My car is still parked where I left it, the key tucked up under the wheel well. It manages to start, despite the fact that it’s an old beater that’s been sitting out in the snow for several days.
I always drive shitty old cars because they don’t attract attention, and nobody bothers to steal them. But you do sacrifice some reliability.
The rusty Vesta coughs and sputters in a disgruntled way before it starts up. The vents spit air into my face that somehow seems even colder than the air outside, tinged with the unpleasant tang of diesel fumes.
Soon enough I’m back on the road, heading home to my safe house.
I ought to stay in a hotel for a few nights as I usually do between jobs, but I’m so extraordinarily filthy from the chimney that I’m not sure anyone would rent me a room. Besides, I’m just so, so tired. I want to be home again.
And yet, when I’ve stowed my car in the underground garage, and walked the four flights of stairs up to my flat, I push open the door and feel . . . underwhelmed.
My apartment seems dingy and dull after the beauty and history of Ivan’s monastery. It’s sterile. And quiet. And just . . . empty. There’s no one here but me. No one is going to be walking through the door, crossing his arms over his broad chest and watching me with his dark eyes . . . No one’s going to be joining me in my bed.
Which is fine. This is what I’m used to. This is what I’ve always preferred.
It never felt lonely before.
I strip off Ivan’s clothes, which are not in any state to be returned to him, having gotten sooty from the chimney, torn and slushy from my slide down the roof, and then speckled with twigs and leaves from my tramp through the woods back to my car.
I’m planning to have a very long shower. But when I try to turn on the water, the shower head sputters and groans, spitting orange-tinged water, and then an irregular spray of glacial coldness.
Goddamn it. I could be standing in Ivan’s steam shower right now, sudsing myself with his fancy shampoo.
I try the bathtub instead. It’s an old claw-foot tub, separate from the shower. So heavy that it’s cracked the tiles underneath its feet. I’d prefer a shower over a bath when I’m this dirty, but at least the tub is receiving warm water.
I stuff the plug in the drain and let the tub slowly fill. In the meantime, I pad out to the kitchen and put a kettle on to boil. I want tea, toast, and whatever else I’ve got in the kitchen to eat.
Ravenous, I wolf down two slices of bread while I’m waiting for another two to toast. The kettle is taking forever to boil. Impatiently, I put a teabag in my mug and check if I have any milk in the fridge.
No. No milk, and no butter for my toast.
No pretty view out my window, either. I’m on the top floor, but the only thing I can see is the iron fire escapes on either side of my flat, and the dull, flat facades of other buildings close by. Unlike Ivan’s monastery, my apartment is in the heart of the city, with no lovely old trees around.
I really should move. St. Petersburg is one of the most beautiful cities in Russia—certainly the most European in style. I could have chosen a nicer neighborhood, a prettier flat. Why am I always punishing myself?
Part of it was that I never expected to stay here so long. I rented a place quickly when I was looking for my father.
The other part of it is the utilitarian way I was raised. My father taught me how to survive, not how to thrive. Not how to actually enjoy things.
But he’s gone now. I’m an adult. It’s up to me how I want to live, what I want to do.
For a while my goal was money. What good is money, though, when I never spend it on anything?
I don’t know what I want now. Staying at Ivan’s place has made me dissatisfied in more ways than one. I envy the bond he has with his men. And I’m already missing certain things about Ivan himself. Not just the sex, though god knows it’s the best I’ve had. No, it’s our other interactions I miss even more.
The way that I watch him, and he watches me every time that we speak, each of us having finally met a worthy opponent, someone worth watching, worth studying, worth trying to understand.
And the way he does understand me. When we were lying in bed together discussing Remizov, he valued my opinion.
I respect Ivan. He values intelligence, loyalty, humor.
I think at my core, I value the same things.
Which is why I regret leaving his monastery. I regret not going with him today.
I didn’t have to work for him. But I could have worked with him. I could have been his friend. His partner.
The kettle begins to whistle, startling me out of my thoughts.
