Place: Latvia and Serbia
Time: February 1996
This life that we call our own
Is neither strong nor free;
A flame in the wind of death,
It trembles ceaselessly.
And this all we can do
To use our little light
Before, in the piercing wind,
It flickers into night:
To yield the heat of the flame,
To grudge not, but to give
Whatever we have of strength,
That one more flame may live.
- "Fire" by Dorothea Mackellar
Blagoje Davydenko was, in the simplest terms, a bad man.
Psychologists or philosophers might argue that people were complex creatures who could not be characterized in such a binary way. A person could do bad things, they might say, but that didn't necessarily make them a bad person. Clint disagreed. What was a man if not the sum of his actions? Nothing less than a serious malformation of character could lead a man to commit the kinds of acts Davydenko had done of his own free will. The weapons were one thing. There were hundreds of free-lance arms dealers around the world, peddling everything from slingshots to surplus Soviet nuclear warheads. Davydenko dabbled in the latter, which was what had landed him on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar in the first place. However, further investigation revealed that his more lucrative cash business was girls. Young girls-young enough to make a decent man's skin crawl at the thought.
Clint might not have called himself a decent man, but he nonetheless found Davydenko repellant. The thick brown folder containing his target's information was worn and dog-eared from hours of study. The facts had long been memorized: where he lived, where he went, what he owned, who he spent time with. Even so, the feel of the papers helped Clint think; paging through the stack, looking at the pictures, filling in the blanks with images in his mind. It was his first solo. He had to find the opening, the weakness. One shot, one kill.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had trained Clint Barton to do many things after they'd recruited him to their little black ops unit. He could hit the eye out of a Jack at the outer range of his rifle on a windy day, for example. What was more important than being a good shot, however, was the willingness to take the shot, make the decision-make the kill. He hadn't actually committed the murder for which he'd been convicted back in the States, but he'd signed on to commit them for S.H.I.E.L.D., more or less. Some might say he'd been coerced: the alternative of spending life in a maximum security prison was a significant motivator. He honestly didn't know whether those who'd picked him for recruitment believed in his innocence. Maybe they didn't care. Whatever the truth, he'd made this decision of his own free will. Owned it, like every other choice he'd ever made. If he was going to be damned, then it would be by his own hands, his own choices, not someone else's machinations.
What he had to choose now was where to make his strike. Davydenko was living on borrowed breaths, and each one the man drew put another person in danger. Clint wouldn't even necessarily say innocent person. That word didn't hold a lot of meaning sometimes. Intel said Davydenko's second was weak and that his organization would fracture quickly if he were dead. Eventually another piece of slime would ooze up to fill the voids, but in the meantime S.H.I.E.L.D. might be able to plug a few holes and funnel some of the more dangerous goods off the black market.
Clint sat up from his hunched-over posture and raked the fingers of both hands through his hair, making it stick up every which way. He inhaled and blew out a long breath, then leaned back in his chair, tilted the front legs up off the ground, and rocked lightly back and forth. The words were blurring on the page. Screw it, he needed to move. Moving helped him think. The chair legs hit the floor with a thump and he was up, headed for the gym...
A trickle of cold sweat ran down Clint's back. He ignored it. He ignored everything except the cross-haired circle of scenery framed in his rifle's scope. He had neither a spotter nor a flanker on this mission, just a wheelman to take him back to base when the job was done. Požarevac was the birthplace of Slobodan Milošević, the current president of Serbia. Later it would become his final resting place, but his death was still a decade in the future. In times past, the city had been inhabited by Thracians, Dacians, Celts, Huns, and Romans, among others. Balkan Slavs were relative latecomers, though they had been settled in for a few centuries before Columbus sailed from Spain to the New World. The name Požarevac meant "fire town" in the Serbian tongue. It was apt, Clint thought.
"Cíl se vstupem do ulice, na rozvrhu," he said quietly in Czech to whomever was listening at the far end of his comm.
The target was entering the narrow street, right on schedule. Davydenko was a cocky bastard. He rarely varied his routine, which included being driven from his home base in Belgrade to Požarevac once a week to meet with his local "business manager". The trip was eighty kilometers, an hour each way under normal conditions. Clint had gotten a ping sixty-two minutes ago from the birdwatcher surveilling Davydenko's private residence. In about forty-five seconds the vehicle would come to a stop in front of the apartment building across the street. The bodyguard would get out of the front passenger seat and open the rear door. The primary would exit and cross the sidewalk to climb the three steps leading up to the shallow front stoop. The door would open to admit him without knocking, though that seemed to be more about respect than security. He would enter in front of his bodyguard, leaving the chauffeur behind. The sequence was tight, with few spare seconds he could exploit. The bodyguard was a thick piece of meat. The guy would block a lot of shots just by standing an inch too far to one side. From his third-floor vantage point, the best chance for a head shot was when Davydenko first stood up after exiting the car, or when he ascended the steps. However, both almost guaranteed he wouldn't get a second clean shot if he failed with the first.
