The Good Kill

by Kurt Brindley

  I’m guessing right about now you’re as shocked as I was the first time I saw her.” He was looking at the photograph with that same loving look in his eye as he had in the picture. “Hard to tell she’s not your mother, isn’t it?” With reluctance he set the phone back on the coffee table and then freshened up his drink before sitting back into the couch looking drained, defeated. After taking a gulp of the scotch and then blowing out a heavy sigh, he said, “So, let’s see… after I had been with the Right Way for, oh, I don’t know, about three or four months, I learned during one of our board meetings that an organization called the United Front of Russia had reached out to us. I was told that they were an organization based out of Moscow, and that they had a broad mission to educate the Russian population on the need for maintaining the country’s historically conservative values, both socially and politically. They also worked to find and help elect young and up-and-coming conservative politicians into office. Apparently they had recently began reaching out to like-minded conservative political and activist organizations throughout the U.S., organizations like the Right Way, hoping to work together with them to help better the ties between our two governments.

  “It sounded like a noble goal to me at the time. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn until later that the United Front was an actual front for the FSB, Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, and its ultimate goal was to use the Front to first build the relationships and coalitions with conservative and nationalistic politicians and political organizations across the globe, but mostly those located in the U.S. and Europe. And then, after a relationship had been established, they would look for ways to leverage it, either through shady financial contributions or through other less tasteful means, so that the politicians and members of these organizations would be more receptive to supporting Putin and his regime, if you know what I mean.”

  He started to bring the glass up to his mouth to drink from it, but he stopped its trajectory halfway and said with a sardonic chuckle, “For some reason I was one of the lucky ones chosen to be leveraged through their less tasteful means.” He looked down into the glass and gave its contents a sour look. He started to lean forward as if to set the glass on the coffee table, but halfway through this motion he had second thoughts and leaned right back into the couch and took a quick, embarrassed sip of the whiskey.

  “Anyway, the United Front offered to fly a small delegation from the Right Way over to Russia to meet with them to see if a collaborative arrangement could be made. I was chosen to be part of that delegation. By this time I had stepped away from most of the day to day operations of my own company and was focusing exclusively on my work for the Right Way and getting Trump elected, so it was no great inconvenience to me. In fact, I had never been to Russia before and I was quite excited about the opportunity.” He paused to take another sip of the whiskey while he sifted through memories.

  “Ulyana Dubasov, well, that’s the name she gave me anyway, was with the party that met our delegation at the airport. I swear, son, when I saw her standing there at the gate I truly felt as if God, after forcing me to watch the only woman I had ever loved, ever could love, as she suffered in constant pain as that most evil of a fucking disease slowly ate the life right out of her until she was nothing more than a brittle husk of the woman she had once been; and then afterwards forcing me to live with the sorrow and regret of those memories of her death for the next thirty years, it was if He felt pity for me at last and finally decided to answer my three decades worth of prayers…”

  The flash of pain seared through the head first; then came the flashes of images, chunks of memories more painful than any physical injury could ever be.

  Astaghfirullah!

  RJ paused the video. “Killian, are you all right?”

  Killian didn’t hear her. He was with his mother, by her side in the hospital, holding her hand, a hand of bones, trying not to cry as he listened to her moan softly. Even with all the pain killers they had her on, still she suffered, her mouth hanging open in a steady, heartbreaking moan, her dark, sunken eyes also open but unseeing, not seeing her son, a son who loved her with every inch of his eleven-year-old heart, standing there next to her, unmoving, unwilling to let go her cold, unfeeling hand.

  RJ set the computer on the couch next to her and then put an arm around Killian and gently pulled his head down to rest on her shoulder. With her free hand she stroked his cheek. She too became stricken with memories, but joyful ones. She spoke softly, soothingly to him. “Your mother was the most beautiful soul I have ever known. I still often think about her, you know, about how she would comfort me, not even knowing how badly a young girl like me had needed being comforted then, just by being herself, a person who loved life, who loved living. You know, the short time I was privileged enough to spend with her, learning from her, as she taught me how to, not just ride a horse, but how to know a horse, how to listen to them, were some of the happiest times of my life.” She placed her hand on his chest, feeling his heart beating within it. “I wonder if you realize how much of your mother, her love, her spirit, you have within you, Killian.”

  Killian didn’t say anything. He just let his head rest on RJ’s shoulder with his eyes squeezed shut, trying to squeeze away the pain. When he was able to open his eyes again, he sat up. “Can you rewind the video back to where my father is holding up the photo of that woman, please?”

  After RJ did as he had asked, Killian studied the photograph for a long while. This time he noticed how his father looked like a wholly different man than the one he was now seeing in the video. He looked like the man he had always known him to be – strong, vibrant, full of confidence, as if he had completely mastered all levels of that most precarious and contrary of games called life. He next considered the woman, Ulyana Dubasov, taking in every detail of her. It was undeniable that she looked just like his mother had before the cancer – she had her same beautiful features that glowed such that she could light up a room just by entering it. But she seemed to also have that same similar glow from within that was just as undeniable, one that emanated a strength, a vibrancy, a confidence of her own, just as had his mother. He closed his eyes. How could it be possible that this woman could look so much like her? he asked himself. And how did the FSB find her, convince her to play her role in the deception?

