“He led a double life. Did that make him a liar? He did not feel a liar. He was a man of two truths.”

From ‘The Sacred and Profane Love Machine,’ by Iris Murdoch.

Max is dying. Oh, not quickly; I don’t think he’d ever do anything so strategically suspect as to die without due thought and consideration, but, nonetheless, he is dying. His doctors, characteristically ignoring patient confidentiality and, I suspect, his own dire threats, have told me that he has lung cancer. That’s ironic, really, I suppose.

I haven’t seen him for three years, and I’m shocked by the change in him. His skin is paper thin, and his rugged, much-loved face is deeply lined, and pale, and yet he’s still Max. Still fighting, still as stubborn as ever. He looks up as I enter the room, and I wave my hand to prevent him getting up. It’s all I can do to hide my dismay at his appearance, but he sees through me anyway. He always did. He always could. Not many can.

“Max.” I stride over to his side, and kiss both his cheeks, and he smiles at me, that watchful, loving smile that I’ll miss so much that it makes me ache just thinking about it. “You’re looking well,” I tell him, sitting in the armchair by the fire, opposite his own. He shakes his head, chiding me.

“Dominik, you always were an excellent liar,” he scolds, pursing his lips as he used to when I was 10 years old, and had just got into some mischief or other.

“I learned from the best.” I incline my head in his direction and he laughs at me. “How’s Maddie?” I ask, because that’s always what I want to know first. He shrugs, and makes a little face.

“She’s well, Nicky. She’s fine. There’s no change, but she’s happy. That’s all we can ask for.”

We’re silent for a moment, and he gazes at me. Those sharp, dark eyes miss nothing. They roam over every single inch of me, and I know that he’s missed me as much as I have missed him. His expression is as clear and inscrutable as ever, but I am as skilled at reading the nuances as he is. There are no secrets we could ever keep from each other, not after all this time. He knows me too well, and I love him too much.

” Nicky, I’m sorry,” he says after he has given me a thorough inspection. He reaches forward, and places a thin, wrinkled hand on my arm. “Maybe I was wrong,” he murmurs.

“That bad, huh?” I smile, ruefully, and he gives a grunt of laughter, but it quickly fades.

“Yes,” he says, and then we both fall silent.

“How long?” I ask as the clock’s endless ticking finally grinds me down, as if it is ticking away the last moments of his all too precious life, which, in a way, it is.

“Several months yet, I suspect.” He gives me a reassuring smile, and reaches for a cigarette. His hands are not so sure as they once were, and he fumbles for his lighter. I find it for him, and flick it open, then light the cigarette.

“Still smoking?” I raise an eyebrow, and he gives another amused grunt.

“Dominik, I know those bastard quacks have already told you I have lung cancer. Doubtlessly, they’ve also told you that it’s inoperable. To quit now would be the surest case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted that I’ve ever heard of, so don’t be a silly boy and give me a hard time about it.”

“You know me better than that, Max.” I shrug. “We all make our own decisions, for good or ill. It swings both ways, though – whatever has happened to me, please don’t blame yourself. I’d do it all again.”

He takes a puff on his cigarette, and then gives a strained cough, before settling back in his chair with a searching look in my direction, and a raised eyebrow.

“Well, maybe not all of it,” I amend softly, staring into the fire.

“No. Not all.” He coughs again, almost apologetically. “We have a lot to talk about, Nicky,” he says, rearranging the blanket over his knees. “A lot of things to sort out before I snuff it. There are things I need to tell you, so that you can handle it all when I’m gone.” I’m not listening to a word he’s saying because I’m too busy watching him. I realise that he’s grown impossibly thin for such a large man. His wizened flesh sticks to his bones, and makes him look…old. That hurts; it makes it hit home, and I feel physically sick.

“I won’t go back, Max. Not when you’re dying,” I tell him, snapping out of my reverie. “I want to be here with you.”

“To do what?” He shrugs. “The Organisation needs you more than I do, Nicky. You’re the only one who has seen the full picture, and knows what’s going on.”

“Maybe not for much longer.”

