Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War & Reconstruction by Allen Guelzo (self help books to read TXT) 📕

his native Russian, “fuck,” and slowed down immediately and pulled onto the road’s grassy verge. He reached into his jacket pocket for his NSA ID and hoped his tale of working late for national security would inspire enough empathy for the cop to dismiss him with a warning but no ticket.

He watched the police officer get out of the police cruiser. The cop was so small she had to be a woman, he thought, and a petite one at that. He dropped his car’s window as she approached and watched her in his wing mirror. She’s confident, Vukovic thought. The cop leant against the driver-side door and lowered her head to look at Vukovic through the open window. Pretty too, thought Vukovic, as the cop held him in her gaze. He noticed wisps of red hair that hadn’t been fully tucked away under her hat. The cop smiled and the Russian saw her small, straight, white teeth before he saw the suppressed pistol pointing through the open window. The assassin shot Vukovic in the chest. The impact forced him back and to his right. He hung in his seat belt, moaning, with his chin on his chest. The assassin placed the end of the suppressor close to his left temple and shot him in the head. She knew from the blood and viscera that splattered over the passenger seat and window that Vukovic was dead.

The assassin calmly opened the driver’s side door and raised the window. She placed the gun in Vukovic’s hand with his finger on the trigger, pointed the gun through the open driver’s door and pushed Vukovic’s trigger finger so the gun discharged for a third time. Vukovic’s hand would now be covered in gunshot residue and his finger prints would be clearly on the pistol’s grip and trigger. She knew any decent forensics team would determine the death wasn’t suicide, but it would create further confusion and possibly stall the investigation.

The assassin returned to the police cruiser and drove into the city. She parked the car on a dark street away from any traffic or CCTV cameras. She turned her police jacket inside out, so it became a red bomber jacket. She placed the police utility belt and hat in a garbage bag and exited the car and walked a couple of blocks. The assassin dumped the garbage bags in the grease bin outside of a fast-food shop and took off her latex gloves. Inside the store she ordered a Coke and fries and then signalled for a prearranged Uber. The Uber’s driver was an unsmiling Russian. An émigré coerced from time to time to assist the SVR when they required additional support around the metro DC area.

The assassin entered the car and the driver nodded to a backpack and small spinner bag placed on the car’s rear seats. The assassin opened the bag and took out a blouse and jacket and changed clothes. From a toilet bag she took out a hand mirror and bright red lipstick. The driver would later burn the assassin’s gloves, police shirt, and jacket.

The Uber patron who got out at Dulles airport wearing black combat-like jeans, white shirt, blue college sweatshirt and a thin, black North Face quilted jacket looked nothing like a DC police officer. She shouldered the rugged looking traveller’s backpack, put on a broad peaked baseball cap, wore large, tinted glasses, and tucked her hair up under the cap. If a passer-by were to notice anything about her it would be only, perhaps, the fiery red lipstick she wore. She approached the Delta check-in desk, showed the gate agent her Irish passport and collected her ticket in plenty of time for the eight forty-five p.m. flight to Dublin.

After going through security, she retrieved a pay-as-you-go phone from the backpack and texted Kamenev that the job was completed successfully. Kamenev replied, offered his congratulations on the successful conclusion of her business meeting and noted that he would be in contact about a business meeting in London. In a stall in an airport toilet, the assassin snapped the phone and, after, she distributed the broken bits across several of the airport’s rubbish bins. She kept her head down whenever she was aware of a camera or even the possibility of one.

***

 

London, Russian Embassy, Two p.m.

In his office, Kamenev finished the encrypted message updating Moscow Centre on the progress of the DC mission. He was pleased with the outcome and continued to be impressed with the competency of his team, especially the little Irish assassin. He thrilled with the knowledge that Moscow’s reach had penetrated deep into the heart of the enemy. He hated traitors and was pleased to play a part in hunting them down and bringing them the justice they deserved. Of course, he understood that it was an FBI traitor who had sold information to the SVR that resulted in the identification and tracking of Vukovic. An American traitor was useful, but a traitor, nevertheless. Kamenev secretly hoped that when the FBI traitor’s utility was done, that they would receive whatever justice the Americans could mete out. In his book, traitors working out of a sense of shared ideology were one thing, those turn-coats who operated for money were the lowest of the low, but he was happy there were such people.

Kamenev’s tummy rumbled. He looked up at his office clock, time for a late lunch. He grabbed his coat and headed out. He had grown fond of a little local pub’s lunch of beef and ale pie. He walked with a lighter step; a pub lunch, a nice pint, and the death of a traitor, it was a good day.

Chapter Nine

London, December 2nd, Six p.m.

Nia had booked a hotel room. She wasn’t quite ready to bring Tom into her home just yet, but she was close. She packed an overnight bag with care. She had planned an entertaining weekend. Tom drove