Russian Roulette (Alex Rider)

The moment you start worrying about them, the moment you question what you are doing –
goodbye, Yassen! You’re dead!
I put my hand in my pocket and found the gun. One woman. Two women. It made no

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difference at all.
In fact, Kathryn Davis walked off on her own. She said something to her friend, then
turned and left. Just as I had expected, she went round the side of the museum and into
Central Park. I followed.
Almost at once we were on our own, cut off from the traffic on Fifth Avenue, the other
guests searching for their cars and taxis. The way ahead was clear. Light was spilling out
from a huge conservatory at the back of the museum, throwing dark green shadows
between the shrubs and trees. We crossed a smaller road – this one closed to traffic – that
ran through the park. Over to the left, a stone obelisk rose up in a clearing. It was called
Cleopatra’s Needle. I had stood in front of it that afternoon. A couple of joggers ran past,
two young men in tracksuits, their Nike trainers hitting the track in unison. I turned away,
making sure they didn’t see my face. The moon had come out, pale and listless. It didn’t add
much light to the scene. It was more like a distant witness.
Kathryn Davis had taken one of the paths that circled the softball fields with a large pond
on her left. She knew exactly where she was going, as if she had done this walk often. I was
about ten paces behind her, slowly catching up, trying to pretend that I had nothing to do
with her. We were already halfway across. I was beginning to hear the traffic noise on the
other side. And then, quite suddenly, she turned round and looked at me. I would not say
that she was scared but she was aggressive. She was using her body language to assert
herself, to tell me that she wasn’t afraid of me. There was an electric lamp nearby and it
reflected in her glasses.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Are you following me?”
The two of us were quite alone. The joggers had gone. There were no other walkers
anywhere near. What she had done was really quite stupid. If she had become aware of me,
which she clearly had, she would have done better to increase her pace, to reach the safety
of the streets. Instead, she had signed her death warrant. I could shoot her here and now.
We were less than ten paces apart.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
I was trying to take out the gun. But I couldn’t. It was just like when I had played Russian
roulette with Vladimir Sharkovsky. My hand wouldn’t obey me. I felt sick. I had planned
everything so carefully, every last detail. In the last four days, I had done nothing else. But
all the time, I had ignored my own feelings and it was only now, here, that I realized the
truth. I was not, after all, a killer. This woman was about the same age as my own mother.
She had two children of her own. If I shot her down, simply for money, what sort of
monster would that make me?
If you don’t kill her, Scorpia will kill you, a voice whispered in my ear.
Let them, I replied. It would be better to be dead than to become what they want.
“Who are you?” Kathryn Davis asked.
“I’m no one,” I said. I took my hands out of my coat pockets, showing that they were
empty. “I was just walking.”
She relaxed a little. “Well, maybe you should keep your distance.”
“Sure. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Yeah – OK.”
She stood there, watching me, waiting for me to go. I quickly walked past her, then turned

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off in another direction.
I didn’t look back. Inside, I felt glad. That was the simple truth. I was happy that she was
still alive. I was aware of a sense of huge relief, as if I had just fought a battle with myself
and won. I saw now that from the moment I had climbed into the helicopter with Rykov –
or Mr Grant – I had been sinking into some sort of mental quicksand. Mrs Rothman in
Venice. Sefton Nye, Hatsumi Saburo and Oliver d’Arc on Malagosto … they had all been
drawing me into it. They were like a disease. And I had come so close to being infected. I
had been about to kill somebody! If Kathryn Davis had not turned and spoken to me, I
might well have done what I had been told. I might have committed murder.
The sound of the gunshot was not loud but it was close and my first thought was that I had
been targeted. But even as I dropped to one knee, drawing out the Smith & Wesson, I knew
that the direction was wrong, that the bullet had not come close. At that moment I was
helpless. I had lost my focus, the vital self-knowledge – who I am, where I am, what is
around me – that Saburo had drummed into me a hundred times. Anyone could have picked
me off.
Kathryn Davis was dead. I saw it at once. She had been shot in the back of the head and
lay on a circle of dark grass, her arms and legs stretched out in the shape of a star. There
was someone walking towards her, wearing a coat and black gloves, a gun in his hand. I
recognized the neat beard, the unworried eyes. It was Marcus, the man who had met me at
the hotel.
He checked the body, nodded to himself. Then he saw me. He had his gun. I had mine. But
I saw instantly that there was no question of our firing at each other. He looked at me
almost sadly.
“Make sure you’re on that plane tomorrow,” he said.
I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to explain what had happened, how I felt, but he had
already turned his back on me and was walking away into the shadows. In the distance I
heard the wail of a police siren. It might have nothing to do with what had happened here.
Even if someone had heard the shot, they wouldn’t know where it had come from. But it still
warned me that it was time to go.
I walked out of the park and all the way to the Hudson River with the darkened mass of
New Jersey in front of me. I took out the gun and weighed it in my hand, feeling nothing
but loathing … for it and for myself. At the same time, I was aware of the first stirrings of
fear. I would pay for this.
I threw the gun into the river. Then I went back to the hotel.
The following day, I left for Venice.

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