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

cold. This is what Brishnov meant by ‘dealing with it’. This wasn’t dealing with it; this was a massacre of innocent civilians. He was not so foolish as not to understand that the trio who had attacked him needed to be ‘disappeared’, but to take out another eleven innocent bystanders felt evil. This was not an assassination, it was cold blooded murder and he felt sick.

“How great the consequences of our choices can be,” he said to himself, wishing he had avoided the bar and found another way to treat his wounds. Clearly Brishnov had been sent to spy on him, so he would not have been allowed to die either way.

He pulled himself from bed and rolled into the wheelchair kept beside it. He wheeled himself over to the French windows and out onto the balcony, enjoying the reduced pain levels as the painkillers kicked in. He looked out over the Gulf of Mexico and breathed in the warm early evening air. This business was evil, but he would not let his heart blacken like Brishnov’s.

It was three weeks later that Nikita departed the Russian Embassy in Cuba, looking like a renewed man, albeit one with cold eyes and stiff movements. The helicopter waiting to transport him on the first leg of his roundabout journey to Langley was stirring up dust, leaves and debris from the dry asphalt and made the world look momentarily brown and chaotic. Nikita put on a pair of sunglasses, set his shoulders and walked into the swirling maelstrom and into the CIA.

PART 2

CHAPTER 16

ONE YEAR LATER

The highly polished black shoes barely made a sound on the plush carpet of the White House corridor. They belonged to the slow but steady legs of Secretary of State Harry Bernstein, who was moving deliberately towards a room at the end of the hall. Dressed in a black suit with a royal blue tie, he was well groomed, with his now firmly white hair combed back carefully in an effort to cover as much of his thinning scalp as possible.

As he reached the door, he nodded to the two Secret Service agents standing either side with hands held behind their back, and knocked firmly.

“Come on in,” said a deep voice from the other side. Bernstein turned the ornate brass handle and opened the door onto the Oval Office.

Behind a desk by the window sat the president of the United States, Ernest Callahan. He was writing intently in a notebook, but on glancing up, he put the pen down and rubbed his tired and puffy eyes.

“Ah, Harry, I got your message,” he said in a voice that oozed authority, as he stood up and shook the secretary of state’s hand. He signalled to the two sofas on the other side of the room, as Secretary Bernstein replied, “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mr President.”

Sitting, the president groaned as he eased himself down. “What have you got for me?”

Shuffling slightly, Bernstein straightened his suit jacket. “Ah, sir, things are getting a little out of hand out there.”

“Jesus, Harry, this is not what I want to hear. My approval rating is at the lowest it’s ever been. I need good news. What is it now?”

“So this is highly classified, sir, but there has been another murder.”

“Goddam it, I promised to be the tough-on-crime president. I appointed you because you were going to stop spiralling murder figures.”

“With respect, sir, this is not a regular murder. We believe it is one in a chain of political assassinations.”

“Then why the hell are you reporting this to me? Where’s Bob McMahon?”

“Mr President, I’m deeply saddened to be the one to tell you that your assistant for national security affairs is the one who has been assassinated.”

“What?” said the president, standing and putting his hand to his face. “Dear God, who killed him? Tell me you got the son of a bitch. McMahon is… was a good man.”

“I wish I could, but the one we believe is responsible is proving to be incredibly elusive.”

“Who is he, Harry? Stop talking in circles and talk to me plainly.”

“The code name he has been given is the Black Russian.”

The president snorted. “There are no blacks in Russia, Harry; they lynch them more than they did in the Mississippi Delta.” He paused. “Well… maybe not quite that much.”

“Quite so, Mr President, they hate them even more than they hate the homos. But the code name is not a reference to his skin colour, more to the shadows in which he operates. We have absolutely no proof that he actually exists, or even that he is Russian.”

“Then why come and tell me about this fantasy? I swear to God I’m going to throttle you in a minute, Harry!”

“I apologise, sir, but I’m secretary of state and not accustomed to dealing in these clandestine matters. The director of the CIA is currently abroad for reasons I’m sure you know more about than I, and with the deputy director of the FBI position not yet filled, the FBI director is unavailable. He briefed me fully ahead of this meeting. There has been a string of deaths over the past six months, and all are of people connected to our intelligence- gathering agencies or holding some form of government office.”

“How has this not been brought to my attention until now?”

“Every death has been of relatively low-ranking officials and has been treated as unsuspicious on its own merits. However, the analysts at the FBI have begun to connect dots, and believe that all the deaths were in fact murders. But it goes deeper; they believe they can trace it all the way back to the signing of the INF Treaty, and…”

“Go on,” urged the president, pacing back and forth.

“And right back to the death of