Fic: Everything Or Nothing: 002
Dec. 7th, 2014 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mjartrodTitle: Everything Or Nothing
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mcsparklez & mjartrod
Beta:mistake_arrest
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Belldom
Warnings: Language. Violence. Sex.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and has never happened. We do not own any of the people mentioned and do not mean to offend. We do not own Muse.
Summary: On the eve of Muse’s 7th album release, a list containing the identity of several Secret Intelligence Service officers is leaked and sold to a criminal organisation. Dom and Chris cannot understand their involvement… until a shocking revelation about their frontman is unveiled.
Author’s Notes: Thank you so much for reading :D We didn't expect this to be so well received, so truly, thank you so much. We hope you keep enjoying this as we progress :)
[001]
“Matt, what the fuck is going on?”
There was no answer to Chris’ question, Matt simply pushed both him and Dom out of the room. Leading the way, hands in the pockets of his long, black winter coat, the singer’s head turned left and right, his eyes clearly scanning the hallways. He pushed the elevator call button but instead of waiting for it, he motioned for his bandmates to follow and take the stairs.
“Matt, where are we going? The fuck’s going on?” Chris hissed.
“Not now, let’s get out of here first.”
They decided to say nothing else, first running down the stairs behind Matt, level after level, and then through a staff-only door. The singer didn’t vacillate once, not even as they made their way past several employees when they reached the kitchens. They raced through as if their lives depended on it and, if Dom wasn’t wrong, they did indeed.
So many questions. There were so many questions currently piling inside of his head it was giving him a headache. He recalled how Matt had claimed he could not make it to the interview precisely because of a headache and how pale he had looked, the pain of migraine marring his beautiful features. The same person who now had a grin plastered on his face as he addressed the hotel staff.
“Sorry! Sorry, guys. Fans outside!” The tone of his voice had changed completely. He sounded a lot more like silly twat Matt, not… whoever he had been back in that meeting room. “Gotta use the back door!”
They passed more employees and boxes standing on the floor, their pace never slowing down. They were outside in a matter of seconds, the freezing Swiss air of a November night hitting their faces.
“Keep going, don’t stop,” Matt instructed as he pulled out his phone. They crossed the road towards the Limmat river, Matt heading for one of the small piers, a man standing nearby.
“Excuse me, is this boat yours?” He hurriedly questioned the Swiss man, pointing at the closest anchored boat. Guessing by the way the man looked back, he wasn’t an English speaker. “Entschuldigen Sie, gehört das Boot Ihnen?”
Dom and Chris let their jaws drop agape. Was that Matt speaking German?
“Nein.” The man shook his head.
“Danke!” Matt turned towards them again. “Get on board.”
“What?” Chris hesitated.
“Get in!”
“Are you gonna tell us what the hell is going on? Where are we going? And where the hell did you learn to speak German?” Chris continued, as they jumped on board. “Who were those geezers? Jesus fucking Christ, they pointed a gun at us, Matt! You pointed a gun at one of them!”
“I’ll explain later, I promise.” He turned on the engine of the boat and looked Dom in the eye. “I need to know something first, though. Do you or do you not know what he was talking about? I’m talking about the list. Do you have it? Did anyone give you a USB stick or did you find anything unusual in your luggage?”
Dom gaped at him as Matt fired question after question, before finally snapping. “Are you out of your mind? What list, for fuck’s sake? What is going on, Matt? What in the world did just happen? We went into that room for an interview and all of a sudden I’ve got bloody Russian terrorists knowing my name, asking me for things I’ve never heard of and you, Matt, you... I can’t even!”
The anger left him as quickly as it had appeared, and Dom slumped down the side of the boat to sit on the floor. This was too much, he didn’t understand. He closed his eyes and willed the panic he felt rising in his chest away.
“Dom?”
The fear clawing at him receded at Chris‘ voice, and when a big hand was laid on his shoulder he felt like he could breathe again. There was no one who could anchor him as effectively as Chris, not even Matt. Of course Matt was his better half, his soulmate, but Chris was his light in the dark. It sounded cheesy, even to him, but it didn’t make it less true. The bassist had always been there for him when he needed someone. When his father had passed away, and no one really knew what to say or to do, it was Chris, who’d lost his father himself so young, who understood him best. When he’d admitted that, after 28 years of his life, maybe he appreciated men the same way he did women, there was no one else he could think to come out to first. Every time Matt had distanced himself from him, following another drunken night when both had been unable to ignore the pull to the other, it was Chris who was there to pick up the pieces, even if he had no idea what caused Dom’s misery.
Dom looked up into the concerned eyes of his friend sitting next to him and nodded slowly, laying his own hand on Chris’ knee and patting it, signaling that he was okay and offering support in return. The bassist nodded back, but neither of them moved away or retracted their hands.
Now that he was back in the present he could hear the engine of the boat humming quietly, the vibration rattling softly through his body. They were moving. He looked over to Matt who was standing at the wheel, his black coat moving in the wind, the lapels and the collar flying from one side to the other, his brown hair whipping against his face.
Eyes travelling up from the singer’s body and locking on his face, he could see blue eyes set into the distance, but his lips were moving, a frown on his features. He seemed to be on the phone, a tiny black device that must have been an earpiece visible on his ear. Dom couldn’t understand what Matt was saying. Who was he talking to? He jumped up and strode over to the brunet and was just ready to confront him when he could make out the words Matt was whispering.
“You didn’t tell me about this.” A small pause. “Yes, I know. I’ve fucking been there.”
