After leaving his apartment Illya headed to the small neighborhood of Kitai-Gorod, a quaint business district surrounded by the medieval walls of the Kremlin.
It was one of the oldest historical parts of Moskva, joining the Kremlin from the east side, and Moskva River - from the south side, with St. Elijah's gate which in turn joined Lyubanka Square with the Kiti-gorod. That particular gate had a special place in Illya's heart, as he was named for his fathers Jewish friend Elijah and passing through the gate always made him think kindly of his namesake. *
Elijah died at the hands of the Nazis in Bykivnia forest along with Illya's father Nicholaí, older brother Dimitry, as well as his Uncle Vanya and cousin Anastasiya. He let those sad thoughts drift away, burying them where they belonged, safely hidden with the rest of his feelings.*
He continued walking, heading to Tverskaya Street, where many State approved cafés and restaurants could be found. He stopped in one of the smaller ones, having found the food in these places was generally of better quality.
He'd not eaten since the previous day and his usual headache was dogging him. Though he could ill-afford spending his money on such a luxurious thing as eating out, he had no choice. He needed to be on the road for Novgorod as soon as possible, but he could not do that on an empty stomach.
His high metabolism had always been a problem, but again one he had learned to live with. He would get terrible headaches and eventually would become light-headed if he didn't eat something.
There had been extreme occasions where his body would literally shut down when lacking food, and he would pass out for a few minutes. He guessed that it had something to do with his blood glucose, and took to keeping some sugar cubes wrapped in a handkerchief for when he would begin to feel his system going off. Luckily this was never exposed during his training, if it had then he surely would have joined his friend Valery in the furnaces at Sepakov.
Illya stepped into a corner restaurant, knowing the woman running the small storefront eatery was only able to do so because she had good connections somewhere that allowed her the permits for such a business. Her name was Elena; she was a dark-haired, perhaps in her forties and looking like she might have Kazak blood in her. She smiled at him as she handed over a small menu card of the day's offerings.
He ordered a bowl of borscht, pelmeni filled with minced beef, lamb and pork, spiced with pepper, onions and garlic, and as a side, an order of pirozhi dumplings filled with mashed potato and green onion.
Simple fare, but to Illya, a feast. It was accompanied by several glasses of hot tea, of course, the mainstay of a Russian meal.
"You have a great appetite for one so skinny? When was the last time you ate young man?" Elena asked.
Illya looked up at her with puppy dog eyes. "Not since yesterday morning Madam, but I managed to get by. I was lucky to have received a little bonus from my employer, just a few coins, as it is my birthday." He lied to her so deftly; part of it was a truth, as he was using some of the money advanced to him by the Directorate for his assignment.
"A birthday boy? Oh-ho, that earns you an extra portion of pirozhi, if you have room for them?"
Illya's grin gave her the answer.
She returned with another bowl, this time the dumplings were filled with sautéed mushrooms and spiced carrots."
"Thank you, this is very kind of you." He smiled sweetly as he knew how to play the game. Batting his eyes, and telling a white lie about his birthday to get extra food was a trick he'd used in the past. He wasn't proud of it, but it was at times an easy way to fill a hungry belly.
Fooling her into feeding him more and the rubles spent bought him a surprisingly hearty meal and that pleased him, as he had no idea when he would be able to eat again.
Illya thought about his assignment as he quickly ate, still questioning whether it was a test or not; either way, he was still dreading it. This was the first time he was being ordered to kill someone. Why did it have to be a person he knew...why?
Such a thing would have put most people off their feed, but Illya Kuryakin had no trouble eating, and relished his meal like one who was truly starving. That was something he had be very familiar with as a child, nearly starving to death on the streets of Kyiv. His life had been one of deprivation for many years; the only circumstance that would have kept him from feeding himself today was if he were ill. Food held a preeminent place in his life and it seemed like he was always in search of it.
He had been given per diem to cover the cost of the trip and that gave him a sense of how long he had been given to complete his mission. Between his few Kopeks and the money from the Directorate, he could do this. What they'd given him would barely cover the fuel costs, but to have such a meal he'd risk driving the car on near fumes. The food at least would keep him going for the long drive to Novgorod.
Eight hours there and eight hours back, and most likely he was expected to do what had to be done within the next twenty-four hours.
He would worry about being short on rubles after the fact, but then if Alexandrov had any money on him, Illya could claim that as his. Another fact of life for an agent, the contents of a target's pocket were fair game. Training had taught him to augment his income by any means and he was good at thievery as he'd learned that back in his days at the Orphanage, though it had not been so long ago.
His life had become so different since he'd said farewell to his friend Natasha Asimov. Her parting words as she was sent off to a life of servitude as a maid servant was to "not be like them," referring to the thugs they lived with at the Orphanage. That was a promise he meant to keep, but the requirements of his job as an agent of the Soviet government left his vow a little fuzzy at times. **
He was right when he once told Natasha that the government owned them. He was not a thug, but he was now a trained killer, an agent of Главное Разведывательное Управление ГРУ, the GRU and that was the sum total of his existence now. It was a life in which he had no say, he had been chosen and not the other way around.
When Viktor Karkoff entered his life, everything changed. He had been tested and judged far above the intelligence level for his age and finished his schooling in record time, served in the Navy and completed his training for military intelligence all by his seventeenth birthday.
If he did as ordered and eliminated Alexandrov, he would most likely be given his first real assignment, perhaps a permanent one, and that he looked forward to, but not the means by which he would be taking to get it.
He started the car, driving on to Kitaigorodskii to quay Moskvoretskaya, heading past the Kremlin and taking the ramp onto Borovitskaya Square, north out of the city, not knowing what this mission really held in store for him as he struggled to come to terms with his mixed feelings over it.
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* ref "Beginnings"
** ref "The Orphanage"