The features editor of the Guardian read the piece submitted for the Magazine. "This is quite shocking. I'm surprised this dancer was so candid with you. It is more of an investigative piece than the Royal Ballet were after, but what the hell, their lawyers have OK'd it. I'd heard rumours about Makarov, but you can understand his substance abuse issues considering the horrors suggested from his past. I like the fact you have tempered it with his confession that he has to fight to stay clean and sober and is still dealing with his demons, including mental health problems as a result of systematic child abuse. No name for his birth family, I take it he never named them. Good piece, got any ideas for a follow up?"

The reporter ignored the enquiry about the dancer's real name, that was one can of worms Edward did not want to open up. Others had tried and failed to substantiate the rumours of a teen-agent, not when both the Americans and the Russians were protecting that skeleton in their closet. "Vanity Fair have enquired about an interview with the Stravenkov's as well as Sasha. I have spoken to their agent and yes Sasha is looked after by the frankly terrifying Ludmilla Schmidt. Its all with lawyers at the moment. Vladimir has never done any interviews about his private life and is still good friends with the his ex, Dianna Loewe. I spoke to her off the record and she says Sasha is a complete delinquent, but is a better dancer than his 'daddy'. She also says that the rumours about that boy's paternity are hilarious, considering they were married between 1986 and 1990 and were both were madly in love and it was his alcoholism that caused their split, not infidelity." Edward sat and cleaned his glasses nervously, "I doubt I'll get to do the interview. I'll see if I hit it off with Vladimir on Saturday when I go to the premiere of the Variations. Our publication timing is not helping; its a shame this piece is not published for another three weeks."

"All timetabled for the Mayerling revival. I heard he was getting close to Gina… no Regina Shaw. The telegraph got to do the biographical piece on her and are trying to spin it as a budding love triangle with his old flame Alia Uslana."

Edward laughed, "Sorry, that just hilarious."

"What is?"

"Sasha is openly bisexual, but he's dating a large and burly bouncer called Danny at the moment. Gina is just a good friend and Alia was definitely always more of a big sister. She and Sasha only dated for a week, before deciding to be friends rather than lovers. When I spoke to her she was of the opinion that Sasha needs a nice strong man again to look after him and cherish him. The rumours about Titania are off as well, they had a very open relationship. She's just upset the press in Russia painted her as a gold digging whore when Sasha moved back to Moscow and she got engaged to her billionaire husband to be."

"So, you'll meet Sasha's unofficial family. You and he are quite friendly." The editor's instincts were telling him there was much more between the journalist and this dancer, Edward was being very close-lipped.

"I'm glad he decided to talk… but, he's complicated. I think its more a case of I'm the least worst option, as he expects newspapers to print lies, and that I asked the right questions in the right way. You start with probing questions about family or his affairs and you are not going to get anywhere." Edward had promised Liz to never betray Alex's confidence and always be honest and open. They had failed Alex in 2002, by talking about guardianship issues behind his back. Alex cut no slack if you failed him, he learned the hardest lessons in his life from Jack, who had already decided to relinquish her guardianship before they left for Cairo. The bank had held the puppet strings and he saw their situation going south again and left before anyone got hurt. Saving himself for being abused further by MI6 and also removing the possibility of MI6 getting the Pleasures killed. His daughter had already put their friendship in jeopardy before he had left by deciding her popularity at school was more important than he was. This piece had allowed closure, he could never say they were friends.

…..

Tom Harris looked at the copy of the Big Issue left in the canteen. The cover was some Russian ponce wearing chelsea top screaming like he was some sort of real fan or a dyed in the wool hooligan. Freaking Ballet Dancer had probably never been to a game, never mind knowing the off side rule. The Headline was 'London born Sasha Makarov returns to dance at the Royal Ballet'. This was the first time the electrician had ever heard of him, then again he was probably some cousin of that billionaire who owned 'Chelski' Football Club. Half of Chelsea and Kensington was owned by bloody foreigners and city types. Seemed the locals were hemmed in on all sides at the World's End Estate. He put the magazine in his bag for his mum, she liked that arty stuff.

….

Alex had never danced for good reviews or for fame. Getting work was hard enough for any dancer and he knew no matter how good you were you needed mentors and sponsors. A life as Manfred's muse had been enough for him, but that door had been slammed shut four years ago.

Ballet School's picked talent young and nurtured them in house, so duckings emerged as swans. That path denied him because of Ian's grand plan for a perfect operative. The truth was he should never have been able to make it into classical dance. At 18, he had thought even the corps de ballet was practically impossible. He had the backing of the former Artistic Director of the American Ballet Theatre and that had not opened any doors in New York, when he was at seventeen. Technical virtuosity was not enough considering he was an unknown with a bad reputation. He had only danced for Vladimir and had been rejected at all open auditions. Modern dance was not his first love, but it had been a stepping stone to greater things.

The Bolshoi had been after Maria's archive when they contacted him. They had allowed him to dance because of her alone. No matter how good, he was never going to get the offer of a full contract there. He had pushed the doors open himself with his reworking and staging of Veshin's lost ballet pieces. He had shown he was not just a dancer, but a visionary, taking notation from page to a full length show, revealing their beauty and brilliance. Ideas he had formed when discussing those works with Maria. As she had loved the influence of a free-er, more fluid style in the west. It had resonated with Veshin's ideas influenced by the rise of jazz. All things frowned upon by Stalinist doctrine.

