The Destroyer - 40 - The Destroyer 040 - Dangerous Games by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir [Murphy, Warren & Sapir, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Action
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2010-03-19T14:51:41+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

This was the new Rus­sia. Re­ced­ing in­to the mists of his­to­ry were the bloody mil­lions-​dead purges of a Stal­in and the ran­dom cru­el­ties of a Khrushchev. The blood­shed aimed at its own peo­ple had large­ly stopped. But the suc­ces­sors of Stal­in and Khrushchev were still para­noidal xeno­phobes and a call to the Krem­lin was still an oc­ca­sion for sweaty palms on the part of most Rus­sians.

For one thing nev­er changed, new Rus­sia or old Rus­sia. Some of the peo­ple called to the Krem­lin nev­er came back.

But when the call came for Dim­itri Sorkof­sky, a colonel in the KGB, Rus­sia’s se­cret po­lice, he mere­ly won­dered why it had tak­en them so long to call.

Sorkof­sky was a pride­ful man, proud of his ser­vice record, as he was proud of his two small daugh­ters, Ni­na, eleven, and Mar­ta, sev­en. He had been equal­ly proud of their moth­er, his beau­ti­ful Natasha, un­til she had died five years ear­li­er at the age of thir­ty-​two.

As he walked through the Moscow streets to­ward his ap­point­ment, Sorkof­sky knew he was go­ing to be giv­en the great­est as­sign­ment of his ca­reer, and his sole re­gret was that Natasha was not there to share it with him.

Natasha had been fif­teen years younger than he and she had al­ways been so filled with life that she had kept him young. He nev­er knew what had made her fall in love with an ug­ly old bear of a man like him, but he was on­ly hap­py that she had. Hap­py and proud. He re­called how his chest puffed with pride any­time he went any­where with Natasha on his arm, any­time he saw oth­er men’s eyes fol­low her across a room. And then she was told she had in­cur­able bone can­cer.

Still, dur­ing those last six months, she had been the strong one and af­ter she had died, he felt guilty that some­how she had made those six months the hap­pi­est of his life when, by all rights, they should have been the sad­dest. But she would not hear of sad. She had noth­ing to be sad about, she had told Dim­itri. She had raised two love­ly daugh­ters and had a love­ly, love­ly man for a hus­band.

He paused on the street and rubbed a hand over the lumps that seemed to have piled up to form his face. How could she have felt that way about him? He touched his eyes with his hand, found mois­ture, and wiped it away.

Dim­itri Sorkof­sky was called “The Rhi­no.” He was six-​foot-​three and weighed 250 pounds. His Ne­an­derthal brow be­lied his high in­tel­li­gence. His hands were like mas­sive paws, and yet Natasha had of­ten called them the gen­tlest hands in the world. Her love for him had found beau­ty where there was none for oth­ers to see.

He had been so proud of her, just as he was proud of his skills, and when he re­port­ed to his su­pe­ri­ors in the Krem­lin and was told that he would be in charge of se­cu­ri­ty for the Olympic Games, he

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