Russian Roulette

МОЩНОСТЬ ПЛЮС – POWER PLUS

We went to the airport, sitting together in the back of a taxi with our luggage in the boot. Hunter was flying to Rome and then to Venice, to report to Julia Rothman. I was heading for Berlin. It would have been madness to take a plane to Moscow or anywhere in Russia. That have provided Scorpia with a giant arrow pointing in the right direction to come after me. Berlin was at the hub of Europe and gave me a host of different options… I could head west to the Netherlands or east to Poland. I would be only a few hours from the Czech Republic. I could travel by train or by bus. I could buy a car. I could even go on foot. There were dozens of border crossing points where I could pass myself off as a student and where they probably wouldn’t even bother to check my ID. It was Hunter who had suggested it. There was no better place from which to disappear.

I was aware of all sorts of different feelings fighting inside me as we drove out through the shabby and depressing suburbs to the north of Paris. I still felt that I had let Hunter down, although he had assured me otherwise. He had been friendly but business-like when we met for breakfast that morning, keen to be on his way. He called me Yassen all the time, as if I had been stripped of my code name, but I was still using his. And that morning he had run by himself. Alone in my room, I had really missed our sprint around the city and felt excluded. It reminded me of the time when I’d broken my leg, when I was twelve, and had been forced out of a trip with the Young Pioneers.

I wondered if I would miss all this luxury: the five-star hotels, the international travel, buying clothes in high-class boutiques. It was very unlikely that I would be visiting Paris again and if I did, it certainly wouldn’t have the pleasure and the excitement of the last week. I had thought that I was becoming something, turning into something special. But now it was all over.

I had already begun to consider my future and had even come to a decision. There were still parts of my training that I could put to good use. I had learned languages. My English was excellent. The Countess had shown me how to hold my own with people much wealthier than me. And even Sharkovsky, in his own way, had been helpful. I knew how to iron shirts, polish shoes, make beds. The answer was obvious. I would find work in a hotel just like the George V. New hotels were being built all over Russia and I was certain I’d be able to get a job in one, starting as a bellboy or washing dishes in the kitchen and then working my way up. Moscow was too dangerous for me. It would have to be St Petersburg or somewhere further afield. But I would be able to support myself. I had no doubt of it.

I did not tell Hunter this. I would have been too ashamed. Anyway, we had already agreed that we would not discuss my plans. It was better for both of us if he didn’t know.

I was not sorry. I was relieved.

From the moment I had met Julia Rothman in Venice, I had been drawn into something deadly and, deep down, I had worried that I had no place there. What would my parents have thought of me becoming a paid killer? It was true that they had not been entirely innocent themselves. They had worked in a factory that produced weapons of death. But they had been forced into it and in a sense they had spent their whole lives protecting me from having to do the same. They had fed the dream of my becoming a university student, a helicopter pilot… whatever. Anything to get me out of Estrov. And what of Leo, a boy who had never hurt anyone in his life? He wouldn’t have recognized the man I had almost become.

For better or for worse, it was over. That was what I told myself. I had a great deal of money with me. Only that morning I had drawn one hundred and fifty thousand euros from my bank account, knowing that when Scorpia discovered I had gone they would freeze the money. I had my freedom. However I looked at it, my situation was a lot better than it had been three and a half years ago. I shouldn’t complain.

We arrived at the airport and checked in. As it happened, my flight was leaving just thirty minutes after Hunter’s and we had a bit of time to kill. So we went through passport control and sat together in the departure lounge. We did not speak very much. Hunter was reading a paperback book. I had a magazine.

“I fancy a coffee,” Hunter said, suddenly. “Can I get you one?”

“No. I’m all right, thanks.”

He got up. “It may take a while. There’s a bit of a queue. Will you keep an eye on my things?”

“Sure.”

Despite all we had been through, we were like two strangers… casual acquaintances at best.

He moved away, disappearing in the direction of the cafeteria. He hadn’t checked in any luggage and was carrying two bags – a small suitcase and a canvas holdall. They were both on the floor and for no good reason I picked up the holdall and placed it on the empty seat next to me. As I did so, I noticed that one of the zips was partially undone. I went back to my magazine. Then I stopped. Something had caught my eye. What was it?

Moving the holdall had folded back the canvas, causing a side pocket to bulge open. Inside, there was a wallet, a mobile telephone, Hunter’s boarding pass, a battery and a pair of sunglasses. It was the battery that had caught my attention. The brand was Power Plus. Where had I seen the name before and why did it mean something to me? I remembered. A few months ago, when I was on Malagosto, Gordon Ross had shown us all a number of gadgets supplied by the different intelligence services around the world. One of them had been a Power Plus battery that actually concealed a radio transmitter that agents could use to summon help.

But it was a British gadget, supplied by the British secret service. What was it doing in Hunter’s bag?

I looked around me. There was no sign of Hunter. Quickly, I plucked the battery out and examined it, still hoping that it was perfectly ordinary and that I was making a mistake. I pressed the positive terminal, the little gold button on the top. Sure enough, there was a spring underneath. Pushing it down released a mechanism inside, allowing the battery to separate into two connected parts. If I gave the whole thing a half-twist, I would instantly summon British intelligence to Terminal Two of Charles de Gaulle Airport.

