“Great,” said Ian. “Let’s get some rest before our flight tomorrow. Tea everyone.”
Everyone in the kitchen nodded as Ian filled the kettle with water and switched it to boil.
* * *
Andrei had been watching the Russian state news live on his laptop as report came in of the death of the President. The newsreader was in tears as she announced that the President had been found dead in his office in the Kremlin after taking his own life. A state funeral would be held soon and dignitaries from around the world would attend. There was no mention of the reason for his suicide. He carried on watching as the same newsreader announced that Renat Golubev would be the only candidate in the elections for a new President. Andrei was happy that the President was dead and that Renat would be replacing him but he couldn’t help but feel that it all seemed contrived.
He was mulling it over as Alexa came and sat next to him. She didn’t say a word but he could tell something was wrong by the way she had dropped onto the sofa and was lay back looking at the ceiling.
“Are you alright Alexa?” asked Andrei.
“Not really.”
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Do you not think Andrei is due an explanation,” interjected Vladimir as he walked in from the kitchen.
“No, he wont like what we have done.”
“But we should all talk, you will be leaving soon and he has to know.”
“No, leave it.”
“He needs to know.”
“No,” shouted Alexa. “I have already told you to leave it alone.”
“What should I know?” asked Andrei.
“Nothing, it’s in your best interest not to know about the events of the last few days,” said Alexa. “We will all be gone soon and you can get back to your lives. Back to your life with your girlfriend.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Sorry I thought you and Darya were an item.”
“We went to School together, that’s all.”
“She has feelings for you, I can tell. Don’t let her slip through your fingers.”
“Why do you care?” asked Andrei.
“She cares because she is your sister,” said Vladimir.
Silence fell across the room, the only sound left was the newsreader continuing in a more monotonous tone about the more mundane of news items.
Andrei was shocked, dumbstruck. His mind was racing, a sister, how could he have a sister.
“Father, what are you talking about,” Andrei said as he finally found his voice. “I am your only child.”
“I am sorry Andrei, there are things I should have told you about my past and yours.”
“I don’t believe this, how could you keep this from me.”
“I’m sorry, let me explain.”
“And you,” Andrei said, turning to Alexa. “How long have you known?”
“Talk to your Father and when you are ready we can talk,” Alexa said as she stood and walked from the room.
“Start at the beginning,” Andrei said as he turned back to his father.
Vladimir moved to sit next to Andrei. Starting from the beginning he proceeded to tell Andrei all about his time working in England with a great man and how they had a vision of a better world. Andrei kept his silence as his Father continued with all the detail about the experiments and then finally how Alexa’s mother had had twins but only wanted one. When he had finished listening Andrei sat in silence collecting his thoughts. He had a sister, a twin sister.
“I need to talk to Alexa,” Andrei said leaving the room and his Father behind.
* * *
Alexa was sat on the bed when Andrei came barging in.
“How long have you know about this?” he asked, standing over her.
“Do you want to back up dear brother,” she replied. “Your father came to me in London when he was there to give a talk. That was the first I knew of it.”
“Why did he come to you first?”
“Because he was in London when the people you worked for went after him and he decided I could help.”
“I wasn’t working for anyone.”
“You released false news reports to try and overthrow your President. Don’t you dare deny it. I then have to bring a team to Russia, risking my life to save your fucking arse and clean up your mess.”
“I didn’t ask you to save me.”
“Well if I hadn’t you would be dead right now.”
“I corrected my mistake and the right man for the job will be President,” Andrei retorted. “And our coward of a President took his own life rather than face justice.”
“You are so naive, he didn’t take his own life. Pavel killed him and then the FSB will cover it up and declare it suicide”
“Does Renat know?
“Of course he does, he was there but he is a good man, he wants what’s best for his country so he will never say anything and for the same reason we can’t tell him about everyone we have killed while getting you out of the mess you got yourself into.”
“So you have killed?”
“Yes.”
“At least I have never killed anyone. I just write the truth.”
“Well done you, I’m sure Daddy would be so proud... and by that I mean Vladimir not your real Father.”
“At least my Father looked after me, cared for me. He didn’t use me as an experiment.”
That was a step too far for Alexa. In a single movement she stood from her bed, placing her right hand around Andrei’s neck and slamming him against the bedroom wall. In the same movement she lifted his scrawny frame a foot off the floor. He started to claw at her hand as he struggled for breath. She stared him directly in the eyes, waiting for the life to ebb away.
“Alexa... Alexa stop, please stop,” shouted Darya.
She gave his neck a tighter squeeze, before throwing him to the floor.
“Andrei, are you alright?” asked Darya.
Gasping for breath he nodded and stared at Alexa.
