Revelations

David glanced out the window. Another Cold day. Rising, he went through his usual morning routine, checking the dresser, the bed, and the computer, just to be sure. He approached the door, and bending, tools in hand, began switching the locks. Each lock made a loud click, and he was briefly blinded by a burst of light and a blast of cold air.

As he pulled out the final lock, and readied the replacement, movement on the other side caught his eye. Looking through the keyhole, he could clearly see a man, middle-aged, blue-coated, Grey-haired, sitting on the bench across the street. It wasn't that the man was doing anything in particular, he seemed to be perfectly at ease. No, it was the fact that this man was so at east, so at home on this cold, dirty street, that David felt his stomach turn. He had never seen this man before. He went to his desk, and drew out the neighborhood file from the hidden compartment behind his computer. Thumbing through it, he passed the bum who lived in the tunnel, that man with the dog who lived in that burned-down church, the couple who's marriage was falling apart, damn drunk he was, but this middle-aged man was nowhere to be seen.

David looked out the keyhole again. The man was reading the Washington post. David quickly calculated, if today was what he thought it was, his column should be in that issue. If the man drew conclusions, David was as good as dead.

Suddenly, a blue blur obscured the keyhole, the doorbell rang. David jumped back in terror, before looking through the eyepeice, and saw the blue-capped form of a mailman. David quickly inserted the lock, twisted it, and proceeded to unlock the door. The mailman gave David a practiced smile.

"Package for you, Mr. Berner," he said cheerefully, using one of David's pseudonyms.

As David took the thin cardboard, he felt the man's eyes on him. By the time the mailman turned away, he was looking back at his paper.

David, on the pretense of reading the package, raised his hand to adjust his glasses, and with a twitch of his ring finger, a minute click was heard, and the man was forever in David's archive.

David left the package unopened on his counter, it was his pay from the Post, he knew it. What he needed to do was to leave, but if he left from the front, the man would be able to follow him. Leave unobserved, and they would know he was on to them.

There was no choice, David had to act. He drew up his coat, placed his wallet in one pocket, the Makrov in the other, drew the blackout gloves on before donning his normal ones, and set out the door. His knife remained strapped to his chest, as it had been all night.

Cars trundled past, cautious of ice. A Bus pulled up, a man limped out, his eyes looking about before settling on a storefront. David watched him go, aware the whole time of the man with the paper’s eyes on his back. He walked a little slower, don’t let him catch on. He wondered, the rapper… the man that was reported at the scene, “looked like he stepped out of a Russian mafia show” or something like that, the paper had said.

David’s mind raced. If the man with the paper had anything to do with that, what would it mean? GRU? KGB? They were all after him now. He had been found. He Knew what he had to do, if that were the case. He had planned for this, but, somehow, had never expected he would have to do it. First, the park.