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Reviewing the day, he felt satisfaction, but something niggled at his mind
Nibbled
Corroded his good humor
Worse, he couldn’t put his finger on it.
He zeroed in on what seemed like the source—the press conference. How well it had gone! Each reporter falling in line and receiving his replies without question, no glimmer of doubt or challenge in their eyes, just dull acceptance.
No pesky Western reporters who didn’t understand the deference due to him.
Yet still, at the edge of his vision, something lingered…
It bothered him he couldn’t quite focus on it.
But he shouldn’t let it dampen his good mood. Let the success of the day wash over him…
He sank down into bed, dreams weaving through his mind, brightening—
Just as the figures in the dream began to materialize, the unsettling thing appeared again and catapulted him wide awake.
The sense of tracking an enemy sent a thrill through him. The tang of—not danger—but the feeling of fighting off an adversary, or a particularly wily wolf—
What he felt when he looked into those unsettling blue eyes—
The ones he could never quite dull the spark of, no matter how hard he tried— not without shutting that light off for good.
The enemy was vanquished. He savored the immense satisfaction he’d felt when he’d heard the news from Kharp.
Yet strangely, he felt a certain slice of… regret. The white knight off the board— a spark snuffed out—something missing. The gameboard was merely a board now, like the dull white snow of late winter. The sun lit it, but it didn’t sparkle.
He reigned supreme—he easily crushed all enemies. There was the West, but that game was distant… he was in no immediate danger… there was something to be said for how it had been in the beginning, nothing certain. Certainty was a kind of death…
This is what I wanted.
He was no real threat.
That’s why the game was intoxicating—a taste of danger without the actual threat. A bright spark that didn’t spread into an orange wildfire across the land…
With his death, I killed his followers too. Dead souls now, every one of them, as empty as scarecrows, dead men walking without knowing they’re done for.
There was something about him… something about those Blue eyes… one in a million. A certain fascination… the sort of person not easily squashed. Like those sow bugs that hide under rocks. You thought you’d killed them, but then—
He laughed when he thought about Novichok, the so-called hero of the people writhing in agony on the plane and yet—the flight to Germany and the cure …
He wouldn’t stay buried in prison either. So a more final death had to be arranged. The ice of a Russian arctic winter—fitting to quench the spark.
The funeral the last dying embers of that bonfire of a soul, just the lingering afterimage of him in his final days laughing when he was wasting away, manufacturing jokes out of thin air… Perhaps he was a little bit mad.
All prophets are…
That thought unbidden, ridiculous. He squashed it and turned over to sleep.
That man is not worth one more shred of thought.
He drifted toward dreams
When suddenly a noise in the dark
A rustle in the corner… perhaps a mouse…
Or an assassin…?
He scanned the room beneath eyelashes—nothing but blank gray walls. No one could get in here, not even a small rodent.
From his agent days he’d learn to trust the prickling on the back of your neck. He kept his finger on the pulse of the alarm that would send guards pouring in, yanking the assassin down— dragging him away for a messy yet precise interrogation he would participate in personally…
That prospect gave him such a thrill that it dulled the regret he might not get much sleep tonight.
Such a brazen attack would warrant an exception to the absence of a death penalty— The people would clamor for it and cheer me on as I shot the man on Red Square—no one would dare harbor any questions after that—
An interesting thought exercise, nothing more. My security is too tight for it to manifest in reality.
It may not be lonely at the top, but it gets boring at times…
A slight click in the corner… a glimmer—
He snatched up his pistol and crept out of bed, adrenaline flooding him, almost as if he were an agent. A slash of trepidation hit him as he opened the closet, the one place someone could feasibly hide—
The clothes almost looked like those hanging off an emaciated prisoner, but someone like that would crumble into dust with a touch.
He turned, gun falling limply to his side.
His heart sank.
Disregarding the disappointment, he suppressed all feeling, like amputating a necrotic limb, and climbed back into bed… Sleep seduced him under soft, gentle waves…
By the time he was immersed in dreams, he was in too deep to escape the vivid blue eyes, alive as ever, dancing with silent mockery, and a secret he could never pry free.