The train’s whistle was a promise cut short. It sliced through the falling snow, a long, mournful cry that died in the vast, white dark. The train did not just slow; it stopped. The rhythmic clatter of the wheels, the sound that had been their shield for hours, gave way to the hiss of steam and the low murmur of a thousand anxious voices. This was not a checkpoint. This was a trap.
Kulagin was already on his feet, his submachine gun held low and ready. His eyes, accustomed to the vast, empty spaces of the front, narrowed as they scanned the crowded platform. It was a sea of grey greatcoats, fur hats, and bundled civilians, a river of humanity flowing between dark, waiting trains. Steam billowed from the locomotive, a series of thick, white curtains that rose and fell, revealing and concealing.
— Platform four, — Sineus said, his voice low. — The eastbound connection. We move together. Fast.
They dropped from the carriage into the cold. It was a physical shock, a sudden weight of ice and damp air. Sokolov, the scientist whose knowledge was their only asset, stumbled on the slick platform. Sineus grabbed the back of his thin coat and pushed him forward. Zoya, the partisan girl, moved like a ghost at his side, her rifle a part of her arm. Morozov, the political officer, was a hollow man, his eyes vacant, his movements slow and disconnected. He was a liability, another piece of dead weight to be carried.
The platform was chaos. Soldiers on leave shouted and laughed. Families huddled together, their possessions tied in rough bundles. The air smelled of wet wool, cheap tobacco, and the sharp, metallic tang of coal smoke. Sineus felt exposed, a target in the open. He pushed through the crowd, his hand on the pistol under his coat, his gaze sweeping every face, every shadow. He was looking for the anomaly. The man who stood still when everyone else was moving. The man whose coat was too clean.
He saw the first one near a luggage cart piled high with trunks. A tall man in a dark coat, his hat pulled low. He was not watching the trains. He was watching them. Sineus felt a cold knot tighten in his gut. He glanced to his left. Another man, pretending to read a newspaper at a kiosk, his eyes fixed over the top of the page. To the right, near the station master’s office, a third. They were forming a triangle. A kill box. They were professionals. Ahnenerbe.
The first shot was not a rifle crack. It was a flat, wet pop from a suppressed pistol. A civilian, a woman clutching a small child’s hand not five meters from Sineus, collapsed without a sound. A dark stain spread across the back of her grey coat. The child stood for a second, confused, before letting out a thin, piercing wail.
Then the world broke.
Screams tore through the station. The crowd surged, a panicked wave of bodies moving in every direction at once. The Ahnenerbe agents moved against the current. They brought their weapons up, no longer hiding. Black submachine guns. Efficient, German-made. The firefight erupted, a series of sharp, brutal bursts that cut through the human chaos.
— Down! — Kulagin roared. He shoved Sokolov and the catatonic Morozov behind a heavy iron luggage cart, its wheels screeching on the stone. He dropped to one knee, the submachine gun bucking in his hands. The sound was deafening under the station’s high iron roof, a hammering roar that tore through the noise of the panic. He laid down a thirty-meter wall of lead, forcing the agents on the right to dive for cover behind a thick stone pillar.
The air filled with the smell of cordite. Bullets sparked off the ironwork overhead, showering the platform with rust and flakes of old paint. Sineus pushed Zoya toward a stack of wooden crates.
— Left flank!
She didn’t need the order. She was already gone, melting into the screaming flood of people. Sineus lost sight of her. He drew his own pistol, the cold steel a familiar weight in his hand. Two agents were closing from the left, using the fleeing civilians as human shields. He aimed, fired twice. One of the agents went down, clutching his leg. The other returned fire, bullets chewing splinters from the crates beside Sineus’s head.
He saw a flicker of motion near a steel support column. It was Zoya. She moved with a brutal economy he had only ever seen in frontline assault troops. The two agents who had been advancing on Kulagin’s position stumbled. The first fell forward, the handle of a knife protruding from the base of his skull. The second agent took two steps, his hands clutching his throat, a dark red line appearing above his collar. He collapsed onto a pile of discarded luggage. Zoya was gone again, vanished back into the shadows and the steam.
Sineus ducked as another burst of fire stitched across the crates. A shard of glass from a shattered kiosk window flew past his face. He glanced at the broken pane. His own reflection stared back, fractured into a dozen pieces. Around his splintered face, he saw the distorted, screaming mouths of the civilians. A kaleidoscope of terror. He was one of them.
They were pinned. The eastbound train, their promise of escape, was still fifty meters away. An impossible distance. The Ahnenerbe agents were closing the net, their movements disciplined, relentless. They were being herded.
— Commander! — Kulagin shouted over the gunfire. — We can’t hold this!
Sineus saw it. The alley. A dark slash between the station building and a warehouse. It led away from the tracks, away from their objective. It led into the city. Into a labyrinth of unknown streets, a cage with a thousand corners. It was their only choice. Survival would cost them their escape.
— Kulagin! Zoya! To me! — Sineus roared, his voice cutting through the din. — We’re going into the city! Off the rails!
The whistle of the departing eastbound train was a long, final cry. It was the sound of a door closing forever. They were turning their backs on the plan, on the hope of a clean run. They were diving headfirst into the hard, messy truth of their situation.
— Move! — Sineus yelled.
He grabbed Sokolov by the arm, hauling the trembling scientist to his feet. Kulagin laid down one last, long burst of covering fire, emptying his magazine. He slammed a fresh one home as he ran. Zoya appeared at Sineus’s shoulder, her face a pale, grim mask. She covered their rear, firing her rifle with calm, measured shots. They ran from the light of the station, from the screams and the gunfire, and plunged into the darkness of the alley.
The sounds of the battle faded behind them, muffled by brick and falling snow. They ran for ten minutes, twisting through a maze of narrow, garbage-strewn passages until the noise of the station was just a faint echo. Sineus finally called a halt in a dead-end alley, a small, dark space between two towering brick warehouses. The only light came from a single gas lamp on the main street, its glow weak and yellow.
He leaned against the cold, wet brick, his lungs burning. He took stock. Five of them. All alive. Zoya had a shallow cut on her arm. Kulagin was breathing hard. Sokolov was shaking uncontrollably. Morozov stared at the wall, his face slack. They had survived.
But their transport was gone. Their ammunition was low. They had no food, no shelter, no contacts. They were on foot in a city they did not know, a city that was now a hunting ground for the Ahnenerbe. And soon, for the Directorate.
Sineus looked down. A puddle of black water and melted snow reflected the faint gaslight. He saw his face. It was not splintered into a hundred pieces of chaos. It was a single image, dark and shadowed. The face of a man alone. The reflection was whole, but it was heavier now, a solid thing in the darkness.
The snow fell silently in the alley, muffling the distant sounds of the city. The cold air stung his lungs, clean and sharp after the cordite and steam.
