State Of The Union

“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.

The blade cut into her scalp just above her temple. Hot blood rolled down her cheek and she spun her body away from Popov. As she continued to move, Popov continued thrashing at her with his blade. She put up her arms to defend herself and in a matter of seconds he had slashed her leather jacket to ribbons. In the scuffle, her gun was kicked across the floor, and she had no idea where it had gone.

Popov was in control and he knew it. Like a cat who had cornered a field mouse and was playing with it before the final coup-de-grace, he drove his beautiful blond captive into a corner of the small kitchen and wondered if maybe killing, at least her, at this point was a little premature. Surely she could be good for something else before she died. If she was good enough, maybe he’d even give Stavropol a discount on her murder.