Archive of Our Own

Yassen had known that it was a mistake to send Alex to Russia.

He couldn’t pinpoint, precisely, what made him so uneasy from the moment he got the email from Antosha Zablotny headed simply: ‘Request’. The issue, outlined in the email, seemed straightforward enough. Zablotny, a wealthy oligarch, and connected enough with the Russian Government to make him worth paying attention to – or at least a mistake to ignore entirely – had been using his weapons productions facility to mask a large-scale heroin production. Nothing unusual there, but unfortunately the Russian Government with which he was so friendly had been cracking down on drugs recently (in a rare effort to boost its popularity), and, somehow, the Prime Minister had found out about Zablotny’s side project.

Not to Yassen’s surprise, the Prime Minister’s knowledge wasn’t really the issue: the small matter of his close confidant being responsible for about 50% of heroin production in Russia was one that he barely batted an eyelid over. The issue was the leak itself. Zablotny didn’t take kindly to it. Someone had betrayed him, and he wanted to know who it was.

The email requested Scorpia’s help, and specifically Yassen himself. Perhaps Zablotny knew that Yassen was Russian; more likely he just thought that the money he was paying – a significant amount, too much for this sort of operation, and certainly too much to turn down without careful consideration – deserved the attention of one of Scorpia’s two board members. But Yassen wasn’t in the habit of jumping when someone’s fingers snapped these days, least of all a Russian oligarch. He knew the type. A video call with Zablotny the same afternoon as the email didn’t change that opinion.

“You know how it is,” Zablotny said, leaning forward so that his forearms rested against the polished mahogany desk Yassen could see that he was sitting at. He was heavy-set, with thick, dark eyebrows and hair Yassen suspected was dyed to cover the grey. He was holding a smoking cigar between the fingers of his right hand. “Someone betrays me, they must pay for it.” He spread his hands in front of him, as though this was perfectly reasonable, and Yassen understood what Zablotny was trying to say: it’s just business.

“What makes you think someone betrayed you?” Yassen asked. They were speaking Russian, of course; there was also a bottle of vodka on one side of the desk in front of Yassen, visible on the screen. Yassen hadn’t touched it, but the prop would help Zablotny to think they were on the same side.

Zablotny glowered. “How else did my friends in the Government find out? Someone has talked. Find out who.”

He spoke as if Yassen had already accepted the job. Once upon a time, this would have made Yassen bristle with annoyance. Now he regarded Zablotny with cool apathy. He never enjoyed dealing with billionaires, especially Russian ones. They were all cut from the same cloth: too powerful, too rich, too arrogant to believe anyone would stand in their way when they wanted something.

“What made you think of Scorpia?” Yassen asked. “Why not just ask your friends in the Russian Government?”

Zablotny took a long drag on his cigar, shrugging. “This is an internal matter,” he said. “I do not want to involve the Prime Minister.” He tapped the cigar on the edge of an ashtray in front of him. “Anyway, my wife recommended you. She said she heard you had good credentials.”

Yassen didn’t ask any more. It wasn’t a particularly surprising answer. Scorpia’s reputation was improving all the time, and it hadn’t been bad to start with.

He paused, as if considering. But the truth was that he and Dr Three had already spoken about it, and had agreed that the price being offered suggested they ought to agree to it, unless there was something obviously objectionable about the matter.

“I can have a team with you tomorrow,” he told Zablotny. “Unfortunately, I am not available; I have a matter in the Middle East to attend to. But I have someone very capable in mind.”

Zablotny didn’t like that; he wasn’t used to being told no. “I specifically asked for you,” he said. “What, you want more money?”

“No.” The operation in Egypt was too important, and, besides, Yassen felt a need, for some reason, to show this man that he couldn’t be bought. “I am afraid the position is non-negotiable. I will send another operative. Nile. He is one of our top agents.”

Still Zablotny was put out. “Who is this Nile?” he asked. “I don’t know this name. I only know of you, and your number two. Orion.”

Alex. Yassen internally winced. Alex was, as it happened, available, but Yassen had been hoping to avoid involving him. Now he could see from Zablotny’s expression that it wasn’t up for negotiation. He would accept Yassen, or he would accept his deputy. No one else.

It was too much money to refuse.

“I will send Orion,” he said. “He is very experienced and highly capable. If you have any concerns about his performance, you may complain directly to me and I will handle the matter.”

That seemed to satisfy Zablotny. Certainly, he needed no more convincing. After a short discussion about payment terms, the call ended.

Yassen sat back in the leather chair at his desk, his fingers steepled in front of his mouth. There had been nothing particularly wrong with the exchange. On the contrary – it had been quite a lot easier than many of the negotiations Yassen had dealt with recently. And yet. Something was nagging at him – a part of his brain Yassen had learned not to ignore. Something wasn’t right. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to grope mentally around for what it was. Was it because he simply disliked Russian oligarchs on principle? Was it because he was going to have to send Alex, who had ended up with a bullet to his lung the last time he had been in Russia?

Or perhaps it was because he knew that he and Alex had an agreement, which this operation was going to blow a hole through.

In any case, none of them were good reasons not to take up the opportunity.

Yassen sighed and opened his video calling software again.

As Yassen had expected, Alex was not impressed, though he knew rather better than to show it.

Yassen didn’t blame him. Alex was in Malagosto, but it had been less than twelve hours since he had returned from Somalia. That operation had lasted two months, and it had come directly off the back of a six-week operation in California, which in turn had followed a month-long stint in Colombia. All successes, of course, but when Alex had delivered his final report earlier that day – Dr Three in person, Yassen attending via video link – Yassen had been able to see, even through the camera lens, the signs he had come to recognise from Alex after a long stint of work: his posture, just a fraction too ram-rod straight; the very slight sway when he stood still; the grey palour of his skin, betraying his strain.

Dr Three had seen them too.

