The Soviet Comeback Jamie Smith (ebook reader online free txt) 📖

The buildings, icons of an era which Lenin’s Bolsheviks had worked hard to bury, now had a faded grandeur. He moved down a street where all grandeur had long since passed. Formidable Soviet concrete buildings were crumbling, along with gloomy red brick warehouses, many boarded up, rising in the shadows cast from the failing gas lamps. The street was utterly deserted, the sounds of the celebrating city dampened in the distance.

A quick scan of the street told him there was nowhere to hide. He could hear the sound of voices and multiple footsteps turning the corner behind him.

The Nazis were coming.

Nikita gave in to temptation and chanced a look over his shoulder and his eyes immediately landed on the face of a murderer.

Lev Veselovsky turned into the street, his face swollen and scarred but unmistakable above a heavy grey coat, a half chewed, uncapped cigarette perched between his broken lips. There were four of them, including the man he had seen make the call in the bar. He was no longer averting his eyes; instead, he snarled at Nikita hungrily, like a rabid dog faced with a wounded bird.

A shot pinged off the cobbles some distance from Nikita and he began to run, his eyes wildly searching for a way out. He heard Veselovsky reprimand the shooter. “On moy,” he spat from behind his cigarette. He is mine.

Nikita didn’t need to look again to know they were in pursuit. He forced his body into a sprint, ignoring the pain searing through him from his head and shoulder, his boots slipping on the greasy cobbles. They were laughing and catcalling behind him, making monkey noises and firing shots off the walls either side of him, taunting him.

The road swung around to the left, giving him a moment of respite from gunfire and he frantically looked for an exit. There was none; he had entered a funnel.

Far ahead he could see a junction in the road and electric street lights glowed, giving him hope. He quickened his pace, knowing he could now only rely on the poor aim of the Pamyat shooters to have any chance of reaching the distant junction. He remembered his father in the doorway, struck by Veselovsky’s sniper, and all hope faded.

The rise in volume from the pursuers told him they had turned the corner. The junction was still fifty yards away and Nikita pushed his body harder still. There was nowhere to hide, only a heavily graffitied phone box which would provide precious little cover. He noticed dimly that the footsteps had stopped when gunfire cracked, the noise bouncing off the solid walls of the street as the bullet exploded down the street.

Nikita was thrown forwards by the impact, a short cry escaping his lips as pain exploded through his back and his heart began to slow. As his face hit the freezing, wet cobbles, his eyes closed with a sigh as he thought only of Elysia and her warm scent.

He was aware of being flipped onto his back, and smoke being below into his face. Sirens sounded in the distance and he heard footsteps moving away, but Nikita no longer even thinking of the pain in his broken body as the darkness closed in. “Černyy Russkiy mertv,” he distantly heard Veselovsky’s triumphant voice say. The Black Russian is dead.

CHAPTER 31

Then the light returned.

Nikita rolled onto his front and pushed himself up, his back screaming at him as he withdrew two Sig Sauer pistols from inside his coat, the buttons ripping off and revealing the Kevlar vest beneath.

“Veselovsky! Nikita roared. “Black Russia will never die!” And the world exploded in light.

Veselovsky turned from the phone box he stood beside to see Nikita rise like a monster from the deep and his step faltered as gunfire erupted all around him. He was thrown back by the velocity of the bullet as it hit him in the chest, staggering backwards.

Screams were all around him as black-clad KGB shooters had appeared on the rooftops, peppering gunfire down upon the Pamyat gang. The hunters had become the hunted, trapped on the street with no escape.

Veselovsky stared down at his chest, where blood blossomed from his wound, and back up to Nikita. His face contorted in an ugly fury. “You dare…” he spat.

“Perhaps you are not so much better than me, Lev,” Nikita said, holding up a hand to stop his fellow KGB officers from finishing Veselovsky off, walking towards the man who had wanted to crucify him and his family.

Blood was dribbling from Veselovsky’s mouth as he furiously worked his face, trying to find the words. He tried to throw a punch at Nikita as he got within touching distance, but Nikita easily dodged it before punching him hard in the side.

Veselovsky fell to one knee, wheezing. The bullet had punctured a lung.

Nikita raised the gun. “Tell me who you called and I will make it a quick death, which is more than you deserve.”

Veselovsky spat blood at Nikita’s feet.

Nikita kicked him in the bullet wound and Veselovsky howled.

“You will tell me, for better or worse, Veselovsky.”

Veselovsky began to laugh, which led to coughs. “You dirty-skinned shit. You think yourself so good, but you know so little.”

Nikita shot Veselovsky in the knee, blowing off the kneecap at close range. He screamed and fell to the floor, clutching what was left of his left leg.

Nikita leant down close to his face. “You organised the attack that killed my mother. You tried, and may yet have succeeded in killing my father. You have hunted me just for the colour of my skin, when I have given my life to keep this nation secure from attack. Now stop talking in riddles, because I will have the truth and do not wish to prolong your pain.”

Veselovsky said nothing. Blood was smeared across the swastika on