Russian Roulette (Alex Rider)

Yes, of course, Mr Sharkovsky. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
“Who is Sharkovsky?” I asked.
“He’s a businessman,” Fagin said. “But rich. Very, very rich. And quite dangerous, so I’m
told. Not the sort of man you’d want to meet on a dark night and certainly not if you were
stealing from him.”
“I want to go there,” I said.
“Why?” Dima asked.
“Because I know him. At least … I heard his name.”
At that moment, it seemed almost like a gift. Misha Dementyev was my enemy. He had
tried to hand me over to the police. He had lied to my parents. And it sounded as if he was

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working for this man, Sharkovsky – assuming it was the same Sharkovsky. So robbing his
flat made perfect sense. It was like a miniature revenge.
Fagin snapped the notebook shut. We had made our decision and it didn’t matter which
address we chose. “It won’t be so difficult,” he muttered. “Fourth floor. Quiet street.
Sharkovsky doesn’t actually live there. He keeps the place for a friend, an actress.” He
leered at us in a way that suggested she was much more than a friend. “She’s away a lot. It
could be empty. I’ll check.”
Fagin was as good as his word. The following day he provided us with the information we
needed. The actress was performing in a play called The Cherry Orchard and wouldn’t be
back in Moscow until the end of the month. The flat was deserted but the fortochka was
open.
“Go for the things you can carry,” he suggested. “Jewellery. Furs. Mink and sable are easy
to shift. TVs and stuff like that … leave them behind.”
We set off that same night, skirting round the walls of the Kremlin and crossing the river
on the Krymsky Bridge. I thought I would be nervous. This was my first real crime – very
different from the antics that Leo and I had got up to during the summer, setting off
schoolboy bombs outside the police station or pinching cigarettes. Even stealing from the
back of parked cars wasn’t in the same league. But the strange thing was that I was
completely calm. It struck me that I might have found my destiny. If I could learn to survive
in Moscow by being a thief, that was the way it would have to be.
Gorky Park is a huge area on the edge of the Moscow River. With a fairground, boating
lakes and even an open-air theatre, it’s always been a favourite place for the people in the
city. Anyone who had a flat here would have to be rich. The air was cleaner and if you were
high enough you’d get views across the trees and over to the river, where barges and
pleasure boats cruised slowly past, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, another Stalin
skyscraper, in the far distance. The flat that Fagin had identified was right next to the park
in a quiet street that hardly seemed to belong to the city at all. It was too elegant. Too
expensive.
We got there just before midnight but all the street lamps were lit and I was able to make
out a very attractive building, made of cream-coloured stone, with arched doorways and
windows and lots of decoration over the walls. It was smaller and neater than our
apartment block, just four storeys high, with a slanting orange-tiled roof.
“That’s the window – up there.”
Dima pointed. The flat was on the top floor, just as Fagin had said, and sure enough I
could make out the fortochka, which was actually slightly ajar. The woman who lived there
might have thought she was safe, being so high up, but I saw at once that it would be
possible to climb in, using the building’s adornments as footholds. There were ledges,
windowsills, carved pillars and even a drainpipe that would act as one side of a ladder. It
wouldn’t be easy for me but once I was inside I would go back down and open the front
door. I’d let the others in and the whole place would be ours.
There were no lights on inside the building. The other residents must have been asleep.
Nor was there anyone in the street. We crossed as quickly as we could and grouped
ourselves in the shadows, right up against the wall.
“What do you think, Yasha?” Dima asked.

