Russian Roulette

УБИЙЦА – THE ASSASSIN

I had not seen the dacha at Silver Forest for a very long time. I had thought I would never see it again.

It had been strange to find myself back at Kazansky Station in Moscow. I remembered stepping off the train in my Young Pioneers uniform. It seemed like a lifetime ago. There was no sign of Dima, Roman or Grigory, which was probably just as well. I have no idea what I would have said to them if I had seen them. On the one hand, I would have liked them to know that I was safe and well. But perhaps it was best that we did not renew our acquaintance. My world was very different now.

It seemed to me that there were now fewer homeless children than there had been in the square outside the station. Perhaps the new government was finally getting its act together and looking after them. It is possible, I suppose, that they were all in jail. The food stalls had gone too. I thought of the raspberry ice cream I had devoured. Had it really been me that day? Or had it been Yasha Gregorovich, a boy who had disappeared and who would never be spoken about again?

I travelled on the Metro to Shchukinskaya Station and from there I took a trolleybus to the park. After that, I walked. It was strange that I had never actually seen the dacha from outside. I had arrived in the boot of a car. I had left, in the darkness, in a helicopter. But I knew exactly where I was going. All the papers relating to the planning and construction of Sharkovsky’s home, along with the necessary licences and permits, had been lodged, as I suspected, with the Moscow Architecture and City Planning Committee. I had visited their offices in Triumfalnaya Square – curiously they were very close to Dima’s place off Tverskaya Street – very early in the morning. Breaking in had presented no problem. They were not expecting thieves.

Now I understood why Sharkovsky had chosen to live here. The landscape – flat and green with its pine forests, lakes and beaches – was very beautiful. I saw a few riders on horseback. It was hard to believe that I had been so close to the city during my three years at the dacha. But here the noise of the traffic was replaced by soft breezes and birdsong. There were no tall buildings breaking the skyline.

A narrow private road led to the dacha. I followed it for a while, then slipped behind the trees that grew on either side. It was unlikely that Sharkovsky had planted sensors underneath the concrete and there was no sign of any cameras, but I could not be sure. Eventually, the outer wall came into sight. I recognized the shape of it, the razor wire and the brickwork even from the outside.

It was not going to be difficult to break in. Sharkovsky prided himself on his security network but I had been trained by experts. His men went through the same procedures, day in and day out. They acted mechanically, without thinking. And how many times had it been drummed into me on Malagosto? Habit is a weakness. It is what gets you killed. Certain cars and delivery trucks always arrived at the dacha at a given time. I remembered noting them down in my former life, scribbling in the back of an exercise book. Madness! It was a gift to the enemy.

The laundry van arrived shortly after five o’clock, by which time it was already dark. I knew it would come. I had lost count of the number of times I had helped to empty it, carrying dirty sheets out and fresh linen in. As the driver approached the main gate, he saw a branch that seemed to have fallen from a tree, blocking the way. He stopped the van, got out and moved it. When he got back in again, he was unaware that he had an extra passenger. The back door hadn’t been locked. Why should it have been? It was only carrying sheets and towels.

The van reached the barrier and stopped. Again, I knew exactly what would happen. I had seen it often enough and it was imprinted in my mind. There were three guards inside the security hut. One of them was meant to be monitoring the TV cameras but he was old and lazy and was more likely to have his head buried in a newspaper. The second man would stay on the left-hand side of the van to check the driver’s ID, while the third searched underneath the vehicle, using a flat mirror on wheels. I timed the moment exactly, then slipped out of the back and hid on the left-hand side, right next to the security hut, lost in the shadows. Now the first guard opened the back and checked inside. He was too late. I had gone. I heard him rummaging around inside. Eventually, he emerged.

“All right,” he called out. “You can move on.”

It was very kind of him to let me know when it was safe. I dodged round, still shielded by the van, and climbed back inside. The driver started the van and we rolled forward, on our way to the house.

