Jet

by Russell Blake

  Chapter 3

  The frigid Moscow wind sent a flurry of snow slanting at the beleaguered inhabitants as they struggled down the sidewalks on their way to dinner. The stink of poorly combusted exhaust soured the air over the city, belched out by the battered Soviet-era Lada sedans that clattered along next to spanking new Mercedes cruisers. Nowhere was the disparity between rich and poor more evident than on the clogged streets of this unlikely metropolis, where the ruling elite were transported in luxury while the rank and file trudged through the sleet.

  Mikhail Grigenko stood looking out over what was more or less his city, his massive villa in the Kuznetskiy Bridge neighborhood better guarded than the Kremlin, its window glass bulletproof, and all of the homes on its walled grounds’ periphery also owned by him and occupied by his security detail. Infrared cameras, laser optics and the latest technological innovations protected him from a world filled with rivals, enemies and recalcitrant malcontents.

  Exhaling noisily, part sigh, part groan, Grigenko moved from the window to the antique table in the corner, where a bottle of Iordanov Vodka complemented three crystal tumblers and a heavy ashtray. After ripping a rectangle into a pack of Marlboro reds, he shook out a cigarette and tapped one end on the tabletop. He studied it and then blew on the cigarette’s filter prior to putting it in his mouth – a superstitious tick from his youth, when he’d been told by a friend that it was the stray microscopic synthetic fibers on the filter that did most of the damage. He poured three fingers of vodka into one of the glasses, lit the Marlboro with a gold ST Dupont lighter and drew the rich smoke deep into his lungs before blowing a blue-gray stream at the oblivious ceiling.

  He raised the glass to his lips and sipped the vodka – one of his favorites – even if it was marketed for women. Something about the flavor. Nobody would dare question his preferences in anything, so he didn’t really care about the branding – he was buying what was in the bottle.

  Grigenko paused to savor the taste of the clear, pungent fluid, appreciating the burn as it trickled down his throat. After another drag of smoke, he turned and retired to the brown leather sectional he’d had specially built with additional lumbar support for his aching back. Such luxuries were perquisite for one of the most powerful and wealthy men in Russia. His empire spanned the globe with a web of companies, most of them concentrated near home, but some in obscure, far-flung reaches. An oligarch who operated at the highest levels of the administration, his ex-KGB background had ensured his good fortune once the wall came down. Everyone running the country was ex-KGB, and the plum opportunities had landed in the laps of a rarified club, of which he was a proud member.

  He stabbed a button on a remote, and one section of the wood-paneled wall slid aside, revealing a seventy-five-inch flat screen television. His finger hovered over the power button, hesitating. Why torture himself?

  Because it was time.

  He powered the system on, and the LCD flickered to life.

  Grainy static appeared, then a fixed image of a driveway, with a slight fishbowl effect from lens distortion, filled the screen. The color footage was clear – amazingly so. The very latest technology camera had filmed it, no expense spared.

  There was no sound. At the far edge of the field of vision, he saw motion, a man falling backward into the view, fifty yards away from the camera, which was mounted at a high elevation, perhaps fourteen feet off the ground. The rusty spray of the man’s blood was plainly visible in the night’s lighting if one paused and enlarged that area, Grigenko knew, but he saw no point in doing so again. He could manipulate the images as much as he wanted, enhancing the luminescence, zooming to the point where he could read the numbers on a key. He had done it all, and then some. He knew everything there was to find.

  Then he saw it. There. As he had seen hundreds of times before. A blur of motion. A figure, all in black, moving with unexpected speed and agility. One moment, the area was empty, the next a streak of movement as the figure sped to the rear entrance underneath the camera. A second later, the stream went back to static.

  Then the final scene of the familiar drama, the one that Grigenko savored like a fine wine. He had watched it at least a thousand times. Yet another view, this one a hallway, the camera hidden in a molding, he’d been told later. Same incredible resolution.

  An interior door. Stationary. Old looking, the joinery and carvings distinctly antique. A time code played along the bottom, counting off tenths of seconds.

  The door opened, and a black-clad figure stepped out, blood smeared plainly across its torso, the head cloaked in a balaclava, features hidden by the black fabric – except for the eyes. The figure moved stealthily, softly, footsteps precise, a pistol gripped in one hand.

  And then it happened.

  The figure looked up at the camera.

  For a brief instant, less than a heartbeat, a nano-second, the lens peered into the figure’s soul even as it gazed blankly at something it didn’t know was there. He had been told that the clandestine camera was so skillfully hidden that nobody could have recognized it – incorporated into the ornately fabricated molding that ringed the ceiling of the hall. But every time he saw that piece of footage, he felt like the figure was staring at him, with full understanding that he was watching. An illusion, he understood. Impossible. And yet he was always struck by the same sensation. He felt compelled to stop the show at that point, freezing the image of the watched, watching the watcher. Even if paused, when most footage would have gotten blurrier, this was such high digital resolution that he could enlarge it until he was an inch off the eye’s surface without visible degradation.

  The moment stretched uneasily as Grigenko studied the figure, searching for something he’d missed, something he hadn’t seen. As he always did, he eventually pushed ‘play’, his scrutiny having revealed nothing new.

  Then it was over. The figure moved out of the frame, leaving only bloody boot prints on the richly carpeted floor.

  Grigenko swallowed the remainder of his drink as the screen went black, the montage finished. He raised himself from the couch with a lurch and walked back to the table and the bottle.

  It would be another long night if he allowed himself to perpetuate this, he knew from harsh experience. Still, knowing and doing were two different things. He poured himself a healthy soak of vodka, fished another cigarette from the pack, and returned to his seat.

  Later, he would stagger to his ornately appointed bedroom where his latest conquest, a seventeen-year-old Bolshoi ballet sensation, waited patiently for his advances. Irena could soothe the brutalized animal in him like nobody he’d ever met, which made her both irresistible and dangerous. She had a power over him he feared for its intensity – he couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted someone like he wanted her. It was like a disease. A sickness; an addiction.

  Still, he had chosen to watch his little movie instead of availing himself of her passionate charms. For the moment, anyway.

  He settled back down and picked up the remote, cueing the playback to start at the beginning again, taking another burning swallow as the screen flickered to life, the phantom that tormented him shimmering on the wall in a kabuki dance that transfixed him every time he watched it, jaw clenching unconsciously, teeth grinding with barely controlled rage.