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I looked up and nodded. “I can do it.” But still I hesitated. “Are you sure she’s away?”
“Everyone says Fagin is reliable.”
“OK.”
“We’ll be waiting for you at the door. Make sure you don’t make any noise coming down
the stairs.”
“Right. Good luck.”
Dima cupped his hands to help me climb up to the first level and as I raised my foot, our
eyes met and he smiled at me. But at that moment I suddenly felt troubled. This might be
my destiny but what would my parents have said if they could have seen me now? They
were honest people. That was the way I’d been brought up. I was amazed at how quickly I’d
become a burglar, a thief. And if I stayed in Moscow much longer? I wondered what I might
become next.
I began the climb. The three boys scattered. We’d agreed that if a policeman happened to
come along on patrol, Grigory would warn me by hooting like an owl. But right now we
were alone and at first it was easy. I had the drainpipe on one side and there were plenty
of bricks and swirling plasterwork to give me a foothold. The architect or the artist who had
built this place might have had plenty of ideas about style and elegance but he had been
less brilliant when it came to security.
Even so, the higher I went, the more dangerous it became. The pipe was quite loose. If I
put too much weight onto it, I risked tearing it out of the wall. Some of the decorations
were damp and had begun to rot. I rested my foot briefly on a diamond-shaped brick, part
of a running pattern, and to my horror it crumbled away. First, there was the sound of loose
plaster hitting the pavement. Then I found myself scrabbling against the face of the
building, desperately trying to stop myself plunging down. If I’d fallen from the first floor,
I’d have broken an ankle. From this height it was more likely to be my neck. Somehow I
managed to steady myself. I looked down and saw Dima standing underneath one of the
street lamps. He had seen what had happened and waved a hand – either spurring me on or
warning me to be more careful.
I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, then continued up – past the third floor and up
to the fourth. At one stage I was right next to a window and, peeping in, I saw the vague
shape of two people lying in bed under a fur cover. I was lucky they were heavy sleepers. I
pulled myself up as quickly as possible and finally reached the ledge that ran along the
whole building just below the top floor. It was no more than fifteen centimetres wide and I
had to squeeze flat against the wall, shuffling along with my toes touching the brickwork
and my heels hanging in the air. If I had leaned back even slightly I would have lost my
balance and fallen. But I had come this far without killing myself. I was determined to see it
through.
I got to the window with the smaller window set inside it and now I saw that I had two
more problems. It was going to be an even tighter fit than I had imagined. And it was going
to be awkward too. Somehow I had to lever myself up and in, but that would mean putting
all my weight on the main sheet of glass. The windows were only separated by a narrow
frame and unless I was careful there was a real chance they would shatter beneath me and I
would end up being cut in half. Once again I looked for Dima but this time there was no
sign of him.

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I reached out and held onto the edge with one hand. The fortochka was definitely
unlocked. The room on the other side was dark but seemed to be a lounge with a dining
area and a kitchen attached. I grabbed the glass with my other hand. I saw now that I was
going to have to go in head first. It just wasn’t possible to lever up my leg. Using my
forehead, I pushed the little window open. I leant forward, pushing my head inside. Now
the glass was resting against the back of my neck, making me think of a prisoner in the old
days, about to be decapitated by guillotine. Trying to keep as much of my weight off the
glass as I could, I arched forward and in. The fit was very tight. The opening was barely
more than forty centimetres square … a cat flap indeed. My shoulders only just passed
through and I felt the loose end of the glass scraping against my back. I pushed harder and
found myself wedged with the lower rim of the fortochka pressing into my back just above
my buttocks. Suddenly I was trapped! I couldn’t move in either direction and I had a
nightmare vision of being stuck there all night, waiting for someone to discover me and call
the police in the morning. The glass was creaking underneath me. I was sure it was going to
break. I pushed again. It was like giving birth to myself. The edge cut into me but then,
somehow, gravity took over. I plunged forward into the darkness and hit the floor. I was in!
If it hadn’t been for the carpet, I would have definitely broken my nose and ended up
looking like Dima. If there was anyone in the flat, they would certainly have heard me and
I lay there for a moment, waiting for the door to open and the lights to go on. It didn’t
happen. I remembered the people I had seen beneath their fur cover in the flat below.
Surely they would have heard the thump and wondered what it was. But there was no sound
from below either. I waited another minute. My arm was sticking out at a strange angle
and I was worried that I had dislocated my shoulder, but when I shifted my weight and got
back into a sensible position, it seemed all right. Dima and the others would have seen me
go in. They would be waiting for me to come down and open the front door. It was time to
move.
First I examined my surroundings. As my eyes got used to the half-light, I saw that I was
in the main living area and that the owner must have been as wealthy as Fagin had said. I
had never been anywhere like this. The furniture was modern and looked brand new. Living
in a wooden house in a village, I had never seen – I had never even imagined – glass and
silver tables, leather sofas, and beautiful cabinets with rings hanging off the drawers.
Everything I had ever sat on or slept in had been old and shabby. There was a gorgeous rug
in front of a fireplace and even to steal that would make this adventure worthwhile. How
much more comfortable I would be lying on a luxurious rug than on the lumpy mattress
back at the Tverskaya Street apartment!
Paintings in gold frames hung on the walls. I didn’t really understand them. They seemed
to be splashes of paint with no subject matter at all. There had been a few framed
photographs in my house, a tapestry hanging in my parents’ bedroom, pictures cut out of
magazines, but nothing like this. Next to the sitting area there was a dining-room table – an
oval of wood, partly covered by a lace cloth, with four chairs – and beyond it a kitchen that
was so clean it had surely never been used. I ran my eye over the electric oven, the sink
with its gleaming taps. No need to run down to any wells if you lived here. There was a
fridge in one corner. I opened the door and found myself bathed in electric light, staring at
shelves stacked with ham, cheese, fruit, salad, pickled mushrooms and the little pancakes

