2.02 am, Friday, 15th July

Casa de Oro, Cuba

"You will have to forgive Conrad. He is an excellent assistant and useful in so many ways. But he can also be a little… over-enthusiastic".

Alex had woken up in the most magnificent bedroom he had ever seen. He was lying on a four-poster bed opposite a floor-to-ceiling mirror in an ornate gold frame. All the furniture in the room was antique and wouldn't have been out of place in a museum. There was a painted chest at the foot of the bed, a massive wardrobe with elaborately carved doors, and a chandelier with five curving arms.

The man, who had introduced himself as General Alexei Sarov, was sitting on a chair next to the mirror, dressed in a dark suit. His legs were crossed. His back was completely straight. Alex examined the face with its grey hair and intelligent blue eyes. He recognized his voice from the sugar mill and knew - without knowing why - that it was the general who had saved him.

It was dark outside. Alex guessed it must be after midnight. He wondered how long he had been asleep... And how long the Russian had been waiting for him to wake up.

"Do you want something to eat?"

That had been his first question.

"No, thank you. I'm not hungry".

"A drink then?"

"Some water…?"

"I have some here".

The water came in a silver jug, served in a gleaming crystal glass. General Sarov poured it himself, then handed it to Alex. He reached out, grateful that the drug Conrad had pumped into him had worn off while he was asleep and that he could move his arms again. He sipped. The water was ice cold. That was when Sarov began his apology, speaking in faultless English.

"Conrad had no orders to eliminate you. On the contrary, when I found out who you were, I very much wanted to meet you".

Alex wondered about that but decided to ignore it for the moment.

"How did you find out who I was?" he asked. There seemed no point in denying it now.

"We have a very sophisticated security system both here and in Havana". The general seemed uninterested in explaining more. "I'm afraid you've had a terrible ordeal".

"The people I came here with had a worse one".

Again the general raised a hand, brushing aside the details.

"Your friends are dead. Were they your friends, Alex? I was, of course, perfectly well aware of the Devil's Chimney when I first moved into the Casa de Oro. I had a simple defence mechanism constructed. Diving is prohibited on this side of the island so when the occasional diver is foolish enough to enter the cave, he is only paying the price of his curiosity. They tell me that a shark was killed there…?"

"It was a great white".

"You saw it?"

Alex said nothing. Sarov raised his hands, resting his chin on the tip of his fingers.

"You are as remarkable as I was told" he continued, "I have read your file, Alex. You have no parents. You were raised by an uncle who was himself a spy. You were trained by the Special Air Service, the SAS, and sent on your first mission in the south of England. And then, just a few weeks later, to France… Some would say that you have had the luck of the devil, but I do not personally believe in the devil - or in God, for that matter. But I believe in you, Alex. You are quite unique".

Only if the devil came in the form of Alan bloody Blunt. Alex was getting tired of all this flattery - and he couldn't help but feel that there was something sinister in it.

"Why am I here?" he asked, "What do you want with me?"

"Why you are here should be self-evident" Sarov answered, "Conrad wanted to kill you. I prevented him. But I cannot allow you to return to the hotel or, indeed, to leave the island. You will have to consider yourself my prisoner, although if the Casa de Oro is a prison, I hope you will find it a comfortable one. As to what I want with you…"

Sarov smiled to himself, his eyes suddenly distant.

"It is late" he announced suddenly, standing up, "We can talk about that tomorrow".

"Is it true that you have a nuclear bomb?"

Alex didn't want to spend any longer in this creepy room with the even creepier general than he had to, but he also knew that the sooner he got some answers for Byrne and Blunt, the sooner he could leave this place for good.

"Yes" Sarov replied simply.

"You bought uranium from the Salesman… but then you ordered Conrad to kill him. You blew up his boat!"

"That is correct".

So Alex hadn't been responsible for the explosion on the Mayfair Lady. It had been Sarov's right-hand man that had killed all of those people, not him. Turner and Troy had been wrong.

"The nuclear bomb. What are you going to do with it?"

"Are you afraid?"