“Matt,” Dom interrupted. “Please, what is going on here? Please.”
He raised his hand as a gesture for Dom to stay put while he kept listening to his earpiece. Dom couldn’t help himself.
“No.” He pushed Matt in the chest forcefully. “No, you’re going to tell us about this now or I swear to god I’m-“
An engine roared up and they all turned to the side where another boat was swiftly approaching them.
“Shit. That was quick.”
Matt powered their own engine up to go faster, but Dom could see the boat coming closer by the second. Another boat showed up on the horizon as well, and a third shot towards them from the right. The first one was so close by now that Dom could make out the faces of the people standing in it. The Russian suit with the golden teeth from the hotel was among those on board, glaring at them and shouting orders at his henchmen.
“Get down!” Matt bellowed and pushed him down just in time when gunshots could be heard.
The drummer flattened his body on the floor in panic and looked over to Chris, to make sure that he was alright. Crouched down awkwardly with his arms crossed behind his head, Chris looked from Dom to Matt and back with wide eyes. Dom could tell his bandmate was thinking exactly the same thing as him; Matt was going to get shot if he didn’t get down too. They should’ve called the police the second they’d stepped out of that infernal hotel room to put an immediate end to this insanity.
He was about to shout something, to pull Matt down with them when the boat suddenly swivelled to the left. The abrupt and forceful movement made Dom slide across the floor until his back hit the wall of the boat. The shots were closer now, and the blond instinctively pressed his hands to his ears, squeezing his eyes shut. A shooting smack in the middle of the biggest city in Switzerland. Wasn’t there anyone seeing? Wasn’t there anyone who could help them?
Something clinked to the floor next to him and he found the guts to open one eye. Another shot rang through the air, followed by the same clanking sound. This time Dom saw a bullet casing roll towards him, realisation hitting him as he looked up at Matt. He was firing back.
Standing there, with his legs slightly spread, one hand firmly on the boat’s wheel and the other arm stretched away from his body with a gun in his hand, Dom could see as vividly as if in slow motion how the singer pulled the trigger and the bullet left the barrel, cutting through the air towards its target. Then no more gunshots were heard and Matt turned around to hold the wheel with both hands, Dom holding his breath at another sharp turn to the right.
When nothing happened after a minute Chris slowly got up from his crouched position, Dom following and looking around frantically. They had reached Lake Zurich and there was no sign of their attackers anywhere.
“We’re almost there,” Matt piped up quietly.
There was no room for discussion. They remained silent throughout the rest of their journey, Dom and Chris simply exchanging questioning looks. Matt obviously knew how to take care of himself much better than they’d ever dreamed of. After what they’d witnessed, it dawned on Dom how he might not know the person in the boat with them at all.
Soon Matt turned the boat to the right, approaching the shore. It seemed to be their destination and once they were close enough, he turned off the engine and let it flow towards a small pier. Chris and Dom jumped off and walked down the wooden flat boards until they reached land, Chris immediately falling to his knees, clearly thankful to have solid ground under his feet again.
Meanwhile, Matt walked into the shallow water to push the boat further onto the land and towards some bushes. Dom watched him, but didn’t feel compelled to help. Not when Matt refused to cooperate with them.
Boat safely concealed, Matt led the way from the small pier. Countless dots of light filled the shores across the lake, but on their side there was only darkness. Clearly Matt knew where he was, and where to go, because once again he showed no hesitation, only looking over his shoulder once or twice to make sure Dom and Chris were still trailing after him. Dom zipped up his leather jacket, watching Chris do the same, and stuffed his hands in the pockets, trying to ignore the mist that permeated his body and the icy droplets in the leaves grazing his face.
They soon saw what appeared to be an old mill hidden among the trees. Confirmation that it was their final stop arrived when Matt pushed the door open and pressed a switch to turn the light on, a feeble lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Then he motioned for Dom and Chris to enter and waited until they were inside before he closed the door again. The drummer took a moment to look around the interior to figure out what the hell this place was, but there was nothing that would give any information away. In fact, there wasn’t much inside the building at all. A table and a few chairs in the centre, boxes and wine barrels littering the place, a couple of mattresses in a corner. Nothing else.
“It used to be a smuggler’s meeting point. We should be fine here for now,” Matt said in the way of explanation.
The question of how he knew that died on Dom’s tongue before it was out. There were at least a thousand others that had priority over that one at the moment. A heavy silence fell upon them, as if none of them knew where to start. Matt himself seemed to suddenly shrink in front of them, no more than a diminutive man in a silly grey diamond pattern sweater peeking from under his coat. A stark contrast to the confident leader that had guided them until just a couple of minutes ago. He didn’t face them, and his eyes focused on some invisible point on the dusty wooden floor.
“I don’t even know what to say, Matt,” Chris started, licking his lips and taking a deep breath. He couldn’t look at their friend right now. “You’ve got a shitload of explaining to do. I’m trying to understand, honestly. And I can’t.”
“I’m…” Matt began, but when he looked up, words seemed to fail him and he shifted on his feet awkwardly. “You can ask whatever you want. I’ll answer as much and as well as I can.”
“Damn well, you should. Who the fuck are you?” Dom shot.
Matt faced him for a moment before calmly replying in an even, almost detached tone, “I’m an intelligence officer for the Secret Intelligence Service.”
Dom chuckled sarcastically and turned to Chris, who had his hands on his hips, staring at Matt in disbelief.
“You. That,” Chris pointed outside, “That actually happened and you work for the MI6. You’re a secret agent, a fucking James Bond. Is that what you’re telling us? Is this a sodding joke?”
