The eagerly anticipated prequel to the bestselling Alex Rider series. An international contract killer has been given his orders. His next target is a fourteen-year-old spy... The man's name is Yassen Gregorovich. He knows Alex well. The two of them share a secret from the past. As he considers his next mission, Yassen remembers the forces that turned him from an ordinary schoolboy into a hired assassin. What is it that makes someone choose to do evil What would it take to make them kill