Two boys walked straight across Lubyanka Square to the Headquarters of State Security after they exited the bus that had travelled north into the city centre from the suburbs. Dimitry already had a plan forming in his brain. He was going to confront his godfather and make sure Alex was not forgotten in some institution. It was with grim faces they both walked into one of the most feared buildings in Russia. The boys had waited overnight n the flat, giving Yassen time to get to the Ukraine and safely out of Russian jurisdiction. "Follow my lead, Alex. We are a team. If everything goes OK we will live together from now on. I plan to make my godfather jump to my tune for allowing that Grief bastard to murder my father." He squeezed Alex's hand. "If you need to go to a clinic, I will go with you. Maybe one in Switzerland, near to were James lives. Neutral ground with no bad memories."

Alex stayed silent. He was tired and hungry. He felt rung out by the events of the past few days. Sarov had been caught out. He should have let Alex go. The teenager could honestly say the assassin had acted purely to protect him and Dima. A fact he would swear to under interrogation.

...

Valentin Levchenko sat in the interrogation suite facing Alexei Sarov, tired and angry at the fact his best friend's son was still missing. "The boys were meant to be released fourteen hours ago."

"The contact said Yassen had been instructed to release the boys, but they gave no location or any handover instructions. I have no control over this. They wanted no ransom. Just a short call I could not get a word in." Sarov felt drained. Scorpia had played ball with the Russian authorities and the General was now seen as a traitor for dealing with terrorists. The lies of the past year were becoming undone and the old man had no idea how this information had gotten into Federal Securities hands.

A young officer came into the room to relieve the Colonel.

Levchenko practically ran down the corridor to his office to see two boys being fed slabs of bread and bowls of kasha for their breakfast with glasses of hot sweet tea. He went forward to hug his godson, who stiffly allowed the contact.

"Safe, you're both safe." The man was so relieved, not ashamed in showing emotion.

Alex spoke first "We always were. Yassen would have looked after us."

Dimitry than sat back down to continue eating unhappy Alex was not "Eat, Alex. You are skin and bone. Valentin... no games... is that bastard Grief secure."

"Yes." He looked at the thin, pale and stressed looking blond boy, his godson's best friend. "He is already detained in the High Security Facility 379 in Siberia. He will not be leaving our hospitality, not even Blunt will bargain for the useless embarrassment."

"Alex has not slept, as you can see he is not eating properly. Where do we go from here?" Dimitry was staring at Alex. "Do you want some soup, instead?"

Alex slowly ate the wheat porridge.

"I hoped you would come home with me. I have been granted extended leave to look after you, Dima."

"And Alex... we are not to be separated." Dmitry wore a hard look on his face, morroring his father.

The grey haired man wiped his face. He had been divorced for ten years. He had no children of his own. "What about your cousins?"

"No, we need somewhere safer than Moscow. Remember you told me six months ago, you were offered a promotion to the facility near Yelizovo. You did not rake it because you did not want to leave me. Very difficult for MI6 to play games it with Alex , if we are on the other side of Russia surrounded by forest and educated on base."

The Colonel knew the facility was a telemetry station, a cover for the secret listen post, spying on Korea, Japan, China and the west. Valentin thought on this as he watche dthe two boys eat in silence. Sarov would do the honourable thing, especially as they had Alex to use as a a lever. It would take months to get all the information on just how involved Sarov had been with Scorpia. There was also the advantage that Aleksandr Sarov would be officially in detention, Grief acting as Blunt wanted him to do. The young spy who had saved Russia last year and secured his godson's safety would become part of the family. That was a daunting enough task in its self for an old soldier with no home skills.

That night in a safehouse in Vladimir, Dimitry watched Alex sleep. The two boys closer than brothers. Valentin stood in the doorway. "You should also be alseep, Dima."

"I will be Alex's big brother, his protector from now on. You must understand he is damaged by those people his uncle worked for, by Sarov, but he trusts this Yassen. I do not know who the man was, only he worked with Alex's father. I fear that if Yassen comes calling for Alex he will go with him. That is why we must go east, where they cannot follow."

...

After eighteen months, Caesar Troy had finally secured an appointment with the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to ask how his daughter had died. The files were open and Conrad Weitz wondered how this had not ended up in a full Congressional Hearing. A child agent. After answering the questions over a diving accident off the coast of Cuba to a grieving father, the carreer politician went to see the Deputy Director of Covert Operations, Joe Byrne.

Over coffee and the minuted meeting over budget constraints, the off the record discussion began as Byrne's boss let slip his real concern that past dirty tricks could bring the Agency into disrepute if the endangerment if a child ever became public knowledge. "Your Black ops survellience on Alexei Sarov used a British teenager as an Operative. What happened to Alexander Rider?"

"Nothing confirmed only Rider was adopted by the General, but Sarov was reported to have died in a house fire with his adopted son three days ago." Byrne poured another cup of coffee for himself. "This is off the record but we have heard rumours that Alexander Rider is in a maximum security facility in Siberia. We think State Security used Alex to control the General, now he has outlived his usefulness. My counterpart in London, Blunt, has no interest in bargaining for a ghost. Alex was burned last year by the Brits, its like he was never born."

"Is there any possibility of extracting the boy considering he stopped a nuclear catastrophe?" The chief asked.

"I'm working on it. We need something spectacular to trade thought, with no chance of this leaking to the press."

"The kid is doing to die in that Siberian hell hole, isn't he?"

"More than likely, yes."