We sat down.
“Were you shocked by that, Yassen?” she asked.
I shook my head, not quite daring to speak yet.
“It was very unpleasant but I’m afraid you can’t allow anyone too many chances in our line of work. It sends out the wrong message. This wasn’t the first time Mr Grant had made mistakes. Even bringing you here and not disposing of you when you were in Boltino frankly made me question his judgement. But never mind that now. Here you are and I want to talk about you. I know a little about you but I’d like to hear the rest. Your parents are dead, I understand.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me how it happened. Tell me all of it. See if you can keep it brief, though. I’m only interested in the bare essentials. I have a long day…”
So I told her everything. Right then, I couldn’t think of any reason not to. Estrov, the factory, Moscow, Dima, Demetyev, Sharkovsky… even I was surprised how my whole life could boil down to so few words. She listened with what I can only describe as polite interest. You would have thought that some of the things that had happened to me would have caused an expression of concern or sympathy. She really didn’t care.
“It’s an interesting story,” she said, when I had finished. “And you told it very well.” She sipped her tea. I noticed that her lipstick left bright red marks on the glass. “The strange thing is that the late Mr Grant was quite right. You could be very useful to us.”
“Who are you?” I asked. Then I added, “Scorpia…”
“Ah yes. Scorpia. I’m not entirely sure about the name if you want the truth. The letters stand for Sabotage, Corruption, Intelligence and Assassination, but that’s only a few of the things we get up to. They could have added kidnapping, blackmail, terrorism, drug trafficking and vice, but that wouldn’t make a word. Anyway, we’ve got to be called something and I suppose Scorpia has a nice ring to it.
“I’m on the executive board. Right now there are twelve of us. Please don’t get the idea that we’re monsters. We’re not even criminals. In fact, quite a few of us used to work in the intelligence services… England, France, Israel, Japan… but it’s a fast-changing world and we realized that we could do much better if we went into business for ourselves. You’d be amazed how many governments need to subcontract their dirty work. Think about it. Why risk your own people, spying on your enemies, when you can simply pay us to do it for you? Why start a war when you can pick up the phone and get someone to kill the head of state? It’s cheaper. Fewer people get hurt. In a way, Scorpia has been quite helpful when it comes to world peace. We still work for virtually all the intelligence services and that must tell you something about us. A lot of the time we’re doing exactly the same jobs that we were doing before. Just at a higher price.”
“You were a spy?” I asked.
“Actually, Yassen, I wasn’t. I’m from Wales. Do you know where that is? Believe it or not, I was brought up in a tiny mining community. My parents used to sing in the local choir. They’re in jail now and I was in an orphanage when I was six years old. My life has been quite similar to yours in some ways. But as you can see, I’ve been rather more successful.”
It was warm in the room. The sun was streaming in through the windows, dazzling me. I waited for her to continue.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” she said. “There’s something quite special about you, Yassen, even if you probably don’t appreciate yourself. Do you see what I’m getting at? You’re a survivor, yes. But you’re more than that. In your own way, you’re unique!
“You see, pretty much everyone in the world is on a databank somewhere. The moment you’re born, your details get put into a computer, and computers are getting more and more powerful by the day. Right now I could pick up the telephone and in half an hour I would know anything and everything about anyone you care to name. And it’s not just names and that sort of thing. You break into a house and leave a fingerprint or one tiny little piece of DNA and the international police will track you down, no matter where in the world you are. A crime committed in Rio de Janeiro can be solved overnight at Scotland Yard – and, believe me, as the technology changes, it’s going to get much, much worse.
“But you’re different. The Russian authorities have done you a great favour. They’ve wiped you out. The village you were brought up in no longer exists. You have no parents. I would imagine that every last piece of information about you and anyone you ever knew in Estrov has been destroyed. And do you know what that’s done? It’s made you a non-person. From this moment on, you can be completely invisible. You can go anywhere and do anything and nobody will be able to find you.”
She reached for her glass, turning it between her finger and her thumb. Her nails were long and sharp. She didn’t drink.
“We are always on the lookout for assassins,” she said. “Contract killers like Mr Grant. As you have seen, the price of failure in our organization is a high one, but so are the rewards of success. It is a very attractive life. You travel the world. You stay in the best hotels, eat in the best restaurants, shop in Paris and New York. You meet interesting people… and some of them you kill.”
I must have looked alarmed because she raised a hand, stopping me.
“Let me finish. You were brought up by your parents who, I am sure, were good people. So were mine! You are thinking that you could never murder someone for money. You could never be like Mr Grant. But you’re wrong. We will train you. We have a facility not very far from here, an island called Malagosto. We run a school there… a very special school. If you go there, you will work harder than you have ever worked in your life – even harder than in that dacha where you were kept.
“You will be given training in weapons and martial arts. You will learn the techniques of poisoning, shooting, explosives and hand-to-hand combat. We will show you how to pick locks, how to disguise yourself, how to talk your way in and out of any given situation. We will teach you not only how to act like a killer but how to think like one. Every week there will be psychological and physical evaluations. There will also be formal schooling. You need to have maths and science. Your English is excellent but you still speak with a Russian accent. You must lose it. You should also learn Arabic, as we have many operations in the Middle East.
“I can promise you that you will be more exhausted than you would have thought possible but, if you last the course, you will be perfect. The perfect killer. And you will work for us.
“The alternative? You can leave here now. Believe it or not, I really mean it. I won’t stop you. I’ll even give you the money for the train fare if you like. You have nothing. You have nowhere to go. If you tell the police about me, they won’t believe you. My guess is that you will end up back in Russia. Sharkovsky will be looking for you. Without our help, he will find you.
“So there you have it, Yassen. That’s what it comes down to.”
She smiled and finished her drink.
“What do you say?”
ОСТРОВ – THE ISLAND
They taught me how to kill.
In fact, during the time that I spent on the island of Malagosto, they taught me a great deal more than that. There was no school in the world that was anything like the Training and Assessment Centre that Scorpia had created. How do I begin to describe all the differences? It was, of course, highly secret. Nobody chose to go there… they chose you. It was surely the only school in the world where there were more teachers than students. There were no holidays, no sports days, no uniforms, no punishments, no visitors, no prizes and no exams. And yet it was, in its own way, a school. You could call it the Eton of murder.