old baby years ago?
"I do only as I'm told," the man spat, pushing Lucas off him. As Lucas fell against the seats behind him, the man reached for his gun and pointed it at him, pulling the trigger again.
This time, the bullet grazed Lucas' arm and he cursed, grabbing hold of a silver tray from the table and throwing it at him. As the man brought his arm up to defend himself, Lucas shot the man twice in the chest. The man fell back over the row of white leather seats, blood smearing against them as his body slid down onto the floor.
"Lucas, are you alright?" Harry was shouting in his earpiece as Lucas walked over towards the man lying on the floor and kicked the gun as far away as possible. He could hear the sound of gurgling before silence took over and Lucas exhaled. He looked down at his arm, feeling the sting of the bullet that grazed him.
"I'm alright, Harry," Lucas replied.
"I'm less than five minutes away, Lucas," Harry said. "CO19 is right behind me."
"Is there any way we can find out where they are, Harry," Lucas asked, a tinge of desperation in his voice. "Please tell me they're alright."
Harry paused, but even Lucas knew the answer. "No, Lucas. I can't get a hold of them at all."
The sounds of a plane preheating and a car screeching to a stop in the distance caught Lucas' attention and he ran outside. Where the petrol truck had stopped to fuel the private plane in the distance earlier, Lucas could see that it was now driving away. He could see the pilots through the cockpit, busy over the controls as he raced down the steps and towards the other plane.
The limousine stopped right by the stairway that led to the plane and at the top of the steps, Lucas saw two flight attendants flanking the door. Lucas recognized Alexa immediately as she emerged from the limousine, the driver holding the door open for her and Liam.
Alexa looked behind her, as if listening to someone from inside the car and Lucas watched as she hesitated at the bottom of the steps. She kept her head low and holding on to Liam's arm, they made their way towards the plane.
The glint of metal in the sun caught Lucas' eye and he looked up at the rooftop of a temporary building located to the left of the plane. He saw the unmistakable barrel of a rifle, a man's head leaning forward to take aim.
"Alex!" He yelled just as the crack of the rifle filled the air at the same time that Alexa turned to look towards him, a look on relief on her face. But the expression on her face was replaced with shock as she staggered backwards against the side of the door, yanking Liam with her as the flight attendants screamed and ducked back inside the plane.
Liam stumbled back just before falling two steps down.
Everything turned to slow motion in front of Lucas as Liam's name escaped his lips. He aimed for the roof and fired two shots, knowing he was too far for any of his shots to reach its mark. The black barrel of the rifle disappeared from the rooftop.
"Daddy," Liam shouted and Lucas froze as he watched Liam run down the stairs, the boy's eyes only on him.
One of the flight attendants knelt over Alexa, pulling her inside the plane. From the building, Lucas saw the man from the roof jump down the ledge and raise his gun again, pointing it towards the plane.
The man fired three successive shots just as someone emerged from the limousine, pulling Liam down onto the ground and keeping him safe behind the barrage of bullets that hit the opposite side of the vehicle. The plane's engines hummed loudly and Lucas could see the man pull Liam back up the stairs towards the plane, but the gunman's next round of bullets brought them back behind the cover of the limousine again.
Lucas kept running, realizing that this was an execution. The gunman had barely even registered Lucas' running form, his attention solely on Liam and the man in the dark suit who was keeping Liam down.
Lucas tackled the man before he could shoot again and as they grappled on the hot ground, he heard the plane's engines hum louder. Lucas cursed, screaming Liam's name as he watched the man pull Liam up the steps, disappearing through the door of the plane. Their guns, dropped in the midst of their struggle, were too far to grab but Lucas finally got the man into a chokehold, the man's back against him and his forearm tightening over the man's windpipe.
Lucas watched helplessly as the door to the plane was pulled shut and it began to move away. He shouted in frustration, tightening his hold on the gunman even after the man had ceased to move, the rage coursing through his veins now too great to control. He could only think of Alexa and Liam, wondering if Alexa was safe.
