"Okay, listen up everyone. As you know, today we're going to be doing some white water rafting over the rapids downriver. We'll have about fifteen minutes of relative calm before we reach a stopping point just before them. We'll regroup there and prepare to go through in smaller groups. As we're doing the rapids today, there are a few additional safety points we need to go over before we can all jump in the water."

Alex listened, slightly bored, to their activities instructor - a cheerful Welshman called Greg who only seemed to wear turtleneck jumpers when he wasn't in his wetsuit - giving them their safety briefing. He had been kayaking a couple of times with Ian, and had been through sections of rapids a few times too, but he also knew that it never hurt to be prepared. And their instructor had done this section of rapids before, so knew about the peculiarities of this particular river whereas Alex did not.

It was October half term, but the weather had been unusually warm and sunny, so the school group had taken advantage of the good weather to do some water sports that would usually be done in the summer. The group of twenty four kids from Brookland were preparing for their first expedition as part of their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh's award. Alex wasn't yet fourteen but as he would be this academic year, the school had allowed him to join his classmates this year instead of having to wait until next year. He had to admit that he was looking forward to all of the activities that were planned for them as part of the award; kayaking and white water rafting, rock climbing and abseiling, caving, high ropes, mountain climbing and orienteering were just some of the things that they would be doing. He had done everything before on trips with Ian, but he had thoroughly enjoyed them all then and was looking forward to doing it all again over the coming year.

"Does anyone have any questions?" Greg asked after concluding the safety briefing. No one said anything. "Alrighty then, let's get going!" Alex couldn't fault the enthusiasm in the man's voice, and considered that being an instructor for activity places like this must be a really fun job; being outside and active all the time and getting to participate in activities that Alex already knew he loved? He had to admit that it sounded like a dream and made a mental note to look into the details when he got home.

Their kayaking route started off relatively simply; the river was quite straight and calm for the first ten minutes or so, and Alex enjoyed taking in the scenery, seeing an osprey nest and a family of otters in the first couple of minutes. He was paddling gently to warm his muscles up, knowing that he would need his strength when they got to the rapids, and joining in with the chanting song with everyone else.

"Everywhere we go..."

"People always ask us..."

"Who were are…"

"And where we come from…"

"So we tell them…"

"We're from Brookland…"

"Mighty mighty Brookland…"

They were just over five minutes away from the rendezvous point where they would join up as a group before going through the rapids (Alex could see the river forking into two but they weren't quite there yet), when he noticed Tom drifting off course.

"Tom! Greg said to stay on the left."

"I'm being pulled along! I can't get out of the current, Alex!"

Alex could hear the panic in Tom's voice. The river forked off just ahead of them, and Tom was heading for the wrong fork. Alex looked around and saw that Greg was quite a way behind them - too far away to help. Making a split second decision, he drove his paddle into the water, and cut across the river to join his friend. He remembered what Ian had once told him about kayaking through rapids.

You're never really in control, whatever you may think. Just keep paddling and never fight the current, because the current will always win.

Well they weren't in the rapids yet but the current was strong, and the same advice applied here. "Just keep paddling, Tom, but don't try to fight against the current. It's too powerful. It's better to just go with it."

Alex looked behind him and saw that their group had been split; whilst most of his classmates had managed to stay on the left of the river, there were three others who were now trapped in the same current as him and Tom. He faintly heard the instructor telling those on the left hand side to pull into the river bank and wait while he sorted the others out, and then saw him cut across the river, just like Alex had done.

"Why do I need to keep paddling in the direction that I don't want to go?!"

"It helps you to stay balanced and in control," Alex explained. "If you tried to turn around now, you could end up overcorrecting and losing control. Just try and move over towards the bank, Tom. The current will be weaker and we should be able to pull into the bank and come to a stop. Use your draw stroke."

"Which one's the draw stroke?!" Tom shouted.

"Put the blade of your paddle in the water closest to the bank, twisting your chest around to the right and making sure that both your hands are over the water. Then you can pull yourself towards the bank using the paddle." Alex waited until Tom had begun the manoeuvre and was slowly making his way towards the river bank before following his friend over.

Tom got the hang of it after a couple of attempts and soon made it to the bank of the river. They had learnt and practiced the moves on a calm stretch of the river the day before, but Alex knew that it was one thing to practice and another thing to remember how to do it and do it properly when you're being carried in the wrong direction by the current and are panicking about it.

As Alex had predicted, the current dropped away rapidly and Tom was able to come to a stop. He pulled into the bank just behind his best mate and twisted around in his seat. Greg had caught up to the other three students, and had coached them through the draw stroke so that they were safely now at the river bank too.

"You good, Tom?" he asked.

"I am now," he replied laughing, with relief more than anything else.

"Are you two okay?" Alex heard Greg calling to them.

"Yeah, we're good," Alex called back.

"Stay there, I'll come and join you." It didn't take the instructor long to reach the pair of them, paddling with swift forward strokes and allowing the current to pull him along.

"Do you two think you can turn around? We need to head back upstream to join the rest of the group."

Alex knew that he would be fine to make the turn, but he wasn't sure about Tom - he hadn't been kayaking before this trip, and the confidence he had gained yesterday seemed to have been knocked by what had just happened.

"Umm I think so," Tom said hesitantly. Alex agreed encouragingly.

"Alright, what we're going to do is go across the current. It's strongest in the middle of the river, so you'll drift downriver but keep paddling with strong forward strokes and then sweep strokes to turn when you get past the middle. Alright?"

