The bell above the shop door chimed. The sound was small and clear, a single silver note that cut through the thick, dusty air. It sliced through the fragile sense of victory, shattering it like glass. Sineus’s hand, already moving, found the worn wooden grip of his Tokarev pistol. Sokolov froze, a statue carved from fear, his face pale in the weak yellow light. The low hum of the transmission apparatus suddenly sounded like a death rattle.
Adem Kurtoglu did not move. The old memory broker simply placed his cleaning cloth on the counter, his expression unchanged. A transaction was a transaction. The client at the door was just another part of the business.
The man who stepped inside was large. He filled the doorway, a greatcoat over a general’s uniform, his presence sucking the air from the room. He brought the cold of the Istanbul night in with him. He was smiling. It was a warm, paternal smile that did not reach his eyes. General Ivan Volkov.
— There you are, — Volkov said. His voice was a calm, reasonable baritone. It was the voice of a man used to absolute authority, a man who never needed to raise it. He took a step into the shop, his polished boots silent on the dusty floorboards. — I was wondering when you would arrive.
Sineus did not draw his weapon. It would be useless. This was not a fight. It was a declaration. The end of a game he hadn't known he was playing. Behind Volkov, two figures in dark coats stepped into the doorway, blocking the only exit. They were Directorate hunters, their faces impassive, their hands in their pockets. They were not looking at Sineus.
— The transmission is complete, I trust? — Volkov asked Kurtoglu, his tone pleasant. He glanced at the pulsing blue light of the apparatus in the corner.
— It is, General, — the broker replied, his voice a dry rustle. — The Athenaeum has their data. My part of the arrangement is concluded.
Volkov nodded, satisfied. He turned his gaze back to Sineus. The smile remained, but now it held a different quality. It was the smile of a teacher looking at a promising but naive student.
— You have caused me a great deal of trouble, Commander. But you have also been exceptionally useful. I let you run, you see. I needed you to run.
Sokolov made a small, choked sound. Sineus remained still, his mind a vortex of cold, hard logic. Every move they had made. Every choice. The train. The sea. The flight through the city. It had all been observed. Allowed.
— The Sokolov Cipher was a clever piece of bait, — Volkov continued, walking slowly toward a dusty display case. He ran a gloved finger over the glass. — But it was never the true prize. The Ahnenerbe had something here in Istanbul. Something they have been searching for since the war began. An artifact of immense value. We knew it was here. We just didn't know where.
He stopped, turning to face Sineus fully. The paternal warmth was gone from his eyes, replaced by the cold, analytical light of a physicist observing a reaction.
— We needed a guide. A bloodhound. We needed a sensitive, stressed and hunted, to move through the city. Your unique abilities, Commander, create a certain resonance. A pressure in the ether. You were a compass needle, and you pointed me right to it.
The words hit Sineus with the force of a physical blow. He was not a traitor acting on conscience. He was not a commander making the hard right choice. He was a tool. A tracking dog, led by the nose on a chase orchestrated by the very man he had betrayed. His loyalty, his pain, his very nature—all of it had been a weapon used against him. The victory was a lie. The sacrifice was a joke.
Volkov gave a slight nod to the hunters in the doorway. They moved. But they did not move toward Sineus or Sokolov. They walked past them, deeper into the shop's labyrinth of shelves. They stopped before a tall, cloth-draped object in a dark corner. One of them pulled the cloth away.
Beneath it was a device of brass and crystal, a complex sphere of interlocking rings and lenses. It was the Chronos Anomaly Detector. It emitted a barely audible hum, a low thrum that vibrated in the teeth. The air around it smelled of ozone and cold metal.
— It doesn't cut memory, — Volkov said, his voice filled with a collector’s pride. — It measures it. It can map the growth of the Whispering Plague. It can predict the final, absolute point of collapse. It is not a weapon. It is a map to the end of the world. And now, it is mine.
The hunters began to carefully uncouple the device from its stand. Sineus watched them, his mind numb. He had led Volkov here. His desperate flight for freedom had been nothing more than the final move in his master’s plan.
He caught his reflection in the glass of the display case Volkov had touched. His own face stared back, gaunt and bearded. For a sickening moment, it was not alone. Volkov’s smiling, triumphant face was superimposed over his own, a fractured, composite image of the puppet and the puppet master. The two faces merged, split, and then his own was left, broken and hollow.
— Take them, — Volkov said, his voice returning to the flat tone of command. — I still have use for the commander. His talents are too valuable to waste. And the doctor… the doctor has new work to do.
The hunters, finished with the Detector, turned toward them. Their movements were fluid, economical. They were professionals. This was the end. Capture. Re-education. A life as Volkov’s willing, broken tool. The thought was worse than death.
Kurtoglu watched from behind his counter, polishing a small silver box. His face was a mask of perfect neutrality. He had brokered a deal. He had been paid. The rest was not his concern.
Sineus looked at Sokolov’s terrified face. He felt the cold, heavy weight of Kulagin’s locket in his pocket. He thought of the child’s drawing. The hard right. It was harder for a reason. He had been a fool. He had been a pawn. But he was not broken yet. He could still make a choice. Not the easy wrong.
His hand was still on his pistol. He had one second. Maybe less. He made the choice. The price was a battle he could not win. The price was their lives, spent here and now in a dusty shop full of dead men’s things. It was better than the alternative.
— Scatter! — Sineus roared.
The word was a physical force. In the same motion, he drew his Tokarev and fired, not at Volkov, but at the glass display case beside him. The glass exploded in a shower of glittering shards. Sokolov, reacting to the command, dove behind the counter.
The hunters were fast. One of them raised his weapon. But the moment of chaos was all Sineus had needed. He grabbed a heavy, bronze astrolabe from a shelf and hurled it at the single bare bulb overhead. The room plunged into near-total darkness, the only light the faint, pulsing blue of the transmission apparatus.
Another shot, this one from a hunter’s suppressed pistol, hissed past his ear. The game was over. The war had just begun.
The smell of cordite filled the air, sharp and clean. The darkness was absolute, broken only by the rhythmic blue glow.