“Your no brother of mine,” said Alexa. “We’ll be out of here soon now we’ve cleaned up your two’s mess. I never want to see you again.”
In her wildest nightmares this wasn’t how she expected the reunion with her brother to go but he had obviously picked up his arrogant side from their father. She took one last look at Andrei and Darya as she walked out of the bedroom, the only consolation she would be left with is that Darya would look after him.
Twenty Two
Alexa was sat in the foyer of the Secret Intelligence Service building. It had only been a month since she had returned from Russia and everything that happened was still raw. She found a brother she never knew she had. Wrecked another of Letitia’s plans; that certainly made her feel good. Then ended the trip by strangling the brother she had just found out about. Yep, still very raw.
She hadn’t heard from anyone in the team until an out of the blue call from Ian inviting her to this meeting, she had no idea what it was about and she was still going through scenarios in her head when Blain walked in and sat next to her.
“I guess your here for the same meeting I am,” said Blain.
“I guess so.”
“Any idea what it’s about.”
“None, I just got a phone call from Ian.”
“Me too, soon find out though I imagine.”
“Miss Blake, Mr Templeton, could you follow me please,” said the security guard who had crept up on them while they were talking.
He led them to the lift. Once in he swiped his card and then pressed the button for the top floor. Once there he led them down a couple of corridors and into a large corner office.
“Come in you two,” said Ian
He was sat behind a large mahogany desk that looked completely out of place in the modern office.
“Sit down, how are you both.”
They both sat dumbstruck.
“Bet you weren’t expecting to see me in this buildin
g.”
“No,” they replied in unison.
“I’m the new head of SiS,” Ian replied. “We did such a brilliant job that Martin got a more senior intelligence post in government and they asked me what I wanted and I said this job.”
“Well done you,” said Alexa. “So why are we here.”
“Yes... right... as I said we did such a great job that they want us to carry on.”
“No,” stated Alexa.
“Hear me out before you rush to any decision. They want me to put together a group within SiS whose sole remit is to deal with the more complex and sensitive jobs. The ones which can be easily denied.”
“They want an off the books kill squad,” said Blain.
“No... well yes. I was thinking you two, Lyndsey and one other we can all choose.”
“I’m in,” said Blain. “I don’t know anything else, I’m certainly not going to retire or become a glorified babysitter for some wannabe pop star.”
“Alexa?” asked Ian.
“I promised Jane I would stay at home after the last trip.”
“I beg of you, I need you. Could you really stay at home. The first task will be to hunt down Letitia.”
“It’s still no, I have to think of Jane and the children.”
“Exactly, think of the children. You know as well as I do that Letitia will hunt you down given how many times you’ve destroyed her schemes and she still hasn’t had revenge for you killing her father. Doesn’t that turn your children into targets, better to get her first surely.”
Alexa knew she had to say yes, she needed to kill Letitia and having a team working on it was the only way she would get what she wanted.
“Okay, I’m in.”
Twelve Months Later
August
Letitia sat on her veranda looking out onto the empty golf course, it was August in Dubai which meant temperatures that no human could reasonably bear. It meant she could sit drinking her first morning coffee in peace. She had been in Dubai for the last year after the debacle that was Moscow. She had planned everything in minute detail to only be derailed by her ex-lover, Alexa and her MI5 friends. She had planned to hit back immediately but with Alexa and Blain’s help SiS had dismantled her Soteria empire country by country. What had taken hundreds of years to build into a world power that no one had ever heard of had only taken three months to be destroyed. Six months of licking her wounds and hiding out in her villa had come to an end when she watched the news story about Renat Golubev being inaugurated as the President of Russia. It was at that moment that she had started to gather a team around her, a team drawn from the remnants of people left behind by Alexa’s murderous culling. She had brought them all to Dubai, from where she had decided she would run her new organisation. She vowed when Alexa killed her father that she would run the world largest criminal organisation, that she would run countries and she had no intention of backing down now.
“Letitia, your nine AM visitor is here.”
“Thank you Jackie. Show him into the office I will be down in a minute,” Letitia replied.
“What are we going to do with him.”
“We are going to kill him unless I get the information I need out of him.”
“I will get the clean up team ready then just in case,” Jackie said as she left the veranda.
Letitia took a final sip of her coffee before making her way downstairs to her office. She had been waiting for the right time to make her first move in what would be a game of cat and mouse with Alexa, one she would win.
“Vice President Vasiliev, thank you for coming,” said Letitia as she entered her office.
“It was my pleasure Mrs...” he replied, breaking off as he realised the woman he was looking at wasn’t the woman he thought he was meeting.
“You were expecting someone else,” Letitia said as she sat down behind the glass topped desk. “Of course you know who I am, you were sat around the table when your ex-President accused your current President of treason. Interesting then that you should end up being the new Vice President.”