“He’s exhausted,” the doctor observed once Alex had finished his report and left the call. He sounded more interested than concerned - as well he might: exhaustion was one of his favourite torture techniques. Yassen eyed him warily. He wouldn’t put it past his co-director to decide that this was the perfect moment to put Alex through another round of RTI. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.

“Yes.” Yassen paused. Even now, when Alex had more than proved himself and Dr Three was on the verge of retirement, he was cautious about showing too much concern about Alex. It was too liable to be exploited as a weakness, especially by Dr Three. He settled for: “He’s still young.”

“Still building up stamina,” Dr Three agreed. “Though on any view he is doing remarkably well.”

Yassen knew what that meant. He was practised enough not to allow his satisfaction to show. “So as we previously agreed, then,” he said.

“Quite.” Dr Three nodded. “A week should do it.”

Yassen had texted Alex to tell him, and had received a response at once:

Thank you.

Yassen hesitated, and then: That is what we agreed. Before Somalia.

Alex didn’t respond to that, and Yassen deduced that Alex simply hadn’t believed him. That gave Yassen reason to pause. Typically, Alex took him at his word. But perhaps it was Yassen’s fault. He had repeatedly made it clear that Alex was indispensable and that if he was required, he would have to step in, whatever his plans. Alex needed to understand that, if he was going to run Scorpia single-handedly one day. Now Yassen wondered if he hadn’t pushed the message a little too hard, too early. It was difficult, sometimes, to draw the line.

What Yassen had been trying to teach wasn’t wrong, exactly, and so he didn’t apologise for it. But there did need to be a correction.

If you are still planning on Malta, he typed, I will arrange you a private plane for the morning.

It was Yassen’s way of assuring Alex that he would see to it personally that he got a break.

Only now, of course, Yassen had to tell him that the whole thing was off.

Alex’s face was creased into a frown as he accepted Yassen’s call. In fact, his whole face was creased: he looked as though he’d been sleeping and there were lines on his cheek where the pillow had been. He looked, if anything, worse for the nap rather than better. Yassen forced himself to ignore it. He knew how Alex functioned. He needed a good sleep overnight, and he would be able to push on for at least another week, which was all this would take. Still, he hesitated for a split second, and that was enough time for Alex to guess.

“Something’s come up. No Malta.”

“Not tomorrow,” Yassen confirmed. And then, on an impulse that he did not very often allow himself to flex: “A fortnight, once it’s done. It should be no more than six – perhaps seven days. Scorpia has a villa in Malta. Very private. I will arrange for it to be free for you and Ms Starbright.”

It was a mark, perhaps, of just how much Alex needed a rest that it took him almost a minute to give the answer he had very little choice about anyway.

“All right,” he said wearily, at last. “Deal. I hope it’s got its own pool.”

His bargain with Alex did not remove Yassen’s unease, but it did, at least, allow him room to think more about what was bothering him about the matter. He surfaced with nothing: there was no obvious reason for his disquiet, save, perhaps, a lingering distaste that Zablotny reminded him rather too much of Sharkovsky, the Russian billionaire who had once kept Yassen as his slave, and the reminder of the last time Alex had been in Russia. Yassen was prepared to write it off as a personal sentimentality he was better off ignoring.

Just in case, though, he asked Nile to do a background check on Zablotny.

It came back clean. Or – as clean as a Russian oligarch’s background check came, anyway. Like most wealthy and powerful Russians, Antosha Zablotny had a lot of fingers in a lot of unpalatable pies. Drugs were merely the tip of the iceberg. Zablotny was heavily involved in the Russian mafia, the development of automatic weapons, biological weapons and chemical weapons, and human trafficking – not to mention a number of high-profile murders. Alex wouldn’t like him, but none of that particularly fazed Yassen. What did give him reason to pause was that one of Zablotny’s enterprises matched one that Sharkovsky had been involved in. Not the factory at Estrov. A brothel, in Moscow. And it had, obviously, been years ago – nearly twenty. Still, Yassen hesitated. Did he really want to do business with one of Sharkovsky’s associates?

In the end, he pushed the thought aside. Sharkovsky had been involved in a lot of different businesses. It was difficult to avoid all of his associates. Scorpia had probably done business with half of them already.

He should have listened to his instincts.

Alex flew to Russia the next day. Yassen had no doubts that he would do a good job. He was nineteen now – still young, as Yassen had already observed to Dr Three, but these days it usually only took twenty minutes in his company for any client to feel at ease leaving their operation in his hands. He was polite, efficient, and – usually (sometimes) – knew when to keep his mouth shut. Yassen read the reports from Alex each evening. They were of an impeccably thorough standard: he’d been trained well, of course, but this was also the sort of work at which Alex most excelled. Intelligence. Deduction. There was a reason, of course, the likes of MI6 and the CIA had wanted him so badly. If there was a leak in Zablotny’s circle, Alex would find it.

And then he found it.

But he didn’t put it into a report. Instead, Yassen got a text, on the afternoon of the fourth day.

Can we speak, was all it said.

Yassen didn’t contemplate refusing. Alex would only have asked if it were necessary. He texted back: Tonight. 7pm your time.

Moscow was one hour head of Egypt, but it got dark early in Cairo in December, and by the time six o’clock rolled around, Yassen was already back in his hotel suite, the laptop on the desk as he put the call through.

Alex answered at once. Yassen was amused to see that he was bundled up in an enormous overcoat to protect against the freezing chill of the Russian winter. He too was in a hotel room – rather smaller than Yassen’s, but when you were working for someone like Zablotny and had to strip down the room for bugs twice a day, the smaller the better.

“It’s the wife,” Alex said without preamble. “She passed the information to the Government.”

Yassen stopped. Digested what Alex had said. That hadn’t been what he had expected, and he raised his chin a little, considering the information. It was messier than he had anticipated when he had agreed to take on the operation, and there was no ideal way to handle it. Zablotny had asked for answers, but he would, no doubt, be angered by the truth. And there was something else, nagging at Yassen again, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“There’s more,” Alex said, interrupting his train of thought.

