<br/><br/>(http://s649.photobucket.com/albums/uu214/Cutter2629/th_aalogo273460.jpg)<br/><br/>Viktor Petrov<br/><br/><br/><br/>The coffee was black, bitter. It reminded him of London, when he had a Makarov PM tucked in his waistband and not a Blackberry strapped to his belt.  The scent of the brew brought her visage into his mind’s eye. The Brits, a storied people, could not find the ability to make a worthy cup of coffee.  Standing by the bed, his mug steaming, the sheets rumpled, her scent mixed with his, the musky aroma of robust, primal, guttural sex hung heavy in the air. Her taste still upon his tongue as he sipped the acrid liquid and he was saddened as she emerged from the shower, towel-less, glistening that he had to end her life…<br/><br/>The Blackberry buzzed, shaking him from his reverie. He gazed at the screen and tossed it on the writing desk. He caught his reflection in the wall mirror; he studied himself, noting the bit of gray at his temples, the only sign of his age. He was fit, lean and flat-bellied. His black eyes were bits of obsidian, dusted with pewter-like flecks.  His mother said he had doll’s eyes. Lifeless. Cold. Like his father. His father had died serving in Afghanistan and his mother hanged herself in their small, cold-water flat after the funeral. All he could think about then as she twisted lazily in the dust-mote sunlight was who had the lifeless eyes now….<br/><br/>His brow furrowed. The past was dead and buried, like his parents, like so many of his comrades in service to the State. It was not a time for him to be morbid. There was much to do.  The camera was set, the fiber optics in place and the lap-top hummed on the desk.<br/><br/>He was in service, of sorts, to another entity.<br/><br/><br/>And just as authoritarian.<br/>