by Saul Herzog
Reluctantly, Sherbakov entered the hallway.
“Shut the door,” Lance said.
“Who the fuck are you?” Sherbakov said.
Lance smiled. His journey to that sofa had not been an easy one. He’d almost died in that hundred-and-eighty-foot-long tunnel, filled with rats and sludge and more than a century of shit. He’d opened the iron grate in the floor of the concrete room in time to escape a fireball as hot as a blast furnace.
He’d followed the rats, and found a pipe full of sewage where he submerged himself entirely for four minutes before daring come up for air. At that point, he didn’t know what would be waiting for him above the surface, but he had no choice.
He had to breathe.
And in any case, the heat from the explosion was raising the temperature of the sewage so quickly that if he didn’t move, it threatened to boil him alive.
Surviving the burns, choking in the smoke, swimming in the shit, had not been easy.
Getting out of those sewers, and then getting out of Saint Petersburg, had not been easy.
Getting back into the United States without the government or the CIA tracking him had not been easy.
But those were the things Lance had done.
And he’d done one other thing too.
Before coming to New York and tracking down the apartment in the Oceanic Building in Little Odessa that belonged to one Alex Sherbakov, before picking the lock and seating his ass on Alex Sherbakov’s custom-made, Italian leather, art nouveau sofa, he’d gone to Montana.
Not for long. Just a few days.
He’d gone to the cemetery in Beulah, Montana, and he’d found Sam’s grave. Everything had been taken care of. A nice headstone. Flowers. A stately slab of marble bearing the image of a dagger on top of a spearhead.
On the headstone was Sam’s name and the years of her life, and beneath that, where a prayer might be found, or the words of a psalm, was an inscription.
It read simply, “De Oppresso Liber.”
It translated from Latin as “To Liberate the Oppressed,” and was the motto of the First Special Forces Operation Detachment, Delta Force, the unit her father had served in, and died in, saving Lance’s life.
Lance had sworn an oath that day. He’d sworn to protect Sam.
And now, there he was, standing at her grave, alone, in a gray mist that came down off the mountains like a timelapse sequence of cloud movements.
“Alex Sherbakov,” Lance said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
He knew from the look on Sherbakov’s face that he didn’t need to explain who he was.
Or why he was there.
“How did you?” Sherbakov stammered.
“How did I what? Find you?”
“I thought…”.
“You thought what?” Lance said, motioning with the gun for Sherbakov to come further into the room.
Sherbakov entered the living room and stood there, staring at Lance like a cow looking over a fence.
His gaze was vacant, but Lance knew there was more to this man than the docile idiot before him now. This man had done some terrible things to a woman.
And he hadn’t been ordered to do those things.
Lance knew enough about human nature to know that if he did them once, he would do them again.
It took a very sick mind to do the things Alex Sherbakov had done to Sam, and there was only one way to handle it.
“As it is with dogs, so it is with men,” Lance said.
“What does that mean?”
“You know what it means.”
Sherbakov shook his head.
“Sit down,” Lance said.
Sherbakov sat on the sofa across from him and Lance leaned back and crossed his legs. He knew Sherbakov was armed but there was no way he’d be able to draw fast enough. Lance already had his gun trained on him and by rights, should have killed him already.
It was pain that caused him to stall.
The pain of losing Sam. The pain of knowing he’d failed in the one thing he’d sworn to do.
“You don’t look like an assassin,” Lance said.
Sherbakov shook his head.
“You’re American?”
“My parents were Russian,” Sherbakov said. “I’ve never been there.”
“But you did this.”
Sherbakov said nothing.
“You did sick things, Sherbakov. Real sick things.”
Sherbakov said, “What did you mean when you said, as it is with dogs, so it is with men?”
“I meant that if a dog did what you did, it would be put down.”
“And that’s why you’re here now?”
“That’s why I’m here now, Alex Sherbakov. You’re going to meet your Maker this night.”
Sherbakov nodded at that, like he’d already known it was coming, like it was normal to him to hear those words.
It was nothing more than a bill that had to be paid.
A debt that had to be reckoned.
Lance drained his glass and raised his gun.
“Any last words?”
Sherbakov made to reach into his pocket and Lance held up the gun. “Whoa there.”
“No,” Sherbakov said. “I’m not going for the gun.”
He reached very slowly and pulled out a necklace. It was the necklace that had belonged to Sam’s father. The one Lance had given to her before he left.
Lance shook his head. He’d never felt so utterly hopeless. So forlorn.
What was it all for?
He stood up and took the necklace, then pointed his gun at Sherbakov’s forehead.
He didn’t ask why he’d mutilated the body.
He knew there was no reason, other than some sickness in the core of his body that Sherbakov understood no better than anyone else.
Lance was about to pull the trigger when Sherbakov spoke again.
“Wait,” he said.
Lance clenched his jaw. He was in no mood for groveling. He seemed to know he needed to die as well as Lance did.
“You asked if I had any last words.”
“All right,” Lance said.
“There was a woman.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There was someone in my life once.”
Lance said nothing.
“She loved me. At least, she pretended to.”
“Good for you,” Lance said, raising the gun and pressing it against Sherbakov’s forehead.
“Her name is Tatyana.”
“I see,” Lance said, then he pulled the trigger and Sherbakov’s head jerked backward over the back of the sofa.
Lance looked down at him, then he looked at the necklace in his hand. A gold crucifix on a chain.
He knew then, that if he’d never gone back for Sam, if he’d simply left her where she was, that none of this would have happened.
She would still be alive.
She was dead because of him.
Because of his vanity.
Because of the belief, or rather, the hope, that he, of all people, could do something good in the world.
Afterword
Thank you for reading this book.
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If you have any concerns at all about this story, if you spotted any typos or errors, or if you’d just like to get in touch to say hello, please feel free to contact me at any time.
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God bless and happy reading,
Saul Herzog
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