The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke and the wet wool of a coat that had not been dry in three weeks. Outside the grimy window, Helsinki was a smear of gray buildings and colder gray sky. Snow fell in lazy, indifferent spirals. Three weeks. Twenty-one days of moving between rooms like this one, each as forgettable as the last. He had become a ghost, a man who paid in cash, spoke to no one, and checked the sightlines from his window before he even took off his shoes.
He sat on the edge of a lumpy mattress, the springs groaning in protest. On the small table beside him sat a cup of black coffee, cold and bitter, and a burner phone. It was a cheap piece of black plastic, anonymous and disposable. He had bought it from a nervous man in a dockside bar two days ago. Its only purpose was to make a single call. A call he had been putting off, not from indecision, but from a need to be certain he was untraceable. The time for waiting was over.
He picked up the phone. The plastic was cool and smooth in his hand. He dialed the number from memory, a direct line to a private clinic he had arranged for Misha Orlov through a series of blind cutouts before leaving Zurich. The price had been most of his remaining funds, a cost he paid without a second thought. The line connected, ringing twice before a clipped, professional voice answered.
— Helsinki Neurological Institute, Doctor Alonen speaking.
Sineus shielded the mouthpiece with his hand, his own voice a low, flat monotone. He gave no name, only a patient number. A number that corresponded to a file containing a fabricated history of a shipping magnate who had suffered a stroke.
— I am calling for an update on patient 7B, — Sineus said.
There was a rustle of papers on the other end of the line. The doctor’s voice returned, tinged with weary professionalism.
— The patient’s condition is unchanged. He is stable, but remains in a non-responsive catatonic state. We see no degradation, but also no improvement. Frankly, we have exhausted all conventional treatments. Who is this calling?
Sineus ignored the question. The word ‘unchanged’ was a block of ice in his gut. The Echoing had not faded. The storm in Misha’s mind still raged.
— You will take notes, Doctor. You will follow these instructions precisely. Do not interrupt.
A pause. The doctor’s tone sharpened with irritation.
— I will do no such thing. We do not take medical advice from anonymous phone calls. What is your relationship to the patient?
Sineus let the silence stretch, a weapon he had learned to use better than any pistol. He could hear the doctor’s breathing, the faint hiss of the long-distance connection like a whisper of static.
— Your patient’s condition is the result of a psychic overwrite, not a stroke, — Sineus stated, his voice devoid of emotion. — Conventional treatment is useless. You will now listen.
He began to dictate. He gave the doctor a series of sonic frequencies, starting at a low hertz and escalating in a precise, non-linear sequence. He described the duration for each, the pauses between them, the exact waveform. It was Petrova’s science, her understanding of how to introduce a harmonic dissonance into a psychic field, translated into a language a technician could understand.
— That’s absurd, — the doctor finally cut in, his voice a mix of disbelief and anger. — This is not a radio receiver, it is a human brain. I will not subject my patient to this… this quackery.
— You are correct, it is not a radio, — Sineus said, his voice dropping colder. — It is a battlefield. And you are losing. After the sonic sequence, you will need a psychic sensitive. You have one on staff. A woman, a consultant. Her name is irrelevant. She feels migraines around magnetic resonance equipment. Find her.
The silence on the other end was different now. It was the sound of a man whose scientific certainty had just been cracked. Sineus pressed on, describing the second phase of the protocol. The series of focused psychic pressures, applied to specific regions of the cerebral cortex. A gentle, rhythmic push, designed not to break through the storm of echoes, but to coax the original consciousness, the real Misha, out from the tiny, shielded corner where it was hiding.
He was giving away the key. The key to Misha. And with it, the Sleeper’s Cipher. The data core that held the truth of Kestrel’s first sin, the origin of the Echo Protocol. That intelligence was priceless. It could be a weapon, a bargaining chip to bring Thorne and the CIA to heel. It was a strategic asset of immense value in the war that was still raging in the shadows.
He felt the weight of the small, silver locket in his pocket. It was still warm. He remembered Petrova’s eyes in the core chamber, her silent nod. She had given him a choice, and he had chosen to trust. She had used her knowledge not for a flag or an agency, but to unmake the horror she had created. Her knowledge had saved a valley. Now, he would use what she had taught him to save one man. A strategic asset for a friend. It was a bad trade. It was the only trade that mattered. The price of saving Misha was the truth locked inside him. A price he would pay.
— This is the only chance your patient has, — Sineus said, his voice leaving no room for argument. — The choice is yours, Doctor. Follow the protocol, or sign the death certificate.
He did not wait for a reply. He ended the call, the connection severing with a final click. The line went dead.
He stood up and walked to the window. The snow was falling harder now, blanketing the city in a clean, white silence. He had paid the debt. He had honored the memory of his friend in the only way he could, by choosing the man over the mission. He had given Misha a chance at sentinence, a chance to be whole again, at the cost of the secrets his subjugated mind contained.
He took the burner phone, snapped it in half over his knee, and dropped the pieces into the trash can. He pulled the SIM card out of the broken half, crushed it under his heel on the gritty floor, and swept the fragments into the same bin. His tracks were gone.
The room was quiet. The faint hiss of static from the phone line was gone. For the first time in weeks, the world felt clean.
He picked up his worn leather satchel. His war was not over. It had just been given a new, sharper focus. The locket in his pocket was a compass now, pointing not north, but into the past, toward a debt of a different kind. A debt of blood and sacrifice.
My old debts were settled. I was returning to Vienna to face the future.
