"I am a very Russian thing because in America when you fight abroad, you return home and become a millionaire. But here, I returned home after seven years out in Hell, and I had to return to work in an electrical factory for a tiny salary. After the wild, after my life in Kabul, I couldn't do that work anymore." Misha obviously has not heard of our Vietnam…but this is no time for history lessons.
He became a hit man by chance. He and a friend were involved in a fight on the housing estate where he lives on the outskirts of Moscow. Misha killed a man by stabbing him in the throat. His buddy, another ex-commando, had just been released from jail and told another ex-con about Misha's skills. The ex-con was an enforcer for the Mafia. Misha found he had a new job.
"The idea came to me that I could kill for money. Why not? I had crossed the line long ago in Kabul. I wanted money."
"What was your first job?"
"I killed an Asian man, maybe he was an Uzbek. Someone showed me his face. His address. Never knew his name. About 35 years old. Narcotics business. It was dark. He was opening his door and I shot him close-range with a Makerov pistol and silencer."
"His head must have exploded."
"Of course, but he fell forward into the apartment. That simple."
Misha has carried out six hits in the last two months. He does not usually know why he is ordered to kill a specific man. In the complex gang wars now killing hundreds in the former U.S.S.R., hits are ordered for vengeance, greed, betrayal—but usually for the narcotics that are now flowing up from Central Asia through Moscow and Petersburg, via Latvia and Hungary, into Western Europe. Misha asks no questions. He just does the job.
He described each hit with the same ghastly serenity. There was the Godfather of the Czech Mafia in central Asia: "An old Czech with ten or so bodyguards. I killed him from the car with a rifle with telescopic sights. Hit him in the head. Only the head is precise. Tidy."
Then there was the man he shot in his car, just like that ("Makerov. Silencer. So tidy. No fuss."); the one he killed in his tool shed, again in independent Uzbekistan; and, most chillingly, there was the hit man whom Misha was ordered to kill in Minsk, the capital of the now independent Republic of Belorussia. "He had a contract on my boss. He was also an assassin, but it was not difficult because he didn't expect a thing. He was a long way from Moscow, in his own place."
"Aren't you afraid they could kill you like you killed him?"
Misha shrugged. "Yes. One day it will be me. Maybe. It's life."
"Hasn't anything ever gone wrong, ever?"
"No. It simply must not. Every case is different. Each needs a different plan. Patience. No one must see you. Any fool can kill someone. The skill of the profession is the plan, before and after. That is truly why I am a professional."
"What are you paid for a hit?"
"The first one I only got 20,000 rubles ($200) because I had no experience. But now I get 50,000 rubles ($500) because they know I am good and also I have a helper I must pay to do research on each client."
"Client?"
"That's what my boss calls them—clients. He pays me 25 percent before and the rest afterward. My boss calls me and says, "I have a job for you. A new client."
"Are you afraid to say no? Would he have you killed if you refused a client?"
"I am afraid to say no. You see, my boss is very clever man. He knows what I can do. But if I refused a job, I don't even want to think about it. My boss is in his fifties, very discreet, dresses well, but not like some black marketeer or currency dealer. He's no pimp. He's as clever as a professor. He drives a Volvo, but doesn't look rich. He never congratulates me on a job. He never mentions it again."
"Do you enjoy your work?"
"No. No one wants to work. But if you must, it is nice to have an interesting job with a high salary."
"Are you excited by killing?"
"I have a nice nature. I am not an animal. Yet I don't feel anything. I lost all my feeling in Afghanistan. I don't think about these men at all. I do not see their faces haunting me during the night."
"Are you religious? A patriot?"
"Yes, I love Russia. But I never pray."
"Do you ever wonder what happens to the souls of your clients?"
"Never. It's not my problem."
"If the Mafia ordered you to kill a woman or a child, would you do it?"
"Never. I'd rather die before I'd kill a woman."
"Do your mother, sister, or girlfriend know about your life?"
"Only two people really know the whole picture—my assistant and my boss. I have two lives. Killing is better than my electrical job, but I must keep both."
"What's your ambition?"
"To marry my girlfriend and have the money for a normal life."
"Will you go to Heaven?"
"Doesn't matter to me."
"Have you sinned by killing?"
"In a way, I must be the hand of God. God is all powerful. Someone must do my job and God chose me."
"Are you Communist or Democrat?"
"Neither, but in the August coup a year ago, I stood in the streets all night to defend Yeltsin. I just love my Motherland."
"One last question, why did you speak to me?"
"My boss ordered me. I must do as he says. He is a clever man—educated, a real intellectual."
Misha stood up to end the interview. The interpreter, who had been perched pathetically on my bed, stood up as well. She was very nervous because she had failed in her job and now she knew too much. Misha gestured that she should go ahead. She glanced at me one last time, with that imploring look, like a sheep on its way to the abattoir.
Tags:
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dispatcher,
executioner,
fellow man,
flask,
fur hat,
hit man,
imbecile,
kind of man,
mafia,
moscow hotel room,
murder,
murderer,
philosopher,
psychopath,
Russia,
snoopers,
special forces,
strange feeling
