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If there was one thing Yassen didn’t like, it was traitors.
Aside from certain long-held personal grudges, there was the practicality of it. You couldn’t trust them, by definition. If they were willing to sell out the people who were counting on them – for money, for revenge, the motive didn’t matter – what was to stop them changing their minds again?
Over the years he’d been offered an enormous amount of money by various people to turn his back on contracts he’d undertaken to pursue. Those people were all now dead, and his reputation as a man considered both trustworthy and competent by his employers had grown.
The other point in his favour was that he wasn’t especially ambitious. This made him a rare creature in the world in which he moved, where clawing one’s way to the top was often a literally cut-throat business. He was good at what he did, and content to do it well for a respectable level of reimbursement. It was an attitude that had kept him relatively safe from those of his peers who had their eyes on the top echelons of the Scorpia board.
No, Yassen’s plan was to make enough money to be able to retire, preferably sooner rather than later. Politics didn’t interest him, whether on the world stage or internally. There was far too much backstabbing involved. On the whole he preferred stabbing people in the front.
Which brought him back to his original thought about how much he didn’t like traitors, and the fact that he was sitting in a multi-storey car park waiting for one, who was now seventeen minutes late.
Finally he saw a man making his way across the level, ducking between the pillars as if he wanted to maximise the amount of attention he might draw to himself as opposed to walking normally.
Yassen watched in the rearview mirror as the man checked out the numberplate of the car, and finally opened the passenger door.
Yassen looked at him levelly and received a nervous grin in return.
“I’m not supposed to have a password or something, am I?”
Yassen gave him a thin smile. “Oh, I know who you are, Mr Wilby. I know who you are, what you are, what you want, and why you want it.”
Wilby shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “Yes, well. I’m giving you what you want too don’t forget. You couldn’t do this without me.”
Yassen entertained a brief but vivid metal image of blowing Wilby’s brains out all over the concrete. It helped him maintain his smile, as opposed to giving free rein to the expression he was harbouring on the inside.
“Ian Rider. You will bring him to an address of my choosing.” Yassen handed him a sealed slip of paper containing instructions, a thick envelope, and a mobile phone.
“You can use this to reach me once you know he will be in place.” Yassen briefly kept hold of the stack of items as Wilby tried to take them. “Do try, Mr Wilby, not to have to contact me otherwise.”
“It’ll be fine. He’ll be there.”
“As will you,” Yassen added mildly.
Wilby swallowed. “Yes. Of course. You, er – you will be the one to – ”
“Do not worry, Mr Wilby. I will take care of the necessary. Your presence is needed as insurance only.”
The fact that Wilby was too stupid to see this meant insurance for them in making sure he was incriminated was another black mark against him. Scorpia had hopes for Wilby as a long term contact. Having now spent approximately two minutes in his company, Yassen was personally hoping he would get to kill him.
“The paper has details of the location and an identification code,” Yassen told him. “Use it if prompted. Do not leave it with the phone.”
“Do I look stupid?”
Yassen refrained from answering that with some difficulty.
“Don’t I need a charger or something to go with the phone?”
“If it takes you longer to arrange than the battery lasts then the deal is off,” Yassen said shortly. “We need to move quickly.”
“What’s this?” Wilby had opened the envelope and taken out a thick wad of cash. “I thought you were paying me electronically?”
“A down payment,” Yassen told him. “A token of our good faith. Don’t worry. The notes are genuine, and all untraceable. We thought perhaps in view of your – difficulties – an immediate infusion of cash might be useful.”
Wilby’s eyes gleamed for a second, and he tucked it away in his jacket. “I just need to pay something off, that’s all,” he muttered. “Once I’m clear, that’s it. This is a one off.”
“Of course,” Yassen agreed. Wilby had considerable gambling debts. Once a gambler, always a gambler, in Yassen’s experience. He might clear what he owed, but he would soon owe more. And even if he didn’t, what he was about to do would give them a hold over him forever.
