by Jared Paul
“Guess we have to go now. You take care of yourself, alright? We love you Les.”
Although her expression did not change and she did not speak a word, Agent Clemons felt Bollier squeeze his hand.
…
In Cold Blood did not disappoint. Shirokov read it all the way through until the Cessna pilot dropped him at a small airfield outside of Havana. There, Shirokov boarded a larger plane there bound for a layover in Hamburg, then it was a straight shot to Saint Petersburg. He was so engrossed in the book that he stayed awake the whole flight and forgot to use the washroom. By the time he touched down in Germany it was an epic bathroom emergency. Shirokov left the men’s room feeling like lighter than a feather. While he was waiting to board the connecting flight he finished the book.
“Marvelous,” Shirokov exclaimed as he snapped the back cover shut.
It took some time for Shirokov to think about it, but when his mind was made up he decided that it was the best book that he’d ever read. Shirokov’s good luck was uncanny.
The plane landed without incident at Pulkovo. Shirokov waited in line with the other passengers for his bag. When it came around the baggage carousel, Shirokov picked it up and turned around to receive a shock.
A tall man in a long blue navy coat and sunglasses was holding a sign that read his name in his native tongue. Shirokov looked left and then looked right. He wondered. No. His name was very common in Russia, it had to be another passenger that the tall stranger with the sign was waiting for. It had to be.
Shirokov tried to walk the long way around him towards the doors but the man started calling his name.
“Vladimir. It is me. It is Oleg. Vladimir? Where are you going?”
He made a break for the doors. Outside it was raining. He slipped on the sidewalk, then got up and started to run but two men caught him by the elbows.
“Let go of me. Do you not know who I am? Let go!”
Shirokov wrestled with the men but they were by far larger and more powerful physical specimens. A long black limousine with tinted windows rolled to a stop at the bubbling curb and the back seat opened. With a rough shove, they forced him inside.
The interior of the limousine was dark and it smelled foul. Like something chemical gone bad. Shirokov heard the voice.
“I have flight to LaGuardia to catch so I will be brief.”
So it was not a trick of the phone after all. Shirokov had never laid eyes on the man before, and he was struck by how pedestrian he looked. He had a smoothly shaven head, no facial hair, and cool blue eyes like Putin’s. At his neck was a machine, the kind that former smokers use once their lungs and throat have been burned away and they can no longer talk of their own power.
Another man was in the limo with them but he remained back in the shadows. He appeared to have a slim build, and Shirokov guessed that this was the source of the noxious odor.
The man with the mechanical voice was speaking again.
“You told me you would wait. Everything was proceeding according to plan. And yet you defied me. You got poor Leonid and Ruslan and Yakov killed.”
Shirokov tried to say something in his defense. He tried to say anything at all but the words caught in his throat.
“I asked you if you were aware what happens to them that disobey me. Do you recall this?”
“I. I. I.”
The best that Shirokov could do was bow his head in supplication and nod. He missed painting in the studio of his gothic mansion. He missed Winston’s wry wit.
“You defied me Vladimir. This makes me very sad.”
With a flick of his gloved fingers the man with the voice machine gestured to the shadow sitting beside him. The figure moved forward into the light and Shirokov let out an involuntary shudder. One half of the face belonged to a beautiful youth, a boy with bright inquisitive green eyes and spiked golden blonde hair. But on the other side the flesh starting at the lips had rotted all the way back to the jawbone. His guess was right; the boy’s decaying flesh was the fountainhead of the stink.
He had a gun pointed at Shirokov. The make and model appeared to be a Hauser; an ancient weapon most commonly used in the First World War
A second before the darkness came Shirokov thought that the boy might have smiled, but owing to the deformity he could not say for sure.
From the Author
Thank you for reading my book “Marked Man II”. Please leave a review here and let me know what you thought about the book.
OTHER BOOKS BY JARED PAUL
Marked Man
Marked Man II
Marked Man III
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Copyrighted Material
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by JacobsIM LLC
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