“I’m an operational officer, if that’s what you mean.”
Silence once again wrapped around them like a blanket. Dom tried to get his head around that revelation, about who Matt truly was. A secret agent. “Impossible” would be the first word right out of his mouth on any other occasion, if anything it would indeed be nothing short of a joke. But the last hour had been very real, the image of Matt firing back against their pursuers in that boat imprinted in his mind. He looked over to Chris who was staring at the frontman as if he’d grown two heads, which in Dom’s opinion was, quite frankly, pretty close to reality.
When Matt didn’t speak any further and didn’t volunteer any more information the blond couldn’t help but say, “Please. You can stop talking, you know. It’s not like we need to know how that is even possible or anything like that.”
Matt took a deep, fortifying breath before going off in a monotone voice. “Yes, I work for the MI6. I’m a targeting officer. I plan and carry out covert intelligence gathering operations worldwide. I have to identify sources and targets, contribute to operational planning, discern pertinent pieces of information in volumes of data and make sense of them in a clear manner so they can be synthesized in a concise picture. What you saw…” He shook his head, slowing down his speech. “None of that was supposed to happen and I’m sorry you got dragged into it.”
“You’re sorry you dragged us into that?” Chris widened his eyes. “How about being sorry for never telling us about it in the first place!”
“Come on, Chris,” Dom looked at the bassist. The shock and the fear of the events at the hotel, of the chase on the river, had given way to anger and he only wanted to lash out. “This is obviously not his first operation.” He used his fingers to mime quotation marks. “What I want to know is… “ He faced Matt. “For exactly how long have you been lying to us? I’m willing to bet you’ve been doing this your whole life, haven’t you? Takes years of practice to lie so convincingly. Christ, do we even know your real name?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, I didn’t…” Matt stopped once Dom testily crossed his arms in front of his chest. “And of course you know my bloody name! And I didn’t lie to you!”
“You what?” Dom stepped closer, ready to pounce. “You’ve got some bloody nerve! Are you gonna tell me you didn’t lie this afternoon when you said you had a headache and you had to skip the interview? Are you? How many fucking times did you lie through your teeth in our faces? Fucking hell, you’ve made complete fools out of us! Do we even know you at all?”
“What kind of question is that?” Matt’s nostrils flared and he seemed outraged at the assumption.
“What kind of question do you think that is, you cold-blooded fucker!” Dom didn’t plan it but before he even realised what he was doing, he had pulled his arm back and thrown a punch, striking Matt squarely in the jaw and making him stumble a couple of steps back in order not to lose his balance. Chris was on him the following second, grabbing him around the waist from behind, as he shouted.
“Liar! You’re a fucking two faced cunt, that’s what you are! Let go of me, Chris, let go of me! Let him fight back! Let’s see if he’s gonna go all out and threaten to shoot me!”
But Matt didn’t react, and instead, just cupped his face and checked if he was bleeding.
“Enough, Dom,” Chris said softly.
“He lied to us, Chris! For how long, huh, Matt?” He thrashed until he managed to release himself from Chris’ arms, the bassist remaining close to him after he succeeded. “When!” Dom raised his voice.
“Twenty, alright?” Matt shouted back before looking down again and this time he actually looked slightly ashamed. “I was twenty,” he repeated, lower.
“I knew it,” Dom pointed at him, exchanging another look with Chris. “Over fifteen years. Almost half of your life. The band’s just been a diversion. A hobby, isn’t it? And we, fucking puppets, the two of us.”
“It’s not like that!”
“Then explain, Matt,” Chris added, his voice trembling. “I’m all ears and you’ve got all night.”
Matt rubbed his jaw, then at his eyes with the heels of his hands, as if to pull himself together. His eyes were bloodshot when he dropped his arms by his side, his gaze on the far wall.
“I was arrested for stealing a van in London with Jake, you remember him, yeah? I never told you this. I never told anyone and the record was cleared anyway. I was locked in a cell on my own for hours, I was scared shitless. That night, there was someone there with the local police, a woman from the MI6. She went to see me and told me she was recruiting new agents for a project of hers and she wanted individuals with a whole range of backgrounds and experiences. She made me an offer; said I just needed to do a few tests. I just wanted to get out of that shithole, didn’t want to get into more trouble than I already was so I said yes. I never thought…” He shrugged, sighing.
“The recruitment process took more than six months. Then I went through the induction course and had top marks. The woman who recruited me, she finally explained that she was putting me in an innovative program where my identity would be classified even within the Secret Service. She wanted me to go straight to another advanced three month training and I didn’t know what to do because it was a nightmare to do it all without raising any suspicions and Muse was just starting out and...” He closed his eyes, running a hand through his hair. “And I didn’t want to leave the band, it meant everything to me. But she said that I didn’t have to choose, she encouraged me not to. She seemed to believe I had the skills to keep both, which was exactly what she was looking for. So I went on with it.
“The missions were pretty easy at first. I just needed to analyse data and gather information from certain sources while we were on tour. But then they became more complex, the band was getting bigger and bigger…” He gesticulated as he spoke. “And with that, so did my access to privileged sources. Muse’s success literally opened doors on a whole lot of levels. Until it got to a point where it became, you know, unsustainable. I couldn’t… it was getting too much.”
“So I requested a change of role a few years ago. I’d only work alone and I’d have license to pick the missions I wanted to be assigned to. I would report only to my contact, the Chief of the Secret Service.”
“And you got that?” Chris asked. “How?”