What Wilby didn’t know was that a significant part of his current debt had been due to rigged games in the first place. Scorpia took the long view when it came to recruitment. Everyone had a vice, and once you knew what it was, they were exploitable. You never knew when leverage over a random agent would come in handy, and it just so happened Wilby’s time had come.
“We’ll speak soon,” Yassen said pointedly, hoping to indicate that the meeting was over and Wilby should get the fuck out of his car, but the man hesitated.
“What’s he done? Ian, I mean? That you want him dead so fast?”
“He is interfering in matters that do not concern him. And we have reason to believe he suspects I am still alive,” said Yassen. “Unfortunately for him, that is not very healthy knowledge to be in possession of right now. Sadly the moment he discovers he is right, it will be too late for him to do anything about it.”
“I know you’re alive too now,” said Wilby uneasily, as the precarious nature of his position gradually began to dawn on him. He hadn’t known who his contact would be until he’d got into the car. He hadn’t said anything, but the man was rather – distinctive looking.
Yassen smiled at him unnervingly. “But you are a colleague now Mr Wilby. I’m sure we will all get along just fine, yes?”
Wilby couldn’t get out the car fast enough after that. He threw the empty envelope that had held the cash down onto the seat as he left, which was a sensible precaution, but the money – and the paper banker’s band that had been wrapped around it – had gone straight into his jacket pocket. It would almost certainly be carried home with him, even if he stashed the phone remotely, suspicious that it could be tracked.
Yassen opened up his laptop and studied the map with its twin location beacons. “Now then Martin,” he murmured to himself, most traces of the heavier Russian accent having mysteriously vanished. “Let’s find out where you live.”
–
The call came the following night. Wilby explained he had Ian on the hook, managing to omit the fact it had been Ian who called him. They would be at the rendezvous in an hour. To Yassen’s annoyance he already sounded keyed up and nervous.
“We must make it look convincing to your people. Perhaps I should shoot you too?” Yassen mused.
“What?”
Yassen tried to picture Wilby’s current expression and allowed himself a slight smile. “Just a little.”
“How do you shoot someone a little?”
“For veracity, you know? In the leg maybe. Or the arm.” Yassen hung up while Wilby was still spluttering. There were pros and cons in leaving Wilby alive. If he could convince MI6 of the cover story then it was worth it. If not – well. Yassen stroked the barrel of the K5 almost fondly. Tools were there to be used.
–
The warehouse was in the middle of renovations, one more piece of industrial heritage destined to become overpriced apartments. Yassen was there well in advance, had chosen his hotel to be within easy walking distance. No car that might be traced that way, and no need to dispose of the body afterwards. The intention was for the death to be attributed to other sources; if Ian simply disappeared MI6 would keep looking. Hence the unfortunate need for Wilby.
Yassen tracked them silently through the building, invisible in the darkness beyond the path of the construction workers’ lights he’d laid out for them. Defining their route. Choosing his moment.
Ian.
Small world, no?
Yassen stood in front of Ian Rider’s raised weapon with nothing more than a look of tired patience. There was, of course, the risk that Ian would simply shoot him on sight, in the head – but nothing Yassen did was entirely without risk and this was a calculated one. Crucially, Ian was in the business of information not murder, and at first glance Yassen looked unarmed. He was banking on Ian being curious. Fatally so.
Ian Rider stared his own death in the face. He knew instinctively that he’d reached the end of the road, that he would not be allowed to leave here with the knowledge Yassen was alive. Anyone else, he might have held out hope he could negotiate, Martin he might have talked round or out-fought, but not Yassen. There was nothing he could do, therefore there was no point in panicking. He felt a cold calmness settle over him.
He could expect no mercy from Yassen, he knew that. But the thought went through his mind – would Yassen spare him for Alex’s sake? As far as Ian was aware the man didn’t know the boy existed. They’d been close once, John and Yassen. Would he show clemency for John’s son, if he knew that by killing Ian he would be effectively orphaning the boy a second time? Would it be enough to stay his hand?