British intelligence…

Horrible thoughts were already going through my mind. At the same time, something else occurred to me. Hunter had said he was going to get a coffee. Perhaps I was reading too much into it but he had left his wallet behind. How was he going to pay?

I got to my feet and moved away from the seats, ignoring the rows of waiting passengers, leaving the luggage behind. I felt light-headed, disconnected, as if I had been torn out of my own body. I turned a corner and saw the cafeteria. There wasn’t a queue at all and Hunter certainly wasn’t there. He’d lied to me. Where was he? I looked around and then I saw him. He was some distance away with his back partly turned to me but I wasn’t mistaken. It was him. He was talking on the telephone… an urgent, serious conversation. I might not be able to read his lips but I could tell that he didn’t want to be overheard.

I went back to my seat, afraid that the luggage would be stolen if I didn’t keep an eye on it – and how would I explain that? I was still holding the battery. I had almost forgotten it was in my hand. I unclicked the terminal and returned it to the holdall, then put the whole thing back on the floor. I didn’t zip it up. Hunter would have spotted a detail like that. But I pressed the canvas with my foot so that the side pocket appeared closed. Then I opened my magazine.

But I didn’t read it.

I knew. Without a shred of doubt. John Rider – Hunter – was a double agent, a spy sent in by MI6. Now that I thought about it, it was obvious and I should have seen it long ago. On that last night in Malagosto, when we had met in Sefton Nye’s office, I had been quite certain he hadn’t followed me in and I had been right. He had arrived before me. He had been there all along. Nye hadn’t left his door open. Hunter must have unlocked it moments before I arrived. He had gone in there for exactly the same reason as me… to get access to Nye’s files. But in his case, he had been searching for information about Scorpia to pass on to his bosses. No wonder he had been so keen to get me out of there. He hadn’t reported me to Nye… not because he was protecting me but because he didn’t want anyone asking questions about him.

Now I understood why he hadn’t killed the young policeman at Vosque’s flat. A real assassin wouldn’t have thought twice about it but a British agent couldn’t possibly behave the same way. He had shot the Commander. There was no doubt about that. But Gabriel Sweetman had been a monster, a major drug trafficker, and the British and American governments would have been delighted to see him executed. What of Vosque himself? He was a senior French officer, no matter what his failings. And it suddenly occurred to me that I only had Hunter’s word for it that he was dead. I hadn’t actually been in the room when the shot was fired. Right now, Vosque could be anywhere. In jail, out of the country… but alive!

At the same time I saw, with icy clarity, that John Rider had been sent to do more than spy on Scorpia. He had also been sent to sabotage them. He had been deceiving me from the very start. On the one hand he had been pretending to teach me. I couldn’t deny that I had learned from him. But all the time he had been undermining my confidence. In the jungle, everything he had told me about himself was untrue. He hadn’t killed a man in a pub. He hadn’t been in jail. He had used the story to gain my sympathy and then he had twisted it against me, telling me that I wasn’t cut out to be like him. It was John Rider who had planted the idea that I should run away.

He had done the same thing in Paris. The way he had suddenly turned on me when we were in Vosque’s flat, asking me to do something that nobody in their right mind would ever do whether they were being paid or not. He had given me that hideous little knife. And he had called Vosque by his real name. Not “the victim”. Not “the Cop”. He had wanted me to think about what I was doing so that I wouldn’t be able to do it. And the result? All the training Scorpia had given me would have been wasted. They would have lost their newest recruit.

Of course Scorpia would track me down. Of course they would have killed me. John Rider had tried to convince me otherwise but he was probably on the phone to them even now, warning them I was about to abscond. Why would he risk leaving me alive? Scorpia would have someone waiting for me at Berlin airport. After all, Berlin had been his idea. A taxi would pull up. I would get in. And I would never be seen again.

I was barely breathing. My hands were gripping the magazine so tightly that I was almost tearing it in half. What hurt most, what filled me with a black, unrelenting hatred, was the knowledge that it had all been fake. It had all been lies. After everything I had been through, the loss of everyone I loved, my daily humiliation at the hands of Vladimir Sharkovsky, the poverty, the hopelessness, I thought I had finally found a friend. I had trusted John Rider and I would have done anything for him. But in a way he was worse than any of them. I was nothing to him. He had secretly been laughing at me – all the time.

I looked up. He was walking towards me.

“Everything OK?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “You didn’t get your coffee?”

“The queue was too long. Anyway, they’ve just called my flight.”

I glanced at the screen. That, at least, was true. The flight to Rome was blinking.

“Well, it looks as if it’s goodbye, Yassen. I wish you luck… wherever you decide to go.”

“Thank you, Hunter. I’ll never forget you.”

We shook hands. My face gave nothing away.

He picked up his cases and I watched him join the queue and board the flight. He didn’t turn round again. As soon as he had gone, I took my own case and left the airport. I didn’t fly to Berlin. Any flight with the passengers’ names listed on a computer screen would be too dangerous for me. I took the train back into Paris and joined a group of students and backpackers on a Magic Bus to Hamburg. From there, I caught a train to Hanover with a connection to Moscow. It was a journey that would take me thirty-six hours but that didn’t bother me.

I knew exactly what I had to do.