He sounded calm enough, but Yassen could see, even over the video link, that he was tense. Whatever it was, it had put him on edge. That was unusual. Alex had become much better at hiding what he was feeling, and he didn’t often allow Yassen to see when he was feeling anxious. Yassen waited.

“I think Zablotny knows she had something to do with it,” Alex said.

“So he wants to know why she did it,” Yassen guessed.

“Maybe."

"And why did she?”

“I don’t know that yet,” Alex said warily. “She might just hate her husband. He doesn’t treat her well.”

That wouldn’t have been surprising. Few Russian oligarchs treated their wives with anything remotely approaching affection. On the other hand…

“You don’t think that’s it,” Yassen said. He had surmised as much from Alex’s tone.

“No, I don’t.”

Yassen paused again. Alex didn’t like any of this – he could see that – and Yassen was inclined to agree. Alex’s uneasiness matched his own first impression. And Alex’s instincts were rarely wrong. Yassen’s even more so. “What do you know about her?”

“I’m sending you a report.”

Alex tapped his keyboard several times. A second later, Yassen received a file. He opened it.

Maya Zablotny, it was headed.

DOB: 27 January 1952
Occupation: Former model
Children: One daughter (Svetlana), one son (Leonid). Daughter from a former marriage.

Yassen stopped reading. Alarm bells were going off in his head.

“Ex-husband?” he rapped out at Alex.

Alex said the one name Yassen hadn’t wanted anywhere near this operation.

“Vladimir Sharkovsky.”

Yassen stilled. The alarm bells were getting louder.

Others might have viewed it as a coincidence. Yassen wasn’t so foolish. The pieces were finally slotting together. Zablotny knew it was his wife. It had been her idea to involve Scorpia in the first place.

The whole thing reeked of a set-up.

“What do you want me to do?”

Yassen looked back at the screen. He had done a poor job of hiding his thoughts. If Alex had suspected something was wrong before, he knew it for certain now.

“Extract yourselves,” said Yassen. “As subtly as you can manage. We’re aborting the operation.”

Said operation was to the tune of £100 million, and Zablotny had only paid half, but Yassen had made up his mind. It was too dangerous. He wanted Scorpia – and most particularly, Alex – out of there. He still didn’t know what was wrong with the whole venture, exactly, but the more he thought about it, the more he didn’t like it. This had something to do with Sharkovsky. Why hadn’t this been picked up on the background check? Evidently Nile hadn’t considered the wife important. He had listed her name – Maya Zablotny – and the son she had with Antosha Zablotny. Svetlana had been left off Nile’s report altogether. Probably he had considered her irrelevant. A grave error, as it turned out.

“Leave tonight,” Yassen told Alex. “With Sagitta. Don’t contact Zablotny. I will handle it.”

Alex nodded, once. He didn’t ask questions. He no doubt had many – and maybe Yassen would hear a few of them, later, if Alex was feeling more curious than exhausted, but he’d handle that then. The important thing was getting Alex out of Russia. Immediately.

“Text me when you’re back in Venice,” Yassen told him. The screen went black as he ended the call.

Yassen sat still for a moment, barely seeing the laptop screen in front of him. Maya Zablotny – or Sharkovsky, as Yassen had known her. He remembered that she had been very beautiful. But he had always had the impression she felt as much trapped by Sharkovsky as he had. What was all this about? And what did she want with Alex?

Probably nothing, was Yassen’s first thought: Zablotny had initially wanted him, Yassen, to come; not Alex. But the idea was quickly replaced with a new one, which was that it had all been a ploy. Yassen had offered to send Nile, and Zablotny had refused. He would only accept Yassen or Alex. And he hadn’t put up nearly so much of a fight about Alex as Yassen might have expected.

Yassen’s feeling that this was a trap was growing stronger by the second, and he was worried he had sent Alex head-first into it.

He still hadn’t moved from his chair. Others might pace when they were stressed; Yassen considered it a waste of energy. But he could feel the tension snaking itself through his body. He wouldn’t be satisfied until Alex was back in Malagosto with Sagitta. The other team Alex had taken with him – Foraker – would have to follow the next day. If Alex thought them in danger, he wouldn’t like Yassen’s attitude, but Yassen’s first priority was getting Alex out. Everything else was subordinate to that.

Still, there was nothing he could do from here. Alex had done the right thing, calling him, and he was, hopefully, on his way to an airfield. It would take him over three hours to fly to Venice from Moscow. Even assuming he left almost immediately, Yassen wouldn’t get the text he wanted until after ten o’clock. That was a lot of time to kill.

In fact, he had a lot of work to do, but Yassen spent the next hour meditating, attempting to release some of the strain he had felt as soon as he had heard Sharkovsky’s name. It was difficult. Yassen didn’t dwell much on the past these days, but as soon as he closed his eyes he could see Sharkovsky sliding the revolved over the desk towards him, or flying backwards with a hole in his head, and Yassen knew he wouldn’t be able to relax until he heard word from Alex. He should have asked Alex to message him as soon as he was in the air.

After sixty minutes, he gave up on attempting to relax, returning to his desk and opening his laptop again. He sent Dr Three a one-line email – I’m pulling the Zablotny operation; will update you when we speak. He opened a report from Nile, who was now in Argentina. He read two paragraphs and then closed it again. He wasn’t in the sort of frame of mind where he could be objective when it came to Nile at that moment.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was probably the room service that Yassen had asked to be delivered around this time; in fact, it was a little early.

“Please leave it outside,” he said, loud enough for the concierge to hear.

“It’s Commander Hill, sir,” came the reply.

The door was locked. Yassen and Hill were the only ones who had keys. It was no surprise that Hill had knocked first, but it was, perhaps, a surprise that Hill was disturbing him at all.

“Yes?” he said shortly – loudly enough so that Hill would hear him.