No time left to think...
The butt of the Dragunov was seated firmly in the pocket of his shoulder, safety off, the pad of his finger on the trigger. The black Volvo slowed, stopped. Clint could see the driver, who seemed to be watching the scant traffic and nothing else. If someone looked hard enough at his borrowed perch, they might see him. A breeze lightly ruffled the curtains at his window, but he didn't move, almost didn't breath. Just one breath. Deep in. Slow out. Hold. One heartbeat.
Clint squeezed the trigger, following through past the break-point, just like he'd been taught. The 7.62 × 54mmR-7N1 round left the muzzle at eight hundred meters per second. In less than four hundredths of a second, too fast even to blink, it reached the target: tearing skin, smashing bone, scrambling gray matter, creating a shock wave ten times the physical diameter of the bullet's path. At such short range, the kinetic energy was nowhere near fully expended within the skull. It blew a ragged exit out of the far side of Davydenko's head, spraying the bodyguard in blood and bits as the body slumped heavily to the ground.
"Je to hotové," Clint said tersely as he flipped the small bipod up against the body of the weapon and shoved it into its canvas case. It's finished. Men were pouring out of the building across the street as he slung it across his back and began to move. One thing left to do: get to his ride. At the door he paused, his hand on the knob, listening. Footsteps in the hall. Voices. The commotion in the street would be attracting attention. They'd be going down. He was going up.
The ladder to the roof was in a maintenance closet at the end of the hallway, iron rungs running up to a hatch. The key he needed had been made weeks ago by a local contact. Clint slipped into the small room and closed the door quietly. Just a soft 'snick' sounded when the deadlatch fitted itself back into its slot. Then he was up the ladder, climbing out into the bright Serbian morning. The hinges of the hatch had been oiled, so there was no squeaking to give him away, and he closed it with equal care. There was such a thing as too much haste, even now.
"Na střeše," he said, updating his location for the listeners. His heart was beating quickly, but he was calm. Sounds of yelling men carried up from the street. They knew the shot must have come from the building. The angle would have told them that much. He didn't go forward to look. There was no need. No time to waste. The roof was flat with a low wall around it, a laundry room vent and HVAC unit sitting in the corner nearest him. The next building was lower, separated by a narrow alley, containing a set of shops with apartments on top. At one end was an old-fashioned TV tower, which had been repurposed for a satellite dish. Piece of cake.
Crossing to vent in a few long strides, Clint lifted the cap and dropped the rifle inside. Eventually someone would find it, but that didn't matter. A quick glance confirmed that the opposite roof was empty. He backed up and got a running start, his last step a leap onto the wall before he launched himself into open air.
"Тамо је! Тамо горе!" There he is! Up there!
Someone in the alley-someone had seen him. That thought flashed through his mind as the soles of his boots hit the roof and he dropped into a roll to disperse the shock of the landing. He came up in a crouch, eyes assessing his new location. It was a long way to the TV antenna, which would also make a good ladder for someone to climb up. He was fast, but not quite that fast. No good. Time for Plan B.
Clint moved quickly to the front of the building. He'd studied it during his prep, but he needed to confirm that what he was looking for was still there. Yep. The street-level shops had awnings of weathered green canvas. Without hesitating he threw a leg over and let himself drop, knowing he'd either break through or roll off-hoping for the latter. The fabric dipped deeply beneath his weight and then rebounded. On the upswing he twisted, grabbing the pole along the front edge and somersaulting off to land on his feet on the sidewalk. Two old women pulling wheeled shopping baskets stopped sharply and looked at him with wide eyes. At the same time, a burly man poked his head out of the nearest shop door, barking some version of "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" in Serbian.
Things always looked different from a boots-on-the-ground perspective than they did on maps. Clint picked a direction and took off down the street before anyone got a truly good look at his face or thought to grab him. He ducked into a narrow alleyway on the next block and shrugged quickly out of his black jacket, tossing it in a trash can along with the black knit toboggan cap that had been covering his short hair. Beneath he wore a cream and brown ski sweater with a parade of snowflakes marching across his chest. It was hideous, and all the better for it. A Walkman and headphones appeared from his pants pocket, the latter covering his comm earpiece, though he didn't play any actual music on it as he emerged onto the street at the opposite end of the passage. He walked, a brisk but casual-seeming stride, even though every neuron in his brain screamed to get the hell away and his blood rushed in his ears, his heart hammering beneath his horrid woolen disguise.
