by Roddy Wix
After sunset Frank stowed his gear in a rental car and left Paris. The drive to Aquitaine required more than five hours and he wanted to arrive and be in place before the sun came up. He had a couple of thermoses, some sandwiches and bottles of water in a canvas bag on the seat next to him. The rest of his equipment was stored in the trunk.
As he drove through the darkness he thought of Katya's remark. “Last of the White Knights.” He smiled at the notion though he did not share her perception. He regarded himself as a soldier, nothing more and nothing less. He served his country when asked, never shrank from a mission and always gave a hundred percent.
Lately, though, he wondered if he had outlived his usefulness. The skills he’d been taught were as sharp as ever, perhaps better with experience. But now he found himself questioning the wisdom of his orders. Back when he first met Katya the Cold War remained a reality though the eastern block was in decline. The divisions were becoming well defined and so were the players. With no gray areas things somehow became quite simple and his mission equally clear.
By the mid 80’s the Russian leadership knew the fractures in the union were irreparable. KGB leaders postured and positioned themselves for survival and power once the inevitable collapse of the communist regime occurred. A man named Serge Malroff lived and worked in Paris then. The city had a large population of upper class Russians whose ancestors came to France to escape the October Revolution. Cosmopolitan and capable in several languages, he blended in nicely and covertly ran agents and dirty tricks for KGB while managing investments on behalf of its senior leaders. Ostensibly the cash went to fund “the cause”, but that was an old cover story. In truth, the funds benefited a select few individuals who paid Serge handsomely to keep making money and maintain his silence. He did what they expected of him and cultivated well placed patrons in the KGB hierarchy, some of whom still held power today. So, when Serge allowed his personal idiosyncrasies to hold sway they not only looked the other way but also protected him.
Under the guise of running operatives and collecting leverage, Serge ran prostitutes and drug traffic on a grand scale. Though highly profitable, money was secondary to a man whose psyche tended toward the sadistic. His enjoyed ensnaring young girls into his prostitution enterprise with physical violence, drugs and blackmail. Then, he used them as he pleased, frequently for his own pleasure, and discarded them. Most often they wound up dead. In Russia he told his superiors he needed these girls to ensnare the sexually perverted westerners and gain leverage over them. Unfortunately, Katya fell prey to Serge, but in a slightly different way. Descended from a once powerful and excessively wealthy Russian family, Malroff considered her a prize catch and stalked her for nearly a year before the opportunity to entrap her materialized.
Months after her nineteenth birthday Serge swept her into his nightmare world and held her with drugs, death threats on her few living relatives, and when necessary, physical violence. He told her he had her brother killed “as a warning” though Malroff may have had nothing to do with the murder. He claimed responsibility and, as they say, “perception is reality”. For other reasons Serge came to the attention of POTUS who, through his Legacy Counsel, ordered Malroff's elimination. The client considered it “killing two birds with one stone”. Remove a psycho and cut the bosses back in the Kremlin off from a reliable source of cash. Frank accepted the mission without reservation. Execution proved to be another story, however.
In the process of stalking his prey, Frank became sympathetic to Katya Yusupov and the inhuman circumstances in which she found herself. Held solely for Serge’s own sadistic pleasure, he kept her close to him constantly. Perhaps, in a way, the lonely soldier fell in love with her. Maybe that’s what the “White Knights” do. They fall in love with the damsel in distress, if only for a little while. Then they battle the dragon and set her free. Though he chose not to dwell on the disaster, the result was inescapable. He won her freedom, but in the process, Serge managed to get away. His empire fractured and left with a painful and permanent limp, Serge's fury went unabated though his benefactors shielded him behind a cloak of darkness. Frank felt the sting of failure and would not soon have a second chance. Meanwhile, administrations changed in America, the Legacy Counsel elected not to reveal itself to one president, and during its dormancy, Malroff resurfaced as a “legitimate” businessman. He set up a hedge fund and operated out of offices in Switzerland and Northern Italy. Frank received no further authorization to pursue Malroff who, as a result, prospered for decades and enriched America's enemies.
Seeing Katya earlier in the day was bittersweet. Their lives had taken different paths once she had been freed of Malroff. She married well to a British nobleman, but he died not many years after and her natural thirst for adventure brought her into contact with MI6. She helped facilitate a number of successful operations. Twice she had done so for Frank in his work for the Legacy Counsel though recently she had been out of circulation and living a good and quiet life in Bermuda. In truth Frank could have called others for this mission. As he drove alone in the darkness he wondered if he asked Katya for help because he wanted to see her again, or needed to validate his own desire to go after Serge one final time. Probably not. He never doubted his love for Joey and he required no further incentive to move to obliterate the ogre, Serge Malroff once and for all.
He passed by the city of Bordeaux and drove west, parallel to the river and deeper into the Province of Aquitaine. Using a red filtered penlight he checked his map. A few kilometers down the road he found a good place in which to conceal the car. Taking his pack from the trunk he set off on foot using a hand held GPS for directions.
By dawn he had positioned himself under a stout row of grape vines. From there he had one clear view of the small chateau through a thirty meter wide break in the tree line that followed the contour of the lake forming a natural moat around the old stone structure. The terrace and the leaded glass windows of the great hall were clearly visible. He accurately estimated the distance to be just slightly over eight hundred meters, a relatively easy shot for someone of his skill. He had cut pieces of grape vine as he moved along the precisely spaced rows of plants and wove the material into his Ghillie suit. By sunup he blended perfectly into the dense vines where he would lie in wait. He rested, thought of Joey, and prepared himself to do his job. A custom sniper rifle was at his side. He crafted the weapon on equipment kept in the warehouse he used to store and work on his cars. The weapon was well matched to targets at this distance and far easier to carry than a .50 caliber long range gun. 7mm Remington Supermagnum rounds were perfect for the job. Running his hand along its length he remembered with unsettling clarity each and every individual he'd shot with the gun. Time, place and target had all etched themselves into his memory. He regretted having to take a life, but he always understood why. As his, and now Joey’s motto went, ‘no apologies and no regrets’. Things became much easier when you had a clear sense of the benefit to be had for taking someone out of action. He couldn’t allow himself to dwell on the past now, but he sat in the chill of the night air knowing this mission would haunt him for a long time to come.
34.