All these things went through his head in a split second. By the time Yassen pulled the trigger Ian had made his choice. Better that Yassen never discovered Alex’s existence.
Ian had always known there was a real possibility that one day he would never come home. It was a risk he’d accepted when he chose to retain his job while bringing up Alex at the same time. He hoped he’d given Alex a good grounding. That he was equipped to look after himself, whatever life threw at him. Perhaps, in time, he would even come to this profession himself. Ian hoped if that was the case, that Alex never found himself at the wrong end of a gun held by Yassen Gregorovich. It was his last conscious thought in the world.
–
Yassen walked away from the warehouse without looking back. He trusted Wilby to have the sense to protect his own skin, but what he wasn’t sure of was how far MI6 trusted the man in the first place. Yassen reflected that Ian’s reaction to Martin’s betrayal had been disappointed and disgusted, but it hadn’t been all that surprised. His death would raise questions, and if there was even a suspicion over Wilby’s loyalty things could get awkward.
He returned to his hotel, stripped and showered. He would need to remain in London to keep an eye on things for the immediate future until they were certain none of Ian’s suspicions regarding Point Blanc and who might be involved had been communicated to his superiors, and that his murder remained unconnected to Scorpia.
Ian. Yassen genuinely regretted that his death had become necessary. He’d wondered if he would feel anything, but when it had come to pulling the trigger he hadn’t so much as hesitated. Yassen wasn’t sure if that came as a relief or not.
–
Martin Wilby’s flat was on the top floor of a residential block near London Bridge station. He had panoramic views that took in the Shard and the Strata tower and which were currently being enjoyed in his absence by Yassen Gregorovich.
When Yassen had first arrived he’d spent some time setting up a surveillance device, and then some more time poking about on general principles. There were a couple of fade marks on the bare walls that spoke of artwork disposed of for fast cash, and Yassen wondered again how long Wilby’s payment would last.
Yassen knew he could simply have come and gone without Wilby ever knowing he’d been there, but there was always a risk someone in Wilby’s position would have some way of monitoring access that Yassen had missed. He wasn’t infallible after all, just careful. Waiting for Wilby to come back meant he didn’t have to hide the fact he’d broken in and had the added bonus of a little powerplay. We know where you live, it said, and we can get in at any time.
When Wilby finally made an appearance, the ensuing conversation went much as Yassen expected. Wilby was unsettled but too wary of Yassen to openly protest at this invasion of his home and Yassen got to amuse himself with the most threateningly worded reassurance he could come up with.
Deciding against taking the tube twice in one day Yassen walked back to the hotel, glad of the fresh air. He was confident in his anonymity but knew it wouldn’t do to spend too much time in public right now, while security attention might be heightened. London was a city of cameras, and while people’s gazes tended to slide over him, software was less amenable.
For the same reason he tended to avoid the brightly lit hotel gym, preferring to work out in his room and only emerge after dark, running the riverside walks with the other post-work joggers. Probably none of the panting figures he passed were taking time out from a job such as his, but then, in this world you never knew.
He hadn’t been back long when a call came in from his principal.
“Greif has finally made his last selection. Alex Friend, son of Sir David Friend, supermarket magnate. British, sixteen years old. There should be no problems this time, but you should familiarise yourself with the details, just in case. The file has been sent.”
“Of course.” The last problem had sent him to New York. And the one before that had sent a colleague to Russia. Two problems requiring terminations on the same scheme already suggested to Yassen that it was flawed in the first place, but it wasn’t his place to say so. He didn’t care. He’d met Greif twice, and thought the man inventive but ultimately blinkered by his own rhetoric. Too convinced of his own genius to foresee the potential problems. Yassen had seen one of the clones too. Impressive, but somehow lacking. He wasn’t surprised the parents were starting to pick up on the differences.