There was a click - the sound of the lock sliding away as Hill used his keycard. The door opened into the room Yassen was in, and he looked up as Hill entered. Yassen noted that Hill’s expression was grim, which meant bad news. No - worse than that. Hill was usually careful, around Yassen, not to have any sort of expression at all, which meant the news he had to deliver wasn’t just bad news - it was extremely bad news. He stopped in front of Yassen. But he didn’t say anything immediately.

“What is it?” Yassen asked. His voice was calm. Though there were some (now long past) board executives of Scorpia which would have shot their security detail merely for taking too long to deliver news, Yassen could be a patient man. Up to a point, he thought as Hill’s mouth opened and then closed again. The doubt in his eyes was obvious: he was already second-guessing whether he ought to tell Yassen the news he had come to deliver. There was, however, no room for self-doubt in this job, as Yassen was constantly trying to impress upon Alex. “Something’s happened,” Yassen said, allowing the merest hint of annoyance to creep into his tone. “If I need to be informed, please do so.”

Hill opened his mouth again. He still looked uncertain. But at that moment, his mobile phone rang in his hand. Hill glanced down at it. So did Yassen. He saw Marcus’s name.

Sagitta. Russia.

Alex.

Hill glanced up at Yassen, who extended his hand, palm upwards. Hill didn’t hesitate before putting the mobile in it. Once Yassen Gregorovich asked for something, it wasn’t usually wise to refuse.

“This is Yassen Gregorovich,” he said as he put the phone to his ear. He stood up, turning his back on Hill. He already felt this wasn’t going to be good, whatever it was.

A short, surprised silence. Then Marcus’s hesitant voice: “Sir. Did Danube give you an update?”

“Not yet. Tell me what’s happened.”

Yassen would reflect, later, that Sagitta’s priority would always be Alex, which was perhaps why Marcus pressed out much more quickly than Hill the last words that Yassen wanted to hear.

“Orion told us we had to leave tonight,” he said. “We organised the plane. But Zablotny must have found out. He had a sniper outside the hotel." He paused, and then: "Orion’s down.”

Orion’s down.

The words seemed to roar in Yassen’s ears. Yet they told him very little. He steadied himself by staring at a fixed point on the wall in front of him – a hook where a picture had once hung.

“Status,” he ordered.

Marcus didn’t waste time. “Double gunshot wound to the chest and lest shoulder. Chest wound serious; suspected artery damage. He’s already lost a lot of blood.”

“Is he going to survive?” Yassen’s tone was clinical. It gave nothing away.

The pause was as pregnant as Marcus dared. “He’s already flatlined twice, sir. There’s a medical team already here but they haven’t been able to move him yet.”

Yassen was adept at ensuring he didn’t give away what he was thinking, but he knew that the stiffness in his posture would be betraying him to Hill, who was still stood behind him. He was furious with himself. He hadn’t liked this operation from the start. He should have listened to his instincts. He was the only one who could have seen this coming.

“Keep me updated,” was all he said. “My direct line.”

He hung up, and turned to Hill.

“Dismissed,” he said, before the Commander could say anything.

Hill didn’t hesitate; he had worked with Yassen too long for that. He left at once.

Hill gone, Yassen allowed himself to sink into his chair again. To anyone watching, he looked like he was still perfectly in control: he had simply gone from standing to sitting. To Yassen, it felt like a complete collapse. He balled his hand up into a fist and then flexed it as he considered what he was going to do next.

The temptation to rush north to Moscow was almost overwhelming. Yassen did not permit himself many attachments, but he was prepared to admit that, after five years, it wouldn’t just be a blow to his – and Scorpia’s – ambitions to lose Alex: it would be an acute personal loss. He could see Alex lying in a pool of blood, his heart failing, his body going into shock, and sucked in a breath to steady himself again. He had been here before, in a way, when Alex had got himself shot trying to rescue Jack Starbright – in Russia, too, he reminded himself with irritation – but it hadn’t been the same. He hadn’t heard about it until Alex had been almost out of the woods; so he hadn’t had to deal with the knowledge that every ticking second could carry Alex away.

It was hell.

He let out a long exhale this time, trying to gather his thoughts. He had to put his concern for Alex to one side. He wasn’t in a position to help Alex either way. Alex would pull through, or he wouldn’t. What Yassen had to do was decide what they were going to do next. He had already decided to abort the operation. But Zablotny had set him up – had set Scorpia up. He had purposefully gunned down Yassen’s second in command. For that there had to be reparation.

The question was, did Yassen deal with it personally, or did he send a competent delegate?

There was plenty he could do without going to Russia himself. He could send a strike team to kidnap Antosha and Maya Zablotny and hand them straight over to Dr Three, who would be delighted to host them. But it was Yassen who had been targeted through this. It was deliberate provocation, aimed at a member of the Scorpia board, and ideally that member ought to deal with it in Moscow.

It would also allow him to be by Alex’s side, and ensure that he got the best care.

Yassen paused, aware that there was a danger that he was talking himself into this, because he wanted to go to Alex.

There had been no question of Yassen going to Alex’s side last time. Even assuming Yassen had got wind of it earlier, Alex had called in a favour from Dr Three. After that, Yassen’s appearance would have been viewed as nothing more than an acute personal weakness, which Dr Three would have been unscrupulous about taking advantage of. This was different. Dr Three might wonder about it, but it was justifiable; Yassen would be able to convince him that there was good reason for Yassen to go that had nothing to do with Alex. Even through the fury he felt that the Zablotnys had targeted Alex, he could recognise, objectively, that it was intended to be a personal insult that had to be swiftly nipped into the bud lest others get any ideas. Mara Zablotny had to be taught that Yassen Gregorovich was not the same seventeen year-old slave that had once stood on the drive of the dacha as Ivan Sharkovsky sprayed him with a hose, like a dog.

Something vibrated in Yassen’s pocket. His mobile phone was ringing. It was Marcus. Yassen stood up to answer it.

“Update?” he asked as he put the phone to his ear. Briefly, he wondered if Marcus thought him cold. He would have been justified in it: Yassen’s tone still gave nothing away.

