Jet by Russell Blake

was empty, the next a streak of movement as the figure sped to the rear entrance underneath the camera. A second later, the stream went back to static.
    Then the final scene of the familiar drama, the one that Grigenko savored like a fine wine. He had watched it at least a thousand times. Yet another view, this one a hallway, the camera hidden in a molding, he’d been told later. Same incredible resolution.
    An interior door. Stationary. Old looking, the joinery and carvings distinctly antique. A time code played along the bottom, counting off tenths of seconds.
    The door opened, and a black-clad figure stepped out, blood smeared plainly across its torso, the head cloaked in a balaclava, features hidden by the black fabric – except for the eyes. The figure moved stealthily, softly, footsteps precise, a pistol gripped in one hand.
    And then it happened.
    The figure looked up at the camera.
    For a brief instant, less than a heartbeat, a nano-second, the lens peered into the figure’s soul even as it gazed blankly at something it didn’t know was there. He had been told that the clandestine camera was so skillfully hidden that nobody could have recognized it – incorporated into the ornately fabricated molding that ringed the ceiling of the hall. But every time he saw that piece of footage, he felt like the figure was staring at him, with full understanding that he was watching. An illusion, he understood. Impossible. And yet he was always struck by the same sensation. He felt compelled to stop the show at that point, freezing the image of the watched, watching the watcher. Even if paused, when most footage would have gotten blurrier, this was such high digital resolution that he could enlarge it until he was a tenth of an inch off the eye’s surface without visible degradation.
    The moment stretched uneasily as Grigenko studied the figure, searching for something he’d missed, something he hadn’t seen. As he always did, he eventually pushed ‘play’, his scrutiny having revealed nothing new.
    Then it was over. The figure moved out of the frame, leaving only bloody boot prints on the richly carpeted floor.
    Grigenko swallowed the remainder of his drink as the screen went black, the montage finished. He raised himself from the couch with a lurch and walked back to the table and the bottle.
    It would be another long night if he allowed himself to perpetuate this, he knew from harsh experience. Still, knowing and doing were two different things. He poured himself a healthy soak of vodka, fished another cigarette from the pack, and returned to his seat.
    Later, he would stagger to his ornately appointed bedroom where his latest conquest, a seventeen-year-old Bolshoi ballet sensation, waited patiently for his advances. Irena could soothe the brutalized animal in him like nobody he’d ever met, which made her both irresistible and dangerous. She had a power over him he feared for its intensity – he couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted someone like he wanted her. It was like a disease. A sickness; an addiction.
    Still, he had chosen to watch his little movie instead of availing himself of her passionate charms. For the moment, anyway.
    He settled back down and picked up the remote, cueing the playback to start at the beginning again, taking another burning swallow as the screen flickered to life, the phantom that tormented him shimmering on the wall in a kabuki dance that transfixed him every time he watched it, jaw clenching unconsciously, teeth grinding with barely controlled rage.
     
     

Chapter 4
     
     
     
    Three Years Ago, Belize, Central America
     
    The chopper’s blades sliced through the damp atmosphere, thumping a hypnotic beat as the aircraft hovered fifteen hundred feet above the jungle treetops north of Spanish Lookout. The five passengers gazed intently through the windows at the topography below – referring to their bound reports, making discreet notes in the borders, exchanging glances