Yassen opened the file and read through the details. Another over-privileged rich boy acting up. If he knew what was in store for him, he would soon wish he’d savoured his pampered lifestyle a little more. The thing that made Yassen do a double take was the attached photograph. Alex Friend was a good-looking blond boy – with a startling resemblance to a ghost.
Yassen closed the laptop and poured himself a drink. He would almost certainly not be needed tonight, it was allowable, and in any case not enough to impact his reactions. But somehow he found that he needed it.
–
When Yassen received Wilby’s terse request to meet several days later, he fully expected to hear that things had gone to hell in a handbasket. So much so, that when Wilby broke the news MI6 were closing the file on Ian’s death he couldn’t fully believe it.
In fact he decided, as Wilby got out of the car again with the relieved air of a man who clearly thought his role as a traitor to his country was at an end, he didn’t believe it. No way would the death of an agent like Ian Rider be passed off so easily, even if they had bought the Korean story.
Which meant Wilby was either lying, which Yassen considered he was fully stupid enough to do but doubted he was brave enough, or someone was lying to Wilby in turn. Which meant his involvement was suspected. And that could lead in turn, to Yassen and to Scorpia.
He sighed, and picked up the phone.
“We may have a problem.”
–
The nature of the problem was confirmed all too soon when Yassen’s prudently installed surveillance camera revealed the agents diligently if belatedly bugging Wilby’s flat. Considering the number of people that had broken in lately he felt like offering the man some security advice, except unfortunately for him Wilby now wasn’t going to live long enough to profit from it.
Talking of profit – Yassen switched to the screen showing the tracking devices. The one attached to the money now showed up overlaid with the phone’s location, some distance from Wilby’s flat. Logic suggested Wilby would soon be needing to collect one if not both. As soon as Wilby realised he’d been made, his only recourse would be to appeal to Scorpia for help.
Yassen started the car and moved off.
–
There were a number of methods available to Yassen regarding the matter of Wilby’s demise, and he considered each of them on the way to what turned out to be a public bath house. To shoot him would be simplest and cleanest, but by this point Wilby had annoyed him enough to want something a little more up close and personal.
Yassen slipped a razor sharp shiv into his coat pocket and made his way silently through the tiled passages. Tracking the phone’s location lead him right to where he needed to be, and at his unexpected appearance Wilby looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“They don’t know anything. They’re nowhere near me,” he stammered, blustering in fear despite being a trained agent. Yassen’s reputation preceded him, its ability to paralyse was almost a deadly weapon in its own right. If Wilby had had his wits about him or one inch of spine he’d have shot on sight. Was he even armed? Yassen shook his head slightly, wondering if he’d ever meet someone who didn’t turn out to be disappointing.
Wilby changed tack, denial turning into desperate bargaining. “You’re in danger. I keep meaning to call you.”
Yassen didn’t really care what Wilby had to say, the fact Wilby was already being watched said all he needed to know. It also meant MI6 might not be far behind.
Time to go.
The blade went in and Wilby went down gasping, a dead weight in Yassen’s arms before he hit the floor.
Yassen looked down at the body impassively, then noticed something sticking out of Wilby’s pocket. A photograph. Something made him bend and pick it up, the thought going through his mind that Wilby might have somehow taken a picture of him to use. He saw immediately he was wrong but then looked more closely. Two teenage boys. Wilby didn’t have children, he knew that much. The boy in the background was familiar, but footsteps were approaching now and Yassen left unhurriedly the way he had come.
Back in his hotel room Yassen looked at the photograph again under the lamp, wiping his bloody fingerprints off the edges. Frowning, he opened the laptop and the encrypted file, comparing the two. He’d been right. It was unmistakeably the Friend boy.
Yassen smoothed the picture out further, running a finger down the boy’s face. The resemblance he’d noted when he’d first seen the file was still there, tugging insistently at the corner of his mind. He pushed it away. Lots of people looked like someone else, after all. It was a fact he’d often used to his advantage. And there’d been a time when he’d seen John in the faces of too many passers-by.