"I want to know".

The general considered.

"That will be revealed to you… in time. Let us have breakfast together at nine o'clock. Then I will show you around the estate".

General Sarov left the room.

Alex waited a minute before slipping out of bed. He looked out into the courtyard, then went and tried the door. He wasn't surprised by what he found. Sarov had described the Casa de Oro as a prison and he was right.

There was no way Alex could climb down into the courtyard.

And the bedroom door was locked.

He glanced down at his left wrist where Smithers' industrial strength concealer was hiding the red light that he knew was still there.

"I'd rather face that shark again than be returned to you" he told it quietly, "But then again, I suppose there's not much difference really - you're both cold-blooded prehistoric monsters… but at least you don't have a nuclear bomb".

He didn't ask whoever was listening at MI6 to get him out of there.

He already knew that they wouldn't save him.

9.02 am, Friday, 15th July

Casa de Oro, Cuba

To say that General Sarov was quite possibly clinically insane was just a little bit of an understatement, to say the least.

After the man had left early this morning, Alex had been allowed to sleep until just after eight o'clock, at which time Conrad, just as vicious as he'd been when he tried feeding him to the sugar cane crusher, led him to breakfast.

"I'm afraid Conrad doesn't like you" Sarov said, as they watched him leave.

"That's all right. I'm not crazy about Conrad" Alex replied, "What exactly is the matter with him? He doesn't look well".

"By any right, he should be dead. He was involved in an explosion with a bomb which he happened to be carrying at the time. Conrad is something of a scientific miracle. There are more than thirty metal pins in his body. He has a metal plate in his skull. There are metal wires in his jaw and in most of his major joints".

"He must set off a lot of alarms in airports".

"I would advise you not to make fun of him, Alex. He still very much hopes to kill you".

Didn't everyone?

"I won't allow it to happen, but while we are discussing such unpleasant matters, perhaps I should lay down some house rules, so to speak. I have removed the mobile telephone which I found in your case and I should tell you that all the phones in the house require a code before they can be used. You are to make no contact with the outside world".

"My people may worry about me" Alex replied, trying desperately to find one last out.

"From what I know of Mr Blunt and his colleagues in London... that is unlikely".

That was putting things mildly.

"The Casa de Oro is fenced all around" Sarov continued, "The fence is electrified. There is only one entrance and it is well guarded. Do not attempt to escape, Alex. If you do, you may be shot and that is not at all what I have planned".

But what did he have planned?

"I asked you last night what you wanted with me" he started cautiously, "You still haven't given me a reply".

"All in good time, Alex. All in good time".

3.06 pm, Friday, 15th July

Chelsea, London

The man at the bar, Dave, had been more than willing to repeat his story to Ian once he heard that there might be money in it. There wasn't, of course - Mark Williams from The Daily Mirror didn't even exist, but the bloke was too drunk, or, perhaps, too stupid, to ask Ian for any ID.

He recorded the conversation on his phone as Dave happily ranted about a fourteen-year-old blond kid who'd taken on a large Asian man at Wimbledon and won. How the Millennium Building had been shut down by nameless faces in suits and everyone working there had been told to keep their mouths shut about it. How the Asian man had been dragged off in handcuffs while the boy had returned to working on the court the following day like nothing had ever happened.

It was Alex.

It had to be.

After promising Dave to run the story by his boss at The Daily Mirror and writing down a random phone number on a blank business card, he slipped back out of the pub, all thoughts of dinner forgotten, and headed straight back home.

Ian spent the rest of that week watching and rewatching every single video of Wimbledon that he could get his hands on. MI6 were smart, of course, and Blunt was nothing if not careful, so it wasn't until a painfully long four days had passed before he caught sight of anyone even vaguely resembling Alex but-

There!

He saw the briefest flash of blond as a teenager dressed in the dark green and mauve colours of the All England Tennis Club swapped places with another ballboy for the final qualifying round between Jacques Lefevre and Jamie Blitz.