It was a simple matter to slip out again once we had stopped. I knew where we would be, next to the side door that all the servants and delivery people used. I was careful not to step on the grass. I remembered where the sensors were positioned. I was also careful to avoid the CCTV cameras as I edged forward. Even so, I was astonished to find that the door was not locked. Sharkovsky was a fool! I would have advised him to rethink all his security arrangements after a paid assassin had made it into the house – and certainly after Arkady Zelin and I had escaped with him. That made three people who knew his weaknesses. But then again, he had been in hospital for a very long time. His mind had been on other things.

I found myself inside, back in those familiar corridors. The laundry man had gone ahead and the housekeeper had gone with him. I passed the kitchen. Pavel was still there. The chef was bending over the stove, putting the finishing touches to the pie that he was planning to serve that evening. I knew I didn’t have to worry about him. He was slightly deaf and absorbed in his work. However, there was something I needed. I reached out and unhooked the key to Sharkovsky’s Lexus. Had I been in charge here, I would have suggested that all the keys should themselves be kept locked up somewhere more safe. But that was not my concern. It seemed only right that the car that had first brought me here would also provide my means of escape. It was bulletproof. I would be able to smash through the barrier and nobody would be able to stop me.

How easy it all was – and it had been in front of me all the time! But of course, I had been seeing things with very different eyes back then. I was a village boy. I had never heard of Scorpia. I knew nothing.

I continued forward, knowing that I would have to be more careful from this point on. Things must have changed inside the house. For a start, the two bodyguards – Josef and Karl – would have been replaced, one of them buried and the other fired. Sharkovsky might have a new, more efficient team around him. But the hall was silent. Everything was as I remembered it, right down to the flower display on the central table. I tiptoed across and slipped through the door that led down to the basement. This was where I would wait until dinner had been served, in the same room where I had been shown the body of the dead food taster.

I did not climb upstairs again until eleven o’clock, by which time I imagined everyone would be in bed. I had been able to make out some of the sounds coming from above and it was clear to me that there had been no formal dinner party that night. The lights were out. There was nobody in sight. I went straight into Sharkovsky’s study. I was concerned that the Dalmatian might be there but thought it would remember me and probably wouldn’t bark. In fact, there was no sign of it. Perhaps Sharkovsky had got rid of it. There was a fire burning low in the hearth and the glow guided me across the room as I approached the desk. I was looking for something and found it in the bottom drawer. Now all that remained was to climb upstairs to the bedroom at the end of the corridor where Sharkovsky slept.

But as it turned out, it was not necessary. To my surprise, the door opened and the lights in the room were turned on. It was Sharkovsky, on his own. He did not see me. I was hidden behind the desk but I watched as he closed the door and, with difficulty, manoeuvred himself into the room.

He was no longer walking. He was in a wheelchair, dressed in a silk dressing gown and pyjamas. Either he was now sleeping downstairs or he had built himself a lift. He was more gaunt than I remembered. His head was still shaved, his eyes dark and vengeful but now they seemed to sparkle with the memory of pain. His mouth was twisted downwards in a permanent grimace and his skin was grey, stretched over the bones of his face. Even the colours of his tattoo seemed to have faded. I could just make out the eagle’s wings on his chest beneath his pyjama top. Every movement was difficult for him. I guessed that he had indeed broken his neck when he had fallen. And although the bullets had not killed him, they had done catastrophic harm, leaving him a wreck.

The door was shut. We were alone. I had quickly taken out a pair of wire cutters and used them but now I stood up, revealing myself. I was holding the gun, the revolver that he had handed to me the first time I had come to this room. In my other hand, there was a box of bullets.

“Yassen Gregorovich!” he exclaimed. His voice was very weak as if something inside his throat had been severed. His face showed only shock. Even though I was holding a gun, he did not think himself to be in any danger. “I didn’t expect to see you again.” He sneered at me. “Have you come back for your old job?”

“No,” I said. “That’s not why I’m here.”

He wheeled himself forward, heading for his side of the desk. I moved away, making room for him. It was right that it should be this way… as it had been all those years before.

