State Of The Union

“You had your chance and you blew it, remember? Now, take your coat off.”

“Yob tvoyu mat!”

“Fuckmy mother?” asked Alexandra as she pointed her weapon at Popov’s kneecap and fired. “No, fuck yours.”

Popov fell to the ground screaming. “You bitch! You fucking bitch!”

“Per-ee-staan haameetca,” Quit your complaining, she said. “I only grazed your knee. Now get up and take off your jacket.”

Popov struggled upright and did as he was told.

“The suit coat as well. Good. Now throw them both off to the side.”

When Popov had done what Alexandra had asked, she balled up the handkerchief and threw it at him. After he had dabbed his ear and then tied it around his wounded knee to stem the bleeding, Alexandra waved her pistol in the direction of the cottage. “Inside,” she commanded. “Let’s go.”

Popov led the way while Alexandra followed several paces behind, her Walther pointed right at the base of the man’s spine.

They entered the small ramshackle dwelling via the kitchen door. Alexandra waved her pistol at a lone chair against the wall and said, “I want you to sit down over there and don’t move.”

As Popov sat down in the chair, he watched Alexandra cross to a large, cast iron stove. She deftly flicked open the grate with the toe of her boot. The fire inside had burned down to almost nothing but glowing embers. She threw in another piece of wood and kicked the grate shut. With her pistol still trained on Popov, she put one hand on the door jamb and looked into the dacha’s other room to check on her patient who had just started to come around.

Satisfied that he was okay for the moment, Alexandra returned her attention to Popov. “So,” she began, “you must be my repentant husband.”

Popov pretended that he didn’t know what she was talking about, but the look in his eyes was confirmation enough.

“That’s what you told the old lady who runs theriynak, isn’t it? We had a fight, I left Moscow to think about things for a while, but you couldn’t stand us being apart any longer and wanted to find me so you could make it up to me? She bought it at first, but after you left she began to worry. What if you were coming here to do me harm? Little did she know how right she was,” said Alexandra as she removed the Pit Bull from underneath her jacket, released the magazine, and ejected the chambered round.

“Armor piercing,” she remarked, as she picked up the lone bullet and rolled it between her fingers. “Who the hell are you, Mr. Milesch Popov?”

Popov just stared at her as she placed his pistol and its ammunition on the top of a faded hutch resting atop an old sideboard near the stove.How could a woman so beautiful be so vicious? he wondered.

Long slim legs, narrow waist, ample chest, full lips, green eyes, and shoulder-length blond hair indeed made Alexandra Ivanova beautiful, very beautiful, but that beauty had often times been as much a hindrance to her as it had been an asset. Because of those startling good looks she had had to work harder than most to earn the respect of her peers, both in the Russian Military and then later at the FSB. Too often, she was seen as just a pretty face. Her male superiors had always coveted her and she was constantly fending off their advances. More times than she cared to remember had she given herself to a man only to be betrayed in the end. They had no desire to relate to her as an equal, they only wanted to possess her as a thing, an object. She eventually decided that if given the chance, people will let you down every single time. There really was no one she could trust.

Though this attitude made for a very lonely personal life, she much preferred being in control and keeping people at a distance than opening herself up to the hurt that would certainly follow from allowing someone to get too close.

“You are going to tell me everything I want to know,” she said as she kept the gun trained on him while she filled a kettle of water and placed it on the stove to make tea for herself and her patient. She had been standing outside in the cold waiting for Popov to show for quite a long time. The fire in the stove had nearly gone out and her toes were frozen completely through. There wasn’t much that she hated more than the bleary Russian winters. It was no wonder that the death toll from alcoholism soared during this time of year.

“Who are you and what are you doing here? Who were you talking to on the phone? Who sent you here?” she demanded.

“If I tell you, they’ll kill me.”

“If youdon’t tell me,I’ll kill you,” replied Alexandra, squeezing off a shot from her silenced Walther that splintered one of the chair’s wooden slats right between Popov’s legs.

He flinched and his hands instinctively went right to his crotch. He hid one behind the other and began extricating the knife hidden behind his belt buckle.

“Hands!”

“You’re crazy. You know that?” said Popov, trying to buy more time.

Alexandra fired two more rounds into the chair, shaving off one of the legs and causing Popov to topple over onto floor.

“Yob!” Fuck, he yelled when his shoulder slammed into the floorboards.

Alexandra didn’t notice that the man failed to reach out with both hands to break his fall.

“That’s it,” she said. “I’m going to kill you right there if you don’t tell me something of value in the next thirty seconds.

“Who the hell are you?” said Popov as he stared up at her.

“Twenty-eight, twenty-seven,” continued Alexandra.

“All right, all right,” offered Popov. “I was hired to find out what happened to General Karganov.”

“It sounded to me like you were hired to kill him and me for that matter.”

“Originally, I was hired just to find his body.”

“By the people who killed him, correct?” demanded Alexandra.

“I have no idea who killed him, or tried to kill him I should say.”

“Bullshit. Who hired you?”

“Please. Can’t I at least sit up?” pleaded Popov. It was a voice he had not heard himself use in a long, long time. It was the voice of the pitiful, defenseless orphan, but here he thought it might work. If she thought he was defeated, broken, she might let her guard down. It only had to happen for an instant. That was all he needed and she would be dead before her body hit the floor.

“I will tell you what you need to know,” continued Popov. “I just want to sit up so I can stop the bleeding.”

Alexandra nodded her head and stepped back, well aware that she had already fired six of her eight shots. She didn’t want to waste any more ammunition.

Alexandra set two teacups and saucers on the edge of the sideboard. She placed a tea bag in each cup and then walked slowly backward to the stove for the kettle, never taking her eyes off Popov.

She poured the boiling water into the first cup and as she began pouring it into the second, she heard her patient stir in the other room. He let out a long, struggling moan as if he was having trouble breathing.

Alexandra was so intent on the noise emanating from the other room that she failed to pay attention to the teakettle. As the lid fell off, the scalding spray of hot water caused her to drop it and with a startled cry, snatch her burning hand to her mouth as her gun fell to the floor. It was an opportunity Popov had to take advantage of.

No second chances, he thought to himself as he shot out of his chair and went straight for Alexandra’s throat. Before she knew what was happening, he was on top of her. He swung his right arm like a hammer, crashing it down onto her forearm with a force that reverberated throughout her entire body. Popov then swung the back of his left hand in a wide arc toward her face.

Even in the dull light of the kitchen, she saw the glint of the blade coming at her. Without enough time to raise her arm in a defensive block, Alexandra simply turned her head down and offered her attacker her face, rather than her throat. As unthinkable as the bargain was, it was the only thing she could do to save her life.