simple. There was a spring mechanism. The trigger would pull back the hammer and release it. The hammer would strike the bullet, a piece of death just nineteen milli-metres long, sending it on its short, fast journey into this man's head. He could do it. “Maybe you have forgotten what I once told you. This isn't your life. This has nothing to do with you.” Yassen was totally relaxed. There was no emotion in his voice. He seemed to know Alex better than Alex knew himself. Alex tried to look away, to avoid the calm blue eyes that were watching him with something like pity.
“Why did you do it?” Alex demanded. “You blew up the house. Why?” The eyes flickered briefly. “Because I was paid.”
“Paid to kill me?”
“No, Alex.” For a moment Yassen sounded almost amused. “It had nothing to do with you.”
“Then who—”
But it was too late.
He saw it in Yassen's eyes first, knew that the Russian had been keeping him distracted as the cabin door opened quietly behind him. A pair of hands seized him and he was swung violently away from the bed. He saw Yassen whip aside as fast as a snake—as fast as a fer de lance. The gun went off, but Alex hadn't fired it intentionally and the bullet smashed into the floor. He hit a wall and felt the gun drop out of his hand. He could taste blood in his mouth. The yacht seemed to be swaying.
In the far distance a fanfare sounded, followed by an echoing roar from the crowd. The bullfight had begun.
MATADOR
“You are not with MI6?”
“No.”
“But you followed me to the restaurant.”
“That's right.” Alex nodded.
Yassen half smiled to himself. “I thought there was someone.” Then he was serious again. “You were staying in the house.”
“I was invited by a friend,” Alex said. A thought suddenly occurred to him. “Her dad's a journalist. Was he the one you wanted to kill?”
“That is none of your business.”
“It is now.”
“It was bad luck you were staying with him, Alex. I've already told you. It was nothing personal.”
“Sure.” Alex looked Yassen straight in the eye. “With you it never is.” Yassen went back over to the two men and at once Franco began to jabber again, spitting out his words. He had poured himself a whisky which he downed in a single swallow, his eyes never leaving Alex.
“The boy knows nothing and he can't hurt us,” Yassen said. He was speaking in English—for his benefit, Alex guessed.
“What you do with him?” Raoul asked, following in clumsy English too.
“Kill him!” This was Franco.
“I do not kill children,” Yassen replied, and Alex knew that he was telling only half the truth.
The bomb in the house could have killed anyone who happened to be there and Yassen wouldn't have cared.
“Have you gone mad?” Franco had slipped back into French. “You can't just let him walk away from here. He came to kill you. If it hadn't been for Raoul, he might have succeeded.”
“Maybe.” Yassen studied Alex one last time. Finally he came to a decision. “You were unwise to come here, little Alex,” he said. “These people think I should silence you and they are right. If I thought it was anything but chance that brought you to me, if there was anything that you knew, you would already be dead. But I am a reasonable man. You did not kill me when you had the chance, so now I will give you a chance too.”
He spoke rapidly to Franco in French. At first Franco seemed sullen, argumentative. But as Yassen continued, Alex saw a smile spread slowly across his face.
“How will we arrange this?” Franco asked. “You know people. You have influence. You just have to pay the right people.” “The boy will be killed.” “Then you will have your wish.”
“Good!” Franco spat. “I'll enjoy watching!” Yassen came over to Alex and stopped just a short distance away. “You have courage, Alex,” he said. “I admire that in you. Now I am going to give you the opportunity to display it.” He nodded at Franco. “Take him!” It was nine o'clock. The night had rolled in over Saint-Pierre, bringing with it the threat of a summer storm. The air was still and heavy and thick cloud had blotted out the stars.
Alex stood on sandy ground in the shadows of a concrete archway, unable to take in what was happening to him. He had been forced, at gunpoint, to change his holiday clothes for a uniform so bizarre that, but for his knowledge of the danger he was about to face, he would have felt simply ridiculous.
First there had been a white shirt and a black tie. Then came a jacket with shoulder pads hanging over his arms and a pair of trousers that fitted tight around his thighs and waist but stopped well short of his ankles. Both of these were covered in gold sequins and thousands of tiny pearls, so that as Alex moved in and out of the light he became a miniature fireworks display. Finally he had been given black shoes, an odd, curving black hat, and a bright red cape which was folded over his arm.
The uniform had a name. Traje de luces. The suit of lights worn by matadors in the bullring. This was the test of courage that Yassen had somehow arranged. He wanted Alex to fight a bull.
Now he stood next to Alex, listening to the noise of the crowd inside the arena. At a typical bullfight, he had explained, six bulls are killed. The third of these is sometimes taken by the least experienced matador, a noviltero, a young man who might be in the ring for the first time. There had been no noviltero on the programme tonight … not until the Russian had suggested otherwise. Money had changed hands. And Alex had been prepared. It was insane—but the crowd would love him. Once he was inside the arena, nobody would know that he had never been trained. He would be a tiny figure in the middle of the floodlit ring. His clothes would disguise the truth. Nobody would see that he was only fourteen.
There was an eruption of shouting and cheering inside the arena. Alex guessed that the matador had just killed the second bull.
“Why are you doing this?” Alex asked.
Yassen shrugged. “I'm doing you a favour, Alex.”
“I don't see it that way.”
“Franco wanted to put a knife in you. It was hard to dissuade him. In the end I offered him a little entertainment. As it happens, he greatly admires this sport. This way he gets amused and you get a choice.”
“A choice?”
“You might say it is a choice between the bull and the bullet.”
“Either way I get killed.”
“Yes. That is the most likely outcome, I'm afraid. But at least you will have a heroic death. A thousand people will be watching you. Their voices will be the last thing you hear.”
“Better than hearing yours,” Alex growled.
And suddenly it was time.
Two men in jeans and black shirts ran forward and opened a gate. It was like a wooden curtain being drawn across a stage and it revealed a fantastic scene behind. First there was the arena itself, an elongated circle of bright yellow sand.
As Yassen had promised, it was surrounded by a thousand people, tightly packed in tiers. They were eating and drinking, many of them waving programmes in front of their faces, trying to shift the sluggish air, jostling and talking. Although all of them were seated, none of them were still. In the far corner a band played, five men in military uniforms, looking like antique toys.
The glare from the spotlights was dazzling.
Empty, the arena was modern, ugly and dead. But filled to the brim on this hot Mediterranean night, Alex could feel the energy buzzing through it, and he realized that all the cruelty of the Romans with their gladiators and wild animals had survived the centuries and was fully alive here.