“What happened to Arkady Zelin?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“They were in it together, weren’t they? He and the mechanic.” I didn’t say anything so he went on. “I will find them eventually. I have people looking for them all over the world. They’ve been looking for you, too.” He was rasping and his voice was thick with hatred. He didn’t need to tell me what they would have done with me if they’d found me. “Did you help them?” he asked. “Were you part of the plot?”

“No.”

“But you left with them.”

“I persuaded them to take me.”

“So why have you come back?”

“We have unfinished business. We have to talk about Estrov.”

“Estrov?” The name took him by surprise.

“I used to live there.”

“But you said…” He thought back and somehow he remembered. “You said you came from Kirsk.”

“My parents, all my friends died. You were responsible.”

He smiled. It was a horrible, death’s-head smile with more malevolence in it than I would have thought possible. “Well, well, well,” he croaked. “I have to say, I’m surprised. And you came here for revenge? That’s not very civil of you, Yassen. I looked after you. I took you into my house. I fed you and gave you a job. Where’s your gratitude?”

He had been fiddling around as he spoke, reaching for something underneath the desk. But I had already found what he was looking for.

“I’ve disconnected the alarm button,” I told him. “If you’re calling for help, it won’t come.”

For the first time, he looked uncertain. “What do you want?” he hissed.

“Not revenge,” I said. “Completion. We have to finish the business that started here.”

I placed the gun on the desk in front of him and spilt out the bullets.

“When you brought me here, you made me play a game,” I said. “It was a horrible, vicious thing to do. I was fourteen years old! I cannot think of any other human being who would do that to a child. Well, now we are going to play it again – but this time according to my rules.”

Sharkovsky could only watch, fascinated, as I picked up the gun, flicked open the cylinder and placed a bullet inside. I paused, then followed it with a second bullet, a third, a fourth and a fifth. Only then did I shut it. I spun the cylinder.

Five bullets. One empty chamber.

The exact reverse of the odds that Sharkovsky had offered me.

He had worked it out for himself. “Russian roulette? You think I’m going to play?” he snarled. “I’m not going to commit suicide in front of you, Yassen Gregorovich. You can kill me if you want to, but otherwise you can go to hell.”

“That’s exactly where you kept me,” I said. I was holding the gun, remembering the feel of it. I could even remember its taste. “I blame you for everything that has happened to me, Vladimir Sharkovsky. If it wasn’t for you, I would still be in my village with my family and friends. But from the moment you came into my life, I was sent on a journey. I was given a destiny which I was unable to avoid.

“I do not want to be a killer. And this is my last chance… my last chance to avoid exactly that.” I felt something hot, trickling down the side of my face. A tear. I did not want to show weakness in front of him. I did not wipe it away. “Do you understand what I am saying to you? What you want, what Scorpia wants, what everyone wants… it is not what I want.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sharkovsky said. “I’m tired and I’ve had enough of this. I’m going to bed.”

“I didn’t come here to kill you,” I said. “I came here to die.”

I raised the gun. Five bullets. One empty chamber.

I pressed it against my head.

Sharkovsky stared at me.

I pulled the trigger.

The click was as loud as an explosion would have been. Against all the odds, I was still alive. And yet, I had expected it. I had been chosen. My future lay ahead of me and there was to be no escape.

“You’re mad!” Sharkovsky whispered.

“I am what you made me,” I said.

I swung the gun round and shot him between the eyes. The wheelchair was propelled backwards, crashing into the wall. Blood splattered onto the desk. His hands jerked uselessly, then went limp.

I heard footsteps in the hallway outside and a moment later the door crashed open. I had expected to see the new bodyguards but it was Ivan Sharkovsky who stood there, wearing a dinner jacket with a black tie hanging loose around his neck. He saw his father. Then he saw me.

“Yassen!” he exclaimed in the voice I knew so well.

I shot him three times. Once in the head, twice in the heart.

Then I left.