Story start 08/31/2018

As he watched the house burn in the early morning light, he let out a sigh of relief. The chill from the air hurt his lungs, but he could not have cared less. The deed was done. The bodies that were presently being roasted in that conflagration had paid the ultimate price and bought him a new life. One far away from here. One that would never feel the endless chill of a Soviet winter. One where no one would ever know his real name. 

Thirty-six hours later, he was staring down the barrel of a double barrel shotgun and sweating more from the heat and humidity than from the situation. This would not be the first time that a man filled with envy and rage would threaten to end his life. Nor would it be the last. 

168 hours he had just crossed the border into America. The land of the free, supposedly. A land governed by Lyndon Baines Johnson. An individual who he personally had put into office. This was not where he was supposed to be. This was the last place that he was supposed to be. In his thirty-two years of life, this was the first time that circumstances were working against him and putting him in a place that he felt truly afraid. 

Not because of who he was or what he had done. But those who knew. And those who knew that they could use him again. In the land of the free, this was the place where he had the least amount of liberty. And, unless he could make it from Miami to Canada within the next twelve hours, he was truly and completely trapped. 

Even a lion gets ensnared in a trap that he could not see.