Scorpia

that it was Rome. We look at museums, churches, palaces … that sort of thing. This year we’re going to Venice. Do you want to come?”
    Venice.
    It had been in Alex’s mind all along – the final minutes on the plane after Damian Cray had died. Yassen Gregorovich had been there, the Russian assassin who had cast a shadow over so much of Alex’s life. Yassen had been dying, a bullet lodged in his chest. But just before the end he’d managedto blurt out a secret that had been buried for fourteen years.
    Alex’s parents had been killed shortly after he was born and he had been brought up by his father’s brother, Ian Rider. Earlier this year, Ian Rider had died too, supposedly in a car accident. It had been the shock of Alex’s life to discover that his uncle was actually a spy and had been killed on a mission in Cornwall. That was when MI6 had made their appearance. Somehow they had succeeded in sucking Alex into their world, and he had been working for them ever since.
    Alex knew very little about his mother and father, John and Helen Rider. In his bedroom he had a photo of them: a watchful, handsome man with close-cut hair standing with his arm round a pretty, half-smiling woman. He had been in the army and still looked like a soldier. She had been a nurse, working in radiology. But they were strangers to him; he couldn’t remember anything about them. They had died while he was still a baby. In a plane crash. That was what he had been told.
    Now he knew otherwise.
    The plane crash had been as much a lie as his uncle’s car accident. Yassen Gregorovich had told him the truth on Air Force One. Alex’s father had been an assassin – just like Yassen. The two of them had even worked together; John Rider had once saved Yassen’s life. But then his father hadbeen killed by MI6 – the very same people who had forced Alex to work for them three times, lying to him, manipulating him and finally dumping him when he was no longer needed. It was almost impossible to believe, but Yassen had offered him a way to find proof.
    Go to Venice. Find Scorpia. And you will find your destiny…
    Alex had to know what had happened fourteen years ago. Discovering the truth about John Rider would be the same as finding out about himself. Because, if his father really had killed people for money, what did that make him? Alex was angry, unhappy … and confused. He had to find Scorpia, whatever it was. Scorpia would tell him what he needed to know.
    A school trip to Venice couldn’t have come at a better time. And Jack didn’t stop him from going. In fact, she encouraged him.
    “It’s exactly what you need, Alex. A chance to hang out with your friends and just be an ordinary schoolboy. I’m sure you’ll have a great time.”
    Alex said nothing. He hated having to lie to her, but there was no way he could tell her the truth. Jack had never met his father; this wasn’t her affair.
    So he let her help him pack, knowing that, for him, the trip would have little to do with churches and museums. He would use it to explore the city and see what he unearthed. Five days wasn’t a longtime. But it would be a start. Five days in Venice. Five days to find Scorpia.
    And now here he was. In an Italian square. Three days of the trip had already gone by and he had found nothing.
    “Alex – you fancy an ice cream?”
    “No. I’m all right.”
    “I’m hot. I’m going to get one of those things you told me about. What did you call it? A
granada
or something…”
    Alex was standing beside another fourteen-year-old boy who happened to be his closest friend at Brookland. He had been surprised to hear that Tom Harris was going to be on the trip, as Tom wasn’t exactly interested in art or history. Tom wasn’t interested in any school subjects and was regularly bottom in everything. But the best thing about him was that he didn’t care. He was always cheerful, and even the teachers had to admit that he was fun to be with. And what Tom lacked in the classroom, he made up for on the sports field. He was captain of the school football team and Alex’s main rival on sports day, beating him at hurdles, four hundred metres and the pole vault. Tom was small for his age, with spiky black hair and bright blue eyes. He wouldn’t have been found dead in a museum, so why was he here? Alex soon found out. Tom’s parents were going through a messy divorce, and they had packed him off to get him out of the way.
    “It’s a
granita,”
Alex