Marcus’s pause was brief. “We’ve got him to the helicopter,” he said, “but he’s flatlined again.” Yassen could tell he was trying his best to be as clinical as Yassen was. He wasn’t succeeding. “They’re trying to bring him around, but…”

Yassen closed his eyes. He wanted to ask whether Marcus’s description – flatlining – was really a flat line, or whether Marcus was using it as shorthand for something else. There were four different types of cardiac arrest, only one of which was a true “flat line”, and it was the most difficult to come back from.

Yassen didn’t ask. Any medic would know the difference, but the Sagitta commander wouldn’t, and Yassen’s imagination was vivid enough without the help of an uninformed – and probably panicky – operative.

“I thought you should know, sir,” Marcus said. He didn’t say anything else, but Yassen could hear the unspoken words: just in case. No one liked giving an update as a situation was still unfolding – when you didn’t know which way things were going to pan out – but Yassen also knew that no one would have wanted to tell Yassen Gregorovich without any warning that Orion had died.

It was several seconds before Yassen fully trusted himself to speak again.

“This is what will happen next,” he said. “Assuming Orion is brought round, you are to airlift him as soon as possible to Tver Regional Clinical Hospital. Sagitta and Foraker are not to let him out of sight, either before or after you reach the hospital. If any further harm comes to him by Zablotny’s hand, Scorpia will hold you personally responsible.” If Marcus had thought Yassen’s voice cool before, it was now icy. Sagitta would be left in no doubt how seriously he meant the threat. “If you need assistance for security purposes, I will arrange to send an extra team to you.”

“Thank you, sir.” If Marcus was rattled, he had the sense not to show it. Likely he knew that he was fortunate Yassen was not already arranging to have them all shot for what was an unforgivable security breach.

Yassen paused, weighing up his next words, bracing himself for them.

“If Orion doesn’t make it,” he said crisply, “you are to fly his body without delay to Malagosto. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep me updated.”

Yassen ended the call before Marcus could answer. He stood for a moment, weighing his phone in his hand. He felt oddly incapacitated, useless. It was not a feeling he was used to. He had to do something – anything – to keep himself occupied, to stop Marcus’s voice echoing in his brain, over and over: “Orion’s flatlined; Orion’s flatlined…” To stop himself dwelling on the image of Alex’s dead body his imagination had so helpfully conjured up.

Yassen was not the sort to let himself run away with speculation, nor to feel paralysed like this. He knew exactly why it was. If Alex had died on any other operation, it would have been capable of rationalisation: Yassen had done his best; Alex Rider had probably survived a lot longer than he would have done in the hands of MI6. If he’d died trying to rescue Jack Starbright from Kurst, that would, regrettably, have been entirely on his own head: Yassen had tried to detach Alex as much as possible from sentimentality, but he would never ben entirely successful, and it always had the potential to kill him.

This was not capable of the same sort of explaining away. This was, unquestionably, Yassen’s fault. He’d left loose ends – personal loose ends – that now threatened to strangle Alex out of existence.

Dimly, Yassen realised that his hands were shaking. He raised one up, for a moment fascinated by the extreme nervous reaction – one he hadn’t experienced in years. It was just as well he didn’t have anything important to do in Cairo that evening. Nevertheless, it annoyed him. He had to calm down. This was achieving nothing. He might be almost three thousand miles from Moscow, but that did not mean he could not be productive.

He thought for a moment, and then walked over and took a seat at his desk again. He would not fly to Moscow. Not yet. He couldn’t, anyway: he needed to put into a place a contingency plan to deal with the Cairo operation. And the truth was that there was no point in doing that if Alex died, because Yassen would, in that scenario, have all the time he wanted to take his revenge.

And that was something that would not change, whatever the outcome. Either way, the Zablotnys would pay for this. And planning how they were going to do so was something that could keep Yassen’s mind sufficiently until Marcus updated him.

He had no intention of telling Dr Three for now. Yassen had told him that he was cancelling the operation because it had immediate financial implications. But there was nothing Dr Three would be able to do now, whilst Alex’s life hung in the balance. Best that he be told only when the position was clear.

Yassen thought for a few seconds more, and then began pulling up every one of Alex’s reports from the last few days. He would need to know everything he could about the Zablotnys. The reports were a good place to start. Thereafter he would likely move to other intelligence – satellite images and the Russian Government database.

Yassen felt his heart rate begin to slow again as he began to read, absorbing the information he would need to enact recrimination on those who had dared gun down Alex Rider.

A text came in from Marcus fifteen minutes later.

For a split second, Yassen eyed the lit up phone screen where it sat on the desk, reading the name Sagitta M. He had not asked for a text. The fact Marcus had sent one anyway meant one of two things. Either it was bad news, and Marcus had decided that he couldn’t face delivering it over a phone call, or it was better news, in which case, perhaps there was too much going on for Marcus to be able to speak. It would be difficult to maintain a conversation from a helicopter if they were already in the air.

Yassen picked up the phone from the desk and opened the text.

In the air. Light-touch surgery already underway. Still touch and go.

Still touch and go. Yassen let out a silent exhale and put his phone down, stilling as he thought. Touch and go, but Alex wasn't dead. He just had to stay that way.

It had its chances. Alex had proved remarkably stubborn to being killed in the past.

Perhaps it was time to start making that contingency plan for Cairo.

Yassen picked up his phone again and began making the necessary calls.

Twelve hours later, Alex Rider was, against all the odds, still alive.