It was having to kill Ian that had done it, he decided. He was thinking too much about John lately. It was the kind of distraction he couldn’t afford.
Yassen rubbed a pensive hand over his chin. Ghosts from the past notwithstanding, whichever way you looked at it something wasn’t right. Wilby had known nothing significant about Point Blanc. So why did he have a picture of one of Greif’s victims? And where had he got it?
Yassen wasted no time regretting he hadn’t got more information out of the man, as things had turned out if he’d lingered a moment longer he’d have been seen. And there were other ways.
Facial recognition software only turned up a match with Alex Friend and drew a blank on the second boy, but there was something else. A school crest on the boy’s blazer that turned out not to be any of the exclusive public schools Friend had been expelled from, but a state school in Chelsea. It could be nothing, but Yassen hadn’t got where he was by ignoring his instincts, and right now they were definitely making him uneasy.
It was time for a school visit.
–
Posing as a prospective parent and lingering by the entrance while the pupils were filtering in, Yassen managed to draw out his conversation until he spotted the second boy from the picture.
Having carefully drifted into his trajectory until the boy walked right into him, to Yassen’s satisfaction the ensuing confusion earned him the boy’s full name. Tom Harris. It meant nothing to him, but it was another piece of the puzzle. It would mean something eventually, he had no doubt.
One thing he was certain of, a boy of Friend’s level of wealth would have had nothing to do with a school like this, no matter how many others he’d been expelled from. And he found it unlikely a boy from that background with his supposed temperament would be friends with a state school boy, either. Or was he slumming it? Perhaps Harris supplied him with drugs.
More curious than ever, back at the hotel Yassen skimmed all the available information on Alex Friend including his social media accounts and found no mention of the other boy. Digging deeper, he finally hit the jackpot when he accessed the Friends’ cctv feed. That was Harris alright, arriving on a bicycle, delivering what looked like a pizza.
Yassen scrolled the feed on – and on. Eventually it picked up Harris on his way out again, and Yassen frowned at the timestamp.
“Forty nine minutes to deliver a pizza.” And delivered to a house that far out, by pushbike. Yassen hoped whoever was eating it didn’t mind it stone cold. There was something going on here, and it bothered him that he still wasn’t sure of the shape of it.
His phone buzzed.
“There has been a security breach.”
Yassen wondered why he wasn’t more surprised by the news. It felt, almost, as if he’d been waiting for this for some time. He wondered when the doubts had set in. His initial mistrust of Wilby? No, he thought, it was since he’d first seen the final Point Blanc clone file.
When the call ended he got the picture of the two boys up on the screen again. Harris had struck him – unless it had been a very good act – as a normal and harmless schoolboy. He somehow doubted Alex Friend would give the same impression. Yassen would need to go to Point Blanc himself now. Which meant there was a very good chance he would be able to evaluate the Friend boy in person.
As Yassen went to pack a bag, he found he was almost looking forward to it.
–
The school building was bleak and miles from anywhere, meaning the final leg of the trip involved a considerable journey by snowmobile. As Yassen made his way inside, he reflected that the place was unwelcoming enough that the prospect of the journey back again wasn’t as bad as it might have been. At least unlike everyone else here he could leave again.
He’d memorised the building layout and his entry code would override any door security, a fact which Scorpia might just have failed to mention in the facilitation meetings. Yassen made his way to Greif’s office, made himself comfortable in Greif’s chair, and waited for company.
The fear underlying Greif’s angry reaction was almost tangible, and Yassen regarded him levelly.
“Your new security protocol.”
Letting Greif settle his feathers slightly, allowing him to think this was purely routine, before producing the photograph. Yassen assumed there was at least a chance there was a simple explanation for it, that the boy might have mentioned Harris openly as a friend or acquaintance, but Greif’s reaction confirmed it for him. All was not well here, despite Greif’s assurances.
That said, it wasn’t good for business to just allow things to disintegrate, and Yassen was half-inclined to take over security of this operation himself, if the thought of staying one moment longer than he had to in this hellscape wasn’t so unpleasant. He contented himself with making an offer.