Ian remembered reading about Blitz while sitting in that bar in Morocco, waiting for Gregorovich to show up all those weeks before. He'd been pegged as this year's most likely Wimbledon champion but, having had other more important things on his mind, Ian had dismissed the story.

To think that Alex had been at that game all this time…

But what in the bloody hell had he been doing at Wimbledon?!

And more importantly, just why did Alan bloody Blunt send his kid to Wimbledon in the first place? There was obviously a reason, after all, and that fight that Dave told him about in the Millennium Building was clearly part of something bigger… but what?

He had heard something about the tennis player's water supply being spiked to rig the games, but why would MI6 be interested in that? It sounded far more like a matter for the police, but even if it was part of something bigger and more official channels had to get involved, then wouldn't it be a case for MI5 instead? Why was Blunt getting involved in a minor, internal matter?

And why did he need a child for it?

Lee was still under just that little bit of scrutiny after all the questions he'd asked a few months back, so Ian asked Ben Daniels to do some digging instead. He hadn't been able to find out why - or even if - Alex was involved, but he did find someone more than willing to gossip about the Asian man who had been arrested.

As well as the circular tattoo on his arm that proved he was a Sai-b; a member of the Big Circle, which was one of the newest, and most violent, Chinese Triads. They were involved in a range of criminal activities. Drugs. Vice. Illegal immigration. And gambling - which was probably what had attracted them to Wimbledon.

And Alex had just pissed them off.

If Ian knew anything about Alan bloody Blunt, then the man would no doubt have used that to his advantage, using it as an excuse, even, to ship his nephew off to god knows where under the pretence of "protecting" him.

To say he was furious, was putting it mildly.

It was Alan fucking Blunt's fault that Alex was even involved in all of this in the first place, and for him to have the gall, the- the audacity to use his initial abuse of a fourteen-year-old child to justify abusing him further by forcing him to leave England, to leave his home, and get involved in whatever the fucking else he was doing right now was just…

Ugh!

He had to find out where Alex was sent to.

The SAS couldn't help him since they had nothing to do with this, and Lee was a dead end too. Daniels had done his best, and had, admittedly, pulled through by finding out that the Triad was involved, but Ian needed more information than that!

Yassen's business card weighed heavily in his pocket.

He'd initially thought that the man had been taking quite the risk by giving him his phone number, and for a moment Ian had even been flattered… but then, when he actually thought about it during the three-hour flight from Tangier back to London, he realised how foolish he was.

It wasn't the assassin's personal phone number.

It was more than likely just a burner phone.

Giving an ex-MI6 agent his own number was not a mistake even the most careless of contract killers would make, after all, and least of all one as cautious and intelligent as Yassen bloody Gregorovich, Interpol's Most Wanted - so, of course, it was linked to a burner phone, and it was probably just one of a dozen burner phones that the assassin had, too.

He tried not to dwell too heavily on how dejected that made him feel.

Either way, if none of the so-called "good guys" could get him Alex's location right now, then perhaps the so-called "bad guys" could instead. Alex had disgraced the Triad, after all, and they would be out for blood. If he couldn't find his kid through MI6, then perhaps he could find him through them, instead.

He pulled the card out of his pocket where he'd been prone to keeping it and stared down at the silver embossed numbers. After another brief moment of hesitation, he tapped them into his phone and pressed call.

It rang once… twice… thric-

*Click*

Ian held his breath, but when there was no greeting forthcoming, he awkwardly cleared his throat and spoke.

"Uh… hi. It's… Ian. Ian Rider".

A pause, and then-

"I know".

His voice was just as soft and calm as before.

"Right". Ian swallowed thickly. "Right, yeah, of course. So, uh, I'm… I'm looking for someone".

Another beat of silence, although this one seemed almost judgemental.

"Oh! Right! No, I don't mean Alex! Or, well, I mean, yes, I'm- I'm still looking for Alex, of course I'm still- but I found out something and- okay, look, long story short, if I can find these guys, then I think I can find Alex".

"Name?"

"I don't have one". Ian winced. "It's… not really a person and more of an organisation".

"An organisation?"