He had received emergency surgery on the helicopter. It had been risky, but he’d been losing too much blood to avoid it. And it had worked, rendering him just about stable enough to avoid another cardiac arrest before they arrived at Tver Regional Clinical Hospital, outside Moscow. Once at the hospital, he had been rushed off for more surgery – more major this time. The bullet to his chest had hit a major artery. It should have killed him in fewer than ten minutes and, had it not been for the quick-thinking actions of Mace, who had enough knowledge to know what to do until the medical team arrived, he would have done. But the artery damage and loss of blood was just the start of it. The bullet had entered just above his heart – likely a mis-aim caused by the large overcoat he had been wearing – and it had hit bone, shattering part of it. The bullet had ricocheted, nicking not only the artery but the trachea, impeding Alex’s oxygen supply, which hadn’t helped with the shock. The surgery had required grafts on the damage, and some reconstruction of the bone. Further surgery might be required, but the doctors were waiting to see. Alex was young, and they were hopeful they might be able to do without it.

The bullet to the shoulder had done less damage, miraculously avoiding bone, nerves, and the subclavian artery – which otherwise would almost certainly have killed him in combination with the other bullet – but Alex had still required a massive blood transfusion since he had arrived at Tver – more than 100% replacement of blood.

Alex was still unconscious, heavily sedated. But he was alive, and the doctors were increasingly optimistic he would stay that way, barring any interference.

Yassen had made sure that there would be no interference.

Alex was in a private room – in fact, a private corridor, since Yassen had taken the liberty of booking out the two rooms either side of Alex’s, in order to minimise the security risk. There were two members of Sagitta stationed outside, and two inside, the room at all times. Had any non-Scorpia personnel attempted to approach the corridor, they would have been dissuaded – politely, in the first instance, less politely in the second – by the automatic firearms they all carried. If there was any trouble, a backup strike team was spread out across the same floor. Not even hospital staff were permitted on the corridor: Scorpia had flown out a private medical team, which the hospital had readily agreed to host – after enough money (and a threat of blackmail) had changed hands. Yassen had been personally walked through every one of these security measures by video link to satisfy himself that they were adequate.

If anyone wanted to get at Alex in hospital, Yassen had seen to it that they were going to have their work cut out for them.

That had been Yassen’s first priority, as soon as he had known Alex might pull through. It had taken him no more than a few hours. His second priority had been extracting himself from Cairo; that had taken rather longer – most of the night – but it had been worthwhile: the operative Yassen had chosen to replace him landed in Cairo ten minutes after Yassen’s flight to Kursk took off.

Kursk was a city around 500km to the south of Moscow. There was not much that was very interesting about it: it had, at one stage, been an outpost on the Russian border, designed to protect the country against foreign advancement, but the border had long since been moved south, and with it the threat against which Kursk was supposed to protect. It had its own power station, and the surrounding area was one of Russia’s major areas of iron ore production, but otherwise it did not have much that was interesting.

It did, however, have an airfield, which Yassen landed in at approximately seven a.m. local time.

He had flown himself, and he was alone. Danube had not been happy about that, but there was little that they could do if Yassen Gregorovich decided he didn’t need a security detail. He did not feel unsafe without one. He had survived for fifteen years in the field without hangers-on, and he knew how to take care of himself. In his view it was a dangerous habit to get into, to view one’s security as a crutch. Besides, it was difficult to remain inconspicuous with a strike team trailing one around all the time, and Yassen needed anonymity and subtlety for what he had planned.

He was not heading directly to Tver. It was still tempting, to check on Alex in person, and it had taken a considerable degree of self-discipline not to fly there instead of Kursk. But Yassen’s presence at the hospital would improve neither Alex’s security nor his chances of survival. Yassen had done all he could for him in that regard. Moreover, that would be what was expected; if Yassen went there, if he was seen and recognised, he would lose the advantage of surprise. He might even put himself in danger.

He had flown to Kursk precisely because it would not be expected, and he would not be tracked. But he would take precautions just in case. Yassen had booked a room in a hostel for one night. He would not, as it happened, stay there: he had pre-paid in advance, and he would use the room probably for no more than one hour and purely for the purposes of changing his appearance. Suitably disguised, he would then take a train to Moscow. Another Scorpia operative would meet him at the central train station – under the guise of being his elderly mother, in case anyone happened to be watching. They would travel together to a safe house, and Yassen would use that as a base whilst he planned his next move.

It was all annoyingly slow, but Yassen was no stranger to patience. He would use the time to meditate, to finalise his plans. He had once been one of the world’s top contract killers, but that had been nearly five years ago, before he had been appointed to Scorpia’s executive board. He would be out of practice, and he needed to be at the top of his game for this, ensure that he had lost none of his edge.

He did not intend to need a second attempt. He would strike once, decisively. Antosha and Mara Zablotny would regret ever having taken on Yassen Gregorovich, and the world would understand the consequences of targeting Alex Rider.

Yassen spent twenty-four hours in Moscow, and then he made his move.

Zablotny entered his bedroom at a little after six in the evening two days after arranging to have Alex Rider shot as he came out of his hotel. He already knew that Gregorovich’s second had survived the attempt, and he was furious. In fact, the would-be assassin had already been assassinated himself. Zablotny was already considering how he would get at Rider in Tver Hospital; he had not yet told his wife that the attempt had failed, and he needed to finish the job. His contacts told him the operative was under heavy protection. It looked as though he would have to wait until Rider was moved. There was bound to be a moment of weakness when that happened, and Zablotny would exploit it.

All in all, he was optimistic. It was annoying he had not done what he had set out to do, but he would finish the job eventually and, best of all, his intelligence told him that Yassen Gregorovich had not flown to Moscow as had been expected. Zablotny had all the surrounding airfields and entry points to the city being watched. He was poised to go into hiding – or perhaps simply have Gregorovich shot or arrested – if anyone caught so much as a whiff of his presence in Russia. But, for the moment, Zablotny was safe.

Or so he thought.

Zablotny had a state dinner to attend that evening. He usually carried a handgun everywhere he went, but he had just showered, and as he entered his bedroom, he was wearing nothing more than a towel, and he was completely unarmed. It was his only moment of weakness, and it occurred twice a day.

Yassen had known this.