"Yep," Alex said, nodding, but he could see that Tom wasn't sure, so gave him an encouraging smile.

"Okay," Tom agreed after a moment.

"Alright then, Alex do you want to go first, then Tom, and I'll bring up the rear." Clearly their instructor sensed that Alex was the more confident of the two of them, so wouldn't mind leading the way. He set off with a confident forward stroke, and soon crossed the river, making the turn so that he was now paddling upstream. After a few more strokes, Alex pulled into the river bank and turned around to see how Tom was getting on. His friend was slower than Alex had been in crossing the river, but he had made it across the strongest part of the current and was now beginning his turn.

The rest of the kayaking trip was uneventful (if you can call kayaking through rapids uneventful). Alex had forgotten how exhilarating and adrenaline inducing it was to go through rapids, and he enjoyed every second of it. Tom had regained some of his confidence too, and Alex heard him whooping and cheering his whole way down.

With everyone safely through the rapids and beaming with pride at how well they had done, they had pulled off of the river for lunch. There was a clearing in the woods which had been turned into a picnic area with benches and everyone was now happily eating lunch, excitedly recapping the events of the morning. Alex had just finished his sandwiches when Greg called him over from the edge of the clearing. Hoping he wasn't about to get into trouble for putting himself in danger earlier that day by cutting across the river to help Tom, Alex got up from the bench and went over to him.

"Walk with me," Greg said as he got close, setting off into the trees and Alex felt like he had no choice but to follow their instructor into the woods. They walked in silence for a minute or so before Greg spoke again.

"You did really well this morning, Alex." That was definitely not what Alex had been expecting to hear!

"I did?"

"Yes. You saw that Tom was struggling and you used your own skills and knowledge to both help him out of the situation and also calm him down. You didn't panic in a difficult situation and you got your friend to safety. And you trusted your own abilities to keep yourself out of trouble too. You showed real initiative and leadership skills out there on the water this morning!"

Alex didn't know what to say, settling on a rather embarrassed "thank you," after a few moments.

"So I take it you've kayaked before?" Greg asked, and Alex was grateful for the change in the conversation.

"Yes. In Norway and Canada."

"Ah they're lovely places to kayak! And did you go through rapids?"

"Yeah we did a few different sets each time. It's so exhilarating! I love it!"

"Well you definitely remembered it! You had excellent form going through the rapids today."

"Thanks!" Alex replied, more enthusiastically this time. "My uncle takes me on a lot of adventure holidays, and he always makes sure that I learn the proper technique for everything we do."

"He sounds like a sensible man; ensuring that you know how to handle different situations means that you're less likely to panic if you face them and you'll be able to help yourself out of trouble. And as you showed earlier, you've clearly retained all of that knowledge and can put it into practice."

They were still walking through the wood, and Alex suddenly realised that he hadn't really been paying attention to where they had been walking. If he weren't with Greg, who clearly knew these woods well, he would have been completely lost. He also couldn't shake the strangest sense that he knew the man, but he had been racking his brain for the past couple of days and hadn't found an answer. Alex had eventually decided that he must just have one of those faces; surely the man would have said something if they had met before.

"Well, we should be heading back. We've still got the high ropes to do this afternoon."

"Okay," Alex said, turning around. "I love doing high ropes too. My uncle isn't the biggest fan though, so he's glad that most of the time I can do them without him coming up with me, now that I'm older." Then, wanting to find out more about Greg's job, he asked "so how did you get into teaching activity courses like this? It must be a fun job."

"I was recommended by an agency. It is a great job, but it comes with a lot of responsibility too. Do you think it's something you might be interested in?"

"I hadn't really thought about it until we got here, but yeah I think so. I absolutely love doing different outdoor activities like we've got planned for this week, and I bet it must be great for it to be your job! How long have you been doing it?"

"Ah that's great! I can give you some information when we get back to base if you like. And I haven't done it for that long. In fact, yours is the first group that I've taken solo."

And Yassen Gregorovich wasn't lying. He had been recommended by an agency... it was just that the agency that had recommended him for the temporary job (whilst one of the company's usual instructors was recovering from a broken leg, which had broken on purpose to give him an opening) wasn't a real employment agency. It was actually a Scorpia front. Thankfully, they weren't interested in Alex this time - Yassen wasn't even sure if they knew that he was here - his target was a businessman who was booked in for a day's 'team bonding' session in a couple of weeks' time. Yassen's cover simply meant that he got to enjoy leading a couple of school groups through various activities for a couple of weeks before he would eliminate his target and vanish into thin air.

Yassen led Alex back through the woods towards the clearing where the rest of the school group were still eating their lunch. They chatted about his 'job', but the whole time Yassen couldn't help reflecting on the coincidence that meant that the two of them had bumped into each other here. He was grateful for it; seeing that Alex (who he sometimes secretly thought of as the younger brother he never had) had taken in the skills that Ian had taught him, and was able to take control of a difficult situation gave Yassen hope. If anything ever happened to Ian because of his job, or if anything happened to Alex and Ian couldn't help him, he was sure that he would be okay. Alex was growing up, and Ian and Yassen wouldn't always be able to protect him like they had in the past, but at least they both had the assurance that Alex would be able to protect himself if the unimaginable happened and he found himself flung into their world. Alex might never know Yassen for who he really was, but if that meant that he was safe and out of the murky world that he and Ian inhabited, then it was a price worth paying.