Conscripted — The Shadowboxer Files

The Comfort Suites in West Little Rock should have been safe. I booked a room under an alias that took six weeks to build, so it was too soon to be on anyone’s radar, in case thy were looking, and seasoned enough to pass scrutiny.

I flew into Bentonville on a regional airline, one of the smaller airbuses and rented a car under another AKA.

My head was shorn to a buzz, and I was twenty pounds lighter, lost through running and diet. All in all I should have been unrecognizable and hard as hell to follow. So I was beyond shocked when the Russian walked in.

The kids were playing in the water area, I had a pen and a notepad, but no firearm. In hindsight, that was stupid. Even something as innocent as watching my children play required constant vigilance. It was one of the reasons I didn’t see them often enough, and the fact that he knew where I was and who I was with shot my concern-o-meter straight past the redline.

“Kroquidil,” he muttered.

His jaw was wired shut, impeding speech.

“Dmitri.”

We used codenames, depending on the danger level. Dmitri had just told me I was close to dead.

I quickly considered jamming the pen into his eye and waiting for the satisfying pop that preceded the death gurgle.