The Target

I’m about 3 boilermakers in...so I’ll share a story with you.



Some time ago, I was confronted with a contract to terminate a known Ukrainian War Criminal-- Anna Yarema. The Client hinted that she was hiding in the southern US, somewhere between Florida and South Carolina. It didn’t take me very long to track financial records from the National Bank of Ukraine and follow 8.3 million hryvnia that had been stolen from the Canadian Bank Note Company a few years prior. The contractor also provided me with computer screenshots that displayed a paper trail of financial exchanges where she could convert her money into US dollars-- $314,000. Not much, but it was enough for INTERPOL to take notice, and latch onto this case. They were calling for the US to find and extradite her, but my handlers had other plans.



“Under no circumstances is she allowed to be apprehended.”


The phrase repeated itself in my head a thousand times as I committed her address to memory as I left the airport.



“She is to be eliminated and made to appear like an accident. If she is allowed her day in court, she will undermine the work of this organization. This cannot be allowed under any circumstances.”


Every instruction seemed to latch to the front of my mind as I drove in the dark summer rain from Florida to the last known address of the target- A dingy apartment complex in Georgia.



I followed the GPS to the exact location, cased the neighborhood and her house and just outside her building, I staked out. I brought a camera to take pictures of Anna when she would appear to go to and from work, taking out the garbage, standing outside the porch at 2 A.M., anything with her face, I snapped a photograph. None of them were close enough to confirm that it was her. Her facial scar that crossed from the inside corner of her right eye, diagonally across the bridge of her nose, stopping just at the inner edge of her left cheek, beside the nose and above the lip. It wasn’t large, but it was noticeable, the skin had darkened and swelled up there-- a dueling scar, no doubt.



After about the 3rd day. My chance finally came. A Saturday. She was home, had bought groceries. Her living room window had the curtains pulled away, and most of the residents were away from their homes. I could see her watching television. It seemed like she had been there for at least an hour before I quietly left my vehicle, my 22/45 seated snug under my jacket as I walked the short path to her door.



Going up the stairs to Anna's Apartment, I jiggled the handle. It was unlocked, and I quietly walked inside, when the sudden percussion of a shotgun blast punched a hole in the drywall just beside my face, forcing me back to the entrance, followed by the racking of another shell.



I could hear footsteps approaching the doorway: slow, methodical. She was checking the entryway for shadows, silhouettes, anything that could tip her off to my presence. I tried my best to hold still as she walked up to the door to close it, exposing the barrel of her shotgun as she did it. With adrenaline coursing through my body, I reached out and lifted the barrel over my head as I forced her back inside, causing her to fire off another round of buckshot into the plaster ceiling, dusting the room in the material as she pulled me onto the ground and attempted to bring the weapon over my throat as to strangle me with it, rocking her body back and forth as she tried to wrest control of the shotgun under my chin, my hand placed between the two points to prevent her from cutting off my air.



We tussled on the ground for what felt like an eternity, before I threw my head back into her nose, her body instinctively letting go of the shotgun to reach for her face, which allowed me to kick the long gun away. I was prepared to draw my pistol and finally finish the job, when she rose up from her crouched position to spear me to the ground, lifting me off my feet. My back hit shoulders first into the stove in the kitchenette, a few feet away from her couch, shattering the glass onto the linoleum floor as she tried to strike me with her fists. My hands held her wrists as she attempted to take advantage of her dominant position atop my stomach, before I managed to roll her onto her back into the glass, Before delivering a series of punches to her face, knocking her out.



As she lay there, I quickly went back to the door and checked outside to check if anyone had heard the disturbance. After hearing nothing for a moment, I closed the door and walked back to her, Propping her up against the bottom cabinet, before reaching into my jacket pocket and retrieving an old photograph.



"Anna Yarema," I called to her, as I squatted in front of her face as she came to consciousness, her breathing labored by the blood running from her nose, her dueling scar prominent across her face as it was highlighted from the dash of crimson as I showed her the photograph.



"You were charged with supervising the POW camp outside of Roman-Kosh, near the Stilya river, Right?" She coughed and shifted a bit against the cabinet, her eyes attempting to focus on the picture: An image of a younger version of herself, dressed in military regalia, in the background a shallow trench of corpses-- A smile on her face.



-"I am the very same," She said, her accent heavy as I gave a nod.



"You know why I'm here?"



-"You...You've come for the money, yes?" I shook my head, anger boiling behind my ears as I threw another few pictures her way, her bloodied hands reaching gingerly for each one. There was a drawn-out pause, before she responded- with a smile.



She had taken prisoners and subjected them to suffer lingchi- Death by a thousand cuts via rapier. Evidence noted that she was capable of horrendous torture, when she was allowed. Otherwise, she would kill most of her victims by hanging. Dozens of victims of nondescript origin, gender or ethnicity-- died by her hand. Every single photograph of the dead.



"Every single photograph is a life you stole. A future destroyed because those people didn't support your side, and you had to teach them a lesson, right?" She laughed at that. I resigned myself to give another gentle nod as I reached into my jacket for one last photograph. A young girl, somewhere between the age of 8 or 9. Blonde hair, blue eyes, a simple dress as she stared into the camera, a slight smile on her face.



"Do you remember her? Anja Gorodski, daughter of Igor and Nena. You stole her from her family, because her uncle supported the government.