Run Around by Brian Freemantle Read Free Book Online Page B

is usually unaware of being a target. Additionally, Zenin was not told the Ukrainian was expecting an attack.
    Balashikha is a huge but frequently divided complex. Areas are separated according to their instructional needs sometimes by barbed and electrified wire and occasionally with high concrete walls the tops of which are again electrically guarded. The concreted sections are those of maximum secrecy and it was in one, located at the very centre of the camp, that the contest was staged. Here there had been re-created in a vast, aircraft-type hanger a typical European city street – because Zenin was selected to operate in Europe – with shops and a café and apartment houses. Every part of it was monitored and surveyed by television cameras, so that the movements and behaviour of both men was relayed to a control room in which sat the panel of assessors.
    Zenin was slightly built and small featured with the dark colouring of a man born in Azerbaijan, which was a further reason for his being selected for the specific mission already then being planned for him. He moved with the quiet but assured confidence of someone sure – but without conceit – of his own abilities, which had been one of the first qualities isolated by the assassin division recruiters when the man had been accepted into the Kirovabad office of the KGB. He spoke four languages, English and French with a fluency that betrayed no accent, and had no moral difficulty with killing, satisfied assassination was justified because his victims were legally judged enemies of the state before he was entrusted with the responsibility of carrying out the sentence imposed upon them. The Ukrainian fitted into the same category, a criminal proven guilty of a crime.
    The Ukrainian was allowed no weapon. And Zenin’s instructions were that the killing had to appear to have been an accident or suicide. He was told he could have a weapon of choice or any one of the six Soviet-perfected poison-spray guns, the gas of which dissipates within thirty seconds, leaving no trace to be found in any later post-mortem examination. Zenin refused anything.
    The test, he was told, was timed for one hour: if the encounter had not taken place by then, he would begin losing assessment points. If twenty points were deducted, he would be dismissed from the course.
    Zenin entered the hanger door low and fast, moving immediately sideways, unsure what to expect but knowing he was an obvious target framed in the doorway. Once inside, however, he did nothing fast, observing the basic teaching to merge into any background, to become a wallpaper man. The mock-up was artificially illuminated to represent natural sunlight, providing shadows, and Zenin used every one available, never once disclosing himself. A constant theme through each training session at Balashikha was self reliance and awareness beyond the instruction at those sessions, to think ahead beyond the obvious. Zenin at once recognized the unreality of a confrontation in such a ghost town setting, guessing the possibility of an ambush. So he observed another lecture, switching from hunter to hunted. He slipped into the supposed café, intentionally because it was so obvious, soft-footedly exploring the outer area and the kitchen, and having satisfied himself they were unoccupied he checked the upstairs rooms, discovering a make-believe bathroom. By the time he regained the ground floor Zenin had isolated a disparity in the café. It was complete in every respect – even to cooking materials which he decided to utilize – but there were no knives or forks in the customer area nor knives in the kitchen to be used as weapons. It was always possible, of course, that his opponent or opponents would have been offered weapons like he had been but if they had there would have been no purpose in precluding them from the fake restaurant. There were a lot of bottles and glasses, which could be broken to provide a