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Zizzi Restaurant
Salisbury, United Kingdom
Three weeks later

 

“It’s a beautiful day.”

Igor Kulick smiled at his daughter, Anna, visiting for the first time in two months, despite only living on the other side of the city. Yet notwithstanding her infrequent visits, he was still thankful. His wife had long passed, and Anna was all he now had.

And who’s to blame for that?

It was his own fault, his loneliness. He had made the choices he had, and because of it, had fled his homeland. Though was it his fault? What had happened in Red Square all those decades ago hadn’t been his fault, though his attempt to report what he knew had killed his career. He had never seen the American he had been partnered with again, though assumed he had succeeded in foiling Boykov’s assassination attempt, as both leaders had survived their staged stroll unscathed.

Though as his supervisors had insisted, there had been no assassination attempt. It was all in his head. He had never seen Boykov, and he had abandoned his post, leaving an American spy unescorted, a spy who had spent perhaps hours stealing state secrets.

Despite all their assurances to the contrary, something had happened, he was certain. While the official story had been that nothing untoward had occurred, the rumor mill was rife with reports of several shots being heard, and activity at one of the buildings lining Red Square.

And then there was Dimitri Golov.

He wasn’t seen again, and Kulick knew he had been assigned to one of the two buildings Boykov had disappeared between. His disappearance could mean only one of two things. That he had been killed, perhaps by Boykov, or he had been “disappeared” for failing in his duty, or for interfering in whatever Boykov had been up to.

If Boykov had indeed been there, which he had never doubted despite his contrarian statements expressed to the American, then he shouldn’t have been. The fact he was, told him more than one was involved, and that likely meant someone on the Russian side. And he had had over thirty years to think about that day.

How had he known about Boykov? Boykov was a senior agent, Kulick only a junior. How did they all know about him? How did they know why he had been terminated? And if he had been, why hadn’t he been executed or sent to Siberia? Things back then worked differently, though not as differently as many in the West liked to think. The apologists on the left and in the media when it came to the current Russian leadership were delusional if they thought Russia was a democracy. Yes, it had flirted with the notion for several years, but now the elections were merely for show so that the great leader could claim legitimacy on the world stage. If the man had his way, he’d name himself supreme leader, abolish elections, and rid himself of the Duma and the Federation Council.

Welcome to the new Russia, same as the old.

Just with an opponent more naïve than the previous.

“You’re somewhere else again.”

He flinched at his daughter’s voice, then smiled. “I’m sorry, Anna, what did you say?”

“I said it was a beautiful day.”

He sighed, staring out the window of the restaurant, their late lunch cleared away only moments before. “It is, isn’t it?”

“You’re thinking of home again, aren’t you?”

He chuckled. “You know me so well.”

“Why won’t you tell me what has you so troubled?”

He frowned. He had kept his secret, kept it for over thirty years. His career had been ruined, and when the Soviet Union collapsed shortly after, he had resigned and become a police officer, only later joining the FSB, the replacement to the KGB, hoping things had changed and he might help his new country prosper.

And for a while, things did improve, though not before descending into near chaos. Even under the new leader, things had improved, though once the iron grip was established, the old ways started to return.

And he had spoken out against them, tried to warn others of what was happening, tried to remind those who had been through it, and educate those who hadn’t, what they risked returning to should things go unchecked.

And he had been given a beating the likes of which he would never forget, his poorly set clavicle reminding him every time he put on a jacket.

He had used his contacts to get into Poland the very next day with his wife and daughter, and eventually made it to England, eventually gaining his British citizenship.

“Just thinking of your grandparents.”

“I wish I had met them.”

“So do I.”

And you still could, if you had only kept your mouth shut.

His parents were still alive, though they had no idea he still was. For their own safety, he had never contacted them in the almost fifteen years of self-imposed exile.

And it killed him inside a little more each day.

“They were wonderful people, but life is hard back home, and they died too young.” He patted her hand then placed several bills on the table to pay for their lunch. “Not like here. You’ll live to a ripe old age, I’m sure.”

She rose, grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair. “So will you, Father.”

He smiled. “Let’s hope so.”

