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

someone so much, but he knew he couldn’t. Out of his pocket he pulled a tub of sleeping pills that he had swiped from the bathroom along the corridor.

“Now, how about you wash a few of these down with that lovely bourbon?”

Conlan looked up at him pleadingly. “Please, please, I’ll do whatever you say.” He moved his hand towards his pocket and Nikita took aim again, but Conlan pulled out his wallet. “I have money, much more than this and you can have it all.”

“You goddam politicians are all the same, spineless to the core,” snarled Nikita, mimicking the secretary’s southern drawl. “I’m afraid you’ve found yourself up against someone who can’t be bullied, bought or overwhelmed by power. Now, either you take the sleeping pills, or I make you. Your choice.”

“You planning to let me sleep it off?”

“You could say that.”

Conlan’s hands shook as he took two pills and put them in his mouth, and washed them down with the bourbon.

“I think you can manage rather more than two; it’s been a long day and you’ll want to make sure you sleep well, Secretary.”

Tears now formed in the old man’s eyes as he took two more pills and washed it down with the last of the alcohol.

“Any regrets?” asked Nikita.

“Not having a better aim,” he replied, without an ounce of humour as he turned his face to the barrel of the gun. “I’m guessing the sleeping pills weren’t to soften the blow of a bullet, so what’s the plan? Four pills won’t kill me.”

“True, but enough to find them in your system, enough that you won’t throw up everywhere.”

“So this is all what, part of the grand Soviet plan?”

“This isn’t the movies, Secretary; I’m not going to reveal the whole dastardly plan,” said Nikita, and then he pounced.

Using his good arm, he pushed Conlan down on the chest and grabbed a pillow with the other one and pulled it over the secretary’s face, before putting his whole weight on it. He could see droplets of blood running down his arm onto his leather clad hands and his face was scrunched tight in the agony of the pressure on his shoulder. He wanted to keep the blood from getting onto the pillow but it was unavoidable. Better the pillow than the bedspread.

Conlan’s yells were muffled and his legs kicked but in his drunken state he was uncoordinated and lacked the strength to overcome the young KGB agent. Nikita felt as if he were looking down on himself committing the murder and felt a chill in his core. Then he thought of the stable boy, of the house staff, of the condescending disdain with which Conlan had looked at him and put aside his reservations. He pushed down with renewed vigour.

Nikita knew the slightest reduction in downward pressure would allow a pocket of air to get in, buying Conlan another minute or two. Conlan was a military veteran and a rancher who had kept himself in good condition, and he didn’t give up without a fight.

It took almost four minutes for him to die.

Nikita leant back and internalised a yell of agony as he again felt the still-hot metal of the bullet grinding and grating against his shoulder joint. He withdrew the pillow and checked Conlan’s pulse. The United States secretary of defense and billionaire oil tycoon was dead, his eyes wide open in a look that was far from peaceful.

The pillow was soaked in blood, and some had gone onto the bedside table also, but mercifully none had gone onto the bed covers or Conlan himself. Nikita used the pillow to wipe the small pool of blood on the table and carried it to the en suite bathroom through a door just behind him.

Over the sink was a large wall mirror and he was shocked as he looked at himself. He looked pale and gaunt, his eyes hangdog and deadened. The face of a forty-year-old on the body of a twenty-one-year-old. He put the pillow in the sink and pulled his shirt down to reveal the wound in his shoulder. It was a small bullet hole leaking dark red blood. He ripped off a clean strip of the pillowcase, ran it under some water and held it to the wound. It hurt like hell but would do some sort of job temporarily. Ripping another strip of cloth, he wrapped it around his shoulder and under his arm to hold it in place. Enough to not drop blood through the house on his escape. There must be no sign he was ever here.

He pulled his t-shirt back over the wound, wiped down his gloves thoroughly, returned to the bedroom and inspected the dead politician.

His feet were lying over the side of the bed so he picked them up and swivelled him around to lie on the bed properly, before gently closing his eyelids. He checked him over quickly for any sign of a struggle and seeing none, placed the bottle of Very Old Fitzgerald next to one of his hands. Then he prized open the dead man’s mouth and pushed his tongue back as far as he could to cover the throat.

He stepped back and surveyed his work, before inspecting the rest of the room. He emptied a dribble of the whiskey onto the bedside table and again wiped it down before returning the bottle to Conlan’s side. He returned to grab the pillow, wiped down the sink and made his way to the door. He opened it a crack, holding the gun to the pillow and made his way down the darkened corridor and down the stairs.

He returned to the dining room and grabbed a bottle of whiskey, an Old Forester. Nikita didn’t have to be an expert to know this was not of an Old Fitzgerald vintage.

He went back through the kitchen and out