Free The Kill Zone by David Hagberg Page B

the facts its own spin: the liberal press was against McGarvey’s appointment; the conservative was for it; and the French press was confused but angry. It was always anger that seemed to fuel the public debate; especially the international dialogue.
    Nikolayev could have refused to read the newspapers. Not listen
to the radio, or watch television, especially not CNN. But the facts would have been there all the same, and he would know it. Like the feral cat crouched in front of the rabbit; the predator did not need to read a book to smell the fear. The ability to sense the real world was built in, and perfected by years of experience.
    Nikolayev heard the church bell tolling the hour in town.
    Turn away. Now, before it’s too late.
    In the night he felt them at his back. Coming for him. There would be no arrest for him, though; no cell at Lefortovo, no torture, no drugs, no sewing his eyelids open, rubber hoses up his anus, glass rods shattered inside his penis. They were coming with Russian insurance—his nine ounces—a nine-millimeter bullet to the base of his skull.
    â€œComrade Nikolayev?”
    He stopped and turned, but no one was there. Only the farm fields, the trees, the white clouds in the blue sky, the empty road and the church bell. The voice had been Baranov’s. He recognized it. But the general was long dead. Killed by Kirk McGarvey outside East Berlin.
    He walked the rest of the way into town where he stopped first at the boulangerie for his baguette and his morning raisin buns, then around the corner in the square to the little shop selling tobacco, chewing gum, stamps, magazines and newspapers. The old woman had his three newspapers waiting for him.
    â€œBonjour, monsieur,” she said pleasantly. “ Ça va ?”
    â€œ Bonjour , madame. Ça va, et nous ?” Nikolayev responded with a genuine smile.
    â€œ Je vais bien , ” she said brightly, inclining her head coquettishly. It took him a second to realize that the old woman was flirting with him. He paid her, accepted his change, got his newspapers and fled the dark shop into the bright morning sun. He thought he could hear her laughing as he hurried down the street.
    He folded the newspapers under his arm, refusing the temptation to look at the headlines, and after twenty minutes he was back at the small farmhouse he’d rented at the agency in Paris. It had become a familiar haven for him. He put on the water for his tea, put the baguette away and brought the newspapers and buns to the table at the edge of his small vegetable garden in back. From here he could look across the wheatfield, stubble now, to the intersection of the farm road and the main highway D917 across the narrow Loir River. It was the only way here from the outside. The tiny window in
his bedroom under the eaves also faced the river and the highway. Basic tradecraft. Habit is Heaven’s own redress , Alexander Pushkin had written in Eugene Onegin. It takes the place of happiness.
    There was the occasional car and a few trucks on the highway. The bus from Le Mans passed a few minutes after nine in the morning, and returned from Orleans in the afternoon around two. Six weeks ago a police car passed by, its blue lights flashing, its siren shrieking. Nikolayev had leaped up from the table and had nearly headed off across the fields in a dead run until he realized that they were not coming for him. If Moscow was searching for him, they were not looking here.
    When his tea was ready he took the pot and a cup out to the table, put on his reading glasses and settled down with the newspapers. He started with Le Monde to see if the French were reporting anything new and because it was today’s newspaper. The Times and the Post were Monday’s and probably contained only rewritten versions of Sunday’s accounts.
    McGarvey’s Senate committee hearings were scheduled to begin today. The Paris newspaper wondered if the senators would