He waited until Zablotny dropped his towel, and then he stepped out of the shadows. His gun was already raised. Zablotny didn’t have time to react. His gaze focused on Yassen just as two bullets were fired into his skull. He fell backwards, his mouth hanging open. He lay on the floor, still naked, and dead.

Maya Zablotny entered the room a short time later. When she did, she found her husband still lying on the floor, two round, red holes in his forehead, and Yassen sitting in the chair at her dressing table, the gun now trained in her direction.

“Come in and shut the door,” Yassen told her. “If you turn around and run, I will shoot. If you attempt to call for help, I will shoot. If you make any movement other than closing the door behind you, I will shoot. Do you understand?”

Mara Zablotny nodded and closed the door. Then she stood motionless, facing him. She was unarmed. She carried no handbag, and her tight-fitting dress made it impossible to conceal a weapon effectively. Yassen had known this too. Nonetheless, he was not there to take risks. The gun didn’t waver. Nor did Mara’s voice when she spoke.

“Yassen Gregorovich,” she said. Her face – still beautiful, even after all these years – twisted like something grotesque as she nearly spat the name.

“Mara.” There was once upon a time when Yassen would not have dared call her by her first name - would only have been allowed to address her as Madam. Her eyebrows raised a little, as though the same thought had occurred to her, but she didn’t say it.

“You know where I’ve come from,” he said.

“Scorpia.” That was spat out too, as if she could hardly bring herself to say it.

“Then you will know what I am capable of.” Yassen didn’t move. “I want to know what this was about,” he said. “It can’t be about Sharkovsky. You were as much his prisoner as I was.”

He had his suspicions, but he wanted to hear it confirmed. It was the only way he could ensure he neutralised the danger properly.

Mara’s mouth tightened. “He treated me better than Antosha ever did.” She barely spared Zablotny a glance at her feet. Certainly, she did not look at all upset that Yassen had just murdered another of her husbands. “The only thing Antosha ever did for me was luring your precious protégé here.”

So it had been about getting to Alex. The thought made Yassen’s grip on the gun increase just fractionally. But he still hadn't got the answers he wanted.

“My number two,” he said evenly. Nothing more than that hung in the air.

Mara shook her head. “You trained him from the age of fourteen,” she said. “Everyone knows it. They might just think he’s your apprentice, but I know better. It would be impossible for you not to care for him. You may be a cold hearted killer, Gregorovich, but he was the closest thing to a son you will ever have.”

Yassen hadn’t missed the way she had spoken about Alex in the past tense. She believed him to be dead. But Yassen’s brain was caught on something else. A son. This wasn’t about Vladimir Sharkovsky.

“This is about Ivan, your son,” he said.

Mara’s face contorted into an expression of incredulity this time. “Of course it’s about my son,” she said. “You shot him in cold blood; he died. He was my child.”

Yassen considered. He had not gone to the dacha all those years ago to kill Ivan Sharkovsky, but he had never once felt any compunction about doing so.

“Antosha knew what it meant to me,” Mara continued. She pushed Zablotny a little with the toe of her high-heeled shoe. “That was why he agreed to do this. To lure you, or your own son, over here.”

“Alex is not my son.”

Mara’s lips tightened; she was still unconvinced. As well she might be. She had arranged to kill Alex Rider, and in less than forty-eight hours, Yassen Gregorovich had arrived on her doorstep, ready to make people pay for it. He could try to pass it off as Scorpia’s own affront - and others would believe that; you couldn’t just go around gunning down the number twos of the Scorpia board without expecting retribution – but Mara knew better. She knew that this was personal.

“He’s still alive,” Yassen said. “You didn’t kill him.”

Mara’s eyes widened a little; she hadn’t expected that. Then her lip curled.

“I’ll make sure he dies,” she said. “A slow and painful death, this time.”

“No, you won’t,” said Yassen, and shot her.

This time, there could be no loose ends. Though it gave Yassen no pleasure to do so, he was relentless in searching out every single one of Antosha and Mara Zablotny’s family members.

The first was the son that they had had together. He didn’t seem to care much about his mother, but he took enormous affront to what Yassen had done to his father, and had to be taken care of. Svetlana - Sharkovsky’s daughter - on the other hand, hadn’t seemed to give a damn.

“My father was a bastard,” she said curtly, when Yassen broke into her office at St Petersburg State University, where she was a professor in English Studies, “and my brother was almost worse. The world’s better off.”

“And your mother?” Yassen asked, his gun still trained on her.

Svetlana shrugged. “Bat-shit crazy, as the English say,” she said.

She was allowed to live, as was Mara’s brother, who seemed to regard Yassen as having done him some sort of favour. Perhaps that wasn’t surprising, as he had taken over nearly all of Sharkovsky’s business on his death, and would now do the same with Zablotny – especially as Yassen had been so good as to kill Zablotny’s son too. He greeted Yassen as an old friend, they drank vodka together, and he told Yassen he looked forward to working with Scorpia in the future. That was, possibly, unlikely – Yassen thought he would want to stay well away from this family, and he would advise Alex to do the same – but it was worth bearing in mind, perhaps. Depending on what was offered.

Yassen shot two cousins and a nephew, and then, finally, he headed for Tver Hospital.

When Alex woke, it was to the stinging smell of antiseptic and the detached, woozy feeling of very strong painkillers. He was in a hospital. And something very bad had happened to him, if the extent of his detachment and the pain just on the edge of it, was anything to go by.

But there was something else. Alex sensed, before he had even opened his eyes, that there was someone close by.

He opened his eyes and found himself in a private hospital room, staring at Yassen.

The Scorpia executive was sitting in a hard, plastic chair – provided by the hospital, no doubt – his legs crossed and his hands clasped loosely in his lap, watching Alex, as if he had known Alex would wake up at that precise moment. His blue eyes were sharp as he took Alex in.

“You were shot,” he said, before Alex could open his mouth. “Twice: once in the chest, and once in the shoulder. You’re very lucky to be alive. You’re looking at a minimum of four months’ recovery time.”