After a few more blocks and three turns, he spied a battered blue Fiat with a coded license plate parked by the curb, the engine idling and a familiar face behind the wheel. Clint slipped into the passenger seat and the car took off. Neither man spoke, nor even really looked at each other as they motored north out of town into the countryside, headed toward the Danube and the Romanian border. In his lap, Clint's hands began to shake. He spread his fingers wide and gripped his thighs to still them. The car was suddenly hot and stuffy, his sweater itching at his neck.
"Pull over," he said, his voice low and husky, the words sounding almost swallowed in the back of his throat.
The driver glanced over at him, looking puzzled. When it didn't seem as if he was going to comply with the request, Clint spoke more forcefully. "Pull over."
Almost before the vehicle was stopped, he was out and wading into the knee-high grass, the door left ajar behind him, bending over the ditch at the side of the road with his hands on his knees. His stomach lurched and he threw up what little he'd eaten for breakfast in a series of jerking, wrenching heaves, slimy bitterness coating his tongue even after he spat. Then, with both hands, he awkwardly yanked his sweater off over his head and tossed the tangled mess into the ditch. It made a soft plop in the mud-puddled bottom.
With cough and a sniff, Clint turned his face and wiped his mouth on the shoulder of his t-shirt, goosebumps rising on his bare arms. He got back in the car and pulled the door shut behind him. It vibrated the small vehicle a dull clunk. "Just get us to the fuckin' airport, okay?"
With rhythmic strokes, Clint cut easily through the pool from one end to the other, exhaling beneath the water before rotating his head to inhale from the shallow trough behind the "bow wave" his head and body created. Near the wall he kicked harder and did a flip turn, pushing off hard off the wall and gliding beneath the water for several meters. For a few seconds it was quiet, serene. Then he broke the surface: body straight, head down, arms and legs snapping into the pattern. Powerful. Precise.
A gray-suited figure stood waiting on the pool deck, looking exactly like he had the first time Clint had seen him. Phil Coulson had been standing in a grimy visiting room at Rikers Island, feet apart and hands clasped behind his back, watching intently as the younger man shuffled in the door in his orange prison jumpsuit, ankles shackled and hands cuffed in front of him. He was a convicted murderer-Clint, not Coulson. The fact that he was innocent wasn't relevant to anyone but him, it seemed, but the bitter reality of the trumped-up charges against him was nothing compared to the knowledge that his brother was gone forever. At that point, he would have signed a deal with the devil to get even a slim chance of being able to get his hands on the son of a bitch who'd killed Barney…
Pushing up on the pool's edge, Clint levered himself out of the water, his feet making a soft slap-slap as he crossed to get his towel. He wiped his face with it and scrubbed it back and forth over his hair a few times before wrapping the damp material around his waist.
"You here about the mission?" he asked. After a second or two, he added, "Sir."
Coulson shook his head. "Well, not only that," he amended. Then it was his turn to pause. "It went well."
"More or less, yeah..." Clint answered.
The episode in the car had come out during his debriefing. He'd admitted it himself, since he'd assumed his driver would. The Powers weren't too big on secrets unless they were the ones controlling them. No one had said anything to him about it-yet. The memory of that muddy ditch was embarrassing and he was concerned that they'd judge him unfit to continue. S.H.I.E.L.D. could dump him right back at Elmira tomorrow and no one would care. Honestly, they could put a bullet in the back of his head if it suited them. Coulson looked like he knew. Disapproved.
"More or less?" the senior agent echoed, arms crossed over his chest.
Clint had to look away from the intensity of that impassive stare, in which he could see reflected his own misgivings. "Won't happen again," he said, trying hard to believe it. He would certainly try not to let it happen again.
"Son, I'm honestly more worried about the day you stop throwing up after you blow a man's brain out." Coulson's voice held no trace of sarcasm or recrimination. "One shot, one kill, you standing here with no one the wiser. It went off without a hitch."
Slowly, Clint nodded, a sense relief flooding through him. It released a tension he hadn't completely realized was there in the first place. Goosebumps were popping up on his arm where the chill air hit his damp skin. "Am I free to go?" he asked.
"Any time," Coulson answered, in a way that made Clint feel like the man meant more than the pool room…