He could practically hear the pale perfect eyebrow that the assassin was currently raising.

"Yeah… Do you have any contacts in the Triad?"

The man didn't even hesitate.

"Yes. Which one?"

Because of fucking course he had multiple fucking contacts in multiple fucking Chinese crime syndicates.

"The Big Circle" Ian explained, "They're relatively new, by all accounts, so I don't know if you know-"

"I know".

"... Right. Okay. Well, apparently, Alex fought one of their members and won so now they want his head on a silver platter".

"Understandable".

He pulled his phone away from his ear briefly and stared at it in disbelief. Understandable? Fucking- understandable?!

"He is fourteen years old!"

"And yet he successfully disarmed one of their members, whom I presume was at least a decade older than himself and undoubtedly twice his size".

"Well… yeah, but- but that doesn't give them the right to-"

Ian cut himself off and took a deep, calming breath. He was talking to a contract killer, after all, something which he needed to remember given that Gregorovich's version of normal and revenge and fourteen years old was most certainly more than a little bit skewed.

"I think Blunt used the Triad as an excuse to send Alex out of the country" he said, as calmly as he could, "And since I can't use MI6 to find him…"

"You wish to use the Triad instead".

"And preferably get there before them, yeah".

There was another moment of silence as the assassin considered his… well, calling it a "plan" was, perhaps, stretching things a little too much, but it was still more of a plan than he had a week ago.

"... I'll see what I can do".

1:58 pm, Saturday, 16th July

Casa de Oro, Cuba

A son. General Sarov wanted Alex to become his son. He wanted to adopt him!

Alex let the confusion, the anger, the horror spur him on as he ran towards the car, keeping his head down and his footsteps light.

He'd already examined the five-metre-high electric fence around the perimeter of the property, hoping to find a nearby tree that would allow him to climb over it, but he'd had no luck. None of the servants or guards were willing to speak to him either, much less help him escape. And the gate, the only way in and out of the fortress, was manned by armed soldiers, just as Sarov had said.

But he needed to get out!

Sarov had told him his life story after breakfast the previous morning - how he'd served the Russian army, married, and then had a son, Vladimir. He'd been perfect in every way - handsome, intelligent, a first-class athlete. And Sarov had wanted him to follow in his footsteps and defend his country.

And then, Vladimir had died for it.

"I believed I had lost my son forever. Until I met you".

Alex shuddered in disgust at the memory even as he silently opened the boot of the limousine and climbed in. It was two o'clock, and Sarov had said he and the Russian president, who had arrived at the house late last night, would be travelling into town after lunch. It was his only chance of escaping.

"You are just two years younger than Vladimir was when he died. But you have so much in common with him, Alex - even though you were brought up on the other side of the world! There is, first, a very slight resemblance. But it is not just your physical appearance. You too are serving your country. Fourteen years old and a spy! How rare it is to find any young person who is prepared to fight for his beliefs!"

As if he'd had any say or choice in the matter.

"You have courage. That business at the sugar factory and in the cave would prove it even if your track record didn't speak volumes more. You speak many languages and one day, soon, you could learn Russian. You ride, you dive, you fight, and you aren't scared. I have never met a boy like you. Except one. You are like my Vladimir, Alex, and that is what I hope you will become".

There was the echoing clunk of a car door opening and the whole vehicle shifted from side to side as its passengers got in. Curled up in a foetal position, Alex waited for the boot to be thrown open, but it seemed that the president, or whoever was in the limousine, had decided not to bring any baggage. The car engine started up. Alex felt the vibrations and then, suddenly, they were moving.

"I've read your file. You have no parents. I have no son. We are both alone... Just consider. If I really believed you were my enemy, I would have allowed Conrad to kill you. But the moment I found out who you were, I knew that you couldn't be. We even have the same name, you and I. Alexei and Alex. I will adopt you, Alex. I will become the father you have lost".

"And what if I say no?"

"You will not say no!" Violence had slid into his eyes like smoke behind glass. His face was twisted as if in pain. Sarov took a deep breath and suddenly he was calm. "When you know the plan, you will join me".