Alex’s throat felt sore. He tried to speak and found he couldn’t. Yassen seemed to understand, because a second later he was offering Alex a drink with a straw in it, and, with some difficulty, Alex sipped at it. His body felt heavy, and his right arm fell uselessly back onto the bed as Yassen took the plastic cup away. He wasn’t even sure he could move his left arm. He tried to and found he could, but it was painful and he didn’t want to try again. He tried to remember what had happened.

He had spoken to Yassen, who had told him to leave Moscow. He had made the arrangements with Sagitta for a private plane. He had stepped out of the hotel, heading for the waiting car, and -

It was a blur, but Alex thought he remembered feeling as though he’d just been punched in the chest. He’d twisted away immediately, trying to duck, but his movements had been clumsy. That must have been how he’d ended up shot in the shoulder.

But none of this told him what had really happened. He had known there was danger: Yassen would not have asked him to abandon the operation – and fifty million dollars – if there hadn’t been. He knew it had been something to do with Mara Zablotny, because it had been her that had triggered Yassen’s change of approach, but he didn’t know what. And his brain, slow and sluggish from the drugs they seemed to be pumping directly into his veins, if the IV was anything to go by, was having trouble trying to make sense of any of it.

“Was it the wife?” he tried. His voice came out hoarse, despite the drink he’d just had. “Did she know I’d found out?” He didn’t see how: he’d done a thorough sweep of his hotel room for bugs. Had he missed something?

“She didn’t care if you found out or not,” Yassen said. “The whole thing was a set up, designed to get at you.”

Alex frowned. That didn’t make sense to him either, and for a moment he was tempted to rip out the IV line just so that he could think clearly. He didn’t, knowing full well both that pain was just as much an inhibitor to thought as drugs, and that Yassen wouldn’t let him.

“Why would they want to get at me?” he asked blankly. “I don’t know them. Scorpia doesn’t. They were a new client. Weren’t they?”

Yassen paused, and then said: “Scorpia doesn’t know Mara Zablotny. I do. Her husband and son were my first ever kills.”

“But – ” In his drug-addled haze, Alex had been about to say: “But then Scorpia does know her.” But he’d not latched on properly to what Yassen was saying. Scorpia didn’t know her. So Yassen’s kills hadn’t been carried out on Scorpia’s behalf. “Did you – ” He coughed slightly and then continued. His chest felt tight; the bandages, perhaps. “I thought Scorpia trained you,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d worked for anyone else before Scorpia.” 

“I didn’t.” 

Alex’s lethargic synapses at last made the connection. “It was personal.”

“Yes.” A pause. “It was an unfortunate lapse in due diligence,” Yassen said, and his voice sounded heavy. “The identities of her late husband and son should have been picked up. They were not. Nile, who did the diligence, has been spoken to.”

Alex knew what that meant. Nile had received a spectacular bollocking over not being thorough enough. But he still didn’t really understand.

“If it was personal to you,” he said, “what did I have to do with it?”

Yassen very rarely showed his emotions, and it was, perhaps, only because Alex had known him for five years, and perhaps knew him better than anyone, that he caught the slight tightening – more a twitch than anything else – in Yassen’s facial muscles. It still took Alex a few seconds to work out what it was. Guilt. That was a bit strong; something else approaching that. Regret, perhaps. Even so, he didn’t expect Yassen to give him an explanation, but after a minute Yassen spoke again.

“I killed Mara Zablotny’s husband and son,” said Yassen. His words were deliberate, and Alex knew he was choosing them with great care. “She was upset about that. Particularly her son. I had ripped apart her family. But it is very difficult to do the same to me in return.” He hesitated – unusually, for Yassen – and then said: “Her first husband, Vladimir Sharkovsky, was responsible for the deaths of my family.”

Yassen did not often give up information like this. Alex stayed silent. Out of it though he was, he thought he understood what Yassen was saying. Yassen had no family. So they had gone after the closest thing he might have had. Alex didn’t fool himself for a second that the illusion was more substantial than the reality – that Yassen thought of him like a son or anything as sentimental, or dangerous, as all that. But Mara Zablotny hadn’t known that. And, given their history, he and Yassen were, perhaps, closer than other seconds would have been to their respective board members. Alex wasn’t Yassen’s son, but if you wanted to get at Yassen, there weren’t many options and Alex was the obvious choice.

“It should not have happened,” Yassen said steadily. “It is my fault, and I have taken care of it.”

Alex knew what that meant, too: Yassen had killed Antosha and Mara Zablotny and any other family he perceived to be a threat. Nor did Alex miss the slight stress on the word I. Yassen had carried it out personally. Despite the internal lecture he had just given himself about his unimportance to Yassen, he felt warmth spread through him. He shouldn’t have been pleased that Yassen had murdered people on his behalf, and yet, he knew that they would have died anyway – they had to. The only difference was that Yassen had taken the attack on Alex personally, and so the revenge had been delivered personally, too.

“Thank you,” Alex said.

Yassen opened his mouth. And then closed it again. Perhaps it had been to tell Alex that it hadn’t been for him: someone had taken a direct aim at almost the heart of Scorpia, and punishment had to be dealt out for that. Maybe he was thinking about trying to articulate the relationship they had, which wasn’t father and son, but which hadn’t always been entirely business either.

Whatever it was, he didn’t say it. Instead, he unfolded himself and stood up. He picked up from the end of the bed a thin laptop that Alex hadn’t noticed before. Yassen had probably been working whilst Alex slept.

“Get some rest,” Yassen told him. “We’ll move you to Malagosto as soon as you’re ready. Ms Starbright is keen to see you.”

Jack. Alex’s heart – painful though his whole chest was – lifted a little.

“What about Malta?” he asked.

Yassen almost smiled. “As soon as you’re sufficiently recovered,” he told Alex. “I’ll arrange it. You have my word."

Alex raised his eyebrows a little. Yassen got the drift.

"You have my word," he repeated. "One hundred million or no this time." And then he left.