“We are not partners, Dr Greif. One of the services my employer and I provide is to make people disappear. If you decide that is what is needed in this case then you know what to do.”
He rather hoped Greif would take him up on the offer, partly because he didn’t trust Greif to manage things himself, and partly because he wanted a closer look at the Friend boy. There was no room to be self-indulgent in this job, but there was something off about the whole thing, something that had been nagging at him since he’d picked up the photograph.
Greif declined his offer, insisting he had everything under control and Yassen wasn’t in the best of moods as he departed the office. He could frankly see the whole thing going south at this rate. He was heading back towards the entrance when movement caught his eye. He turned automatically, and stopped dead.
It was the boy from the photograph, there was no doubt of that, but seen in the flesh, and without squinting at a camera over someone else’s shoulder – it was also the face of a dead man.
“Can I help you?”
Yassen was not a sentimental man, nor was he given to flights of fantasy. But certain things were falling into place, and he let himself drift across towards the boy, who was staring at him with a nervous but challenging expression. A familiar defiant tilt to the jaw, that spoke of another place and another time.
“Alex – Friend?”
He studied Alex’s face, committing it to memory. The overall impression was one of someone else, but up close, taken in slowly, the features were after all unique. He would not make the mistake of thinking he was dealing with John. But he would be very interested to see who he was dealing with. Yassen certainly no longer believed this was the drop-out son of a billionaire. There was too much of a trail now, for this to be a coincidence. Ian had been getting too close and Wilby had had a photograph of someone who could only be another Rider, posing as a student of this school. He wasn’t sure what was going on, only that something most certainly was.
“Who are you?”
The correct thing to do would be to alert Greif – or at least Yassen’s superiors – to his suspicions. But then the boy would almost certainly have to die, and probably at his hands. Yassen was faintly surprised to discover he didn’t want that. As things were, the boy would probably die anyway. But – Yassen would give him a fighting chance. His cover could remain intact. For now.
“Just visiting. Another time – maybe.”
–
Back in London, Yassen knew he would have to take steps. He didn’t fully understand the presence of the Rider boy at the school but it didn’t take a genius to figure out somebody somewhere had fucked up and the scheme was compromised. The important thing now from Yassen’s perspective, was to ensure no threads could be left that would lead back to his own organisation.
Happily, two of those threads, the Roscoe clone and Langham were already here in London.
Arriving at the Roscorp building, Yassen was just in time to see a boy taking a selfie in front of the entrance and was surprised to recognise Tom Harris. What was he doing here? Greif must be using the Roscoe clone to do his investigating.
Yassen hung back for a second. The odds were against Harris recognising him from their brief encounter at the school, he didn’t look that sharp, but Yassen preferred not to take chances. He wandered apparently aimlessly up and down the road a short way, just out of reach of the foyer cameras, occasionally looking at his watch for all the world like he was waiting for someone.
He was just debating going inside and taking care of three birds with one stone when several black government vehicles drew up in a hurry.
Yassen faded quietly into a side street, watching with interest. A moment later Langham came out of the building, saw the cars, drew the same conclusion as Yassen regarding the occupants and walked off briskly.
Intent on putting as much distance between himself and the building as quickly as possible, Langham didn’t notice the man he passed, or that he was now being followed.
Another corner, another sidestreet, narrower here between the tall buildings, and no cameras.
Yassen felt the garrotte wire slide through his fingers and thought incongruously of cheese. He was hungry, he realised. Time to get this over with. Parker Roscoe would need to be left to another day.
Two men walked into the next alleyway. Only one came out.
–
His report back was concise, if lacking in one significant blond detail.
“I think we have to assume that Greif’s entire operation is compromised and through Greif they could discover we killed Ian Rider.”
What cause of action would you suggest?
“Containment. Damage limitation. I’ve already begun.”
