A major tour of China by the Australian Ballet to Beijing, Shanghai, Macau, Hong Kong, Nanking, Chengdu was the highlight of the summer season in 2014. Alex had thought his visa would be rejected outright, but he was to be the male principal. He was followed and the translator was definitely a spook, but he enjoyed being half tourist and half ballet star. There were no hiccups until the last date in Hong Kong, when Mitch pulled his one time nemesis aside. "Clara has texted me. Seems your beau has replaced you with a younger model. The one he's working with on his restaging of that Schnagel piece. The one you turned down dancing in. Well the twink he picked out from the auditions is now living with him at your place. I told you that creep was just using you for your money, your connections and that dream apartment of yours. He's a fucking shallow two timing bastard. If you want to catch him out, you can make the early plane tomorrow, missing out on the city tour and the party at the consulate and get home to clean house."

Alex wanted to make excuses, knowing that getting a kid fresh out of ballet school was going to be a hard slog to shape them into a dancer capable of Manfred's complex and demanding pieces. He himself had worked 16 hour days for his maestro. Only his apartment was small, bought because of the bridge view and had no rehearsal space. "Thanks for that Mitch, I'll get my flights changed."

It was noon on a Sunday. No rehearsals or class today, Darius normally slept late and never asked what Alex did on his day off. The ballet star was a keen photographer but also volunteered for two teenage dance and drama projects, one working with disadvantaged kids and the other with ex-cons and drug addicts. He normally got home at 7 and then went out to a party or out to dinner, either with friends or his handsome, but unpopular boyfriend. Darius was just like his old frenemy, Serge. He opened the door with stealth learned from playing tag with Ian. He got to the bedroom to see the illicit lovers in his bed asleep, on his Egyptian cotton sheets, used condoms on the floor.

It had been good, flawed, insubstantial but he wasn't asking for the moon and stars; was asking for digression and privacy too much. Darius was an energetic and insatiable partner. Their relationship based on a small connection through dance and their mutual love of sex. Now soured by the interloper in Alex's home and castle. The walls decorated with his photographs, his books in the living room, the place where he threw parties, cooked dinners and entertained his friends. Darius with his flat in Melbourne, barely a change of clothes here and who loved the fact darling Sasha was out 14 to sixteen hours a day, working and training. The chancer's sojourn into staging was a recent development, while his lover had gone abroad for six weeks. The young dancer was probably spending hours with Darius, but few of them dancing. Alex recognised the final year pupil at the Dance Academy. Michael Portman, a talented boy, who specialised in contemporary and modern pieces. Not quite the end of term and Darius had been an associate instructor.

He went to his wardrobe and pulled out one of his Berettas, checking it was in perfect working order, he slid in a clip and slipped off the safety. He then put his iPod on the dock and chose track 49… The Who full volume.

…..

It seemed the entire ballet company, after a rocky start had decided to play matchmaker for Sasha. He suffered through a series of blind dates, either random dinner party guests which included everyone's single friends and relations. Alex knew his only normal relationships, where dating had been involved, had been Alia and Tania. Manfred and he had just connected through dance, progressing from teacher to lover seemed to be organic and right. He honestly loved sex and had no preference on gender. Tania had been bisexual as well, and she had enjoyed sex, lots of it and more the merrier; with both of them bringing other partners in. He had tried to rekindle a friendship of sorts , with the mercurial ballerina but she had sent a message back stating that the boat had sailed. He knew he had to move on, but he was fine with hook-ups.

Darius had been another single man at a dinner party arranged by Kiki, the lighting designer. Both of them not expecting anything, but a meal and conversation. It turned out the retired dancer had worked for Manfred in LA in the late 1990's.

"Yeah, he was very intense when I met him in 2003." Alex said, agreeing with Darius statement that the German was almost impossible to satisfy.

"2003? What when you were eighteen?"

"Sixteen, three weeks after my birthday. I'd been living rough for nearly a month and was rank. He gave me a dance lesson after seeing me copying the class downstairs from the street. He fed me, put me up for a couple of weeks and then got me an audition with Maria. The rest is history."

Darius looked genuinely shocked at that reveltion, making the obvious assumption they'd been lovers from the start. "You were banging him when you were sixteen, you were jailbait man."

"We weren't lovers, in love yeah; just platonic then. I was a mess, had just run away from rehab, clean but twitchy as hell and I looked like a starved rat. Maria fed me a million calories a day for a year to get me back up to a normal height to weight ratio. If I stopped moving for a minute I was eating. No, Manfred and I didn't exchange bodily fluids until we moved in together when I was nice and legal. Fully grown as well."

….

The sleepers awoke with a start. Alex smiled, all teeth, broad, mirthless, harsh and cruel "I know, I'm home early." He drank in the shocked expressions as the pair took in the fact there was a gun in Alex's hand. "yes, its real and yes its loaded. Thirteen lucky shorts but I only need three. One for Michael, shame had such a bright future ahead of him. One for Darius, shame no one will care and one for me, I've been on borrowed time since, well since Ian died. Everyone has been waiting for me to have a psychotic break. So why disappoint."

