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It wasn’t true that Yassen Gregorovich had a safe house in every major European city but he did have one in a lot of them. From the house on Ridderstraat in Brussels to the flat on Stochovská in Prague, they were all similar. The streets were anonymous in the suburbs and usually close to the airport.
And Alex Rider appeared to be working his way through all of them. Including the one in Dortmund, twice, which caused Yassen a considerable amount of puzzlement as to why.
The places were all security alarmed and Yassen got a text as soon as Alex had entered, which wasn’t always through the front door. Alex rarely stayed more than one night and in the morning the staff from which every agency was maintaining the place would find a new bag of coffee, a bottle of UHT milk and a Post-it note with ‘Thank you’ written on it in whatever language was appropriate.
It was trespass but at least it was polite trespass and Yassen would occasionally use one of MI6’s safe houses to return the favour.
Yassen had a safe house in Paris on the Rue de Fromenteau near Orly Airport. Alex had used that one as well, so the Russian was very surprised to get an intruder alert at his home apartment in Montmartre. That was pushing things, so instead of ignoring it, Yassen hopped on the TGV from Orleans to Paris to confront his intruder.
It was nearly midnight by the time Yassen was quietly opening his front door. He stealthily made his way to the bedroom and was surprised to find his large, white bed completely empty. Frowning, he walked into the living room to find the sofa occupied. A tuft of blond hair was visible at the top of a roll of tartan blanket. The roll was snoring gently, but Yassen didn’t believe it for a second.
‘What are you doing here?’
Alex poked his head out from under the blanket. Yassen’s heart twisted a little, Alex was past twenty now and growing more like his father every year by the look of it.
‘Needed a place to crash. Sorry.’
‘Why didn’t you use the bed?’
‘Thought that might be a bit rude, considering.’
‘Mmm,’ Yassen replied and walked to the door.
‘What?’
‘I’m going to bed, Alex. We’ll talk in the morning.’
‘Oh.’
Alex sounded a little disappointed. Yassen hardened his heart. If the boy was going to break into his home everything else was going to happen according to his timetable.
+++
The next morning Yassen woke to the smell of coffee brewing. He washed and went into the kitchen to find Alex waiting there with coffee, orange juice and croissants. Only the coffee had been already in the apartment so that meant Alex had left, done some shopping and got back in without waking him. Yassen was impressed, although he was careful not to show it.
Yassen poured himself a cup of coffee and took a sip. ‘Okay, so what’s up?’
Alex didn’t meet his eyes. ‘Why does something have to be up?’
‘MI6 has three safe-house in Paris, including the posh one by the Pantheon. I have one, which you’ve already used. So you’re not exactly short of places to stay here. Hell, you could be in your own bed in Chelsea in six hours. So why are you here? In my home?’
Alex fiddled with a croissant.
Yassen softened his voice. ‘What went wrong?’
This time Alex met his eyes. ‘Just a bad op, with a bad ending.’
‘You kill someone?’
Alex shook his head. ‘No, I’m no assassin, but killing people in the line of work doesn’t bother me much anymore. This was undercover work. Three months in a charity that wasn’t doing as much good as it advertised.’
Yassen put two and two together. ‘Fonds de Saint Christophe?’
Alex shrugged, not thrown by Yassen knowing what he had been up to. ‘The thing is these places are always full of good people who think they’re doing the right thing. There have to be, otherwise, the cover doesn’t work. And if you’re undercover you have to fit in, you can’t be the suspicious one in the corner who never talks to anyone. I had to make friends with people. I liked them. They liked me. Yesterday morning we had a cake for Jules’ birthday. And in the afternoon I pulled the whole place down around them.’ Alex took a drink of coffee. ‘I got to see the consequences and it wasn’t pretty. People were depending on that job. People with children and sick parents. And I took it away.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ Yassen said. ‘That’s not on you. That’s on the people who ran the place as a cover for people trafficking.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You know it. And you don’t need me to tell you it, either.’ Yassen poured himself more coffee. ‘So why are you here?’
Alex shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I did need someone to tell me that. Someone who isn’t getting paid to tell me that.’
Yassen nodded. Maybe that was the reason Alex was here in his kitchen. Now, what was he to do with the troubled young spy?
‘When do you have to be back at MI6?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Good. How are your climbing skills?’
Alex sat back in surprise. ‘Rudimentary,’ he said cautiously.
‘Excellent. I know a climbing wall nearby we can go and practise at. My place in Berlin is on the sixth floor. If it’s on your list to visit I don’t want you using the front door.’
Alex smiled. ‘Deal,’ he said and raised his orange juice to seal it.
The End