  He handed the computer back to RJ. “You know, it no longer matters to me that my father should have known better,” he said, “that he should have known that someone in his position would most certainly be a target to the Russians, because after seeing this woman I can’t blame him anymore for what he did. I mean, when I look at her she looks so much like my mother it literally hurts my heart, so I can only imagine how my father must have felt, someone who loved her so much, worshipped her even and continued to hold on to her in his heart until the day of his death; someone who, as far as I know, never once cared to look at another woman except in a platonic way. So how could I or anyone possibly blame him for doing what he did, doing what he had to do, to once again be with the only woman he had ever loved… or at least to be with the woman who came as close as anyone could to being her?”

  RJ’s heart ached from all she imagined that Luc had gone through in order to try to find love again. She knew she was being selfish right now, but she wanted Killian to hold her, to kiss her, to comfort her. Mostly she wanted to tell him that, like his father, she herself had only ever had one love. But she couldn’t do that to him. Not now. Not while he was still suffering from his injuries and while he still had his father’s death and the Russians to worry about. So instead of confessing her love for him at last, she settled for placing his heavy arm around her shoulders and snuggling herself wordlessly into his side.

  It was like this, Killian’s arm around RJ’s shoulders and she burrowed comfortably into him, that they continued watching the video. Within each other’s arms, they watched as a heartbroken and defeated Luc went on to describe his whirlwind, magical turned tragical relationship with Uly
ana: describing how it was love at first sight for both of them; how, from the moment they met, they had spent all their time together and were never once apart; how, despite the fact the election was only a month away, he no longer cared whether Trump won or not, he only cared about Ulyana and had decided to extend his stay so he could continue to be with her; how, just two short weeks after they had met, he had asked her to marry him, and how, without a moment’s hesitation, she had said yes; how, as they were on their way to be married at the U.S. Embassy, they had surrounded her car and arrested them both, him for spying for the United States, her for being his accomplice; how, while being held in prison, they had made him watch videos of her handcuffed to a table in an ugly, dank-looking interrogation room, she being so frightened as they questioned her about her relationship with him; how they then began beating her, torturing her for not providing them the answers they had wanted to hear; how they had told him, if he could perhaps provide them with certain information, they would release him, allow him to return to the States; and how, if what he provided was worthy of it, they might not convict her for being a traitor, how maybe they might even release her to him, let her defect to America with him if he cooperated; how he had agreed to provide them with whatever it was they wanted as long as they would stop hurting her; how they had then released him from prison and allowed him to return to the U.S., to begin spying for them, to begin betraying his country for them, with only the hope that for this betrayal he would someday be reunited with the woman he loved.

  Luc drank what little whiskey remained in the glass and was left with a twisted, revolted look on his face, as if what he had just swallowed was spoiled. He set the empty tumbler on the coffee table with disgust. “I know what you’re thinking, Killian. You’re thinking that I should have known from the beginning that it was all a setup, that the Russians were playing me from the start. And if I were being honest with myself, I probably did know deep down. But I guess I just never allowed myself to acknowledge it. I know it must be a little awkward to hear your father talking to you like this, but, damn it, son, I swear to God it was as if I had been cast under a spell the moment I saw Ulyana standing there in the airport; a spell that left me madly in love for her, while at the same time left me blind to all the dark consequences that came with this love. All I cared about was her and being with her. I was completely overcome by that strange… that inexplicable yet blissful feeling of once again being with the woman I loved, a feeling that had been alien to me for so long. The world could have been exploding around me and as long as I was with her, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.”

  He reached out suddenly for the bottle of scotch and made as if he were going to refill his whisky glass. But he stopped himself, set the bottle back down, and then leaned back with the glass remaining empty, holding it close to his chest as if just the idea of a drink were enough right now to sooth his needs, as a smoker struggling to quit might hold an unlit cigarette between the fingers. “You would think that once I returned to the States, put some distance between myself and Ulyana, that the spell she had me under would have broken. It didn’t. Not one bit. In fact, it probably became stronger. All I could think about was her being trapped in that cold, decrepit prison, having to suffer through God only knows what horrors and abuse only because of her love for me.”

  He paused to clear his throat. His voice was becoming raspy and weak from all the talking he was doing so it took him a moment before he could continue. “The first thing I did upon my return was to resign my board seat with the Right Way. By this time Trump had already been elected so the work I had been doing there was no longer critical. Even if it had been I still would have resigned so I could focus on what I needed to do… what I needed to do to keep Ulyana safe. While all my colleagues and associates were celebrating Trump’s win and all the fresh possibilities it offered, I couldn’t have cared less about—”

  His voice gave out and he began coughing a dry, grainy cough. At this point, he leaned forward to pause the recording. The video skipped and then instantly showed him leaning back into the couch. He looked better now, his hair was slicked wet and combed, and his face shined as if it had just been washed. Instead of a tumbler full of whiskey, he now held a large glass of ice water. He took a sip of the water and then quickly cleared his throat. When he began speaking again his voice sounded stronger, less hoarse than it had before.

