A forty-eight-year-old mother stepped into the lift of a Muscovite apartment block. A contract killer followed her, carrying a Makarov 9mm pistol. Anna Politkovskaya was the most famous investigative journalist in Russia when she was murdered. Her friends, who saw her years earlier when she had been poisoned on her way to cover the Beslan School Siege, or heard about her never-ending steam of death threats, said that Anna was brave beyond belief. And, from what I've read about her, it wouldn't surprise me if Anna Politkovskaya looked without blinking, straight into the Makarov pistol's barrel, as her killer pulled his trigger. As far as I know almost nobody has the kind of courage that she had. And so, at half past four in the afternoon of October 7th 2006, Anna died there, in her lift, with one bullet wound in her torso and another in her skull.