Snakehead

matter. Don’t forget. We wanted Yassen to escape. That was part of the plan.
    “I stepped out of my hiding place.
    “Yassen saw me and all hell broke loose.
    “Yassen fired at me. Two of his bullets missed, but I felt the third slam into my chest. It was like being hit by a sledgehammer, and if I hadn’t been wearing an armor-plated vest, I’d have been killed. As it was, I was blown off my feet. I went smashing down into the cobbles, almost dislocating my shoulder. But I didn’t hang around, Alex. I got straight back up again. That was my second mistake. I’ll come to that later.
    “Anyway, suddenly everyone was firing at once. The waiter turned around and dived for cover. About half a second later, the plate-glass window of the café shattered. It came down like a shower of ice. The men high up in the cathedral were using rifles. The others were entering the square from different sides. Your dad and Yassen had separated—as I knew they would. It was standard procedure. Staying together would have just made it easier for us to catch both of them. For a moment, I thought everything was going to work out all right after all.
    “It didn’t.
    “Three of my men grabbed hold of John. They’d cornered him, and it really would look as if there had been nothing he could have done. They made him throw down his weapon and lie flat on his face. That left three others to go after Yassen. Of course, they’d let him get away. But it would still be close. That was the plan.
    “Only Yassen Gregorovich had plans of his own. He was halfway across the square, making for one of the side streets. But then suddenly he stopped, turned around, and fired three times. The gun had a silencer. It hardly made any sound. And this time he wasn’t aiming for the chest. His bullets hit one of my men between the eyes, one in the side of the neck, and one in the throat. Two of them died instantly. The third went down and didn’t move.
    “There was still one agent left. His name was Travis, and I’d chosen him personally. He was on the far side of the square, and I saw him hesitate. He didn’t know what to do. After all, I’d given him orders not to shoot Yassen. Well, he should have disobeyed me. The situation was out of control. Enough people had already died that night. He should have got the hell out of there—but he didn’t. He just stood there and Yassen gunned him down too. A bullet in the leg to bring him down and then another in the head to finish him off. The whole square was littered with bodies. And this whole thing was meant to be bloodless!”
    Ash fell silent.
    Alex noticed he had finished his whisky. “Do you want another drink, Ash?” he asked.
    Ash shook his head. Then he went on.
    “Yassen had gone. We had John. So in a way, we’d succeeded. Maybe I should have left it at that. But I couldn’t. This was my first solo operation, and Yassen Gregorovich had wiped out almost half my task force. I went after him.
    “I don’t know what I was thinking. Part of me knew that I couldn’t kill him. But I couldn’t just let him go. I pulled off my body armor. It had a quick release and I couldn’t run with it on. Then I started across the square and toward the northern wall. I heard someone shout after me—it might even have been John. But I didn’t care. I turned a corner. I remember the pink stone and a balcony like something in an opera house. I couldn’t see anyone. I thought Yassen must have got away.
    “And then, without any warning, he stepped out in front of me.
    “He’d waited! A whole town crowded with MI6 agents and he’d just stood there like he owned the place and none of us could touch him. I ran straight into him. I couldn’t stop myself. His hand moved so fast that I didn’t see it. I felt it smash into the nerve points in my wrist. I lost my gun. It went spinning away into the darkness. At the same time, his gun pressed against my neck.
    “He was ten years younger than me. A Russian kid who’d got sucked into all this because his parents had died in an accident. And he’d beaten me. He’d taken out half my team. I was going to be next.
    “‘Who are you?’ he asked.
    “‘MI6,’ I told him. There was no point in lying. We wanted Scorpia to know.
    “‘How did you know I would be here?’
    “I didn’t answer that. He pushed harder with the gun. It was hurting me. But that didn’t matter. It would all be over soon anyway.
    “‘You should have stayed home,’ he