Alex was aware that with every move of location, Yassen was back in his ultra professional and paranoid mode of operation, which meant the pair were on high alert and currently travelling and lodging separately. The assassin had travelled to Riga, after an old contact had promised lucrative work. The twenty year old companion was no killer, even if he had no empathy for the target in question. Alex had not wanted nor needed to know the details as Cossack did those sort of jobs alone. He just knew nothing short of a miracle or the luck of the devil stopped this turn of event, when you had been marked for death.

After four days apart, this morning was the time and place for their rendezvous. At the moment the former spy was doing an excellent job of being a rather earnest and serious French student, backpacking around Eastern Europe. The young tourist was sat drinking mineral water in front of a small coffee shop in Kaunas, with an excellent view of the pedestrian plaza and with easy escape routes in all directions. The young man picked up his well worn copy of le Routard guide to the Pays Baltes, positioning the book so he could keep an eye across the boulevard, as a tall man with a beret bought a newspaper at the small kiosk. Alex made note as Yassen paid with a note, pocketing the change, then folded the local paper twice and put it under his left arm before walking north to the main shopping precinct. All prearranged signals to state, not safe, proceed to the prearranged safe house, do not disobey.

Alex finished his drink, feeling sick to his stomach. Yassen had already stated the work offer may be just a rouse to smoke him out. The killer was a wanted man, who had escaped British custody. Alex was also aware of the rumours were that Dr. Three had reestablished control of SCORPIA assets in the Far East. The only board member still working, all others either dead or imprisoned. A new school for freelance operatives was a high likelihood, with Yassen as the ideal tutor for assassination.

The young tourist paid for his beverage. Walked to the hostel to collect his meagre belongings and continued on his tourist itinerary, as a train ticket had already been purchased to Klaipeda. With the training instilled by Yassen, to be inconspicuous and yet vigilant, Alex was sure no one followed him to the station and with nothing suspicious on the train. At the ferry port, he caught a glimpse at the local TV news: main headlines detailed a fire in Kaunas hotel, luckily no deaths nor serious injuries. A perfect diversion for an assassin to escape and evade. At the safe house, there was two thousand euros and a ferry ticket. The short hand written note told Alex to go an address to Germany to await further instructions.

…

The whole winter had passed like he had spent it in a sort of suspended animation. Life had become a surreal void of emotion, as the sole occupant of this apartment over a derelict shop waited for his lover. Ex-lover, the young man corrected his thoughts as the bitterness of reality could no longer be avoided; though he did not know the fate of his partner: be it the finality of death separating them or the equally awful pain of abandonment.

The pair had split up with long rehearsed protocols and plans had come into play for escape and evade. Here in Leipzig, the young man had waited at their agreed meet point far beyond the safe period for any contact for changed arrangements or for their supposed reunion. Now, his stock of rations had run out, as he kept the cash for running. Even with his careful eking out of half then quarter rations, to stretch out his departure as long as possible. Weak with hunger and yet with no real appetite, he packed his few possessions and his emergency funds. He could not hope to follow any trail of his long departed partner, a man who was far too professional to retrace his steps to any of their former haunts. Now, he had to avoid the attention of his ex-employers and enemies. Not so hard considering Alex Rider was a persona gladly consigned to the distant past.

Within an hour he had bought a bus ticket west and was slowly sipping a bowl of salty, thin soup in the dinghy cafe. His future meant a new name and a more permanent legend unknown to his ex. All in place and organised by Alex, as Yassen had insisted on complete ignorance of the details of each other's plans for a worse case scenario, where the other had been caught, tortured, broken or killed.

The finality of being alone was worse than the only occupant of this table could bare. He was digging deep into his training to remain emotionless and keep his mind on his plan. A new life, not making the mistakes of his past. He had to remain under the radar, but not to fall all the way to the gutter again. He had enough money to finance himself until he got a job and the skills to procure more if needed. Not quite a normal life, but a future he had once wanted more than anything else in the universe; now the prospect of it was frightening. A life without agencies or assassins in the mix. Could he do it? Return to normality after all he had survived. This was the future his ex-lover had been preparing him for. A dark voice in the back of the young man's mind bitterly thought the whole emergency in Riga had been fabricated, just to cut Alex loose. His ex was fulfilling his plan to save his young love from his own lonely, paranoid and bloody path. The skills imparted over the four years they were together, giving the young protege skills to survive and thrive on his own, without Yassen and with no fear of MI6 finding or blackmailing him again, as Alex was no killer.

…

Alex's escape plan had him arrange a new identity as Marek Stepan. A teenager with a similar to his own background. That desperate youth had sold his birth certificate and identity papers for a pittance before his premature demise, when he sold everything he owned for his heroin addiction. Papers perfect for a young man of similar height, colouring and build to Alex. The young spy had committed to memory the details of Marek's life. After his birth in Prague, his seventeen year old mother had travelled east in search of his Russian father, who went home after the Velvet revolution. Orphaned at thirteen, he had lived as part of the Russian underclass, never returned to the country of birth. Alex spoke a smattering of Czech with a Russian accent and new his legend had no close relations living in either Moscow or Prague, nor any intention of living in either country. With Czech papers, Alex could live and work anywhere in the EU and the Schengen agreement meant there were no internal borders to worry about. This was not the only legend Alex had organised, just the best one to start life afresh.