But he still had no idea what Sarov was planning. He had talked of changing the world. Making it better, stronger, healthier. He obviously thought of himself as some sort of hero - but he was a hero armed with a nuclear bomb.

After only about a minute, they began to slow down again and Alex knew that they must be approaching the gate. Would the guards search the car? They stopped. He didn't move. Everything was black.

And then the car started forward and he let out a sigh of relief.

Alex wondered what Sarov intended to do. Whatever he was planning in some way involved the Russian president. He knew that Sarov hated the man, despite his fake cheeriness, and wanted to take his place. That was what this was all about. A new Russia that would once again be a world power. With Sarov at its head. And he was going to achieve it with a single nuclear blast.

He had to escape.

He had to tell the CIA that Turner and Troy had been killed and that Sarov did have a bomb. Once they knew that, they would take over. And he wanted to put as many kilometres between himself and the Casa de Oro as he could.

Sarov's feelings for him, his desire to adopt him, bothered him as much as anything else. True, Sarov had saved his life. But it was Sarov who had put his life in danger in the first place. Being thankful for that would be just as bad as being grateful to Alan Blunt for sending him out of England and away from the Triad that was after him.

The car stopped again.

The boot opened.

Cruel sunlight came rushing in. Alex blinked, putting a hand up to protect himself.

"Get out!"

2:11 pm, Saturday, 16th July

Casa de Oro, Cuba

He climbed out of the car.

Sarov was standing in front of him. Conrad was next to him, holding an automatic pistol, not even trying to hide the pleasure in his eyes. There were two guards watching him, their faces blank. One of them was holding a device that looked a little like a megaphone, the sort teachers used at sports days. It was connected by a long wire to a box just inside the building.

"If you had wanted to visit Santiago, you had only to ask" Sarov said, "But I don't think you wanted to visit the city. I think you were running away".

Alex said nothing.

"You disappoint me, Alex. You were down at the cave. You saw the extent of my security arrangements there. Did you really think for a single minute that I would allow a car to drive in or out of this compound without knowing exactly who or what was inside?"

He suddenly reached out and took the megaphone device from the guard. He pointed it at Alex's chest and pressed a button. At once, Alex heard a thumping sound that echoed through the air. It took him a second or two to realise that it was his own heart, amplified and transmitted out of a speaker system hidden somewhere inside the guard house.

"The car was scanned at the barrier" Sarov explained, "Every car is scanned at the barrier, using the machine I am holding now. A sophisticated sensor. This is what the guard heard. You can hear it now".

Thud… Thud… Thud…

Alex listened to his own heart. Sarov was suddenly angry. Nothing in his face had changed, but his pale blue eyes had turned to ice and there was a dreadful deadness about him, as if his own life had suddenly been drained away.

"Do you not remember what I told you?" he whispered, "If you tried to escape, you would be shot. Conrad very much wishes to shoot you. He believes I am a fool to have you here as my guest... He is right".

Conrad stepped forward, the gun raised.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Alex's heart was the animal inside him, beyond his control, responding to the fear he felt. There was nothing he could do to hide it. The heart was beating louder and faster, echoing out of the speakers.

"I don't understand you, Alex. Have you no idea what I'm offering you? Did you not hear a word that I said? I offer you my protection and you make an enemy of me! I want you to be my son, but you force me to destroy you instead".

Conrad touched the gun against Alex's heart.

Thudthudthudthudthudthudthud

"Listen to the sound of your own terror. Do you hear it? And when you hear silence - it could be just a few seconds from now - that is when you will know you have died".

Conrad's finger tightened on the trigger.

Then Sarov turned off the sensor.

The heartbeat stopped.

Alex felt as if he had been shot. The sudden silence hit him like a hammer blow. Like a bullet from a gun. He fell to his knees, hollowed out, barely able to breathe. He knelt there in the dust, his hands at his sides. He no longer had the strength to stand up.

Sarov looked at him and now there was only sadness in his face.

"He has learned his lesson" he said, "Take him back to his room".