The bullet had hit her on the chest. He'd seen it with his own eyes.
When the man finally ceased breathing, Lucas released the man's body and got up, his legs weak as he watched the plane make its way along the runway, probably having gotten the quick go-ahead to take off. Realizing that Harry was no longer on the line, he pulled out his phone and dialed Harry's number.
"Turn the plane around, Harry," Lucas demanded, the words coming out ragged from his lips as Harry's car stopped in the distance, a dark van right behind it. He hung up the phone to meet him.
"They're gone," Lucas said to Harry as the older man finally arrived, his voice breaking. "Please tell me that plane was ours, Harry," Lucas said as began dialing the Grid. "Tell me you had another plan in place."
Harry's face told Lucas everything he needed to know, and as CO19 swarmed the jet that Harry had chartered for Alexa, now nothing more than a container filled with dead bodies, Lucas' knees finally gave way beneath him and he sank to the ground, burying his head in his hands.
Harry watched helplessly as the plane grew smaller in the sky, knowing that if he ordered to have the plane rerouted or turned around, whoever knew of their original plans would know instantly that Alexa and Liam were on that plane.
But who had Alexa now?
Someone else had snatched them from the safe house, someone who had known of Harry's plans. On the phone, he could hear Malcolm's voice telling him that the jet that had just taken off had been chartered under the name of a cosmetic surgeon named Morrison. But before Malcolm could say anymore, Connie's voice came on the line, panic in her voice.
"Harry, it's all over the news," she said. "Please tell me they got out."
"What are you talking about, Connie? What's all over the news?"
In the background, Harry heard the volume being turned up and the newscaster speaking about a car explosion in the city and that the victims, two of the three civilians had been identified. Tragic news today as the victims of the car bomb just this morning have been identified as Alexa George and her son, Liam George. Alexa George was the daughter of former ambassador to Ukraine, Nathaniel George and founder of the Found Hope Foundation that has helped thousands of displaced victims of human trafficking. We will continue to update you with information as we receive it...
Before Harry could say anything, Ros was on the phone.
"The car sent to pick her up had been rigged with explosives, Harry. Luckily the driver was inside Alexa's flat when it exploded," she said. "But we never released anything to the media outlets. Or did you?"
"No, I didn't, Ros" Harry replied curtly. "They killed everyone on the original flight." Harry said as he watched CO19 enter the plane that was now nothing more than a coffin.
"So if we don't have Alexa and Liam, Harry," Ros asked. "Who's got them now?"
>>><<<
Valentin Durev watched Alexa slowly peel the bullet-proof vest as she sat a few seats away from him, Liam by her side. Alexa had already removed Liam's vest and had helped the child put his shirt back on. Valentin was grateful that the killers hadn't elected to take head shots for if they had, then the vests would have done nothing to save them.
The boy was still crying, asking for his father, and for a moment, Valentin wondered if he'd done the right thing to take them away from Lucas the way he just did.
But even as he saw the ugly bruise darkening against Alexa's chest, just above the neckline of her tank top, Valentin knew he had done the right thing. He had heard of the kill squad sent to eliminate mother and son, had seen photographs of a bomb installed in the car that was to be sent to pick them up from the safe house.
The first intelligence reports he had intercepted about the kill squad had been nothing more than a distraction and even when he had warned Lucas about it days earlier, it had been Valentin's intuition that told him to scan the underground networks more thoroughly.
It had been the only thing that saved them all now, he thought.
Valentin had not risen up the FSB ranks as a simple communications liaison officer for nothing. He had his sources, and he had his secrets. It had taken Valentin a long time to make his way to London through the regular channels, working his way through the hierarchy that had Arkady Kachimov always one step ahead of him.
At every turn, Arkady was always first in line before him in every promotion, but Valentin had learned patience through the course of his work both in the fields of communications and information collection and analysis, where he excelled.