“They had no bloody choice, I’d have left otherwise.”
A small silence set in. Calmer now after the previous outburst, Dom listened attentively as Matt spoke. He thought that there were many ways an administration could respond to the demands of an employee. Matt had never really been one to boast about accomplishments or skills in general - on the contrary - so claiming they had no choice spoke volumes of the importance of his work and his status. He had an inkling that not only Matt was an MI6 agent - he was one of the top ones as well.
“There’s only three people in the world who know my identity. And one of them is me.”
“You, the Head of the MI6…”
“And the Foreign Secretary of State.”
Dom and Chris could only stare.
“What happened tonight…” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t go to the interview because I got a call from my contact. There was intelligence that an organised group was in Zurich today to collect a list. That list includes the identity of several Secret Service officers. We don’t know whose names are in there, how they leaked, who has it. We only know about it because it’s been advertised to terrorist groups all over the world, to be claimed by the highest bidder. I’m not assigned to this case, they’ve got other agents in the field for that but because I’m in Zurich I was asked to keep my eyes open and do a bit of investigating. My name could be there too, after all, and it’s a very sensitive matter not only for national security but for the lives of any agents whose names become public, especially those embedded in terrorist organisations.”
“Is that… the list,” Chris looked at Dom. “But they wanted Dom.”
“There are no coincidences. It’s extremely likely that my name is on there.” Matt kicked at the floor, swallowing. “I was planning to leave the hotel for a bit right after you two went for the interview, but then I saw the door to Glen’s room open. He was breathing but unconscious and the room was in a state of complete disarray, so I immediately concluded that there was someone after me. I went downstairs to the interview room, I knew you were in danger. I sneaked onto the balcony and only had to listen in for a few seconds to get the whole picture. Then I lured the guards outside one by one, took care of them... The rest you already know.”
“The guards,” Chris piped up. “What do you mean with you took care of them? Did you kill them?”
At that, Matt shook his head no. “I disarmed them and knocked them out.”
“You just…” The bassist’s arms gesticulated in the air as if he was trying to express himself where words failed him. His arms fell to his side helplessly and he sighed deeply, clearly unable to process the revelations about their friend. Truly, imagining Matt as anything but the scrawny bastard that they thought him to be was unfathomable. How had he even managed to hide something of that scope from them?
At last, the taller man asked, “And this list? You said you think your name is on it. But this guy asked Dom for it.” He turned to the blond. “Are you in on that as well? Are you an agent like him?”
Dom just looked at him incredulously.
“We do not know yet why Sokolov thinks you have the list, although I’ve got my suspicions,” Matt replied. “All we know is that the list exists and that we have to find it before someone else does.”
Chris shook his head once again and pulled a chair, letting his weight drop heavily on it as he sat, covering his face with both hands. “Too much… this is just…”
“I’m sorry,” Matt said again and he sounded sincere. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that, putting you in danger is the last thing I wanted to happen.”
“All these years,” Dom whispered. “Every time you fucked off somewhere for a silly reason, or claimed you got distracted and missed the bus… or that you lost your phone… all this time. They were only excuses.” At that, Matt lowered his gaze back to the floor, not denying it. “You didn’t care to think that you could’ve been hurt or killed while we waited for you? Not having a clue where you were? How did you even get a gun through the airports, past the amount of security we go through all the time?”
“The nature of my job…” He looked up at Dom again. “I know what you’re thinking after what you’ve seen tonight but I don’t carry guns often. I don’t usually need them for what I do.”
“It just happens that you know exactly how to use them, isn’t that convenient?” Dom remarked derisively.
“Of course I have to know how to use them. I was trained for that and for a lot more.”
“Have you ever killed someone?” Chris asked out of the blue.
“I…” Matt hesitated and cleared his throat. “Yes. Yes, but-”
“Jesus…” Chris leant his forehead on his arm again.
“Nice.” Dom crossed his arms in front of his chest and steeled himself for the reply to the question that had just popped in his mind. “And have you ever fucked anyone just to get whatever piece of information you needed?” Going by the expression on Matt’s face and the way he inhaled sharply, he already knew what the answer was going to be.
“Yes. Yes, but not recently and-”
“You know what?” Dom turned his back on him, not letting him finish. “I don’t care. I don’t give a fuck, you can do whatever the hell you want. Like apparently you’ve been doing behind our backs all along anyway.”
“Dom, it’s not what you’re thinking.”
“Yeah, well, whatever.” He didn’t care if Chris found the topic change bizarre. After a night of shocking revelations, what did it matter if there was another one? Might as well get it out in the open too. “Can we leave now? Just wanna go home, get in the shower, sleep and then maybe I’ll wake up and find out this was only a ridiculous dream.”
“I’m sorry, but we can’t leave just yet.”
Dom’s eyes narrowed at him, so Matt continued, “These people are dangerous and after you. They will shoot you down if they find you. I’m waiting for further instructions. Until then, I ask you to stay here and remain calm.”
“No. No, Matt,” Chris interjected. “We’re not gonna stay here. I am not gonna stay here. I want to go home to my family.”
“And I will bring you home,” Matt said and locked eyes with the bassist. “I promise you that.”
They stared at each other for a moment before Chris turned away and crossed his arms over his chest. Yes, he could stay for the time being. But not because he believed or even trusted Matt. He sat down at the table and stared at the top until Dom finally joined him. They didn’t bother to talk, there wasn’t anything left to say, but the feeling of unity stayed with them.
Meanwhile, Matt retreated from them and took refuge in the corner, sitting on one of the wine barrels, watching his friends. Alone.