I examine my fingers for a moment, and he waits. He has always waited for me, and he has never been disappointed. Sooner or later I come to him, and tell him everything he wants to know. I’m not blind to the power of his patience, and I’ve tried to emulate him. It’s a hard but useful weapon to acquire, and it didn’t come easily or naturally to such an impatient, headstrong soul as myself. There is silence between us for a long time, and then I get up, and wander over to the window. Outside, the frost is thick and white on the ground. The trees are bare, and the winter is like a blanket over the land around us.

“An order went out yesterday.” I glance back at him, where he waits. “The circle is closing, Max. I might not have any longer than you.”

“What will you do?” He takes a slow, leisurely puff on his cigarette, and blows out the smoke. It’s an action that’s familiar to me, but for entirely different reasons.

“Watch how it plays out.” I shrug. “Play that waiting game you taught me so well.”

“And what do you want to do?” He asks, those sharp, dark eyes never leaving my face.

“Come back here, and be with you when the end comes.” I turn back to the winter white world outside, because I don’t want to see the expression on his face right now.

“Nicky…” His voice never wavers. His will has always been so strong; he’s an example to us all. “I’d like that too.” And he would, but he won’t allow it all the same. “But this is too important. You are too important to us. You know that. I don’t matter. I’ll be gone soon, but what I’ve worked for all my life will remain, and I’m relying on you to bring about the resolution that we’ve all sacrificed so much to achieve.”

“And what about what I want? Doesn’t that matter, Max?” I turn back to him, and reach his side with three strides. “Damnit, you’re the closest thing I have to family in the whole world. You’re the only one who really knows me, Max. You’re the only one who understands.” I crouch down beside his chair, and place my hand on his thin, fragile arm.

“Yes. I do.” He touches my hair, gently with his yellowed, nicotine-stained fingers. “Nicky, I love you as if you were my own son. You know that. I won’t order you to go back. Just follow your conscience – that’s all I’ve ever asked of you.”

“Yes. That’s all.” I rock back on my haunches, and consider him thoughtfully. “Damn you, Max,” I curse softly, and he smiles.

“So, you’re going back?”

“Yes.” I get up, and return to the window. It’s growing dark outside, and snow has started to fall. “I hate him you know.” I twitch aside the curtains, and gaze at the whitening world. It’s beautiful – so beautiful that it reminds me exactly what we stand to lose if I screw up. Sometimes I hate the weight of this responsibility, weighing so heavily on my shoulders. I’ve lost my mother, my father, my best friend, my wife, and my own soul to this cause. Haven’t I given enough?

“Who?” His voice is rougher than it used to be, and it always had a gravelly quality; deep, and low.

“Alex Krycek.” I watch the world outside turn dark and white at one and the same time, and find some resonance in that.

“Ah.” He takes another puff on his cigarette.

“Sometimes I hate him so much that I want to kill him.” I let those words linger between us, holding my breath. If he were to give me the word then I’d do it. If I just had his permission then I’d kill Alex Krycek once and for all, and wipe him out of this beautiful world like the cancerous growth that he is. I know that Max won’t give me that permission though. That’s Max. He’s strong for me when I’m being weak, and stops me from doing what he knows I’ll inevitably regret.

“Something’s happened?” Max coaxes.

“Yes. Krycek is a liar, a thief, and a killer, but…what I never knew… it turns out that he’s a sadist too.” The snow outside performs a long, slow, dizzying dance that bewitches me for a moment, and almost makes me forget. Almost. “There’s a man…” I stiffen, and then turn back. “A good man. His name is Walter Skinner.”

“I’ve read the reports,” Max says, encouraging me to continue with an inclination of his grizzled old head.

“He is a good man,” I tell him, urgently, because it’s important to me that he understands. “I wasn’t sure at first, but I am now. He’s only ever tried to do his job. He’s given his life for his country once already, and Krycek killed him a second time, and then brought him back to life. He’s a sadist: a cat, toying with his prey. He holds a decent man’s life in his hand; with one snap of his fingers he can choose to cause Skinner pain, or release him from that pain, or kill him. It’s not good for any man to hold that power over another, Max. It sickens me.” My whole body tenses, and I spit those words out, the tension knotting every single muscle in my body.

“I know.” He nods, a small, frail shell of the man I once knew, and yet still Max behind those sharp, dark eyes, still my all-knowing Max. He’s the only person who understands. “Will Krycek kill Skinner?” He asks, never taking his eyes off me.