He was a quiet man, discreet in everything he did and always careful with everything he said. Even within the FSB, he knew that one had to be careful with what they thought of and spoke of.
Valentin had begun his career in the Russian foreign service as a communications officer in Prague, assigned to shadow the secret communications of a certain Harry Pearce, who the Russians knew was spearheading a top secret operation called Omega. Omega had been designed to spread misinformation about RAF activities in Germany.
It was during this time that Valentin was introduced to a woman named Minerva Reina.
Even her name was divine, he remembered now. Minerva was associated with the goddess Athena and her surname, Reina, was Spanish for 'queen'. That she herself was queenly in bearing was an understatement and Valentin remembered how he had fallen for her, just as other men around her did.
But Minerva's weakness had been power. She had been the daughter of a man who had once been wealthy and respected in Argentina, but had fallen into hard times. All she had left for her was her name, which still could command respect in certain circles, but not among the circles that mattered to her. She excelled in languages while in school and set for Europe the moment she graduated with honors.
She had been infatuated with Harry Pearce when Valentin first met her, though she had been unaware then that Harry's wife was expecting their first child in a matter of weeks and was about to embark on a full-on affair with another woman who was almost his equal in the security services, Juliet Shaw.
When Harry broke off their short-lived affair, she had been devastated and turned to Valentin, who had managed to charm her during her heartbreak. Weeks later, she would meet Nathaniel George, a man who would give her the wealth and status she had craved for so long.
While Nathaniel may have been highly intelligent and savvy in political circles, rising fast in the field of nuclear energy, he was naive when it came to the woman he married. Valentin continued to see her long after she married the young ambassador, and when Alexa was born, he knew immediately that the child was his.
When he appeared at the hospital where she had given birth, he managed only to take one look at the baby through the glass partition before Minerva and Nathaniel returned to London. Nathaniel may have been naive, but he was not stupid.
It took Valentin eight years before he would see Minerva again. Nathaniel had been assigned to Ukraine as ambassador at the same time that Valentin was assigned at the Russian communications office. It was there that Valentin got to meet Alexa again when Minerva finally relented and allowed him to see his daughter during their daily visits to the park.
Valentin never expected Alexa to remember him the first time she saw him again at the brothel. And why should she? He would have been nothing more than a fleeting memory of a man who used to tell her Russian fables, pleased to know that her mother had begun to teach her the language that he himself spoke.
And as Valentin watched Alexa hold Liam tight against her, safe in the plane that would hopefully take them out of harm's way, he wondered at what price he was about to pay for saving their lives.
>>><<<
Ros found Lucas sitting in front of his computer long after everyone had left the Grid. It had been five days since Alexa and Liam had left. Lucas had devoted himself completely to Ben's surveillance detail, often hardly taking breaks for hours as he sat inside the van watching and listening. He hardly spoke to anyone at the Grid except for the cursory greetings and his daily reports, and Ros was worried.
Even Harry had given up asking Lucas how he was doing, himself too preoccupied about other things.
Jools Siviter had been found dead in his prison cell the same morning that Alexa and Liam had been flown out of England by a yet-unknown person. Jools' guard that day was nowhere to be found. The medical examination stated that Jools had been poisoned, his water bottle laced with a nerve toxin that killed him by stopping his heart.
Ros could understand Harry's preoccupation. Besides, he had to speak at Alexa and Liam's memorial that afternoon, a well-attended event that Lucas did not go to.
"Hey there," Ros said as she sat at her desk facing him. "How are you?"
Lucas looked up from the computer screen, as if suddenly realizing that he wasn't alone. "Isn't it too late for you to still be here?" He asked Ros, getting up and grabbing his coat.
Circles lined the underside of Lucas' eyes and his skin looked pale. Ros could see that he wasn't sleeping well, if at all. "If ever you need to talk, Lucas, I'm here."
"Thanks, Ros," Lucas said. He slipped on his coat and pulled out his mobile phone, looking at the screen as if expecting something. Then his lips thinned into a straight line, his eyes shuttered and he returned the phone into his coat pocket. It was something that Ros had noticed him doing since the day at the airport.