Author:
mcsparklez & mjartrodBeta:
mistake_arrestRating: NC-17
Pairing: Belldom
Warnings: Language. Violence. Sex.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and has never happened. We do not own any of the people mentioned and do not mean to offend. We do not own Muse.
Summary: On the eve of Muse’s 7th album release, a list containing the identity of several Secret Intelligence Service officers is leaked and sold to a criminal organisation. Dom and Chris cannot understand their involvement… until a shocking revelation about their frontman is unveiled.
Author’s Notes: Thank you so much for reading :D We didn't expect this to be so well received, so truly, thank you so much. We hope you keep enjoying this as we progress :)
[001]
“Matt, what the fuck is going on?”
There was no answer to Chris’ question, Matt simply pushed both him and Dom out of the room. Leading the way, hands in the pockets of his long, black winter coat, the singer’s head turned left and right, his eyes clearly scanning the hallways. He pushed the elevator call button but instead of waiting for it, he motioned for his bandmates to follow and take the stairs.
“Matt, where are we going? The fuck’s going on?” Chris hissed.
“Not now, let’s get out of here first.”
They decided to say nothing else, first running down the stairs behind Matt, level after level, and then through a staff-only door. The singer didn’t vacillate once, not even as they made their way past several employees when they reached the kitchens. They raced through as if their lives depended on it and, if Dom wasn’t wrong, they did indeed.
So many questions. There were so many questions currently piling inside of his head it was giving him a headache. He recalled how Matt had claimed he could not make it to the interview precisely because of a headache and how pale he had looked, the pain of migraine marring his beautiful features. The same person who now had a grin plastered on his face as he addressed the hotel staff.
“Sorry! Sorry, guys. Fans outside!” The tone of his voice had changed completely. He sounded a lot more like silly twat Matt, not… whoever he had been back in that meeting room. “Gotta use the back door!”
They passed more employees and boxes standing on the floor, their pace never slowing down. They were outside in a matter of seconds, the freezing Swiss air of a November night hitting their faces.
“Keep going, don’t stop,” Matt instructed as he pulled out his phone. They crossed the road towards the Limmat river, Matt heading for one of the small piers, a man standing nearby.
“Excuse me, is this boat yours?” He hurriedly questioned the Swiss man, pointing at the closest anchored boat. Guessing by the way the man looked back, he wasn’t an English speaker. “Entschuldigen Sie, gehört das Boot Ihnen?”
Dom and Chris let their jaws drop agape. Was that Matt speaking German?
“Nein.” The man shook his head.
“Danke!” Matt turned towards them again. “Get on board.”
“What?” Chris hesitated.
“Get in!”
“Are you gonna tell us what the hell is going on? Where are we going? And where the hell did you learn to speak German?” Chris continued, as they jumped on board. “Who were those geezers? Jesus fucking Christ, they pointed a gun at us, Matt! You pointed a gun at one of them!”
“I’ll explain later, I promise.” He turned on the engine of the boat and looked Dom in the eye. “I need to know something first, though. Do you or do you not know what he was talking about? I’m talking about the list. Do you have it? Did anyone give you a USB stick or did you find anything unusual in your luggage?”
Dom gaped at him as Matt fired question after question, before finally snapping. “Are you out of your mind? What list, for fuck’s sake? What is going on, Matt? What in the world did just happen? We went into that room for an interview and all of a sudden I’ve got bloody Russian terrorists knowing my name, asking me for things I’ve never heard of and you, Matt, you... I can’t even!”
The anger left him as quickly as it had appeared, and Dom slumped down the side of the boat to sit on the floor. This was too much, he didn’t understand. He closed his eyes and willed the panic he felt rising in his chest away.
“Dom?”
The fear clawing at him receded at Chris‘ voice, and when a big hand was laid on his shoulder he felt like he could breathe again. There was no one who could anchor him as effectively as Chris, not even Matt. Of course Matt was his better half, his soulmate, but Chris was his light in the dark. It sounded cheesy, even to him, but it didn’t make it less true. The bassist had always been there for him when he needed someone. When his father had passed away, and no one really knew what to say or to do, it was Chris, who’d lost his father himself so young, who understood him best. When he’d admitted that, after 28 years of his life, maybe he appreciated men the same way he did women, there was no one else he could think to come out to first. Every time Matt had distanced himself from him, following another drunken night when both had been unable to ignore the pull to the other, it was Chris who was there to pick up the pieces, even if he had no idea what caused Dom’s misery.
Dom looked up into the concerned eyes of his friend sitting next to him and nodded slowly, laying his own hand on Chris’ knee and patting it, signaling that he was okay and offering support in return. The bassist nodded back, but neither of them moved away or retracted their hands.
Now that he was back in the present he could hear the engine of the boat humming quietly, the vibration rattling softly through his body. They were moving. He looked over to Matt who was standing at the wheel, his black coat moving in the wind, the lapels and the collar flying from one side to the other, his brown hair whipping against his face.
Eyes travelling up from the singer’s body and locking on his face, he could see blue eyes set into the distance, but his lips were moving, a frown on his features. He seemed to be on the phone, a tiny black device that must have been an earpiece visible on his ear. Dom couldn’t understand what Matt was saying. Who was he talking to? He jumped up and strode over to the brunet and was just ready to confront him when he could make out the words Matt was whispering.
“You didn’t tell me about this.” A small pause. “Yes, I know. I’ve fucking been there.”
“Matt,” Dom interrupted. “Please, what is going on here? Please.”