“I don’t think so. I think Walter Skinner is more useful to the Project alive, so I think that’s the way he’ll stay – for now at least. Poor bastard. He never did anything, you know? He’s spent the past 5 years running around, tying himself in knots, trying to do the right thing, and now Krycek has him – like this.” I close my gloved hand into a savage fist, like a tightening noose. Max’s eyes have never left my face. “It hasn’t been pretty. Skinner fights. Sometimes I wish he’d just give in, but he fights. He can’t stop fighting – it’s who, and what he is. He struggles, like a wild animal caught in a trap, thrashing around, but they have him; he just hasn’t figured that out yet – or maybe he has. Maybe that’s what makes his death throes so desperate, and so very sad. I hate what Krycek is doing to him.”

“Nicky, are you in love with Skinner?” Max asks. Did I mention that he knows me better than any person on this earth?

“Oh yes, Max,” I reply, gazing into the fire, “I’m very much afraid that I am.”

*****

Skinner was working late, his shoulders hunched. The words in the report leapt and danced in front of his tired eyes. It was almost midnight, and he should probably go home. He would go home if there was any point, but nothing waited for him there but a cold bed, and an emptiness he would have gone to the end of the earth to avoid right now – except for the fact there was no point. It accompanied him everywhere he went, like a cold, dead weight, nestled in the pit of his stomach. His eyes hurt, and he could no longer make any sense of the words on the page. Skinner reached up, snagged off his glasses, and then pinched his eyes, wearily.

“You should get some rest.”

It was a familiar voice. Skinner didn’t even open his eyes; he knew the hard tones of his bitter enemy when he heard them.

“Krycek.” He put his glasses back on, feeling naked and vulnerable facing this old foe without them. Krycek was standing in the corner of his office. God knows how long he’d been there – maybe as long as five minutes. Maybe he’d slipped in when Skinner had gone to get his 8th cup of coffee of the evening. The other man walked into the light, with that slinky, prowling grace that Skinner hated so much.

“You’re looking old, and tired, Skinner, and you’re no use to us like that.” Krycek smiled, a cold smile that didn’t reach those elusive green eyes.

“And being of use to you is my main objective in life, after all,” Skinner snarled, barely keeping a leash on his temper.

“It should be. I do hold your life in my hand, after all.” Krycek grinned, and reached into his pocket. Skinner stiffened, as the familiar, dark shape of the palm pilot came into view, clutched between two plastic fingers.

“If it means betraying Mulder again, I won’t do it,” Skinner snapped. “Last time there were ramifications I didn’t understand. I didn’t know that giving him that assignment, and making that tape would place him in danger.”

“Relax.” Krycek sat down, and slowly placed first one, and then the other foot on Skinner’s desk, crossing them nonchalantly. He stared at Skinner, a challenge in his eyes, daring the other man to object. Skinner’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing. Krycek grinned. “This has nothing to do with Mulder, or Scully. This is something you can do for us, using all the excellent resources at your disposal.”

“I won’t kill anyone,” Skinner said quickly.

“I’m not asking you to,” Krycek snapped back, equally quickly. “This is a nothing job, Skinner. And by that I mean nothing to spoil that oh so spotless conscience of yours.” He smirked, as the irony of those words clearly hit home. “All we want you to do is find someone.”

“You need my help with that?” Skinner raised a surprised eyebrow. “I would have thought that you and your associates were skilled enough in that field yourself.”

“We are, but this is different. There’s a man we’ve been looking for who is proving particularly elusive. We need to find him. It’s important.”

“And when you find him? Will you kill him?” Skinner asked. “I won’t help put an innocent man in the grave.”

“Who said he was innocent?” Krycek’s eyes were dark, and savage. “He isn’t. He’s a very dangerous man, and he’s been playing a very dangerous game. We need to find him, Skinner. The only trouble is, the last information we have on him is from when he was nine years old. Since then…” He shrugged, expansively, and waved his good arm in the air. “Nothing. So…we thought it was time to call in the resources of the good old FBI. What’s the point of having a pet Assistant Director if you can’t make him jump through hoops occasionally, after all?”

Skinner fought with every single degree of his self-control to stop himself jumping over the desk and throttling his old enemy where he sat.