"Have you heard from Alexa at all?"
Lucas shot Ros a terse look, as if the mention of her name had upset him. "No," he replied, looking away from her gaze.
There was so much that Lucas would have wanted to say. He wanted to tell Ros that he felt so empty, so barren, that he hated Alexa for not contacting him at all. Was she still alive? Where was his son? How could she take Liam away from him the way she did - if she were still alive? He had asked Malcolm to scan for emergency room visits that involved a gunshot wound to the chest but had come up with nothing that matched Alexa. Lucas wanted to tell Ros so many things, but all that came out of his mouth was the word no.
He had called Valentin Durev shortly after returning to the Grid from the airport that day, but was informed that the man was out of the country and would not be back for some time. Exactly what it meant, Lucas had no idea but something nagged at him.
The timing of it all.
When he asked Malcolm to look into Valentin's files, all Malcolm got at every turn were classified, prohibited for collection. Even the man's employment history had been deemed only for Level 1 access within the FSB. And when Malcolm finally breached the firewalls and managed to pull out Valentin's complete file, Lucas and Malcolm found themselves looking at an empty screen.
It was as if the man had never existed.
It was three thirty that morning when Lucas found himself inside Alexa's flat that he decided to look at her photo albums. Lucas couldn't exactly remember what made him look through her baby photos, smiling as he looked at one photograph after another and feeling the heaviness in his heart only grow denser.
Maybe he was looking for a connection between them, now that she was gone from him. Lucas was beyond trying to find the answers to all his questions. He was too proud to show his pain to anyone on the Grid, too used to shutting himself out from the world around him after eight years at Lushanka.
It was almost as if Lucas were still in solitary confinement, finding himself waking up at the same time each day, alone each time, and going about the schedule the Grid had set up for him. He ate when he could, and he slept when the dreams were finished tormenting him. So maybe Lucas wanted nothing more than to see Alexa and Liam at happier times, hoping that would lift him up from the darkness.
He would have missed the photograph that had been slipped behind the sleeve of one that featured Alexa, Minerva and Nathaniel at a carnival had it not been for the mark of a leaf pressed between them. Lucas gingerly pulled at the hidden photograph, its image facing the back of the archival paper, preserved as if it had been taken yesterday.
The pressed leaf fluttered to the floor but Lucas ignored it.
He turned the photograph over. The faces that looked back at him were smiling broadly, distinguishable in a way that would identify them both as father and daughter. Lucas peered closely at the photograph, the beating of his heart thundering inside his chest, drowning out even his thoughts.
Alexa must have been about seven or eight, Lucas thought, her arms around the neck of a man whose features Lucas knew only too well now. They both had the same eyes, green and sparkling. Their smiles seemed to taunt Lucas and as he read the words scrawled beneath the margin, he recognized it as Russian.
"Uncle Val," it said, but scrawled next to it in a child's handwriting were the words Papa.
It was the timing of it all, he thought, remembering when Valentin first appeared in their lives, conveniently saving them at the brothel and looking at Alexa with a look that told him that they'd met before.
"Lucas," Ros' voice broke through Lucas' reverie and he glanced at her again, trying to bring himself back to the present. "I need you on my team one hundred percent. I can't afford any distractions," Ros said. "If you need to talk --"
"Then I'll call the psychologist at Tring myself, Ros," Lucas said curtly as he shoved his hands into his coat pockets and began to walk away. Before he reached the pods, Lucas turned to Ros, his blue eyes piercing in the low lights of the Grid.
"I just have one thing to ask of you and everyone here at Section D," Lucas said, his face showing no emotion at all. A hardness descended upon his pale face, his eyes haunted and shuttered of anything that he may have been thinking of.
"Anything, Lucas," Ros said, her lips curling at the corners faintly, but Lucas did not return her smile.
"Never speak of them again."