'trauma can ripple through time and space like a stone thrown into a vast, mirror black sea'

The next person on Viktor's list to call list was Ludmilla Schmidt, a woman who would always drop everything for him. Even so, he would never impose on her outside of work hours unless it was life and death.

At 10 the next morning, he rang the woman who knew everyone in the ballet world. "Darling, Madam Schmidt, its Viktor. I'm driven to help Sasha get back to work. Mark was an ogre yesterday, but we had all agreed that the job at the arts centre was beneath a talent like his, he has years left as a principal or guest artiste. He should be aiming for his own company. So, I was thinking maybe some TV work or modelling, seeing as any company would justifiably have cold feet rehiring him after such a devastating breakdown."

There was a brief and entirely out of character moment of silence. "He's not well, Viktor. I mean really delicate. He's treating therapy as just ticking off boxes rather than resolving his issues. I am unhappy about him even considering work so soon after trying to cut his own throat and the subsequent episode of amnesia. Only it's a worse situation that we first thought, he left home yesterday and this morning I arrived to a hand written letter from him asking to be removed from my books as he was hanging up his dance shoes. Vladimir is beside himself, full of self-recriminations, thinking he missed something. They have informed the police, but to what end. Aleksandr is an adult of independent means. His apartment in Sydney sold for just over a million dollars, and he has nearly ten times that in savings, stocks and bonds. As you know, he did not come from the gutter, only descended to those depths in true despair. He may decide to dance under an assumed name, but that is unlikely since his letter stated he was off to visit old friends. Vladimir has contacted that journalist, Edward Pleasure and some old school friends of Aleksandr's to see if he's been in touch." Ludmilla's deepest concern was of the same as Vladimir's that by old friends, Sasha meant long dead ones.

"Oh, dear, Mark stated Aleksandr responded positively to cutting put downs, that he was tenacious and loved nothing better than proving people wrong. His approach seems to have done the opposite. Dear God, I hope his cruel words did not drive that beautiful young man to harm himself. Poor Vladimir, I must go and see him at once, if he finds out Mark Landry caused this he may do something rash."

….

Edward knew asking questions would flag this as a story. "Vladimir, I think you should go to press about this, maybe you'll get a response pretty fast and get Sasha back home or in a clinic as needed. At least you'll find out he's safe and OK. I have a friend at the New York Daily News. She'll do a very sympathetic spin. Her son also ran away. That's how we became friends."

"Her son is OK?"

"No, he's dead. Similar to the situation in Miami. Sasha survived, Mika didn't." Edward did not add that Mika had killed himself once he got home.

Edward's new book, Assassin was due out in a week, it had taken him two years to chase down corroborating facts to ground truth the involvement of John Rider, Estrov, Moscow, Malta, Malagosto, SCORPIA and close to sixty hits detailed in that disturbing diary, which listed fifteen years as a top ranking hitman. If called to account he could say it was investigation work alone that pulled the story together. Alex had approved his draft copy with a short note, stating 'good work, glad you made Yasha out to be a complete psycho, though it means my mental health is suspect since I really sympathise and resonate with him'.

….

Vladimir hated dealing with the press, but it was a necessary evil. The woman, Desdemona Grosmont had been quite charming and sympathetic. There had been very little coverage in the media in December as the Opera House had issued a very short press release concerning Sasha leaving Australia due to ill health on a day of major international news from Pakistan. Edward was going to write a piece for the Guardian, in case Aleksandr had been in touch with his friends in London and the journalist would be in contact with other friends in Australia and Moscow to do the same. Hopefully, Maria's boy would turn up safe and well. His deepest fear was Sasha was already dead, meaning either literally or figuratively considering the complex mental health issues in play. Sasha had been forgotten completely for a short period in Australia. The young dancer had left his most prised possessions as gifts for the children. Him leaving Maria's precious heirlooms to his daughter was the most shocking.

…

Edward's sympathetic piece, as promised, was on the editor's desk that afternoon and was bumped from features to the front page and extended to include a full in depth back story of the ballet star's breakdown last year and serious mental health problems. All the seedier considering his ex-boyfriend had been found guilty of heroin smuggling shortly after their acrimonious breakup. The ballet star really liked dating creeps, they even had the quote from that Australian TV interview stating 'boyfriend/pimp, in my life there's been no differentiation, they are interchangeable, one and the same'. That made the editor worry that the great love story between Sasha and Manfred Schnagel had been anything but that, and had actually been just another abusive relationship to mirror all the others considering the ballet dancer's track record. He pencilled a note to a young aggressive freelance to follow that up.

…..

The courier walked up the steps to the stage door at the Bolshoi, to be shown through to the Director's assistant. The documents had been on priority 24 hour delivery from New York to Moscow. "Please sign here and here." And the packet was handed over.

Grennady saw the sender was Aleksandr Makarov and opened it immediately. Inside were two high quality journals. And a note scrawled in hastily written cyrillic block capitals on a post-it note 'Hard drive to follow, that has to clear customs. I don't need these where I'm going. All my work for your archives. Please give Vladimir full access if he wants. Otherwise my work is at your disposal. Ever your artistic servant and hopefully one time muse, Sasha.' He then looked through the two books of notes and script detailing every piece Sasha had choreographed. This was too personal a bequest for one so young. He picked up the phone to call Sasha, but the number was unavailable. He then called Ludmilla.