“It’s a nice, easy job. You find him, and then you tell me where he is. That’s all. Nothing else. You don’t even have to get your hands dirty. It’s just a simple missing persons case. Surely even you haven’t been out of the field so long that you’ve forgotten how to investigate one of those?” Krycek’s raised eyebrow was a challenge. Skinner considered the request for a moment. It didn’t seem too bad. There was clearly no point in refusing the assignment, not until he knew more. If he found out where this person was then he might be able to warn the man before he gave the information to Krycek.

“All right. Who is he?” He asked.

Krycek smiled, and reached under his jacket for a file.

“His name is Crozier,” he said, throwing the file on the desk. Skinner looked into Krycek’s expressionless green eyes for a moment, and wondered what was going on behind that jade façade. “Dominik Crozier,” Krycek said, unblinking. “One thing though, Skinner. You investigate this yourself. Alone. Don’t tell anyone else, not even Mulder.”

Skinner shrugged, and nodded, then reached for the file, and opened it, and when he looked up again he was unsurprised to find that the assassin had left as silently as he had arrived.

“Dominik Crozier.” Skinner flicked through the file, and began to read.

*****

It’s late as I return to the most recent in the series of rundown lodgings that I’ve called home over the years. I’m cold, and weary, and I’m worried about Max. I wish he had let me stay. I pass a poster for a production of The Marriage of Figaro, and my stomach does its usual somersault. It was once my favourite opera, but I haven’t seen it a production of it for years. The last time I saw it was on my 9th birthday, the day my life ended, and Dominik Crozier died. He died again 14 years later; Walter Skinner isn’t the only man who knows what it is like to have died twice. I wonder if that is one of the reasons why I fell in love with him. Love. I could laugh at myself for using such a word. As if I am entitled to either give or receive love. I’m an idiot, and being an idiot could get me killed. I care less about myself than what my death would do to Max, and Maddie, and the whole damn Organisation. Without me, I don’t know what chance they stand. Hell, realistically, I’m not sure what chance we stand anyway. The Marriage of Figaro. I can hear the music echoing in my head, and it makes me retch. Once it made me dance, but for years I’ve felt sick whenever I’ve heard even the smallest snippet of that opera.

I remember the journey home. Our chauffeur was driving, and I was chattering excitedly. The evening had been a birthday treat for me, and my mother was laughing as I treated her to my rendition of Voi Che Sapete. She was very beautiful, but it pains me that I can barely remember her face now. Max was right to burn the photographs, I know that, but it hurts all the same that my own memory is so hazy. I loved her very much, and I know that she had blonde hair, and eyes that were a stunning shade of turquoise. I remember that she was petite, and slim, and that she had a tiny mole beside her mouth, that her teeth were straight, and white, but I don’t remember how it all fitted together. I remember the individual parts but not the ensemble whole, and that upsets me. I wish I hadn’t seen the poster for the opera, because it’s all in my head again, and now I must re-live it, the way I have countless times over the years.

“Damn but the boy has a fine voice, Marguerite,” my father said. “You were right to pester me for singing lessons. He must take after his Mama because I can’t sing a note.”

“We know that, Papa!” I laughed. “We’ve heard you singing in the bath!”

“Monster!” He tickled me until I sank to the floor of our enormous limousine, breathless with laughter.

“Hush, boys,” my mother chided. “Nicky, come and sit up here beside me and settle down. You’re distracting Leo.” Our driver glanced at me in the mirror, and winked, and I grinned at him. Leo and I were old friends. He once took me out on his motor-bike when mother and father were off at some political function or other. I loved every second of it – the feel of the wind in my hair, and the way the world whizzed by at top speed. I enjoyed the sense of danger, of doing something illicit. I always did love sailing too close to the wind. Leo had me back at the house and in bed before Papa got home. When Mama came up to kiss me goodnight, she took one look at me, and said, with a conspiratorial smile: “I think you should wash your face before your father comes up.” When I looked in the mirror, I saw a smudge of grease along my cheekbone, and washed it off quickly. “I think, also, that it might be best if you at least pretend to be asleep when Papa looks in on you,” she chuckled. “It is one o’ clock after all.” And then she pressed her lips to my forehead, and glided from the room. I don’t think Leo got into any trouble for that. I hope not.

