We spent a lot of time together over the next few weeks – running, swimming, competing on the assault course, facing each other with more hand-to-hand combat in the gym. He was also training the other recruits and I know that they felt exactly the same way about him as I did. He was a natural teacher. Whether it was target practice or night-time scuba-diving, he brought out the best in us. Julia Rothman was also an admirer. The two of them had dinner several times when she returned to Venice, although I was never invited.
I have to say that I was not very comfortable on Malagosto. It was as if I had left school after taking my exams only to find myself inexplicably back again. Everyone knew that I had failed in New York. And time was moving on. My nineteenth birthday had come and gone without anyone noticing it… including me. It was time to move on, to stand on my own two feet.
So I was very glad when Sefton Nye called me to his office and told me that I would be leaving in a few days. “We all agree that the last time was too early,” he said. “But on this occasion you will be travelling with John Rider. He is taking care of some business for us and you will be there strictly as his assistant. You will do everything he says. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
He had been holding my latest report, all the work of the last five weeks. I watched him as he got up from his desk and slid it into the filing cabinet against the wall. “It is very unusual for anyone to be given a second chance in this organization,” he added. He twisted round and suddenly he was gazing at me, his great, white eyes challenging me. “We can put New York behind us. John Rider speaks very highly of you and that’s what matters. It’s good to learn from your mistakes but I will give you one piece of advice, Yassen. Don’t make any more.”
I could not sleep that night. There was a storm over Venice – no wind or rain but huge sheets of lightning that flared across the sky, turning the domes and the towers of the city into black cut-outs. Winter was approaching and as I lay in bed, the curtains flapping, I could feel a chill in the air. I was excited about the mission. I was flying all the way to Peru – and if that went well, I would find myself in Paris. But there was something else. John Rider had told me almost nothing about himself. I was expected to follow him across the world, to obey him without question and yet the man was a complete mystery to me. Was he a criminal? He might have been in the British Army but why had he left? How had he found his way into Scorpia?
Suddenly I wanted to know more about John Rider. It didn’t seem fair. After all, he’d been given my files. He knew everything about me. How could we travel together when everything was so one-sided? How could I ever face him on even terms?
I slipped out of bed and got dressed. I’d made a decision without even thinking it through. It was stupid and it might be dangerous but what was my new life about if it wasn’t about taking risks? Nye kept files on everyone in his office. I had seen him lock mine away only a few hours ago. He would also have a file on John Rider. His office was on the other side of the quadrangle, just a few metres from where I was standing now. Breaking in would be easy. After all, I’d been trained.
Everyone was asleep. Nobody saw me as I left the accommodation block and crossed the cloisters of what had once been the monastery. The door to Nye’s office wasn’t even locked. There were some on the island who would have regarded that as an unforgivable breach of security and it puzzled me – but I suppose he felt he was safe enough. It would have been impossible to reach Malagosto from the mainland without being detected and he knew everything about everyone who was here. Who would even have considered breaking in? The lightning flashed silently and for a brief moment I saw the iron chandelier, the books, the different clocks, the pirate faces – all of them stark white, frozen. It was as if the storm was warning me, urging me to leave while I still could. I felt a pulse of warm air, pushing against me. This was madness. I shouldn’t be here.
But still I was determined. The next day I was leaving with John Rider. We were going to be together for a week or more and I would feel more comfortable – less unequal – if I knew something of his background. I’ll admit that I was curious but it also made sense. I had been encouraged to learn everything I could about my targets. It seemed only right that I should apply the same rule to a man who was taking me into danger and on whom my life might depend.
I went over to the cabinet – the one where Nye had deposited my personal file. I had brought the tools I would need from my bedroom, although examining the lock, I saw it was much more sophisticated than anything I had opened before. Another dazzling burst of lightning. My own shadow seemed to leap over my shoulder. I focused on the lock, testing it with the first pick.
And then, with shocking violence, I felt myself seized from behind in a headlock, two fists crossed behind my neck, and although I immediately brought my hands up in a counter-move, reaching out for the wrists, I knew I was too late and that one sudden wrench would snap my spinal cord, killing me instantly. How could it have happened? I was certain nobody had followed me in.
For perhaps three seconds I stayed where I was, kneeling there, caught in the death grip, waiting for the crack that would be the sound of my own neck breaking. It didn’t come. I felt the hands relax. I twisted round. Hunter was standing over me.
“Cossack!” he said.
“Hunter…”
“What are you doing here?” The lightning flickered but perhaps the worst of the storm had passed. “Let’s go outside,” Hunter said. “You don’t want to be found in here.”
We went back out and stood beneath the bell tower. I could feel that strange mixture of hot and cold in the air. We were enclosed by the walls of the monastery. We were alone but we spoke in low voices.
“Tell me what you were doing,” Hunter said. His face was in shadow but I could feel his eyes probing me.
I had already decided what I was going to say. I couldn’t tell him the truth. “Nye had my file this morning,” I said. “I wanted to read it.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to know I was ready. After what happened in New York, I didn’t want to let you down.”
“And you thought your report would tell you that?”
I nodded.
“You’re an idiot, Cossack.” That was what he said but there was no anger in his voice. If anything, he was amused. “I saw you go in and I followed you,” he explained. “I didn’t know who you were. I could have killed you.”
“I didn’t hear you,” I said.
He ignored that. “If I didn’t think you were ready, I wouldn’t be taking you,” he said. He thought for a moment. “I have a feeling it would be better if neither of us said anything about this little incident. If Sefton Nye knew you’d been creeping about in his study, he might get the wrong idea. I suggest you go back to bed. We’ve got an early start. The boat’s coming tomorrow at seven o’clock.”
“Thanks, Hunter.”
“Don’t thank me. Just don’t pull a stunt like this again. And…” He turned and walked away. “Get some sleep!”
I was up before sunrise. My gear was packed. I had my passport and credit cards along with the dollars I’d saved from New York. All my visas had been arranged.
There was no one around as I walked down to the edge of the lagoon, my feet crunching on the gravel. For a long time I stood there, watching the sun climb over Venice, different shades of pink, orange and finally blue rippling through the sky. I knew that my training was over and that I would not be coming back to Malagosto, at least not as a student.
I thought about Hunter, all the lessons he had taught me. He would be with me very soon and the two of us were going to travel together. He was going to give me the one thing that I had been unable to find in all my time on the island. I suppose you could call it the killer instinct. It was all I lacked.