The Soviet Comeback by Jamie Smith (best ereader for academics TXT) 📕

“Very sharp. I know your résumé says you served in Korea, but I’d be interested to hear from you the ins and outs of that experience. Please, take a drink of that lovely bourbon.”

Conlan looked sceptical.

“I give you my word I haven’t tampered with it, other than to give it a taste. Can you believe I had never before tasted bourbon?”

“You picked a good one for your first taste. It might ruin any others for you. Are you here to kill me?”

“That’s entirely up to you. But I certainly won’t warm to you if you don’t drink with me.”

“Either way, I guess I’ll need a drink then,” said Conlan and took a slug of the amber liquid and closed his eyes in pleasure. “I’ve had this bottle for years.”

“I bet you never imagined sharing it with someone from the slave race?” said Nikita, looking him in the eye.

“I think you have me misunderstood; I’m a friend of black people.”

“Is that right, Secretary? Your house of slaves doesn’t stack up in your favour on that front.”

“I pay every one of them!”

Nikita laughed. “It seems more like it’s them that pays, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“Why are you here?”

“All good things come to those who wait, Secretary. You didn’t get to where you are by being an impatient man.”

“Is your plan to irritate me to death?” Conlan said as he took another swig of whiskey.

Nikita noticed him attempt to ease himself over towards the other side of the bed while trying to appear to just shuffle uncomfortably about. He decided not to comment on it just yet, allowing the politician to continue drinking, but keeping a close eye on his movements. This was the Deep South; chances were there was a handgun in that bedside cabinet.

“I must say, Secretary, despite your military history, you seem oddly calm at my appearance in your room.”

“It doesn’t take a goddam genius to know that the Russkis would be sending someone after me. I never expected someone…”

“Someone like me, you mean?”

Conlan grunted and took another drink from the bottle.

Nikita sat back slightly, beginning to have grave doubts about his already flimsy plan. This was taking too long.

Conlan slumped slightly in bed, the alcohol clearly beginning to affect him. Looking at the bottle, Nikita could see that nearly half was gone. People drink quickly when they’re nervous, Nikita noticed, mentally taking a note to never drink on the job again. Who knew how dulled his senses had been from his swig of the whiskey earlier?

Conlan pushed himself up against the headboard again. Nikita again blamed it on the effect of the whiskey. It was to his peril.

Quick as a flash, Conlan whipped a gun out from beneath the pillow where his hand had slipped while pushing himself up, and pointed it at Nikita.

“No one in their right mind would want to remember the horrors of the Korean War, but they let us keep our handguns. Most of the fellas threw theirs away, or packed them away in boxes to hand down as heirlooms to their kids, because they wanted to forget about it. But here’s the thing about the Korean War. I loved it. I loved shooting commies, and I sleep with this beauty every night just hoping I’ll get another chance to put it to use. But shooting a black commie? And doing it in self-defence for breaking and entering into my own home, well sweet Jesus, that really is the Texan dream.”

“Wait—” started Nikita but got no further as the secretary fired the pistol.

A flash at the end of the muzzle was all he saw, and then white-hot pain coursed through his body.

***

KLYUCHEVKSAYA SOPKA VOLCANO, KAMCHATKA PENINSULA, EASTERN USSR, 1984

The game trail led up the side of a lush green hill in the shadow of the volcano, affectionately known as Klyuchevskoi by the people of this remote peninsula in the far-flung corner of the Soviet empire, closer to Tokyo than Moscow. For five days Nikita had trekked inland from his drop site near Ust-Kamchatsk, bordering the Kamchatka River and the Pacific Ocean, to his final location on the far side of Klyuchevskoi, the highest active volcano in Eurasia.

Never had he seen so many different landscapes in one journey, all unbelievable in their beauty, and never had he been so challenged, or exhausted. Initially he tried to keep to the salmon-rich Kamchatka River. He had learned quickly how to fish and had eaten well. But he had equally quickly come face to face with the reality of an area that had the highest density of brown bears in the world, none of whom took kindly to competing with him for the fish. He had only narrowly avoided a mauling, and been forced to turn inland and cross the undulating land towards his destination. Throughout the journey, the conical volcano had loomed in the distance, standing ominously above the surrounding land and he had carried with him the whole time a sense of foreboding.

As he climbed higher up the track, the grass began to thin and be replaced by snow, with the temperature suddenly dropping noticeably. As he reached the summit of the hill, he looked down over the snow-dusted valley. Across the way saw a clearing in the dense evergreen trees, with an isolated wooden hut which marked his destination. He sighed with relief, and not for the first time tried to suppress the hunger in his belly. Since leaving the river four days ago the unforgiving land had provided little in the way of nourishment. Yesterday he had managed to kill a hare with the rifle, but there had been little in the way of meat on the creature once skinned and roasted over a small fire. With no cooking utensils he had been forced to fashion a spit from an old branch