I sat down beside my mother in the limousine, snuggling up to her. She was wearing a dress of long, cool, ice blue satin, and she smelled of eau de Mama. Maybe everybody has a smell they associate with their mothers, but I always remember her particular scent. I can still smell it if I close my eyes, and think back. Sometimes I think I smell it again, in the perfume of a woman wafting by, and I’m ashamed to admit that occasionally I have followed women, just to smell their scent. Mama had a fur stole around her beautiful white neck. She was beautiful; that isn’t just the false memory of a 9 year old boy in love with his mother. Mama was an actress before she married my father. She was well known in Vienna, where we lived. Then my father came along and swept her off her feet, and she gave up the stage for him. He was fifteen years older than her, not particularly tall, but an imposing man. His dark hair was streaked grey, the same colour as his eyes, and he was such a serious man. It was only with her, or me, that he smiled. He loved us. We were the centre of his universe, and I was happy in a way you take for granted when you are 9 years old, and your world is one of love and indulgence. Maybe I was a little spoiled, but I don’t think it made me obnoxious; it merely made me confident, and that’s no bad thing. We drove back to our house, still laughing and chattering, and just thinking about it makes me ache, because it was many years before I felt that happy again.

“I want to be an opera singer when I grow up,” I said enthusiastically. “Or maybe an actor, like Mama.”

“You’re certainly loud enough to make yourself heard onstage,” my father snorted, ruffling my hair.

“I’ll be a great actor. You’ll be proud of me,” I proclaimed, thrilled by the thought of starring in movies.

“Oh darling, we’ll be proud of you whatever you do, won’t we, Josef?” My father was staring out of the window, lost in thought, but he looked around, and laughed.

“What? Oh, yes. Maybe you’ll be a doctor,” Papa said. I’d almost forgotten that snippet of conversation. We’ll be proud of you whatever you do… I don’t think so, Mama. Somehow, I don’t think so.

Our car drew up at the house. Looking back, I always want it to end differently. I want to scream at us not to go in, and sometimes I do, but they can’t hear me. They’re still teasing each other, and 9 year old Nicky was still singing. He tumbled out of the car, eager to pirouette, and prance, to show off for his doting parents. I wonder if I was ever that precocious, but I know that I was. We wandered up to the house, and somehow I feel that there should be something to warn us; maybe a feeling, or a sign, to tell us to stop, not to go in, but there is nothing. It was a perfectly ordinary summer evening. Papa opened the door, while Leo put the car away in the garage, and I followed behind my father, with Mama bringing up the rear.

“Nicky, run upstairs and get ready for bed. I’ll be up to say goodnight in a few minutes,” Mama said, and while I longed for the evening to go on forever I was too well brought up to argue with her, so my little pout sufficed to register my protest, and she laughed at me, and kissed my forehead, then pushed me up the stairs. I went into my bedroom, and washed, and changed into my pajamas, then sat in my bed, waiting for them both to come up. They always came to say goodnight, and read me a bedtime story, but not that night. That night I waited…and waited…I began to wonder if they were planning another birthday surprise for me, and then I heard raised voices. It wasn’t my parents arguing; they never did for a start, and my father was a quietly spoken man. I never even heard him shout before that night, but one of those voices was definitely his.

“I don’t know, I tell you!” He cried, desperately, in a tone of voice that scared me. Even at the age of 9 I knew that something was very wrong. “Please, let her go! I don’t know. I don’t have them. You’re wro…” And then a loud snapping sound, followed by a scream of pain. I jumped out of bed, ran out into the corridor, and crouched in the darkness, staring through the banisters. I could see my father, remonstrating with someone in the hallway below, beneath the huge crystal chandelier, and I could smell tobacco. A thin, wafting plume of smoke was making its way up the stairs to where I was crouched. I remember thinking that Papa was probably angry that someone was smoking in his house. Mama hated smoking so father quit the day they got married, and wouldn’t allow anyone to smoke in the house.

“You have something that belongs to us,” the intruder was saying, in fluent German with a heavy American accent, and that’s when I caught sight of my mother. She was lying on the floor, a livid red bruise on the side of her jaw. She was whimpering. Father’s hands had been tied behind his back, and he looked pale, and small, and defeated. A little boy should never see his father looking like that. A boy’s father should always seem big, and strong, and capable of taking on the world alone, and winning. That was the way my father always seemed to me until that night.