….

An email was sent from the New York home of Paul Roscoe to his personal mail account. 'Sorry to disturb you, Paul but Luci Stravenkov just called and left a message. Sasha has left home and she was wondering if he'd been in contact with you or any of your class mates from Point Blanc. I told her you were not due back from Japan until next week, but I did check with our the security desk downstairs and yesterday evening an Alex Rider left an enquiry about wanting to catch up with you for old times sake as he was starting a new career and he would catch you later.'

….

Pyotr had a hateful day at school. Everyone getting at him because of Sasha disappearing, which had even been an item on the local TV news at breakfast. He was of a mind never to talk to Greg again. Nina seemed to be of the same opinion as him and had stated quite loudly at breakfast that morning that Greg should go live at Grandpa's so Sasha could come back.

He walked rather than get the bus. He sauntered home to notice a guy with brown hair and glasses, wearing army surplus, the fourteen year old had already categorised him as probably a homeless veteran, who was reading the want ads section of the New York Daily News outside his apartment block. Pyotr scowled because that paper had Sasha's face plastered on the front page. The guy then spoke in Russian with the distinctive Siberian accent Sasha had cultivated while working in Russia "You should not believe everything you read. I'm not in danger. Now you know my cunning disguise, little brother. I'll pop up now and again so don't worry about me. I've already got a job. Janitor at a sleazy club, but you gotta start somewhere. Its not goodbye, just a parting of ways. I have new goals. I can look after myself. If you need me, as in life or death, here's my new mobile number; again for emergencies only. Not because Greg got the last piece of pizza. Caio, fratellino"

An hour later his frazzled parents got home with Nina. Greg was sulking in his room, despite the fact Pyotr had tried to clear the air. Vladimir then went to the refrigerator and pulled out salad and vegetables to start on dinner. Luci had already disappeared to put Nina in the bath.

The fourteen year old spoke in Russian to his father, to keep the conversation between themselves and a secret from mom. "Dad, you don't need to worry about Sasha, though I doubt he's going by that name anymore. He was waiting outside when I got home from school. He's got a shitty low paid job and is starting again, but he's fine or as fine as he can be. Its his identity disorder, Sasha is now assigned to the past. He told me that he'll keep in contact. So, that'll be as good as it gets because you could walk past him and not recognise him, 'cause I didn't until he started talking like a Siberian factory worker."

Vladimir stopped his preparation of the planned salad and gave his eldest child his compete attention, as he could order in rather than make everyone suffer his standard mid-week supper. "Tell me everything. I promise to keep it secret, but if I know I'll be able to sleep at night." If he relaxed, so would Luci as she would know their fledged cuckoo had been in touch and was not dead, which was better than not knowing, but only just.

…..

Paul noted the brief message on his mobile, the number from the United States prefix. 'If you need me call, AR'

Alex had cut ties with Paul McAlaster when he moved to Australia, but the gangster knew where he was if he needed him. The Scorpia trained assassin expected he would probably never take on another cleaning job after Moscow. Completing high profile and high risk jobs had a high pay check but also the almost certain expectation of being caught, because you made yourself a big target for the police and other security agencies. That financier had made too many enemies, one of them had been Dieter Sprintz. The Italian had backed a blackmail plot, to use the Grief clone of the German billionaire's son. In the attempt to blackmail a man who appeared soft and unconnected with the criminal underworld, the man had invoked the wrath of two billionaires. While Dieter appeared unconnected to any information gathering, Paul Roscoe had set up both hits. The kidnapper himself had been cut to pieces and the clone buried alive in an isolated location of the transcontinental gas pipeline from Russia to France. Alex's back-up plan had always been to use Misha and Maxim as a smoke screen. Alex knew all about psychological programming, because Ian had been the one to fuck him up in the first place, trying to create the perfect spy. Only his work had failed to install any patriotism in his nephew and Jack had tried to mother him as a normal boy, which had thwarted the whole plan in the end.

The other clones had already met with accidents to prevent them falling under the control of any would be blackmailers, kidnappers or terrorists. Time had already dealt the usefulness of several out a Cassian, Tom and Nick had chosen careers of no use to anyone in power and their parents were no longer active players, despite their considerable wealth.

…

Alex was sat on the floor; his head held in his hands. He was meant to be cleaning the stage ahead of rehearsals today. New acts, not dancing or theatre or real singing, but drag artists miming to pop songs. His attempt to move on with his life was suffocating him, he needed to get out of his own head. Dance was more than a job, more than an addiction, it was like breathing. He again yearned to create; to be able to concentrate completely on form, rhythm and line. The two hours daily he spend doing class exercises and in the gym were not scratching this itch. He was in withdrawal from his previous life.

Lola watched her old friend Lexi, who had disappeared off abroad for ten years. He had turning up out of the blue three weeks ago to beg a job and then she had found out he was effectively homeless and staying in a shitty hostel. She had rented out her tiny spare room and woken the next morning to find the faucet in the kitchen fixed, the place spotlessly clean and her laundry done.

Whatever had happened between then and now had deeply affected the gentle soul, she was at a loss on how to help.