The Sydney Access

A shank moon sat above the gathering night clouds, and the shadows this produced seemed to be reaching out toward the guard as if they were the fingers of an unseen hand, stretching toward him from behind.

A vague chill ran with the early autumn air.

To the stocky Russian standing outside of the small cabin, the night spoke of little promise, smelling of coming rain. The deep purpleness enveloping him seemed disturbingly inert, troubled. The wind played with the tops of the tall birch, blue spruce and poplar trees in the forest. The cabin was built of pine logs and wood pieces and had a haphazardly shingled roof. Woodsmoke drifted from its stone chimney.

Surely, tonight it was someone else’s turn to man the watch, the guard cursed under his breath -- Kubik’s perhaps, or Zelkin’s or that newcomer Federov’s -- and where were they? Inside, of course, with all of the others, encamped comfortably by the old hearth, chatting, smoking cigarettes and weed, drinking vodka, arguing politics, in their self-importance solving the ponderous problems of the great Russian Republic while he, Livni, drew a second consecutive night of standing outside in the unkind shadows.

To no one, Livni damned his fortunes, and his comrades inside, and he kicked at the ground around him, hearing too late a sudden rustling, a thump and the heavy footsteps behind him. He caught only a mere glimpse of the moonlight glinting off the steel blade above his head. A second later, Livni curled to the ground clutching his throat, his slashed windpipe giving off a pffft of air as he thrashed about then died, his body giving one last contraction.

With an uncertain nudge of an old Army boot, the attacker rolled the dead guard from the pathway, across a narrow defile, several meters into the woods, away from the waxen shaft of light sifting through one of the cabin’s small windows. For a moment, he peered down at the guard’s now-still body, studying it with an awkward fascination. From the open throat wound a dark liquid bubbled against the night air.

The killer did not tremor at such sights -- the battlefield had long ago inured him to the cold face of death -- so he couldn’t feel a bit sorry for the rube at his feet, with his young white face blankly staring back at him, blood spilling from the wet kerf in his throat. This was merely the face of an unsuspecting muzhik, perhaps a peasant turnip farmer who lived past the end of the metro line with five skinny cows and a fat wife, he felt sure, not the face of a hardened underground rebel. In truth, the attacker did not know, Livni the guard was a passable bootmaker, like Stalin’s own father, from the village of Gagarin, who lived in a communal property with his wife, who was not at all fat, and two children, and who had a passion to see change in the modern Russian Republic.

Well, the attacker shrugged to himself as he dragged the body deeper into the forest then slipped back into the heavy darkness of the trees to wait, in revolutionary battle such sacrifices had to be made...