“Leave her alone. She doesn’t know anything,” my father said desperately. “It’s me you want.”

“Then tell us what we want to know,” the smoking man requested, in a voice that sounded eminently reasonable. I willed my father to agree. One of the intruders had a gun held to my father’s head, and another had his aimed loosely at my mother’s back. I didn’t understand why my father was hesitating. Didn’t my mother’s life mean more to him than some political secret?

“I can’t.” My father sounded broken, and there are tears in his eyes.

“Then we’ll have to kill her,” the smoking man said, flicking his fingers.

My “NO!” rang out, but was lost in the sound of gunfire, and the noise of a woman screaming. My mother wasn’t dead though. My father had wrenched himself free of his captors, flung himself over her body, and taken the bullet for her. A steady stream of blood was flowing from his chest, and his stiff white shirt was glowing bright red under the lights of the chandelier. The smoking man kicked my father and he rolled over, and I knew immediately that he was dead. His eyes were open, and he was staring straight up at me, and, in death, I sensed that he was giving me a message. He was asking me to save my mother. Silently, finding courage that I didn’t know I had, I tiptoed back to my bedroom, and opened the window. I climbed out onto the garage roof, and to this day I’m still not sure how, but I somehow managed to open the skylight, and half climbed, half fell into the garage. Only a few minutes had passed since we entered the house, and Leo was still there, putting the car away. He looked at me, startled. He hadn’t even heard the gunshots, and screams, because he had the car radio on, and was polishing one of the wing mirrors.

“Leo…help…Papa…” And that’s all I managed to say. He guessed the rest by the look on my face, and the look on hisface surprised me. He didn’t look like Leo any more. He looked different.

“In the house?” He asked, and I nodded, the tears streaming down my face. “How many of them?” He didn’t seem surprised.

“I don’t know. More than two. They shot him…they shot…please, save Mama!” I was shaking all over, and on the verge of collapse.

“All right, Nicky. Listen to me very carefully.” He grabbed my shoulders, and sank his fingers into them. “I want you to go inside, into my apartment.” He nodded at the door leading from the garage to his sleeping quarters. “Find the phone, and call this number.” He wrote a number for me, and I stared at him in disbelief. My father was lying dead next door and he wanted me to make a phone call? “Ask for Max.” He spoke quickly, and urgently. “Nicky, just do it. It’s important. When it’s done, I want you to run. Run as far away from the house as possible, and hide somewhere. Max will find you.”

“What about Mama?” I asked him, and he nodded at me.

“It’s all right, Nicky. I’ll find your Mama. Now go.” He pushed me towards the door, and I went, but as I reached the door, I turned back…and that’s when I saw him change. Leo, my skinny, wiry little Leo, with his thin, dark hair, and crooked nose, grew in front of my eyes. He became six feet tall, taller maybe, and his hair changed to a light brown, and he was bulging with muscles. He turned, and saw me watching, and nodded impatiently to the door. “Do it, Nicky,” he hissed, and his voice was still Leo, but it changed even as he spoke, and became deeper, stronger, and if I was scared before I was petrified out of my wits now. I ran into the apartment as Leo – not Leo – ordered, and found the phone. I tried to dial the number but my hand was shaking so much that it took three attempts before I could manage it. A woman with a smooth, cultured, American accent answered the call immediately, on the second ring.

“Max…I must speak to Max,” I said urgently into the phone.

“Who is this?” she asked sharply.

“It’s Nicky…I mean…it’s Dominik, Dominik Crozier. Please, Leo told me to call. Please…” I was crying again, and she hesitated, and then I heard her talking to someone. A few seconds later, a man’s voice came on the line.

“This is Max,” he said cautiously.

“They’ve killed my father,” I sobbed incoherently down the phone.

“Where are you?” Max asked urgently, seeming to understand the situation a lot better than I did at that moment in time.

“In Leo’s apartment. He told me to run, and hide, and call you. He changed shape…” I was shaking and crying, and I knew that I wasn’t making any sense.

“Do as he says. I’ll be there, Dominik. Now go. RUN!” he ordered, and I dropped the phone, scared by the intensity of his voice.