He was driven to create something different, more permanent; contemporary ballet but unconventional in concept. It was a early on a sunday morning and rather than relax, he was in a studio sub-let, with Dave Meadows and awaiting the arrival of Cin Cooper, who had dropped the Cindy and had weathered a few storms herself over the past three years. The ballet dancer had already roughly choreographed a pas de deux, influenced by the open sexuality of Kenneth Macmillan's work. The artist's idea was centred on six holographic images as sculptures, with a central one in homage to the immortalised lovers of Rodin's the Kiss. The dance piece as the planned opening but video would be incorporated into the room, like memories for the creation of the sculptures. Dave had been influenced by troika's video and dance interpretations, which had layered Sasha's first choreographed pieces.

Dave had set up three digital cameras to record the rehearsals and was playing with the settings on his very fancy camera. "So, old Serge has disappeared off toLas Vegas of all places. Then I hear from you that Cin had filed for divorce. I warned her, you warned her, but he's a right charming bastard. He'll end up married to some heiress, film star or pop star. He wants easy street and dancing is anything but that."

"I'll put a hundred on him wearing concrete socks before the year is out, cause he ends up sleeping with some mafia tosspot's wife or mistress." Alex stated thinking of the five grand with interest he was still owed.

"No bet considering you'd put a contract on him just for breaking Cin's heart."

"I'll have to get in line. Cin's uncle has probably got every ex-SAS sad sack looking for him to make good in his shovel talk." Alex wondered how many nut jobs Sergeant Cooper had trained over the years.

At then end of the day, Dave was happy and had timetabled in the detailed photography of the holds as agreed and their locations. The timescale meant to would be a frantic last 48 hours to finish this installation and the final video could not be done until the gallery was set up for a full dress rehearsal.

Alex then got a wild idea. "Both Cin and I have stripped professionally. Throw in a bit of conceptual art, Start with us both fully dressed normally, not in costume. As lover's we will undress, the clothes becoming part of the exhibit. Maybe the last items of underwear placed on the central pedestal at the point the life figures are replaced by the sculptures."

"Yeah… that might make it more dynamic. I like it. Can't wait for the run through."

Cin had remained silent as she removed her ballet shoes and massaged her sore feet. "Why did I let you talk me into this? This art is getting more and more pornographic. Now, we'll be naked?"

Alex held out his hand to help his old dance partner to her feet. "Its all slight of hand, right up until the last moment we'll be in undies at least, likely with those flesh-coloured g-strings. I do think we'll both be topless, but not a full flash of penis and vagina. Depends on how real Dave wants it. The agreed poses are all sensual and erotic rather than pornographic. The dance is emotionally honest, not graphic. I will not be getting hard, we both have to concentrate to hard to hit those marks and those poses spot on. Lets go get something ridiculously high calorie for dinner as I'm starved."

"Cheesburgers and ice cream to follow. I need a glass of liquid relaxation as well." Cin concurred.

"You can have as much bubbly as you can handle, tonight. You serve it for be being an absolute tyrant to you today."

…

Ben Daniels was glad to be back in London. As usual after being in deep cover for a prolonged period, there was a large stack of work regarding his last mission in his in-tray to sign off or to finalise. He had already drafted his report for his last operation and he was thankful for this bit of respite from fieldwork. After umming and ahhing for over a year, he had decided to transfer departments, for a domestic posting based across town at Albert Embankment as Internal Security; mostly doing back ground checks and vetting employees of the security service but also investigating leaks, moles and traitors. He was on a month's wind down and had to train his replacement. It was a surprising rare occurrence as openings in Special Operations normally occurred through more abrupt exits, either through medical reasons but more often than not dying on the job. Ten years at the sharp end was long enough as he scars and persistent aches and pains to prove that point.

John Crawley introduced the petite new field agent, Margo Cant. "Daniels this is your replacement, Miss Cant, formerly of our sister branch MI5. She's been trailing your old team member, Cub while you've been sunning yourself in Syria." Ben then guessed that was the real reason Crawley had left his office for a chat. "His contact report makes interesting reading, but he's not made any suspicious moves despite his shady friends. For a dancer, he left a bit of a situation behind in Russia. CIA says its 65% sure Cortez paid for the hit on the money man. Cub's former partner, Brezkin, and Ramon are old friends. It's too many connections and coincidences for my liking. They may have been trying to use Alex as a patsy, but that doesn't sit right. Our analysis has not been helped because of the smoke screen created by that old perve in archives getting caught selling kiddy porn from that school in France to his circle of friends. Scotland Yard is having a field day rubbing our faces in that FUBAR. It's all in your in-tray. Miss Kant please show Daniels the psychological assessment from Prichard. We mentioned the hit to him and Cub's possible involvement and the doc's stated the kid might be our man but, and its a big but, he may not even be aware of it on a conscious level as the doc suspects complete programming may be at work from Brezkin. Say the right code words and you have the Scorpia trained assassin at your command. Just what we don't need. We've appraised our allies of this possibility, but the Russians have backed off with their investigation and are suggesting we do the same. The Yanks and the Aussies will keep a close eye on Cub, as he's off there next. If he has a controller, they will be the one we need to take out. So, our ex-operative is now bait."