Heya, haven't written anything for ages, so I thought I'd post this: my SpyFest 2009 entry :) Enjoy...

Chapter 1

Estrov, Russia. 1980.

The clouds lay heavy and dark on the horizon, while snow fell in fat, fluffy flakes and settled everywhere. Outside, the world was white and glittered in a million rainbow colours as occasional shafts of sunlight sliced through the clouds. Gleaming drifts of snow were piled against the wall and Yassen could feel the chill through his fingertips as he rested his hand against the other side, while staring aimlessly around the room. The teacher's voice was just background noise to him as he whispered in rapid Russian to the boy next to him. It was just another school day.

YGYGYGYGYG

A mile and a half away, Yassen's father was reclining in his chair. His sharp blue eyes scanned the sheaf of paper he was holding and he leant forward suddenly to scribble his signature at the bottom of the page.

As he sat back, his eyes flicked up to rest on the faded black and white photograph of him, his wife and their only son. He smiled as he always did when he thought of Yassen, now a strong, happy, healthy fourteen year old. Still smiling, he bent forward again and returned his attention to the work in front of him.

YGYGYGYGYG

He didn't see the three white clad figures prowling along the perimeter fence, low against the ground and far apart. The youngest, the most inexperienced, was in the middle, a young man in his early thirties. This was only his third mission, but he was impressing his colleagues already. They both agreed: John Rider was a natural.

The three of them made their way slowly and silently along beside the fence, and then ducked through the hole they had made the night before.

"Twenty minutes," the eldest man growled. His face was scarred from a knife fight he'd had when he was younger and one eye was pulled down in one corner by the slivery tissue.

"Yes, sir," John muttered, his army training surfacing briefly as he crawled away, heading towards the further building from them. The bomb in his backpack was unarmed – for now.

Moving quickly, he slid through the snow to the door. His gloved hand was wrapped tight around his gun and he made sure to stay low as he crept into the gleaming corridor. There was no one in sight – the snow had kept all security inside. They were probably watching the monitors of the few CCTV cameras he'd seen dotted around.

His booted feet were silent on the shining tiles and he almost ran along the corridor. The three of them had gone over the schematics again and again and he felt like he knew this building better than he knew his own house, so within a minute he was at the door of the room he needed.

He didn't even glance at the Russian characters on the sign, pushing it open and slipping inside without a sound. No one in the room looked round. Dressed in white full body suits, they were completely anonymous and apparently had no idea that an assassin had just walked through the door on the other side of the glass.

He stepped quickly to the side and then dropped to his knees. As the men and women worked on the other side, he pulled his backpack off and pulled out the bomb. His hands moved quickly as they darted around the mechanism, making the necessary adjustments, and then finally arming it.

Tension knotted instantly in his stomach, but he pushed it close against the glass divide, checked the timer – 10 minutes - and then darted out of the door. He didn't bother with stealth on the way out, but he didn't see anyone and was the first one back to the rendezvous.

Within minutes, though, the other two were beside him, shaking snow from their suits and pulling him to his feet. They raced through the gap in the fence, and then vanished into the forest.

Seven minutes later, John's bomb went off, followed closely by the others.

YGYGYGYGYG

Yassen heard it, sitting in his classroom, and was among the children who ran out to see what it was. The sky in the distance was black with smoke, billowing thickly into the air like a pillar.

He didn't know what he was doing, but suddenly he was running. It couldn't be what he thought it was. It couldn't be. There were others alongside him, but he ignored them, preferring to concentrate completely on putting one foot in front of the other. It blocked out the other thoughts that were crowding his mind, clamouring for attention.

His lungs were straining and tears dashed from his eyes from the cold, but he kept running along the road, because he could see that the smoke was coming from; the plant. Where his father was. And his mother. He ignored the fresh tears that rose to his piercing, ice blue eyes – his father's eyes – and sucked in another breath of freezing air, and kept running.

His heart stopped when he reached the brow of the hill and looked down at the carnage the plant had become - blackened rubble, and fingers of twisted metal that reached up to the sky like a dying man's hand, begging for help that would never come.

And his parents were in there. A ragged cry ripped from his lips as he looked down at it all and he felt his legs buckle, pitching him onto his knees in the freezing slush that coated the road. A few other children came up behind him, and thin wails and screams filled the air, but Yassen remained silent, fighting for control.

Finally, he got uneasily to his feet and took a few hesitant steps forward. His legs remained steady and he made his way slowly down to the fence. His fingers linked through the mesh, and he remembered standing there with his father just days earlier, talking about his job in the plant. It suddenly seemed a lifetime ago.

His heart pounded painfully against his ribs and he blinked back tears. This couldn't be happening. It just couldn't. A sob of angry denial choked his throat.

"No!" He spat the word between gritted teeth and let go of the mesh, pushing himself back, away from the vision of Hell before him. Almost unconsciously, his eyes moved along the remnants of the building, coming to rest on the part where his father had worked. It wasn't even there any more.

It hit him then.

Sobs shook his body and he sank once again onto his knees, pressing his eyes shut in a desperate attempt to block out the realisation that washed over him, drowning him. His father was dead. There was no way he could be alive. Not after that. And his mother…

A hoarse animal cry broke from his lips before he could stop it and he wrenched himself to his feet.

"Hey, get out of here!" Someone yelled at him, racing past. Yassen ignored him, making his way slowly through the devastation. He knew where his mother worked, and he was glad to see the building was nearly intact. He forced his legs to move faster, propelling him over the uneven, smoking earth towards it.

A ragged line of women were stepping blinking into the open air. Some of them were injured, but mostly they were unhurt. But his mother wasn't there. At that moment, something in his heart died. All the love and compassion in him vanished in an instant, as if it had never existed. They weren't traits he would ever find again.

Even when his mother was pulled, bleeding and burnt, from the building, he couldn't feel anything. And when she was lowered into the frozen ground six months later, he couldn't cry. Alone and with a heart that was as cold as the ground his parents were now encased in, there was nothing left in Yassen Gregorovich of the happy, popular fourteen year old he had been.