Yassen received confirmation of his orders without visible emotion. It was a question of insurance, cleaning house before any of the weak links could be interrogated. Parker was now in custody, but that wasn’t necessarily a problem.
Before he could put any further plans into action, Yassen received another report, this time of the assault on Point Blanc. He listened to the description of the special ops invasion of the premises, but it wasn’t soldiers he was picturing, it was a blond teenage boy he’d met only for the most fleeting moment. Yassen had certain instincts he knew when to listen to, and they were telling him that Alex had had a hand in this. Should he have said something at the time? Probably. Did he really care? Not in the slightest.
Greif was in custody too now, which was a complication but not necessarily an issue. They had more than just Wilby on the inside and it meant he would be brought to London, which would save Yassen another trip.
Sure enough, he soon received word of Greif’s presence, and details of when and where he would be transferred to a holding facility.
To murder in public, in broad daylight, without being noticed required something more subtle than a gun. Yassen wasn’t a huge fan of chemical weapons normally – apart from mistrusting mechanical devices that had the potential to go wrong the thought of carrying nerve gas through central London made him vaguely itchy – but sometimes you had to work with the best option for the circumstances.
The beauty of this meant that the man responsible for leaking Greif’s location would also remain forever silent on the matter. The other occupants of the car were collateral damage. Unavoidable, and Yassen paid them no mind.
He stayed long enough to be sure Greif was dead, then moved unhurriedly on before he drew attention. Any fingerprints recovered from the device would not match his own and the traffic jam was keeping everyone focussed. People were getting angry now, nobody would remember what he looked like if they remembered a man being there at all. Yassen had a fleeting moment to be glad dashcams were considerably less prevalent in the UK than they were in Russia.
Back at the hotel he showered again, resisting the urge to stay in there longer than it warranted because of the lingering sense memory of carrying the deadly gas. He wouldn’t let himself give in to irrational urges, that way lay madness. Sloppy thinking got you killed.
Rider, Wilby, Langham, Greif – all eliminated. Who next? He poured himself a glass of water and sat down at the laptop.
Ten minutes later Yassen was looking at a Brooklands school record. It most definitely hadn’t been there last time he’d run this search, which meant somebody had been suppressing all online images of the boy so that only Alex Friend would show up in facial recognition searches. Presumably now that Point Blanc had been closed down it was deemed no longer necessary.
Yassen sighed. It was that kind of sloppy thinking that got people killed. Usually by him.
He stared at the confirmation of what he’d already known deep down. The name on the file. Alex Rider.
Loose ends. He tapped a finger thoughtfully against his lips. Alex was one, but there was another that nobody seemed to be making a big deal out of, which frankly surprised him. He’d heard the reports from Point Blanc. The arrests that had been made. The number of arrests that had been made. Was the British secret service incapable of simple arithmetic?
Somewhere out there was a clone of Alex. Would he run? Yassen didn’t think so. His best shot at survival would be to kill Alex and take his place. Which meant if Yassen found Alex, he would eventually find the clone. He tabbed out of the secure pupil record and back to the public homepage. Some kind of dance was being advertised for that evening. Alex might well be there. In which case, so would Yassen.
–
Lying patiently on a nearby roof, Yassen watched the fight between the three boys through the rifle scope. He watched MI6 turn up and then without much surprise saw the clone end up with the gun. He sighed inwardly. Had nobody understood just how dangerous these clones were, how trained they were? They’d treated him like a child, and he’d acted like a soldier. And now he was pointing a gun at Alex.
Yassen’s orders were clear. Clean house. He should let the clone kill Rider, then kill him. It would, if nothing else, save him a bullet.
He squeezed the trigger, familiar Rider features magnified in the crosshairs.
The clone fell. Pandemonium ensued, everyone looking in every direction at once. Apart from Alex, who looked in exactly the right one, and Yassen gave an approving smile. He studied him up close through the scope and then lowered the gun, looking down at the distant figure looking back up at him.