He raised his hand as a gesture for Dom to stay put while he kept listening to his earpiece. Dom couldn’t help himself.
“No.” He pushed Matt in the chest forcefully. “No, you’re going to tell us about this now or I swear to god I’m-“
An engine roared up and they all turned to the side where another boat was swiftly approaching them.
“Shit. That was quick.”
Matt powered their own engine up to go faster, but Dom could see the boat coming closer by the second. Another boat showed up on the horizon as well, and a third shot towards them from the right. The first one was so close by now that Dom could make out the faces of the people standing in it. The Russian suit with the golden teeth from the hotel was among those on board, glaring at them and shouting orders at his henchmen.
“Get down!” Matt bellowed and pushed him down just in time when gunshots could be heard.
The drummer flattened his body on the floor in panic and looked over to Chris, to make sure that he was alright. Crouched down awkwardly with his arms crossed behind his head, Chris looked from Dom to Matt and back with wide eyes. Dom could tell his bandmate was thinking exactly the same thing as him; Matt was going to get shot if he didn’t get down too. They should’ve called the police the second they’d stepped out of that infernal hotel room to put an immediate end to this insanity.
He was about to shout something, to pull Matt down with them when the boat suddenly swivelled to the left. The abrupt and forceful movement made Dom slide across the floor until his back hit the wall of the boat. The shots were closer now, and the blond instinctively pressed his hands to his ears, squeezing his eyes shut. A shooting smack in the middle of the biggest city in Switzerland. Wasn’t there anyone seeing? Wasn’t there anyone who could help them?
Something clinked to the floor next to him and he found the guts to open one eye. Another shot rang through the air, followed by the same clanking sound. This time Dom saw a bullet casing roll towards him, realisation hitting him as he looked up at Matt. He was firing back.
Standing there, with his legs slightly spread, one hand firmly on the boat’s wheel and the other arm stretched away from his body with a gun in his hand, Dom could see as vividly as if in slow motion how the singer pulled the trigger and the bullet left the barrel, cutting through the air towards its target. Then no more gunshots were heard and Matt turned around to hold the wheel with both hands, Dom holding his breath at another sharp turn to the right.
When nothing happened after a minute Chris slowly got up from his crouched position, Dom following and looking around frantically. They had reached Lake Zurich and there was no sign of their attackers anywhere.
“We’re almost there,” Matt piped up quietly.
There was no room for discussion. They remained silent throughout the rest of their journey, Dom and Chris simply exchanging questioning looks. Matt obviously knew how to take care of himself much better than they’d ever dreamed of. After what they’d witnessed, it dawned on Dom how he might not know the person in the boat with them at all.
Soon Matt turned the boat to the right, approaching the shore. It seemed to be their destination and once they were close enough, he turned off the engine and let it flow towards a small pier. Chris and Dom jumped off and walked down the wooden flat boards until they reached land, Chris immediately falling to his knees, clearly thankful to have solid ground under his feet again.
Meanwhile, Matt walked into the shallow water to push the boat further onto the land and towards some bushes. Dom watched him, but didn’t feel compelled to help. Not when Matt refused to cooperate with them.
Boat safely concealed, Matt led the way from the small pier. Countless dots of light filled the shores across the lake, but on their side there was only darkness. Clearly Matt knew where he was, and where to go, because once again he showed no hesitation, only looking over his shoulder once or twice to make sure Dom and Chris were still trailing after him. Dom zipped up his leather jacket, watching Chris do the same, and stuffed his hands in the pockets, trying to ignore the mist that permeated his body and the icy droplets in the leaves grazing his face.
They soon saw what appeared to be an old mill hidden among the trees. Confirmation that it was their final stop arrived when Matt pushed the door open and pressed a switch to turn the light on, a feeble lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Then he motioned for Dom and Chris to enter and waited until they were inside before he closed the door again. The drummer took a moment to look around the interior to figure out what the hell this place was, but there was nothing that would give any information away. In fact, there wasn’t much inside the building at all. A table and a few chairs in the centre, boxes and wine barrels littering the place, a couple of mattresses in a corner. Nothing else.
“It used to be a smuggler’s meeting point. We should be fine here for now,” Matt said in the way of explanation.
The question of how he knew that died on Dom’s tongue before it was out. There were at least a thousand others that had priority over that one at the moment. A heavy silence fell upon them, as if none of them knew where to start. Matt himself seemed to suddenly shrink in front of them, no more than a diminutive man in a silly grey diamond pattern sweater peeking from under his coat. A stark contrast to the confident leader that had guided them until just a couple of minutes ago. He didn’t face them, and his eyes focused on some invisible point on the dusty wooden floor.
“I don’t even know what to say, Matt,” Chris started, licking his lips and taking a deep breath. He couldn’t look at their friend right now. “You’ve got a shitload of explaining to do. I’m trying to understand, honestly. And I can’t.”
“I’m…” Matt began, but when he looked up, words seemed to fail him and he shifted on his feet awkwardly. “You can ask whatever you want. I’ll answer as much and as well as I can.”
“Damn well, you should. Who the fuck are you?” Dom shot.
Matt faced him for a moment before calmly replying in an even, almost detached tone, “I’m an intelligence officer for the Secret Intelligence Service.”
Dom chuckled sarcastically and turned to Chris, who had his hands on his hips, staring at Matt in disbelief.
“You. That,” Chris pointed outside, “That actually happened and you work for the MI6. You’re a secret agent, a fucking James Bond. Is that what you’re telling us? Is this a sodding joke?”
