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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

    London greeted Alex like an old and reliable friend. Red buses, black cabs, blue-uniformed policemen and grey clouds … could he be anywhere else? Walking down the King‟s Road, he felt a million miles from the Camargue—not just home, but back in the real world. The side of his stomach was still sore and he could feel the pressure of the bandage against his skin, but otherwise Yassen and the bullfight were already slipping into the distant past.

    He stopped outside a bookshop which, like so many of them, advertised itself with the wafting smell of coffee. He paused for a moment, then went in.
    He quickly found what he was looking for. There were three books on Damian Cray in the biography section. Two of these were hardly books at all—more glossy brochures put out by record companies to promote the man who had made them so many millions. The first was called Damian Cray—Live! It was stacked next to a book called Cray-zee! The Life and Times of Damian Cray. The same face stared out from the covers. Jet-black hair cut short like a schoolboy‟s. A very round face with prominent cheeks and brilliant green eyes. A small nose, almost too exactly placed right in the middle. Thick lips and perfect white teeth.
    The third book had been written quite a few years later. The face was a little older, the eyes hidden behind blue-tinted spectacles, and this Damian Cray was climbing out of a white Rolls-Royce, wearing a Versace suit and tie. The title of the book showed what else had changed: Sir Damian Cray: The Man, The Music, The Millions. Alex glanced at the first page, but the heavy, complicated prose soon put him off. It seemed to have been written by someone who probably read the Financial Times for laughs.
    In the end he didn‟t buy any of the books. He wanted to know more about Cray, but he didn‟t think these books would tell him anything he didn‟t know already. And certainly not why Cray‟s private telephone number had been on the mobile phone of a hired assassin.
    Alex walked back through Chelsea, turning off down the pretty, white-fronted street where his uncle, Ian Rider, had lived. He now shared the house with Jack Starbright, an American girl who had once been the housekeeper but had since become his legal guardian and closest friend. She was the reason Alex had first agreed to work for MI6. He had been sent undercover to spy on Herod Sayle and his Stormbreaker computers. In return she had been given a visa which allowed her to stay in London and look after him.
    She was waiting for him in the kitchen when he got in. He had agreed to be back by one and she had thrown together a quick lunch. Jack was a good cook but refused to make anything that took longer than ten minutes. She was twenty-eight years old, slim, with tangled red hair and the sort of face that couldn‟t help being cheerful, even when she was in a bad mood. “Had a good morning?” she asked as he came in. “Yes.” Alex sat down slowly, holding his side.