….

The waves crashed on to the soft sand at Manly, north of Sydney. It was early, six AM and it was already warm. He sat in the sand and had been surfing for over an hour and was likely to get another hour before any others arrived to disturb his peace and quiet. He closed his eyes and thought of surfing with Sabina Pleasure in Cornwall half a lifetime ago, Sabina who was now married and had a baby girl of her own. That thought made hurt and regret spike through him. He wasn't in love, he had just been comfortable with Darius, so why did he feel so destroyed by his betrayal. He had been playing at cohabiting, giving the impression of a long term relationship. It had been easy and normal. He had been a player not a fool. He moved back out into the cool water, glad of his wetsuit. By noon it would be blisteringly hot and the beach would be packed with families.

He had lived in Sydney for two and a half years. His apartment in Millers Point was no longer his home, just an asset to be liquidated.

The blond haired surfer stared at the horizon as he paddled forward, beyond the line of breaking waves and out into the slight swell of the Pacific Ocean. When he felt the burn in his arms from the effort, he turned to face the beach, the apartment blocks were like broken teeth along the seafront. The feel of the water was calming and he had a decision to make. The call of the gulls, the distant sound of traffic, he was alive and he counted his breaths with his eyes closed recalling the first man who had wanted to be a father to him. The general with desperation and despair in his eyes, a man who's dreams of glory and for the rebirth of a great Russian Empire had failed, a man Alex had always thought of as ultimately weak and a coward. His death had been a spray of blood and gore on to the child so like his beloved son Vladimir, the child who had repudiated him as a paternal figure. Was it cowardice to want the peace that the end offered? Yassen had been calm and accepting as his life blood had spilled out. Alex had too, in London after the bullet smashed through his chest and in Miami when Juan Cortez had looked at him like a madman intent on dissecting him alive. The former spy and failure of the game of life, unclipped the diving blade attached to his right ankle, pulling the knife free he held it to his throat. Was he going to accept the blade, was he going to slice through his main artery and slip into a watery grave?

It must be after 7, because he could hear the drone of the Lifeguard's launch. The sound getting closer, time was running out. Alex pressed the blade closer and it was pushing into his skin. He could feel the trickle of warm blood flowing on to his hand. Not a spray of arterial blood, he had barely cut the surface with a knife sharp enough to decapitate.

The launch engine had cut out and Alex kept his eyes closed.

"Can you put the knife down, mate? You're giving yourself a bit of a close shave and there are sharks in these waters. They'll smell this a mile off and come running."

Alex gripped his knife tighter and spoke in the flat tones of a Londoner, rather than his usual American twang "I swam with Sharks off Cayo Esqueleto in Cuba when I was 14. I was there on holiday with my foster parents, the Gardiners… Troy and Belinda. God they sucked. I wasn't meant to be in the water. They told me to stay in the boat while they explored the Devil's Chimney. It had been nearly two hours, when I went to find them. The blood… the blood in the water had attracted a great white. I… I nearly panicked, but I made it back to the boat." Alex then lowered the blade and dropped it into the water and then rolled his board over to follow it. If he swam back and made it to shore he was a sign he was meant to go on. It wasn't suicide, but a sporting chance. Kicking hard, he stayed under as long as possible. His stroke strong and sure. His board forgotten. He knew the lifeguards would follow, then either become shark food or hospital and shrinks.

The lone figure rose up out of the surf and staggered towards his towel and his bottle of water. His feet like lead and so cold. He was shivering and teeth chattering, focused on his destination as the towel was his beacon for sleep and oblivion. He ignored the four by four as it stopped to his right, two other life guards approached. He knelt on the sand and face planted onto the towel, unconscious before the two men got to him.

…

Marc Damon picked up his work phone on the second ring. It was Sunday morning and he was on leave, but still he kept his work phone on him at all times. "Damon" was barked out, letting those disturbing him know he was pissed about getting his much needed catch up of sleep disturbed.

"Marc Damon, my name is Steve Parker of the Manly Lifeguard Station. You have been listed as next of kin for Aleksandr Ivanovich Makarov of Apartment 12a, 65 Burleigh Street, Millers Point NSW2000. Mr Makarov is on his way to the Emergency Department at Ryde Hospital, he was conscious and lucid when he was assessed by the paramedics. He had been briefly unconscious with a combination of hypothermia, blood loss and shock. Just to warn you he had a self inflicted wound to his neck."

"Right, Thanks for letting me know." The spy put the phone down. For a moment he processed the information and formulated a plan of action. The department psychologist had been spot on about the self harm and suicidal tendancies. Alex had seemed to be settling in to life down under. Had something happened during his tour of China? The Head of CAD had become a sort of a friend to Alex over the past two years. They had the occasional lunch and he had been to a couple of dinner parties at Alex's apartment. Not that he liked Alex's boyfriend much, the cocky and brash Darius just struck him as a creep.