The rumble of the approaching train was a physical blow, a wave of sound and pressure that vibrated up through the concrete stairs. I pulled Anja Petrova down into the mouth of the U-Bahn station, the shouts and whistles from the main hall above swallowed by the tunnel’s roar. We flattened ourselves into an alcove smelling of damp stone and stale electricity as a train screamed past, its passage a violent storm of wind and noise that tore at our coats. The immediate trap was sprung, but we were still in the cage.
For a moment, they stood in the echoing quiet after the train’s departure. The air was cool, heavy with the scent of ozone from the third rail and something else, the metallic tang of old iron. Above them, the sounds of the manhunt were a faint, muffled panic. They had bought themselves minutes, nothing more. The police would seal the station exits within five hundred meters in every direction.
— They’ll sweep the platforms first, — Sineus said, his voice low. He scanned the dimly lit tunnel. A service ladder was bolted to the far wall, its rungs disappearing into the darkness above a maintenance catwalk. — We go deeper.
Petrova, the former KGB physicist, clutched the heavy case containing the Aegis Conduit. Her face was pale in the gloom, but her eyes were clear, analytical. She gave a single, sharp nod. There was no debate. Survival was a series of tactical choices, and this was the only one left on the board.
He led the way, his movements economical. The ladder was cold, the iron rungs slick with condensation. He climbed into the narrow space of the maintenance tunnel, a concrete tube just wide enough for one person to walk comfortably. He reached down and helped Petrova up, the weight of the Aegis Conduit case a solid, awkward burden between them. The darkness here was absolute, broken only by the weak beam of the small torch he carried.
The tunnel stretched forward, a straight line of concrete and rust-stained pipes. It was his territory, the kind of forgotten infrastructure he knew from a dozen other cities. But after a hundred meters, the tunnel split. Three identical passages branched off into the oppressive dark.
— This one, — Petrova said, her voice startlingly clear in the confined space. She pointed to the leftmost tunnel without hesitation. — The construction is post-war Soviet standard. The support beams are spaced at four meters. This passage will intersect with the old pneumatic post network.
Sineus held the torch on her face. He saw no doubt, only the certainty of a builder who knew the blueprints by heart. He had been navigating by instinct; she was navigating by fact. The price of his ignorance was a moment of ceded control. He had to trust her. He nodded and followed her into the left passage. Her knowledge was a resource more valuable than any map.
They moved in silence for what felt like an hour, the only sounds the drip of water and the scuff of their shoes on the gritty floor. The air grew colder, the smell of iron and ozone replaced by the scent of damp earth and decay. They were beneath the foundations of the city now, in a layer of history the planners had paved over and forgotten.
Then he felt it.
It was not a sound. It was a pressure change, a wave of cold that had nothing to do with the temperature of the tunnel. A low hum resonated in his bones, a vibration that felt like a high-tension wire had been strung through his skull. It was a search pattern, a psychic sweep washing through the sector above them. Kestrel’s hunters were not just men with guns. They were hounds that could smell a soul. The feeling was a wash of pure, colorless static, an attempt to find their signal in the noise of the city.
Sineus stopped, pressing his hand against the cold concrete wall to steady himself. The sweep was two hundred meters above them, a wide, slow net dragging through the world. But it was there. It was active.
Petrova saw the look on his face. She didn't need to ask. She had seen the effect of the Echo Protocol, and she understood the forces at play, even if she couldn't feel them as he did. Her eyes scanned their surroundings, her mind working on the new tactical problem.
— Here, — she said, her voice a sharp whisper. She ran her hand along a section of the tunnel wall where the concrete was a different color, patched and uneven. — This is an old access point. It leads to the pre-war sewer system. It will be… unpleasant.
— Unpleasant is better than found, — Sineus replied, his voice tight. The hum in his skull was beginning to fade as the psychic patrol moved on.
The price of evasion was endurance. They used the butt of his pistol and a loose iron bar to break through the crumbling mortar. The work was hard and loud in the echoing silence, each blow a potential announcement of their location. Finally, a section of the wall gave way, revealing a dark, foul-smelling opening. He pushed the rubble aside and shone the torch into the abyss. It was a long drop into black, running water.
He went first, lowering himself down, his feet finding a narrow, slime-covered ledge. He reached up for the Aegis Conduit, its weight nearly pulling him off his balance, then helped Petrova down. The stench was overpowering, a thick, choking miasma of waste and rot. They waded through the knee-deep, sluggish current, the cold water a shocking contrast to the filth.
They traveled for an eternity in the dark, following the flow of the water. The tunnels twisted and turned, a labyrinth designed to carry away the city's refuse. Petrova’s knowledge of Soviet engineering was useless here. They were in an older, more chaotic system. They were simply moving away from the hunt, trusting that distance equaled safety.
After what could have been an hour or a day, Sineus saw a faint lattice of light ahead. A sewer grate. He found a series of rusted iron rungs set into the wall and climbed, pushing against the heavy grate. It gave way with a groan of protest. He pulled himself up and out, then reached down for Petrova and the case.
The air was clean, cold, and sharp. They were in a narrow alley behind a row of quiet apartment buildings. The architecture was different—cleaner lines, less soot-stained stone. The distant sound of traffic was softer. He knew instantly where they were. They had bypassed the checkpoints, the patrols, and the wall itself. They were in West Berlin. The evasion was complete.
He found a public telephone that worked. The call was short, a string of seemingly nonsensical words spoken into the receiver. A code phrase to activate a low-level contact, a man who smuggled more than cigarettes and was loyal only to cash. The price was burning a resource, a name he could now never use again. A car would be waiting in an hour. A dark sedan, untraceable, to take them south.
They waited in the shadows of the alley, the heavy Aegis Conduit case resting on the pavement between them. The immediate hunt was over. They were ghosts who had slipped through the net. But Kestrel was still out there, and the humming machine was still turning minds into static.
The car arrived, a dark shape in the quiet street.
The dealer in Vienna was their only path to the weapon.