It had been an odd feeling, shooting the clone. He hadn’t hesitated, but – it had been odd. That was all he would concede.
Now though he needed to get going. MI6 might be slow but they’d cotton on eventually. He disassembled the rifle and slipped it into a bag. His car was parked close but not too close, and the streets were dark. He would be away before anyone saw him.
This belief lasted exactly as long as it took him to descend from the building and turn the corner.
Someone was standing under a streetlight in the middle of the pavement, waiting. Yassen’s hand was around his sidearm before he recognised him.
Alex.
“I thought it was you.” Alex was bruised and bloodied, but was staring at him with something like curiosity. He must have given the rest the slip and figured out the route he would take down from the roof. It could be a trap but somehow Yassen didn’t think so.
“Can I help you?” Yassen enquired politely, unconsciously echoing Alex’s first words to him.
“I know who you are.”
“Then you should be afraid.”
“You just saved my life. Why?”
“I was instructed to tidy up loose ends.”
“What about me?”
“Are you a loose end, Alex?” Yassen shook his head. “Go back to school. Don’t let them use you like this again.”
“I’m done. They know that. They won’t contact me any more.” Alex must have seen something in Yassen’s face, because he frowned. “What?”
“You essentially just took down the whole Point Blanc operation on your own,” Yassen said dryly. “You think they won’t have noticed that? You think they won’t have a use for that kind of ability?”
“I won’t let them.”
“See that you don’t.”
“What do you care anyway? I wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for you. We are not friends.”
“Suit yourself.” Yassen started to turn away, then paused. “There is something you should probably be aware of.”
“What?” Alex asked reluctantly, sounding suspicious.
“The boy. Your – clone.”
“What about him?” Alex shuddered. Seeing what was essentially himself laid out dead and bloodied on the asphalt had been unnerving.
Yassen hesitated a moment longer, then made up his mind. “It’s possible he’s not actually dead.”
“What?” Alex went cold. “But – you killed him. You shot him. Right in front of me.”
“He moved as I took the shot. It’s just possible the bullet did not enter on the line it was supposed to. I hope I’m wrong. But I thought it only fair you should be aware of the possibility.”
“Mrs Jones told me he was dead.”
“And of course they have never lied to you.”
Alex processed this. “Shit.”
“Take my advice. Keep away from them. No matter what they say.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you’ve got my best interests at heart am I?”
Yassen looked at him. “I could have told Greif you were not who you claimed to be. I could have let you get shot just now. I could have shot you myself. I did none of those things.”
“Am I supposed to be grateful?”
“I don’t care what you are. You can hate me. I would only prefer that you were alive to do so.” Yassen slung the rifle bag back over his shoulder and turned to leave.
“Why?”
Yassen stopped. He didn’t look round, but he stopped. Why? It was a good question. Why hadn’t he taken that second shot? He owed John nothing. He owed Alex nothing. Perhaps - perhaps after everything, he owed himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done something for his own reasons, rather than someone else’s.
He wasn’t even sure what those reasons were, to give Alex an answer. Alex reminded him of John, but that was a reason to hate him as much as anything. Alex also reminded him of himself – and so was that.
Slowly, Yassen turned back. Alex was still standing there, bloodied and defiant. Arguing petulantly with a known killer. Yassen couldn’t help it, his lips hitched up in something approaching a smile.
“Are you so eager to die?” he asked mildly.
“I just want answers.” Alex’s voice cracked a little. “Why won’t anybody give me them? Why did my uncle have to die? Who are you, really? Who do you work for?” He hesitated, wiping a trickle of blood from his chin with the back of his hand, and his last words were plaintive. “Who am I?”
Yassen reached out, brushing the line of blood from Alex’s cheek with his thumb. Alex held quite still, his eyes widening a little, but making no move to stop him.
“You are Alex Rider,” Yassen said quietly. “And you have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t throw it away.”
With that, Yassen turned and walked unhurriedly down the street. When he reached his car he couldn’t help looking back, just for a second, but Alex had gone.
–