Chapter 26
Viktor Kozel, or Alexei Demenok as his passport named him, smiled. The payment had been made. It amazed him how digits could transcend space itself from one secret bank account to another. Another step towards retirement from the game, a game that had become old.
But Kozel had no regrets. He had lived his life the way it had been dealt to him. It began in the Russian army and then he helped with the muscle end of the KGB, making sure prisoners talked when they had to. He was an expert in various torture methods but had always yearned to make good money. Dabbling in arms smuggling to criminal elements, two years before the Soviet Union collapsed, got him into trouble and he was thrown into a high-security prison near the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.
A twist of fate came and K