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that we called blinis. I’m afraid I couldn’t help myself. I reached in and stuffed as much food
into my mouth as I could, not caring if it was salty or sweet.
And that was how I was, standing in the kitchen with food in my hands and in my mouth,
when there was the rattle of a key in the lock and the main door of the flat opened and the
lights came on.
Fagin had got it wrong after all.
A man stood staring at me. I saw his eyes turn instantly from surprise to understanding
and then to dark, seething fury. He was wearing a black fur coat, black gloves and the sort
of hat you might see on an American gangster. A white silk scarf hung around his shoulders.
He was not a huge man but he was solid and well built and he had a presence about him, a
sense of power. I could see it in his extraordinarily intense eyes, heavy-lidded with thick,
black eyebrows. His flesh had the colour and the vitality of a man lying dead in his coffin
and standing there, framed in the doorway, he had that same, heavy stillness. His face was
unlined, his mouth a narrow gash. I could make out the edges of a tattoo on the side of his
neck: red flames. It suggested that the whole of his body, underneath his shirt, was on fire.
Without knowing anything about him, I knew I was in terrible trouble. If I had met the
devil I could not have been more afraid.
“Who is it, Vlad?” There was a woman standing behind him. I glimpsed a mink collar and
blonde hair.
“There is someone in the flat,” he said. “A boy.”
His eyes briefly left me, darting across the room to the window. He didn’t need to ask any
questions. He knew how I had got in. He knew that I was alone.
“Do you want me to call the police?”
“No. There’s no need for that.”
His words were measured, uttered with a sort of dull certainty. And they told me the worst
thing possible. If he wasn’t calling the police it was because he had decided to deal with me
himself, and he wasn’t going to shake my hand and thank me for coming. He was going to
kill me. Perhaps there was a gun in his coat pocket. Perhaps he would tear me apart with
his bare hands. I had no doubt at all that he could do it.
I didn’t know how to react. My one desire was to get out of the flat, back into the street. I
wondered if Dima, Roman and Grigory had seen what had happened but I knew that even if
they had, there was nothing they could do. The front door would be locked. If they were
sensible, they would probably be halfway back to Tverskaya Street. I tried to collect my
thoughts. All I had to do was to get past this man and out into the corridor. The woman
wouldn’t try to stop me. I looked around me and did perhaps the most stupid thing I could
have done. There was a bread knife on the counter. I picked it up.
The man didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He glanced at the blade with outrage. How could I
dare to pick up his property and threaten him in his home? That was what he said without
actually saying anything. Holding the knife didn’t make me feel any stronger. In fact all the
strength drained out of me the moment I had it in my hand and the silver, jagged blade
filled me with horror.
“I don’t want any trouble,” I said and my voice didn’t sound like my own. “Just let me go
and nobody will be hurt.”
He had no intention of doing that. He moved towards me and I jabbed out with the knife

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without thinking, not meaning to stab him, not really knowing what I was doing. He
stopped. I saw the face of the girl behind him, frozen in shock. The man looked down. I
followed his eyes and saw that the point of the blade had gone through his coat, into his
chest. I was even more horrified. I stepped back, dropping the knife. It clattered to the
floor.
The man didn’t seem to have felt any pain. He brought up a hand and examined the gash
in his coat as if it mattered more to him than the flesh underneath. When he brought his
hand away, there was blood on the tips of his glove.
He gazed at me. I was unarmed now, trapped by those terrible eyes.
“What have you done?” he demanded.
“I…” I didn’t know what to say.
He took one step forward and punched me in the face. I had never been struck so hard. I
didn’t even know it was possible for one human to hurt another human so much. It was like
being hit by a rod of steel and I felt something break. I heard the girl cry out. I was already
falling but as I went down he hit me again with the other fist so that my head snapped back
and my body collapsed in two directions at once. I remember a bolt of white light that
seemed to be my own death. I was unconscious before I reached the floor.

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