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

lamp, casting long, sporadically flickering shadows across the room, which was even barer than the room he had come from. The walls were heavily peeling, with furry black mould stretching from one corner of the room above the blacked-out window down to the floor, and damp stains streaked across the ceiling.

Nikita’s dark eyes snapped back to the man aiming a gun at him. He was not much older than him, but his skin was sickly white and his hair was closely cropped. He was well built, and despite the raised gun he didn’t look tense. Nikita knew the man was not ready to use it and had been expecting him.

“You the black spy?” He spat the words between yellow, nicotine-stained teeth.

“No, I’m the white postman,” Nikita replied, his weapon aimed at the soldier. “At ease, soldier, I know you are expecting me.”

“I am no soldier; I am Agent Vagin, KGB.” Then seeing Nikita’s eyes scanning the uniform, he added. “There must always be someone to take the fall,” pulling at the soldier’s outfit he had donned.

A loud whimper from one of the figures turned the man’s attention.

“Shut up!” the agent shouted at the person, and he fired a warning shot into the wall above them. Plaster crumbled down, scattering over the sack-covered head of a figure Nikita could tell was a woman. The whimpering stopped, but the figures on bended knee began to shake uncontrollably. A wet, dark circle spreading out on the floor and around the crotch what looked to be a teenage boy betrayed his fear.

“Animals from Tajikistan,” Agent Vagin said, looking towards the cowering group with no hint of shame. “Filth contaminating mother—” his words were cut off as he turned back to Nikita to find the gun pointed at his face.

He paused and cocked his head to one side, smiling disdainfully. “Unfortunately for you, I am not the mission.”

“What is the mission? Who are they?”

“That is on a need-to-know basis. You do not need to know. You follow orders, and your order is to eliminate these enemies of the state.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then you too will be dealt with as an enemy of the state. Personally, I hope you do not do it; one less chernozhopiy poisoning our country is only a good thing.” He laughed, his challenge hanging in the murky air between them.

“Maybe I kill you and take my chances. These people have done nothing to me.”

The woman on the floor suddenly spoke. “Please, kill me but let my family go free.”

Suddenly there was the click of a safety catch, followed by the snap of a silenced bullet and the woman fell to the floor. Blood and debris oozed from a bullet hole on the wall.

“I told the bitch to shut up,” said Vagin. “See, I’ve done a quarter of your job for you.” He pointed with his gun and grinned at Nikita. “Now get on with the rest.”

The world stood still for Nikita; the bullet had been silenced but the sound of it somehow still echoed around his head. The oddly bent figure on the floor with a pool of sticky blood blossoming around it, the frantically shuddering figures either side of her, the grinning murderer before him, his hand dropped with the gun at his side. The world had gone into slow motion; he could see the dust in the air, almost feel it whirling around his face, and his sight seemed somehow more acute than ever in the dimly lit room.

“I knew it,” exclaimed Agent Vagin. “Chernozhopiys don’t have what it takes to become KGB…”

There was another dampened whoosh of a silenced bullet, but this time it was Nikita’s. Vagin fell, crying out in alarm, shock and pain as the bullet passed through his kneecap. His gun skittered across the floor as he thrust out with his hand to break his fall.

Nikita could smell the burning cordite from his gun, smell the blood he had spilled, but his arm remained raised.

“Are you crazy?” screamed Vagin. “You will be dead before you leave the building; we are comrades.”

“It is interesting to hear you say that we are now comrades. I thought I was a chernozhopiy? A black ass? Not good enough for the KGB?” Nikita said, seething with fury at the cold-blooded murder he had witnessed.

“You cannot kill me,” Vagin gasped.

“Maybe not. Or maybe no one will miss a scumbag foot soldier who kills women for sport,” said Nikita. “Everyone can die.”

“I told you, the uniform is to redirect the blame… I am KGB!” Vagin protested, his top lip wet with sweat and his face contorted in pain.

“The KGB would seek to put blame for an assassination on the very army that we fight alongside? Does that not sound a little strange to you, agent?”

“I do not question my orders.”

“And where do those orders come from, I wonder? You see, there is something I noticed when you murdered this young woman…” He walked over and pulled the sack from her head. It revealed a woman with bright red hair. Her face was unblemished. “Putting aside the fact that this woman’s hair shows that she is clearly an Udmurt, quite some way from the Tajikistan you claimed, about three thousand miles in fact, let us focus on something else. You see how the bullet has passed through the back of her head and out of the top, only two inches above? Really, she very nearly survived; this bullet literally grazed her brain just enough to kill her; it is a terrible shot.”

“I was never the best marksman.”

“That is very clear, agent. But there is something that every KGB agent knows; it is tattooed into our brains. When shooting to kill, you never shoot once. Denisov drilled that into us every day, every night. Empty your magazine, leave nothing to chance. This is even