Page 95 of Secret Weapon

29

NINE

Alex moved to the faucet to refill my glass, but I ignored the offer of water and found the bottle of horilka stashed inside the knitted motherfucking chicken I’d made when I was bored out of my mind one evening, watching TV with East Baldwin.He’d been fond of farming shows.

“Dasha, it’s one p.m.”Alex caught my hand before I could take a swallow.

“And it’s eleven p.m.in Moscow.”

“Alcohol won’t fix this.”

No, but it took the edge off the hurt.

“Nothing can fix this.”

“Share the load first, and if you still want a drink afterward, I won’t stop you.”

“You couldn’t stop me anyway.”

He cracked half a smile.“This is true.”

But he would judge me, and in that moment, I realised Alex’s opinion mattered.When had that happened?Before, I’d never cared what anyone else thought of me.Reluctantly, I put the bottle down and sipped the water instead.

“You were in Vermont?”Alex prompted.

“Da.And I had the overwatch while Rad and Pav headed for the cabin.Thecabin.That’s what they called it, but it was a mansion built out of logs.”

I’d been three hundred yards away, up on a hill with my favourite sniper rifle, a customised Lobaev prototype that cost half what I earned in a year working at the Craft Cabin.I rarely fired it nowadays—Darla’s budget didn’t run to 408 CheyTac.General Zacharov might have had few redeeming features, but he’d never skimped on the weapons budget.We’d had the best toys, and in those days, I’d gone through ammo like Darla went through embroidery floss, and she used way too much of that shit.

“The news showed the smoking remains.”

“I didn’t watch.Seeing it once was enough.”Plus I’d relived those final moments a hundred times over in my nightmares.“The meeting was a last-minute arrangement, and the targets got there before we did.Rad went inside to plant the device while Pav dealt with a nosy guard or two on the perimeter.Fifteen minutes, that’s all we needed.But then… Fuck, there were kids there.Rad radioed through.One of the targets had brought his family, and he wanted to abort.”

I’d never forget his urgent whisper:two little girls asleep in bed, pulling out.It had been the right call.Yes, completing the job would have been more difficult if we’d waited—kill one guy, and his buddies would ramp up their security—but we still had two more weeks per the general’s timetable.And we had to consider public perception.The average citizen didn’t much care for rich businessmen who shirked paying their taxes, and politicians weren’t too popular either.But bring kids into the equation, maybe a pretty wife too, and suddenly you had uproar.Zacharov had told us to send a message, but a car bomb or a bullet to the head would have worked just as well.

“Let me guess—Pavel didn’t want to back off.”

“Five seconds later, the place blew.Rad always said that karma would get him, but in the end, it was Pav.Pav told me Rad must have made a mistake, but there’s no way that happened.Pav built the device.He was amudak, but he knew electronics, and he was fond of including a backup trigger.Did he think I’d forget that?”

I paced the kitchen, the anger I’d felt that night rushing back as I recalled his smug face.Rad was careless, he told me.He’d let his standards slip and become complacent.And to be fair, Rad had made a grave error in thinking that Pav was anything but a callous psychopath, but I’d still shot that asshole.Funny how he didn’t look so pompous with half his brain missing.

“So you killed Pav?”Alex asked.

“I put a bullet in his head, and then I ran.”

Not before I’d put my unregistered gun into the hand of one of the dead guards, checked all sides of the building in case a miracle had happened and Rad had escaped the inferno, and dug the tracking chip out of my back, but I’d been out of there before the first sirens sounded in the distance.Our vehicle had been parked a kilometre away, a battered SUV we’d picked up for cash in Pennsylvania with licence plates we’d borrowed in New Hampshire.That night, a Friday, with the remnants of smoke still searing my lungs, I’d let myself into a building company’s compound and borrowed a cargo van—they wouldn’t miss it over the weekend, and by then, I planned to be halfway across the country.Seeing as I wore a reflective vest and stuffed my hair under a ball cap, nobody had given me a second glance.

I’d let my anger at Pav and the fear of getting caught fuel me, along with liberal amounts of caffeine, and I’d made it to Vegas before daybreak on Monday.Why Vegas, you ask?

Because that’s where Darla Lewis was buried.

More of Pavel’s handiwork, of course, although he’d roped in Rad and me to dispose of her remains.That poor, stupid woman.To Pav, anything with breasts had been disposable, a commodity to be used and then thrown away.Honestly, my only regret in shooting him was that I hadn’t been able to cut off his dick and ram it down his throat first.See howheliked it.

Darla—the real Darla—had believed his bullshit about being a property developer in town to meet investors, and she’d giggled constantly as she hung on to his every word.He’d brought her out for dinner with us, mainly so he could toy with her.Here’s my new pet, see how dumb she is.At three a.m., Rad and I had received the inevitable call—could we help to move the body?

I’d nearly told Pav to shove it, but Rad sighed and climbed out of bed because we were meant to be ateam.Many years ago, we’d tried reporting Pav’s proclivities to the general.He’d just shrugged, and then Vik had rolled his eyes and told us Zacharov was Pavel’s role model ineveryway.

Anyhow, we’d left Darla in a shallow grave in the Mojave Desert, and as I’d tucked her wallet beside her lifeless form, Pav had made a joke about the two of us being twins.Rad had told him to shut the fuck up, but I couldn’t deny there were similarities.Darla was thinner, bordering on scrawny, but our faces were the same shape.If I dyed my hair brown and pencilled in bushier eyebrows… Yes, I decided it would work.Her eyes had been on the grey side, but her driver’s licence said they were blue, so I avoided the hassle of wearing coloured contacts.And the best part?During that ill-fated dinner, she’d told us she had no family.Her mom had died three years previously, and she was all alone in the world.

---