They stepped out onto the street and he drew in a slow breath. “It is a beautiful day.”

“So, you did hear me.”

He smiled. “I always hear, Anna, though sometimes it takes a while for me to actually listen.”

She growled. “Men!”

He chuckled. “And speaking of men, how is Michael?”

Her eyes widened. “How do you know about him?”

“A father knows.”

“Uh huh.” She eyed him for a moment. “Sometimes I wonder if you weren’t a spy in your former life.”

He tensed for a moment, then held his silence a little bit longer.

“See, I think I’m on to something.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You hesitated.”

He shrugged. “Then I guess I wouldn’t have made a good spy, now, would I?”

She laughed. “My father the spy! What a notion!” She took his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. “I miss Mom on days like these.”

His eyes burned and his chest heaved a single time. His daughter noticed and patted his arm as he whispered, his voice cracking, “I miss her every day.”

It had been a car accident. A drunk driver. Hit and run. The murderer, for that’s what he or she was for getting behind the wheel of a two-ton killing machine, had never been caught. If he were a more suspicious soul, he might have thought it was a message from his former employers that he had been found, and that if he caused any more problems, his daughter might be next.

But accidents happened.

Drunks got behind the wheel.

And they too often got away with it.

Whoever had done it was lucky. If Kulick knew who it was, they never would have seen the inside of a courtroom. They’d have died a long, horribly painful death before given a chance at formal justice.

“Now you’ve got me crying.”

He smiled down at his daughter as she removed her gloves and wiped her tears away with the side of her finger. “I’m sorry.”

“Never apologize for missing Mom.”

He put an arm around her and squeezed. “She’s with me every time I see you. You look so much like her, it’s uncanny sometimes.”

Anna put her gloves in her pockets and sniffed. “I know, I know, I’ll try to see you more often.”

He laughed. “I thought I was being subtle.”

“Yeah, like a hammer.”

He opened the gate to his humble home, holding it open for a woman who mumbled a thanks as she left the neighbor’s to his left, his home just one of a long row of attached houses in the tenement. He closed the gate behind them, climbing the few steps to the front door. He unlocked it and pushed it aside, letting his daughter pass. She stepped inside and he followed, catching the toe of his shoe on the threshold, stumbling forward. She reached out for the door with one hand, for him with the other, and he cursed for the umpteenth time at the strip of wood that had caused him so many problems over the years. “I think it’s time I give up on the landlord fixing that, and just do it myself.”

Anna stepped forward and knelt, one hand on the knob, holding the solid door open, as she examined the guilty party. “Wouldn’t you just need to sand it down a few millimeters?”

He shrugged. “I was never a handyman, but I think so.”

She pointed. “Just remove the two screws at either end and I can take it home with me. Michael, as I have a feeling you already know, is a carpenter. He can fix it.” She closed the door then pulled her shoes off, following him into the sitting area.

“Or, you could bring him over here, and I can meet the young man.”

She blushed. “Fine, Father, I’ll bring him over.”

“Good, then that’s settled.” He set about making tea, a habit he had picked up upon arriving in his new country, and one he honestly enjoyed, when he gasped, his entire body spasming.

His daughter rose from her chair, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

He took a deep breath, trying to calm his hammering heart, then shook his head. “I don’t know. Just a wave of—” Every muscle in his body contracted at once, his fingers twisting unnaturally, his arms drawn up toward his face at the elbows before he collapsed.

“Oh my God!” His daughter rushed around the counter and dropped to her knees beside him as he continued to shake uncontrollably, jolts of pain randomly shocking different parts of his body as he gasped for air, his breaths becoming shorter and shallower as his hammering heart slowed. He stared up into his daughter’s terrified eyes, trying to speak, trying to say goodbye, yet nothing but a strained sigh escaped.

Anna leaped to her feet, grabbed the phone off the wall, and dialed 9-9-9. Suddenly she cried out, dropping to her knees then to the floor beside her father, the emergency operator’s voice a fading sound in the distance as Kulick slowly lost his battle to survive, destroyed inside at the knowledge his daughter would die with him, all because of a past she knew nothing about.

For he knew who had done this to them.

And that they would never pay.