Page 117 of Blood & Snow

There are three floors, a narrow stairwell, and Shubin's mother lives in apartment 2B.

Her son will climb those stairs, believing himself safe in his mother's embrace.

He will die believing it.

The meeting dissolves after a few last housekeeping matters.

My lieutenants file out, leaving me alone with cigarette smoke still clouding the air and the burden of the work I have laid out for me.

I check my weapon and holster it, strapping it to my chest beneath my coat and light another cigarette to try to calm my nerves and get myself mentally focused for this.

Shubin will be a formidable enemy.

I have to be prepared.

Seven p.m. arrives more quickly than I am prepared for.

I park three blocks from the target building, walking the remaining distance on sidewalks slick with ice.

Pedestrians hurry past with their heads down, focused on reaching warm destinations before the temperature drops farther.

The apartment building squats between a defunct bakery and a government clinic that closed a few hours ago.

The concrete walls stained black, windows covered by curtains that haven't been cleaned since Brezhnev died.

The entrance is a single glass door with a broken lock, security reduced to the collective apathy of the residents who live here.

I climb to the second floor keeping my footfalls as silent as possible on the old threadbare carpets, and I manage to avoid passing anyone on the way up.

Apartment 2B sits at the corridor's end.

Light seeps beneath the door, and I hear voices inside—an elderly woman's laughter mixing with a man's deeper tones.

Shubin arrived early tonight, which throws off my plan.

I expected to enter the apartment claiming to be the super, wait for him in the shadows while avoiding a good examination by his half-blind mother.

But plans change so I adapt.

I settle into the stairwell's shadows and wait.

Forty-three minutes later, the apartment door opens.

Shubin emerges alone, his coat buttoned against the cold.

He's shorter than his photographs suggested, maybe five-eight with the compact build of a man who takes his physique seriously.

I take the moment of advantage to soak in as much about him as I can.

Slight limp on the left leg, favoring his left arm too, which means someone has hurt him recently.

And he carries no gun in hand, only car keys.

It will give me a ten second advantage if he has to uncloak himself to pull his pistol.

I let him descend halfway before following, my footsteps masked by his own.

The building's entrance opens onto a courtyard surrounded by similar structures—a perfect killing ground with multiple escape routes and nowitnesses, especially in the darkness this time of year.