I ran back out into the garage, and that’s when I heard the second gunshot. All I could think of was my Mama, lying on the floor with that huge red bruise on her face, and I couldn’t help myself. I disobeyed Leo, and Max. Instead of running into the garden, to safety, I jumped onto the roof of the car, clambered out through the skylight again, crawled to my bedroom window, and climbed back inside. There I resumed my previous place, watching through the banisters. There were more gunshots. I could see Leo walking towards the smoking man, and my mother was still alive! She was sitting on the floor, trembling, but she was still alive. Leo shouldn’t have been. The smoking man was firing his gun, and the man who was once Leo just kept on walking. A strange green goo was oozing from the places where he had been shot, and my eyes started to burn.

“Let her go.” Leo stopped in front of my mother, and stared down at the smoking man. I couldn’t see the face of my father’s murderer, just his hand, his fingers curled around a cigarette. “She doesn’t know anything, Spender,” Leo said.

“You shouldn’t be here.” The smoking man didn’t even sound worried.

“I make my own choices. Now leave,” Leo said, but at that moment there was a movement in the shadows, and I tried to call out but it was too late. For a moment I couldn’t see what had happened, but then Leo was falling forward, onto his knees, and his face was crumpling before my eyes. I didn’t hear a gunshot, and I didn’t understand what was happening. Leo seemed to be disintegrating, and the green ooze was seeping from his eyes, and mouth. He fell forward, and that’s when I saw that he had what looked like a knife sticking in the back of his neck. My mother gasped, and placed a hand over her mouth, and I started to cough, but nobody heard me in the general melee below. There was an acidic smell in the air that burnt my nostrils, and eyes, and mouth. It hurt.

“Kill her,” Spender said, and my mother screamed.

“Please…don’t…please…I beg you. Let me live…” She implored, holding onto his legs. He looked down on her, and that’s when I started moving. I ran down the stairs, screaming at the top of my voice. I’m not sure what I said; and my throat was hoarse, and sore, and I was out of my mind with fright. They hadn’t yet seen me; one of the men had moved his gun, and he placed it against my mother’s head, and fired. It’s that easy to kill. It takes only one second to snuff out a life. There’s no sense to it, and no justice. It’s just death. I learned that at 9 years old. I screamed at the top of my voice as I watched her lifeless body sink forward, her hair covering the blood that seeped out from underneath it in a steady stream, forming a pool, and staining her beautiful blue satin dress a bright, sickly red. Spender looked up, and saw me for the first time, and that’s also when I got my first glimpse of him, face to face. I was crouched in the darkness of the stairwell, but he was standing in the full light of the chandelier. He was a tall man, with hooded hazel eyes, and a supercilious sneer on his lips, which were curled around a cigarette. I’m not sure that he even knew who I was, and at that moment one of his lackeys ran in, distracting him.

“We have to go! They’re on their way!” He yelled, and the intruders started racing towards the door, leaving only Spender, who looked straight at me. I shrank back into the shadows as he raised his gun.

“I don’t like leaving witnesses,” he murmured. “It’s untidy.” He pulled the trigger, and I started moving at the same time, and he was moving too, running for the door. I felt something slice into my head, and the world turned red as I fell down the stairs, blood running down the side of my face. I came to rest on the bottom step, and my head hurt so much that I passed out.

I don’t know how long I lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness, but the next thing I remember is waking to find a big man, wearing a balaclava, bending over me. I came to with a start, and began screaming. The big man placed a hand over my mouth. He smelled of smoke, and that made me think of Spender – he was tall, like this dark clad stranger; maybe he’d come back for me. I was screaming and struggling as the man picked me up, effortlessly, and carried me outside.

“Hush, Dominik. It’s Max. I’m not going to hurt you. You came to me for help, remember?” he said urgently, as he bundled me into the back of a car.

“Max?” I barely remembered that phone call. It could have taken place a lifetime ago.

“Yes. Hush.” He pulled off his balaclava as the car took off at top speed and I saw immediately that he wasn’t the man who had murdered my parents. He was about 40, with a lined, craggy face, and deep-set, brown eyes. There was something about him that I recognised, even then; Max was one of the good guys. It was obvious in the warmth of his smile, the humour in his eyes, and the sheer charisma that oozed from every pore in his body. Yes, Max is an inveterate womaniser; he drinks too much, and he smokes like a chimney, but I’d trust him with my life, and he’s never once let me down in all the years since he carried a small, frightened, helpless, injured boy from the wreckage of his life, and helped him build a new one. “Dominik, you’re hurt. Hold still while I see how bad it is.” His large fingers probed my forehead, and came away blood red. I opened my mouth, wanting to scream, but caught the expression in his eyes.