“I’m an operational officer, if that’s what you mean.”
Silence once again wrapped around them like a blanket. Dom tried to get his head around that revelation, about who Matt truly was. A secret agent. “Impossible” would be the first word right out of his mouth on any other occasion, if anything it would indeed be nothing short of a joke. But the last hour had been very real, the image of Matt firing back against their pursuers in that boat imprinted in his mind. He looked over to Chris who was staring at the frontman as if he’d grown two heads, which in Dom’s opinion was, quite frankly, pretty close to reality.
When Matt didn’t speak any further and didn’t volunteer any more information the blond couldn’t help but say, “Please. You can stop talking, you know. It’s not like we need to know how that is even possible or anything like that.”
Matt took a deep, fortifying breath before going off in a monotone voice. “Yes, I work for the MI6. I’m a targeting officer. I plan and carry out covert intelligence gathering operations worldwide. I have to identify sources and targets, contribute to operational planning, discern pertinent pieces of information in volumes of data and make sense of them in a clear manner so they can be synthesized in a concise picture. What you saw…” He shook his head, slowing down his speech. “None of that was supposed to happen and I’m sorry you got dragged into it.”
“You’re sorry you dragged us into that?” Chris widened his eyes. “How about being sorry for never telling us about it in the first place!”
“Come on, Chris,” Dom looked at the bassist. The shock and the fear of the events at the hotel, of the chase on the river, had given way to anger and he only wanted to lash out. “This is obviously not his first operation.” He used his fingers to mime quotation marks. “What I want to know is… “ He faced Matt. “For exactly how long have you been lying to us? I’m willing to bet you’ve been doing this your whole life, haven’t you? Takes years of practice to lie so convincingly. Christ, do we even know your real name?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, I didn’t…” Matt stopped once Dom testily crossed his arms in front of his chest. “And of course you know my bloody name! And I didn’t lie to you!”
“You what?” Dom stepped closer, ready to pounce. “You’ve got some bloody nerve! Are you gonna tell me you didn’t lie this afternoon when you said you had a headache and you had to skip the interview? Are you? How many fucking times did you lie through your teeth in our faces? Fucking hell, you’ve made complete fools out of us! Do we even know you at all?”
“What kind of question is that?” Matt’s nostrils flared and he seemed outraged at the assumption.
“What kind of question do you think that is, you cold-blooded fucker!” Dom didn’t plan it but before he even realised what he was doing, he had pulled his arm back and thrown a punch, striking Matt squarely in the jaw and making him stumble a couple of steps back in order not to lose his balance. Chris was on him the following second, grabbing him around the waist from behind, as he shouted.
“Liar! You’re a fucking two faced cunt, that’s what you are! Let go of me, Chris, let go of me! Let him fight back! Let’s see if he’s gonna go all out and threaten to shoot me!”
But Matt didn’t react, and instead, just cupped his face and checked if he was bleeding.
“Enough, Dom,” Chris said softly.
“He lied to us, Chris! For how long, huh, Matt?” He thrashed until he managed to release himself from Chris’ arms, the bassist remaining close to him after he succeeded. “When!” Dom raised his voice.
“Twenty, alright?” Matt shouted back before looking down again and this time he actually looked slightly ashamed. “I was twenty,” he repeated, lower.
“I knew it,” Dom pointed at him, exchanging another look with Chris. “Over fifteen years. Almost half of your life. The band’s just been a diversion. A hobby, isn’t it? And we, fucking puppets, the two of us.”
“It’s not like that!”
“Then explain, Matt,” Chris added, his voice trembling. “I’m all ears and you’ve got all night.”
Matt rubbed his jaw, then at his eyes with the heels of his hands, as if to pull himself together. His eyes were bloodshot when he dropped his arms by his side, his gaze on the far wall.
“I was arrested for stealing a van in London with Jake, you remember him, yeah? I never told you this. I never told anyone and the record was cleared anyway. I was locked in a cell on my own for hours, I was scared shitless. That night, there was someone there with the local police, a woman from the MI6. She went to see me and told me she was recruiting new agents for a project of hers and she wanted individuals with a whole range of backgrounds and experiences. She made me an offer; said I just needed to do a few tests. I just wanted to get out of that shithole, didn’t want to get into more trouble than I already was so I said yes. I never thought…” He shrugged, sighing.
“The recruitment process took more than six months. Then I went through the induction course and had top marks. The woman who recruited me, she finally explained that she was putting me in an innovative program where my identity would be classified even within the Secret Service. She wanted me to go straight to another advanced three month training and I didn’t know what to do because it was a nightmare to do it all without raising any suspicions and Muse was just starting out and...” He closed his eyes, running a hand through his hair. “And I didn’t want to leave the band, it meant everything to me. But she said that I didn’t have to choose, she encouraged me not to. She seemed to believe I had the skills to keep both, which was exactly what she was looking for. So I went on with it.
“The missions were pretty easy at first. I just needed to analyse data and gather information from certain sources while we were on tour. But then they became more complex, the band was getting bigger and bigger…” He gesticulated as he spoke. “And with that, so did my access to privileged sources. Muse’s success literally opened doors on a whole lot of levels. Until it got to a point where it became, you know, unsustainable. I couldn’t… it was getting too much.”
“So I requested a change of role a few years ago. I’d only work alone and I’d have license to pick the missions I wanted to be assigned to. I would report only to my contact, the Chief of the Secret Service.”
“And you got that?” Chris asked. “How?”
“They had no bloody choice, I’d have left otherwise.”
