A Game for Assassins (The Redaction Chronicles Book 1) Read Free Page B

services; a repair wagon, complete with a suitably slothful workman who'd taken many hours to do not very much at all.
    Bajek had the area covering the park and wild boar enclosure. Pleasant enough, but not when you're waiting nervously to capture a western spy.
    The job had been passed to them by the Russians. Unusually, a senior KGB officer by the name of Major Krivitsky was in command of the operation. Squat, vulgar, disdainful of the Polish intelligence officers under his command, Krivitsky had set out his stall in a blunt manner at the morning briefing.
    He stood at the head of the team, his large knuckles resting on the desk, chin jutting forward, soulless black eyes fixed on them, daring them to challenge his authority. He had then proceeded to lay out his experience. Fought in the Great Patriotic War, lifelong communist, an NKVD officer before they had changed their name to its current anagram; agent-runner, spy-catcher, hard bastard and the one person you don't want to cross. And all spoken in the absolutely lousiest Polish Bajek had ever heard. The man's voice was guttural, and at times almost incomprehensible, but it was clear enough to get his briefing across.
    A network of Polish spies had been rolled up and now the Russians wanted the chance to get their hands on a live, western case officer. But no ordinary western agent, not someone who worked through the Embassy, someone who had the safety net of diplomatic immunity.
    No, this was a non-official cover operative sent in on the 'black' to retrieve incriminating material. “The deal is this. You can have the Polish agents, we want the westerner,” glowered Krivitsky. “A show trial,” said Krivitsky, “to embarrass the Americans, the British, whoever the fuck it was. Then a prolonged interrogation, some Gulag time and then we sell him back to the West for one of our agents in a few years' time.”
    So who was this agent? What did he look like?
    “We don't know, so don't ask. Tall, maybe, young, sure. That's all we got, and we won't be getting any more where that came from,” murmured Krivitsky, who seemed loathe to give out any more information than he absolutely needed to. The rumor Bajek had heard was that the Polish spy Krivitsky interrogated hadn't had a strong enough constitution, and had decided to play the game no more. Permanently.
    “We got a trap set for him,” Krivitsky had announced. “A time and a place. We set the 'all clear' signal. Chalk mark on a lamppost on Marszałkowska Street. Means come and empty the post-box. Dead letter drop. He thinks he's getting the keys to the Kremlin, but we are going to be there rolling him up. So remember… you work for me. You do as I say. You don't, I make sure that you are sweeping the shit from the sewers for the rest of your life.”
    The dead letter box was in fact a loose brick, third row down, sixth brick across in a wall that surrounded the Herpetarium. It was located behind a small bush that provided, briefly, cover from any surveillance. The repair wagon which housed a member of the surveillance team had a discreet long lens camera pointing at the entrance to the pathway.
    The plan was to observe the target entering the tiny pathway between the wall and the shrubbery, alert the rest of the team, and they would then move in to make a hard arrest on the foreign agent and detain him once he'd exited.
    Over the past few hours they'd seen a few possible candidates for the soon-to-be-captured spy, but none of them fit the profile of a foreign intelligence agent. An elderly couple walking arm in arm, a mother on a visit with her two playful children, the usual retinue of courting couples. The most likely candidate had been a tall man of middle years, western business suit, but who had quickly been identified as a party official.
    One of the team had 'worked' him months ago after a suspected security leak from his Ministry, and the most contentious thing about him was his love affair with a junior