Alexei Sarov sat in a luxurious prison. He was currently under house arrest in his own dacha, north of Moscow. A house he had not visited for fourteen years. He thought back to his split second decision to listen to a boy with a good pure heart, excellent reasoning and willingness to die for his beliefs. Alexander was such a beautiful child, so like Vladimir. A child willing to take the blame for events beyond his control to stop an act of complete madness. Alexei's mind was in turmoil even if his outward appearance he looked calm and collected. What had driven him to such desperate measures? He had always been a patriot, a good soldier and a protector as Alexander had explained. The boy had driven home how a good Russian should act. He had knocked the boy unconscious in case his change of heart failed. He telephoned Cuba and with a short exchange of codewords, the President and his entourage were free, the blackmail material was still Alexei's for leverage. As a rich recluse no one knew what he had been up to in the intervening years between 1989 when he left Russia and the summer of 2001. Alexander was his son, Alexei would fabricate evidence that a child conceived during an illicit affair with a woman called Helena Beckett. Alexei had been in London that summer as part of Premier Gorbachov's delegation for greater openness and reconciliation after the disaster at Chernobyl. In apparent desperation, the retired general phoned his old friend, Roman Petrushkov, Head of Federal Security to tell him his illegitimate son had been found, abducted and held hostage by a Scorpia terrorist called Conrad. This leverage had been used to control the general, but the boy was now dead from a blunt force trauma to the head. Alexei had spoken fast and manically of the Turkish Assassin, who had a bomb due to go off in the hour in Murmansk. Alexei would sacrifice himself to stop this terrorist, he had nothing left to live for.
Alexei had disarmed the bomb only to be cornered by an angry Conrad, who had overpowered the general and was about to kill him when a sniper shot the insane terrorist. The mopping up operation was swift. Alexei had crawled over to Alex to hold the boy's bloody head in his hands and had wept in pure grief.
It had been a perfect image of a distraught man with his son. The general wailed that the boy had not believed he was his father. A boy brought up by strangers as a westerner with no knowledge of Russia. Alexei had been sedated and woke up here to spin his story of manipulation and betrayal. On his side was the fact the CIA agents 'the Gardiner's', Alexander's foster parents had disappeared. He would state they had taken Alexander from his English home to deliver him to Conrad. Helena, John and Ian Rider were dead and any agent in black ops were disavowed if discovered. Neither the CIA or MI6 would claim Alexander. These facts played into Alexei's hands.
As soon as the General had awoken from his sedation, he had been told the boy was alive but very ill in Murmansk. He had been interrogated. The events had painted the Russian President, Boris Kiriyenko in a very bad light. The man would be ousted from power. A protege of Petrushkov was rumoured to be in position to take power. The western looking regime in power would fall and a conservative, nationalist regime would rise. Sarov would groom Alex for this new Russia. A country rich in reserves and one who ould rise again as a world power.
...
After two days in hospital, Alex was deemed well enough to be moved. He was helped into a wheelchair and then to an ambulance, which took him to the same airport he'd arrived at three days before. During his stay at the hospital, the teenager had only answered directly asked questions, always truthfully, but never offering any additional information. Luckily no one had asked about General Sarov, the Gardiners, the CIA or MI6. He had no appetite, his had woken with vivid nightmares every time he slept and he was exhausted, worrying about what the hell was going on. Alex started shaking as the plane started to descend. His mind whirring with a million possibilities, none of them pleasant. He was again adrift in the hands of fate and this time he would have to answer for his decisions, especially if General Sarov was involved.
The small plane landed and taxied. Alex was itching for fight or flight. His heart pounding in anticipation as it seemed an age until the stairs were drawn up to the plane ad then the door opened. The steward waited for the officials to enter the plane, two officers in the full uniform of Federal State Security.
"Good morning, Alexander. We have a short journey to a clinic. Then you will tell us all the events that lead to General Sarov's involvement with the terrorist Conrad Weitz."
Alex sat as a doctor took his vitals and then conversed with his two interrogators. The Alex started to talk. "I better start at the beginning, for you to understand. I am going to break the Official Secrets Act, but I owe it to the General for you to understand, I was never out to act against Russia or the General. I am just caught up in these events. So here goes."
Colonel Vadim Sturtz was watching the live feed of the interview with the English boy and almost immediately called up their files on John and Ian Rider. He then spoke to his secretary who was taking short hand notes. The boy talked and talked in a flat emotionless tone, unburdening himself of details of operations and risk taking. The child stopped as he finished describing the events in Murmansk. Only then did the child start to cry, sobbing gently as his life had been laid bare. Sturtz sat pondering this tale of blackmail, manipulation and abuse. Alex had tailored his answers not to incriminate the General and paint Conrad a the evil-doer. He owed the General, he had scarified his plan for power and defused that bomb. His change of heart had saved all of Alex's friends. He had told them all about MI6 and the CIA as at the moment imprisonment in Russia was preferable to being used and abused back home.
"I cannot believe this Dimitri. This is even worse than even the tale Sarov told us. He assumed Alex was abducted by Conrad, not a child used by those devils in London and Washington." The truth from that child's mouth was a million times worse than a tale of kidnapping but a plot on a Machiavellian scale. The interview would be repeated tomorrow, but after two days disorientated by sleep depravation, the child was already at the end of his tether.
Sturtz then held up a photo of Vladimir Sarov. This boy was almost identical to Sarov's eldest son. Sarov had said he had an affair with the boy's mother. She had been in an on-off relationship with John Rider for seven years without becoming pregnant. The two men looked similar. Somehow Scoria had learned of the boy's true parentage and used it against General Sarov, but the incident at that school in France would explain the truth of Alex's parentage coming out. Blood tests, dna analysis and full body scan were taken of Alexander for that plot using clones. Then there were the suspected links between Grief and Scorpia. The time scales all made sense. Scorpia working to have the CIA damn Sarov, their use of Alexander to ensnare the grieving General. One big ploy to return Russia and America to the Cold War.