Assault or Attrition Read Free Page B

who stabbed me; a stocky, unshaven man in his mid-thirties,
with closely cropped black hair and a broken nose that looked as if
it had been continually deviated from a lifetime of bar fights, and
had never been allowed enough time to properly heal between
brawls.
    “His name is
Oleg Vovchanchyn, a Russian who immigrated to Canada three years
ago. When the Toronto PD fished his body out of Lake Ontario I gave
them a call and asked to see some of the evidence.” Todd pulled out
a second photo that showed the man’s shirtless chest, likely taken
just prior to an autopsy.
    Tattoos –
seventeen of them, to be exact – blanketed his torso, all with
distinct meanings. I assumed at one point they were black, but over
the years, the symbols and images had faded to a time-worn, muddy
blue. A grim reaper stretched around his ribcage, clutching a
sickle in one skeletal hand and a newborn baby in the other. Todd
explained that, in a Russian prison, a tattoo of the reaper
signifies that you’ve killed before. I didn’t want to know what the
baby meant.
    Vovchanchyn
also had a pair of stars that adorned his shoulders, barbed wire
wrapped around his midsection, and the Crucifixion of Christ
emblazoned across his chest. Although they all meant something
different, they had one thing in common: they were old. Nearly ten
years, by the looks of the most recent ink – all except for one. A
single tattoo was not only in color, but practically glowed like a
fresh coat of paint: a bright red hammer and sickle emblem on his
left bicep.
    “So he’s a
Russian,” I said flatly, tapping the photo. “Aren’t they into that
Soviet-era stuff?”
    “Maybe,” he
replied. “But Oleg here went out and got inked recently .
What significant event in this guy’s life could have prompted him
to get his first tattoo in a decade?”
    “He’s Red Army.
How did he know I would be at the CN Tower?” My first reaction was
to assume that I was being followed, or that, however unlikely,
someone in my inner circle had leaked my location.
    “He didn’t,”
Todd said with a small shake of his head. “His phone records and
Emails came up clean. Not to mention he’s been working at the 360
Restaurant for the last two years. I think it was a
coincidence.”
    It didn’t seem
possible. “So someone who wanted me dead just happened to be
serving a plate of fries at the table next to me? Shit...guess I’m
not as lucky as I thought.”
    “It was going
to happen to you sooner or later, because it’s been happening all
over the world.”
    “What, people
getting attacked by angry Russians with poor hygiene?”
    “No,” Todd
replied gravely. “People getting terminated who look a hell of a
lot like you.” He leafed through his file folder and produced more
than a dozen photographs of dead bodies. All of the victims were
around thirty years old with short brown hair, a square jaw line
and blue eyes – it was uncanny. The man who got his throat slit in
Oslo could have been my twin.
    “This file
represents the body count that piled up during the three months
you’ve been gone. This is the first killer we’ve caught thanks to
your bodyguard, but after a shooting in Budapest last month I dug
up this security footage.” He pulled a tablet from the inside
pocket of the briefcase and projected a small holo-screen into the
air. The soundless video played instantly, displaying a young girl
with shoulder–length blond hair, dressed from head-to-toe in black
leather. She was circling a corner to duck into an alley, making no
attempt to conceal the smoking revolver that she was clutching in
her hand. When her back faced the camera, Todd commanded the
footage to pause and enhance three-hundred percent. With her hair
flowing in mid-stride, the base of her neck was exposed, and it
revealed a bright red tattoo. Fresh as a new coat of paint.
    I studied the
video as it flickered in the sunlight that began to pour through my
room’s lone window. The pieces came