The Kestrel VTOL rested in the deep shadow of a Norwegian fjord, a wounded bird hiding from the wolves. Green and violet curtains of the aurora borealis pulsed silently overhead, their cold light giving the landscape the feel of a dream. The air was sharp and clean, smelling of pine, salt, and the acrid tang of the cold-bonded composite Sineus was applying to the aircraft’s hull. The temperature was well below freezing, and every exposed piece of metal was a trap of biting cold.
He worked with Isabelle Moreau in a rhythm of shared, unspoken purpose. There was no wasted motion. She would prep a surface, cleaning away the frozen hydraulic fluid and ice with a solvent that steamed in the frigid air, and he would follow, applying the patch of dark, fibrous material. The composite was a military-grade miracle, a two-part epoxy embedded in a carbon-fiber weave that cured hard even at twenty below zero. The price for its use was their time, exposed and vulnerable in this remote corner of the world.
Nadia Petrova was inside the crippled aircraft, likely asleep or, more probably, hunched over the Soviet-era data core they had paid for in blood and fire. She was the linguist, the codebreaker. This part, the physical mending of their broken machine, fell to him and Moreau. He was the engineer; she was, he was learning, a brutally competent jack-of-all-trades.
— This section needs a tension patch, — he said, his voice low against the vast silence of the fjord. He pointed to a jagged tear near the port engine nacelle where a 12.7mm round had ripped through the skin. — The frame is stressed. A flat patch won’t hold against the vibration.
Moreau looked at the tear, then at him. Her eyes, even in the faint, shifting light of the aurora, were analytical. She waited.
He took a length of high-tensile wiring from his kit. He began to weave it through a series of pre-drilled holes around the rupture, his gloved fingers moving with practiced dexterity. He was tying a knot he hadn’t used in years, a complex series of loops and hitches designed to distribute load across a compromised surface.
— My father was a naval engineer, — Sineus stated, not looking at her. It was more information than he had ever volunteered to anyone he wasn’t paying. — He designed engine mounts for nuclear icebreakers. He believed any problem could be solved with the right knot or the right gear ratio.
He pulled the knot tight. It was a small, perfect piece of structural logic, a memory of his father made solid.
Moreau didn’t respond to the personal detail. She simply watched his hands, her focus absolute. When he was finished, she moved to a similar tear on the opposite side of the fuselage. She took her own length of wire and replicated the knot exactly, her movements swift and certain. She did not ask for help. She did not make a single mistake. Her competence was her answer. A non-verbal signal of respect that was worth more than any spoken platitude.
They worked in silence for another half hour, the only sounds the scrape of their tools and the faint, ghostly whisper of the aurora. The fjord was a pocket of impossible peace after the chaos of Novaya Zemlya. He found himself checking the small, brass gimbaled compass he kept in his pocket. Its needle was steady, pointing to a true and reliable north. A small anchor of order in a world that was coming apart at the seams.
— Geneva, — Moreau said, her voice cutting through the quiet. She was smoothing a composite patch over the knot she had tied, her back to him. — That’s where it happened. The Geneva Incident. It’s not in any official record.
Sineus stopped working and turned to face her.
— Magnusson had a deal with my agency, — she continued, her voice flat and devoid of emotion. — We were to secure a researcher who had developed a memetic-dampening algorithm. Axiom was to provide tactical support. Instead, they provided an ambush. My team was the target.
She turned to look at him, her face illuminated by a slow pulse of green light from the sky. There was no pain in her eyes, only a cold, hard clarity.
— I was the only survivor. Magnusson’s report listed my team as acceptable losses. He sees people as assets to be liquidated. That’s why I hunt him. It’s not for my agency. It’s for the names on a list only I remember.
Sineus held her gaze. He saw no plea for sympathy, no hint of weakness. He saw the conviction of a soldier with a clear and absolute objective, a promise made to the dead. It was a logic he understood. Their alliance was no longer a temporary truce. It was a partnership forged against a common enemy.
— He chose the wrong asset to liquidate, — Sineus said.
A flicker of something—not a smile, but an acknowledgment—passed across her face.
— The hull integrity is at 85%, — she said, her tone shifting back to business. — The main hydraulic line is bypassed, but it will hold. We’re flight-worthy.
He nodded, picking up his tools. — Good. Let’s finish.
They completed the final patches, their movements once again falling into a seamless, efficient rhythm. The Kestrel was no longer a wreck. It was a weapon, scarred and patched, but ready.
The aurora faded as the first hint of dawn touched the peaks of the surrounding mountains. The air grew colder, the silence deeper.
The next clue was waiting in a world of glass and money, and they were burning time.