I pour hot water into my mug, then pick up the steeping tea, trying to use the mug to warm my hands. I’m shivering a little, naked in the chilly kitchen. I didn’t want to put on my robe until I’d washed all the soot off myself.
Maybe I’ll just drink the tea in the tub, so I can get in the warm water.
I take three steps in the direction of the bathroom. As I do so, I hear a sharp crash over my right shoulder. Glass shattering, as someone punches a hole in the kitchen window.
Then a heavy clunk, followed by three thuds and a roll as something is thrown in my window, skittering across the floor.
I see the battered red canister, the pin already pulled.
Incendiary grenade.
I drop the tea. Before the mug has even hit the floor, I’m sprinting out of the kitchen, into the bathroom. No time to try to force up the shutter of the rickety old window—I take a deep breath and make a running leap into the bathtub, which is nearly full.
The explosion rips through my apartment. I see the bright bloom of fire as all available air over my head superheats and combusts into liquid flame.
I’m lying in the bottom of the bathtub, with three feet of water over me—my only shield from the explosion. That, and the thick porcelain sides of the tub. I’m waiting for the tub to crack, the water to boil me alive.
Instead, it’s the ancient wood beneath the tub that gives way.
The floorboards split, and the bathtub plummets through the ceiling of the apartment below.
I fall down into my neighbor’s living room, tub and all.
Flaming plaster, wood, and tile rain down on me.
I jump out of the bathtub, bruised but not dead yet.
Now I’m standing naked in the middle of the destruction.
There’s a fire raging overhead. Everything in my apartment is burning to dust.
I don’t expect the rest of the floor to hold out much longer.
I look wildly around and see my neighbor, Mrs. Chugunkin, staring at me from the doorway. She’s wearing her usual oversized cardigan and carpet slippers, and she too is holding a mug of tea. She’s lucky she was drinking it in the kitchen, and not on her green chintz sofa, which has been completely flattened by my bathtub.
“Ubiraysya otsyuda!” I shout at her. Get out of here!
We race for her front door, Mrs. Chugunkin getting there first, because I stop to snatch another wooly cardigan off the coatrack in her hallway. I shove my feet into a pair of her rain boots, and then we run out the door, down the hallway, and all the way down the four flights of stairs to the ground floor.
By this time, we’re in a crowd of apartment dwellers who have heard the explosion and are trying to flee the building. I see the superintendent, Mr. Bobrov, trying to direct people but almost getting trampled by the plumber who lives on the second floor.
“What was it?” Mrs. Chugunkin says to me in confusion. “Was it a gas leak?”
I ignore her, pushing past her to the doorway down to the parking garage.
I avoid my own ancient Vesta and hot-wire the plumber’s work van instead. Whoever tossed a grenade through my window is probably well aware what kind of car I drive. They probably saw me pull in. They must have been close by, watching and waiting for me to arrive back home.
What I don’t know is who’s trying to kill me.
Is it Remizov, in retaliation for failing to complete the hit on Ivan?
He’s not supposed to know who he hired to do the job, any more than I’m supposed to know who hired me.
But that doesn’t mean he didn’t figure it out.
If I tracked Zima’s IP address, that means other people can do it, too.
I start the engine of the van and pull out of the underground lot.
My first impulse is to get out of the city, head to my other safe house in Moscow. It’s a shack, even shittier than this place. But I have clothes and cash stashed there, and another laptop.
That’s what pisses me off the most about my apartment getting torched—it took me a long time to build my computer rig. It had all my records on it. I need it for work.
Of course, I have backups of my files in several places, plus more supplies, but all my favorite stuff was in that flat.
However, before I’ve driven very far out of St. Petersburg, I start thinking that switching to my other safe house isn’t the best idea. After all, if somebody knew about my apartment here, they could very well know about the one in Moscow. I doubt I’ll get lucky a second time if they decide to launch another grenade through my window.
I do need money, ID, and better clothes. I’m currently wearing a moth-eaten cardigan and a pair of Wellingtons.
I have emergency caches stashed in a few places around the city.
That’s where I’ll go first.
I’ll get some money.
I’ll buy some pants.
Then I’ll figure out who’s trying to kill me.