“It’s all right, Dominik,” Max said softly. “You’re going to be all right. It’s just a flesh wound.”

“He shot me.” I put my fingers up to my forehead, and touched the wound.

“The shot must have ricocheted. If it had entered your head cleanly it would have killed you,” Max said. Then, as now, he always told me the truth. He never treated me like a child; maybe he recognised that when you’ve just seen your parents slaughtered in front of your eyes, there is no truth that’s too hard to bear, or maybe that’s just Max. He doesn’t like to hide the hard facts, but he’s always there to help you bear them.

“My mother…father…” I whispered, brokenly.

“Dominik, I’m very sorry.” And he was. His dark eyes were sad and sincere. “Your father was a good man, Dominik, never forget that.”

“Leo told me to hide…but I couldn’t. I heard her scream. I couldn’t leave my mother. I thought I could stop them. I ran down the stairs, but she was already…they had already…I was too slow. If I had said something sooner…I could have distracted them…I could have…”

“Dominik.” He stopped the torrent of guilty words with his finger, placing it gently over my lips. “You couldn’t have done anything. You’re just a boy. They were men, with guns. You did your best to protect your mother. You couldn’t have done anything more.”

“Mama.” I opened my mouth, and said the word in an almost voiceless whisper.

“You’ve been very brave, Dominik,” Max was saying but I was hardly listening. I was just remembering the way my father had stared at me with those dead eyes, telling me to save her, and how I’d failed him. “Dominik.” Max tapped my cheek lightly, to bring me back. “Listen to me,” he said in a firm, low voice, “You couldn’t have done anything more. You’re the bravest kid I’ve ever met. You could have run – you should have run, the way Leo and I ordered you to, but you didn’t. You went back to save your mother. That says a lot about you, and the kind of boy you are. Many a grown man would have thought twice about running back into the house under such circumstances.” I stared at him, unblinking, and he smiled at me. With those few words, he stopped what could have become a lifetime of self-blame before it even began. Oh, on some level I’ll always hate myself for being too small, too young, and too weak to save my parents, but Max took away at least some of the guilt, even if he could never take away the pain.

“Where are we going? What will happen to me?” I asked him in a small voice. I was suddenly aware that I was dressed in blood- stained pyjamas, speeding away from the only home I’d ever known, and that all the people who had ever loved me were dead, wiped out in less than ten minutes of chaos and carnage.

“I’m taking you somewhere safe,” Max said gently. “We’ll look after you, Dominik. I know we can’t replace your parents, but we will take good care of you. You’ll have everything you need. We look after our own.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, and I gazed at him, distrustfully.

“The man…that man who shot me…he was asking my father questions. He was looking for something. My father wouldn’t tell him. Why wouldn’t he tell him?” I gazed at Max, the tears filling in my eyes. “Even when they threatened my mother…why? Didn’t he love her?” Max took a deep breath, and swallowed hard, and I think he was close to tears as well.

“Of course he loved her, Dominik,” he said softly, “but there was so much more at stake. Your father was a brave man – and your mother was brave too. She knew all about the secrets your father was hiding. She knew the risks, but she never once asked him to be less than he was, or to give it all up.”

“I don’t understand,” I told him, shivering badly from shock.

“I know, and I will explain it all one day, but for now, you’re too tired, too sad, and too young. Come here, Dominik.”

He opened his arms, and I stared at him. I didn’t know this man. I’d never met him before, and yet I trusted him. A bond had been forged between us that would never be broken, from that day to this. I was cold, and tired, and I hurt. I crawled across the car seat towards him, trembling violently, and disappeared into the comforting oblivion of his arms.

“Nicky,” I whispered, resting my weary, aching head against his shoulder.

“What?” He frowned down at me, his big arms holding me tight, swallowing me up in their warmth.

“Papa only calls me Dominik when he’s cross with me. Otherwise I’m always Nicky.” I closed my eyes, and felt his arms tighten around me.

“Nicky then,” he said softly, gently stroking my hair. “Nicky.”

*****

Continued in Chapter 2