“I... I was persuaded that it would be in my best interests.”
“I can understand that but now you need to make another choice. I need to know everything there is to know about one event that is due to happen in November and what you don’t know your going to find out.”
“I can’t... I won’t do that, not for you. I love my country and Renat will be good for it.”
“Do you love your country more than your life?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you don’t tell me what I need to know, you won’t leave here alive and I will move onto the next Vice President.”
“I’m a Russian citizen you can’t do that. What about the UAE authorities.”
“Don’t worry about the authorities. You will be found shot, a Russian dissident will be charged and executed for his crimes. So I ask you again do you love your country more than your life?”
“What do you need to know?”
“Good, I need to know the security arrangements for this event.”
Letitia took a piece of paper from her desk and passed it to Boris. He looked at the writing on the paper, looked at Letitia and then again at the piece of paper.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am very serious, everything you know I need to know and if you don’t know something... you will find out and pass everything to me.”
“No, no I won’t.”
“Yes you will,” shouted Letitia. “You see it’s not just your life in the balance, it’s your family as well.”
“You bitch.”
“You can call me whatever you like to assuage your sense of wrong doing, but just get me the details. Now get out.”
Letitia waved in the direction of the door. Jackie came in and led Boris out of the office. Letitia felt a warm feeling inside, she was finally getting the upper hand she was finally going to get revenge on Alexa and all of her team.
November
Darya looked at herself in the full length mirror, she had finally got her childhood wish. The flowing white dress edged in handmade Nottingham lace. Her head topped with a diamond tiara holding in place the lace headdress. She started to cry, it had been a difficult year. She had hoped that the suicide of President Arken would have made life easier for her. It had been a long road back but she was now marrying the man she loved, she was happy. Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door, she wiped her eyes.
“Come in,” she shouted.
“You look beautiful.”
“Thank you Mr President,” she answered as she turned to see Renat entering the room.
“You don’t have to call me Mr President, we know each other too well for formalities.”
“Thank you Renat.”
“I am so happy for you, you deserve to be happy after everything you have been through. After everything we have all been through.”
She knew that Renat’s year had been as hard as hers if not harder. The presidential election, which should have been a single horse race had turned into a political blood bath after an oligarch aligned with President Arken had stood as an independent. He had accused Renat of murdering President Arken which she knew he hadn’t. She had overheard the argument between Andrei and Alexa so she knew that President Arken had been murdered by Pavel.
“Are you happy?” Renat asked.
“Yes.”
“You looked deep in thought.”
“I was thinking about the last year.”
“That is all behind us now. I am in a position where I can make a difference and you are my right hand woman.”
“And I am marrying the man I love.”
“Exactly, now let’s get you out there marrying that man.”
Renat held out his arm, Darya looped hers though his and they walked out of the room to the awaiting limousine.
* * *
He had chosen to marry in his home town. He had the option of any church, a
ny venue in Russia. Those are the sort of privileges you get when you are marrying the private secretary to the President of Russia. He had chosen his home town and the church he was baptised in because it had such good memories for him. It was where he met Darya, he had loved her from the very first day at School; well that’s what he keeps telling her.
“Come Andrei, she will be here soon, you need to get into the church,” said Vladimir.
“I will, soon.”
“She said she would be here, they all did. You can’t wait out here for them. They promised so they will be here. Don’t worry.”
“But if I don’t take them in they won’t get in. We didn’t tell security about them coming for obvious reasons.”
“Don’t worry, let me get you inside and then I will come back out and wait for them.”
For six months after Alexa had left Russia, he had hated her with a passion. He hated everything she embodied. The fact she worked for the state and worse still killed for the state. His father had tried everything to persuade him otherwise. It wasn’t until his father told him everything about Alexa’s life did his hatred soften.
On one of his trips to London as part of the Presidents press office he sought out Alexa. They talked for hours about her life, everything that had led to joining Soteria, to finding out it was all a rouse to run more experiments on her. It wasn’t until Alexa invited him to her home that it suddenly dawned on him that despite what she was, what she did for a job, she was his sister. She had a partner and children. He had nieces.
He hoped they did all turn up for his wedding but he hoped, more than anything that Alexa and her family turned up.
“Come Andrei, they will be here soon,” said Vladimir as he started to lead him from the church gates.
“Uncle Andrei.”
He heard the unmistakable sound of Rosarita and Sofia. He turned to see his two nieces running towards him, followed by Alexa, Jane, Blain, Ian and Lyndsey.
“Slow down, you’ll fall over and ruin those gorgeous dresses,” he said as he held out his arms and engulfed them as they ran into him.
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