Anthony Horowitz - Russian Roulette

“But you didn’t kill her!” d’Arc muttered. He sounded angry, like an old lady who has been kept waiting for her afternoon tea.

“Why did you fail?” Nye asked me.

I thought for a moment. “I think it was because she spoke to me,” I said. “I had seen her photograph. I had followed her from the office. But when she spoke to me… suddenly everything changed.”

“Do you think you will ever be able to do this work?”

“Of course. Next time will be different.”

“What makes you think there will be a next time?”

Another silence. The two men were making me sweat but I didn’t think they were going to kill me. I already had a sense of how Scorpia operated. If they had decided I was no use to them, they wouldn’t have bothered bringing me back to the island. Marcus could have shot me down with the same gun he had used on Kathryn Davis. I could have been stabbed or strangled on the boat and dropped overboard. These were people who didn’t waste their time.

Nye could see that I had worked it out. “All right,” he said. “We will draw a line under this unfortunate event. You are very fortunate, Yassen, that Mrs Rothman has taken a personal liking to you. It’s also to your advantage that you’ve had such excellent reports from your instructors. Even Dr Steiner believes there is something special about you. We think that you may one day become the very best in your profession – and whatever the reputation of our organization, we haven’t forgotten that you are very young. Everyone deserves a second chance. Just be aware that there won’t be a third.”

I didn’t thank him. It would only have annoyed him.

“We have decided to take your training up a notch. We are aware that you need to make a mental adjustment and so we want you to go back out into the field as soon as possible – but this time in the company of another agent, a new recruit. He is a man who has already killed for us on two occasions. By staying close to him, you will learn survival techniques, but more than that we hope he will be able to provide you with the edge that you seem to lack.”

“He is a remarkable man,” d’Arc added. “A British soldier who has seen action in Ireland and Africa. I think the two of you will get on famously.”

“You will have dinner with him tonight in Venice,” Nye said. “And you will spend a few weeks training with him, here on the island. As soon as he agrees that you are ready, the two of you will leave together. First you will be going to South America, to Peru. He has a target there and we’re just arranging the final details. Assuming that goes well, you will return to Europe and there will be a second assignment, in Paris. The more time you spend together, the better. There’s only so much you can achieve in the classroom. I think you will find this experience to be invaluable.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“When you are travelling together, you will address each other using code names only,” Nye replied. We have chosen a good one for you. You will be Cossack. There was a time when the Cossacks were famous soldiers. They were Russian, just like you, and they were much feared. I hope it will inspire you.”

I nodded. “And his?”

A man stepped forward. He had been standing in the room, observing me all the time, lost in the shadows. It seemed incredible to me that I hadn’t noticed him but at the same moment I understood that he must be a master in the ninja techniques taught by Hatsumi Saburo, that he was able to hide in plain sight. He was in his late twenties and still looked like a soldier in his physique, in the way he carried himself, in his close-cut brown hair. His eyes were also brown, watchful and serious, yet with just a hint of humour. He was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. Even as he walked towards me, I saw that he was more relaxed than anyone I had met on the island. Both Nye and Oliver D’Arc seemed almost nervous of him. He was totally in control.

He reached out a hand. I shook it. He had a firm clasp.

“Hello, Yassen,” he said. “I’m John Rider. The code name they’ve given me is Hunter.”

What is it about Alex Rider?

The Stormbreaker business may have been the first time we crossed paths, but it seems to me that our lives were like two mirrors placed opposite each other, reflecting endless possibilities. It’s strange that when I met his father, Alex hadn’t even been born. That was still a few months away. But those months, my time with John Rider, made a huge difference to me. He wasn’t even ten years older than me but from the very start I knew that he had come from a completely different world and that we would never be on the same level. I would always look up to him.

We had dinner that night at a restaurant he knew near the Arsenale, a dark, quiet place run by a scowling woman who spoke no English and dressed in black. The food was excellent. Hunter had chosen a booth in the corner, tucked away behind a pillar, somewhere we would not be overheard. I call him that because it was the name he told me to use from the very start. He had good reason to hide his identity – there had been stories written about him in the British press – and there was less chance of my letting it slip out if it never once crossed my lips.

He ordered drinks – not alcohol but a red fruit syrup made from pomegranates called grenadine, which I had never tasted before. He spoke good Italian, though with an accent. And just as I had noted at our first meeting, he had an extraordinary ease about him, that quiet confidence. He was the sort of man you couldn’t help liking. Even the elderly owner warmed up a little as she took the order.

“I want you to tell me about yourself,” he said as the first course – pink slivers of prosciutto ham and chilled melon – was served. “I’ve read your file. I know what’s happened to you. But I don’t know you.”

“I’m not sure where to start,” I said.

“What was the best present anyone ever gave you?”

The question surprised me. It was the last thing anyone on Malagosto would have asked or would have wanted to know. I had to think for a moment. “I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe it was the bicycle I was given when I was eleven. It was important to me because everyone in the village had one. It put me on the same level as all the other boys and it set me free.” I thought again. “No. It was this.” I slid back the cuff of my jacket. I was still wearing my Pobeda watch. After the loss of my mother’s jewels, it was the only part of my old life that had remained with me. In a way, it was quite extraordinary that I still had it, that I hadn’t been forced to pawn it in Moscow or had it stolen from me by Ivan at the dacha . After everything I had been through, it was still working, ticking away and never losing a minute. “It was my grandfather’s,” I explained. “He’d given it to my father and my father passed it onto me after he died. I was nine years old. I was very proud that he thought I was ready for it, and now, when I look at it, it reminds me of him.”

“Tell me about your grandfather.”

“I don’t really remember him. I only knew him when we were in Moscow and we left when I was two. He only came to Estrov a few times and he died when I was young.” I thought of the wife he had left behind. My grandmother. The last time I had seen her, she had been at the sink, peeling potatoes. Almost certainly she would have been standing there when the flames engulfed the house. “My father said he was a great man,” I recalled. “He was there at Stalingrad in 1943. He fought against the Nazis.”

“You admire him for that?”

“Of course.”

“What is your favourite food?”