A small silence set in. Calmer now after the previous outburst, Dom listened attentively as Matt spoke. He thought that there were many ways an administration could respond to the demands of an employee. Matt had never really been one to boast about accomplishments or skills in general - on the contrary - so claiming they had no choice spoke volumes of the importance of his work and his status. He had an inkling that not only Matt was an MI6 agent - he was one of the top ones as well.
“There’s only three people in the world who know my identity. And one of them is me.”
“You, the Head of the MI6…”
“And the Foreign Secretary of State.”
Dom and Chris could only stare.
“What happened tonight…” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t go to the interview because I got a call from my contact. There was intelligence that an organised group was in Zurich today to collect a list. That list includes the identity of several Secret Service officers. We don’t know whose names are in there, how they leaked, who has it. We only know about it because it’s been advertised to terrorist groups all over the world, to be claimed by the highest bidder. I’m not assigned to this case, they’ve got other agents in the field for that but because I’m in Zurich I was asked to keep my eyes open and do a bit of investigating. My name could be there too, after all, and it’s a very sensitive matter not only for national security but for the lives of any agents whose names become public, especially those embedded in terrorist organisations.”
“Is that… the list,” Chris looked at Dom. “But they wanted Dom.”
“There are no coincidences. It’s extremely likely that my name is on there.” Matt kicked at the floor, swallowing. “I was planning to leave the hotel for a bit right after you two went for the interview, but then I saw the door to Glen’s room open. He was breathing but unconscious and the room was in a state of complete disarray, so I immediately concluded that there was someone after me. I went downstairs to the interview room, I knew you were in danger. I sneaked onto the balcony and only had to listen in for a few seconds to get the whole picture. Then I lured the guards outside one by one, took care of them... The rest you already know.”
“The guards,” Chris piped up. “What do you mean with you took care of them? Did you kill them?”
At that, Matt shook his head no. “I disarmed them and knocked them out.”
“You just…” The bassist’s arms gesticulated in the air as if he was trying to express himself where words failed him. His arms fell to his side helplessly and he sighed deeply, clearly unable to process the revelations about their friend. Truly, imagining Matt as anything but the scrawny bastard that they thought him to be was unfathomable. How had he even managed to hide something of that scope from them?
At last, the taller man asked, “And this list? You said you think your name is on it. But this guy asked Dom for it.” He turned to the blond. “Are you in on that as well? Are you an agent like him?”
Dom just looked at him incredulously.
“We do not know yet why Sokolov thinks you have the list, although I’ve got my suspicions,” Matt replied. “All we know is that the list exists and that we have to find it before someone else does.”
Chris shook his head once again and pulled a chair, letting his weight drop heavily on it as he sat, covering his face with both hands. “Too much… this is just…”
“I’m sorry,” Matt said again and he sounded sincere. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that, putting you in danger is the last thing I wanted to happen.”
“All these years,” Dom whispered. “Every time you fucked off somewhere for a silly reason, or claimed you got distracted and missed the bus… or that you lost your phone… all this time. They were only excuses.” At that, Matt lowered his gaze back to the floor, not denying it. “You didn’t care to think that you could’ve been hurt or killed while we waited for you? Not having a clue where you were? How did you even get a gun through the airports, past the amount of security we go through all the time?”
“The nature of my job…” He looked up at Dom again. “I know what you’re thinking after what you’ve seen tonight but I don’t carry guns often. I don’t usually need them for what I do.”
“It just happens that you know exactly how to use them, isn’t that convenient?” Dom remarked derisively.
“Of course I have to know how to use them. I was trained for that and for a lot more.”
“Have you ever killed someone?” Chris asked out of the blue.
“I…” Matt hesitated and cleared his throat. “Yes. Yes, but-”
“Jesus…” Chris leant his forehead on his arm again.
“Nice.” Dom crossed his arms in front of his chest and steeled himself for the reply to the question that had just popped in his mind. “And have you ever fucked anyone just to get whatever piece of information you needed?” Going by the expression on Matt’s face and the way he inhaled sharply, he already knew what the answer was going to be.
“Yes. Yes, but not recently and-”
“You know what?” Dom turned his back on him, not letting him finish. “I don’t care. I don’t give a fuck, you can do whatever the hell you want. Like apparently you’ve been doing behind our backs all along anyway.”
“Dom, it’s not what you’re thinking.”
“Yeah, well, whatever.” He didn’t care if Chris found the topic change bizarre. After a night of shocking revelations, what did it matter if there was another one? Might as well get it out in the open too. “Can we leave now? Just wanna go home, get in the shower, sleep and then maybe I’ll wake up and find out this was only a ridiculous dream.”
“I’m sorry, but we can’t leave just yet.”
Dom’s eyes narrowed at him, so Matt continued, “These people are dangerous and after you. They will shoot you down if they find you. I’m waiting for further instructions. Until then, I ask you to stay here and remain calm.”
“No. No, Matt,” Chris interjected. “We’re not gonna stay here. I am not gonna stay here. I want to go home to my family.”
“And I will bring you home,” Matt said and locked eyes with the bassist. “I promise you that.”
They stared at each other for a moment before Chris turned away and crossed his arms over his chest. Yes, he could stay for the time being. But not because he believed or even trusted Matt. He sat down at the table and stared at the top until Dom finally joined him. They didn’t bother to talk, there wasn’t anything left to say, but the feeling of unity stayed with them.
Meanwhile, Matt retreated from them and took refuge in the corner, sitting on one of the wine barrels, watching his friends. Alone.