  “So, let’s see… I resigned from the Right Way and went immediately back to work at my company. Even though I never once did any actual classified contracting work myself, I, as president of the company, was still given a top-secret clearance, which meant, because of the breadth of classified work we did, I had access to just about any classified network the DOD and intelligence community had to offer.”

  “Unbelievable,” Killian muttered angrily under his breath.

  “Before I left Russia my handler, some big meaty bald-headed guy who I only knew as Petrov and who spoke English better than I do, provided me with a laptop, a one-terabyte flash drive, and a cell phone, and he explained to me how he wanted me to pass information to him once I got back to the States. You’d think it would have been some elaborate, cloak-and-dagger system, but it wasn’t anything more than him, or whoever, sending me a text message on the phone I was given. Every other Saturday morning I’d get a short text containing nothing more than IP addresses, account login data, stuff like that. The information would be different each time, and since the texts were received through the Signal messaging app that was preinstalled on the phone, they would also be encrypted and perishable within a matter of minutes.

  “I would then use the first address to set up a VPN on the laptop, tunneling through God only knows what countries, and, with the second one, I would use the Tor browser, the only browser loaded onto the computer, to navigate to the latest website they had set up for me, which I think were always one of those onion sites criminals like to use on the dark web. The sites they set up for me were always no-nonsense, generic – an all-white landing page with no words, no markings, just a basic input form for the username and password, that’s it. On the other side of the login, the site wasn’t much different. Same blank white page, except instead of a login form, there would be a form for uploading data. Once I logged in using the latest username and password, it was then just a matter of uploading to the site whatever files I had to pass on to them. If I wanted to communicate with them, I was instructed to never try to send them a text message. It would never be answered. And if I ever had any questions or concerns, I would type them up in an encrypted document and upload it to the site with everything else.

  “The laptop they gave me was running a version of Linux for its operating system, so instead of Microsoft’s Office suite, it had an opensource productivity software preloaded on it called LibreSuite that really is comparable…” His voice trailed off.

  “Jesus, dad, get on with it.” Killian grumbled impatiently. “Nobody cares what word processing software you were using.”

  Luc shook his head and chuckled. “Sorry for geeking out there like that,” he said, as if hearing Killian’s grumble. “I guess what apps and software I was using is neither here nor there.” He took a sip of water and then set the sweating glass on the coffee table.

  “Anyway, I was always asking them for proof that they were keeping up their end of the agreement, that Ulyana was all right. Occasionally, they would text pictures to me. It would always be a dark, grainy shot of her standing against the back wall of a prison cell wearing an ill-fitting dungaree prison uniform and staring straight at the camera. In them she would always look pale, exhausted, too thin, malnourished even. And her hair, thick blonde hair that hung down to the middle of her back when I was with her, would be cut short and uneven, as if the person who cut it were blind. She always looked like hell, but at least there were never any bruises or other signs of torture that I could see.” He leaned forward for the glass of water and took from it a slow, contemplative sip.

&n
bsp; “The poor thing,” RJ said, pausing the video. “God, can you imagine being thrown in jail just for being in love.”

  Killian grunted. “Nah, I don’t buy it. None of it. Not the woman, not the prison, not the pictures… it’s obviously all staged, nothing but a big setup.”

  RJ unfolded her stiff legs out from under her. “Well, it’s not that obvious to me. And obviously it didn’t appear that way to your father at the time either. If it was a setup, he was too much in love to see it.”

  “That’s what I find the most unbelievable.”

  RJ set the computer aside and stood and stretched. “Well, I would love to be able to take the time to explain to you the long, sordid history true love has of turning the most powerful of men into the most hopeless of fools, but I really need to go to the bathroom right now.” She left him, hurrying her way on tip toes across the living room and down the hall.

  He was going to ask her to grab the bottle of sumatriptan out of the medicine cabinet for him, but she had hustled her way into the bathroom and closed the door before he could make his request. He sighed from the frustration of it all and leaned his head back and closed his eyes tight, trying to will the surging migraine away. He didn’t want to do this any longer. He didn’t want to have to keep watching his father, listening to him talk about a woman who had fooled him into becoming a spy, a traitor, a murder victim because of his blind love for her. It all confused him and hurt too much. He wished RJ would have never found that flash drive, that he had never watched any of this video, that he wouldn’t have to confront whatever it was the video was sure to reveal.

  The undulating pain in his head wouldn’t go away of course; nor would the haunting images of his weak, withered mother lying unresponsive in a hospital bed that the video had forced him to conjure up. He tried to chase those dark images away with brighter ones of her when she was healthy and still full of life; but instead of seeing her in his mind, he could only see the Russian woman in her place, working his father, playing him for a fool, literally manipulating him to death. If only he could clear his mind, stop it from running as if stuck in high gear, maybe then the pain would ease. Maybe then he could finally—