Vasilyev moved lightly, his steps ghostlike against the wall — a wounded wolf stalking through the darkness.
The Nagant revolver in his hand felt warm, slick with sweat and blood. The sharp tang of gun oil mixed with the copper scent of fresh gore.
Turning the final corner, he froze.
The cargo passage reeked of cordite and smoke under the flickering emergency light.
A man in a dark suit leaned against the stained concrete wall, his left arm twisted grotesquely — a professional break. The Colt M1911 in his right hand trembled, the muzzle jerking from one shadow to another.
To his left stood Mikhail, his own Colt steady despite a bleeding knife wound on his arm and a bruise swelling around his eye.
To his right, Olki, the hulking Balkan, kept his pistol raised, blood seeping from under his ribs. His grip, however, was unshaken — like a statue carved from iron.
And opposite them — Jay, in a crouched, tactical stance, shielding Dr. Reinhardt Krause, the scientist everyone was fighting to capture.
The Luger P08 in Jay's hand was aimed straight at the man's chest.
Three bodies lay sprawled on the floor. Vasilyev recognized two immediately — Andrei and Sergey, his own men, the ones who were supposed to ambush the target at the freight exit. The third body wore an immaculate suit. His throat had been slit with surgical precision, the wound so deep it exposed bone.
Then Vasilyev's eyes caught a flash of brass.
Behind Jay, Dr. Krause was quietly sliding a cylindrical case into his inner pocket — the missing Zeiss blueprints.
Philip Crawford's gold-rimmed spectacles were cracked, one lens shattered. Behind the glass, his bloodshot blue eyes burned with fury and disbelief.
He had never imagined it would end like this. While Soviets and mercenaries exchanged fire, the carefully orchestrated plan he'd built in Geneva was falling apart.
He had calculated everything — the French surveillance, the German decoys, the Swiss police patrols. He and his partner had flanked the target from the elevator shaft, trapping Krause between fire.
It should have been perfect.
But no one had warned him that this frail old scientist was guarded by three Eastern European veterans — men forged in the trenches of the Polish–Soviet War, men who had learned to kill long before they learned to read.
A bullet struck Olki's ribs. The Balkan grunted, took a half step forward — and lunged like a beast.
Before Philip's partner could even scream, Olki's knife flashed.
A single slice — clean, deep — opened the man's throat to the spine.
"Blueprints… give me the blueprints!" Philip roared, his voice breaking, his fine linen collar soaked in blood. "Or I'll blow this old man's—"
The Colt's muzzle trembled, the barrel jerking between Krause's head and Jay's shoulder.
Only now did Philip realize how absurd it all was — his fake identity as a Zeiss engineer, his disguises in Paris, his meetings with American contacts under Rockefeller's shadow.
Every layer of deception he'd built was crumbling before his eyes.
And these "assistants" — these quiet, polite men in suits — were nothing but predators in human form.
Vasilyev's mind raced. He could see the end coming.
The mission was lost, the men dying, and Moscow would demand an answer.
He lifted his revolver — smooth, deliberate — and aimed straight at Krause's chest.
The world shrank to the thin silver line of the revolver's sight.
He squeezed the trigger.
Jay moved first.
The Polish veteran's instincts — honed through years of war — ignited like a spark. He rolled forward, pulling Krause down with him.
The shot cracked through the corridor.
Jay's shoulder exploded in a spray of blood. The 7.62mm round tore through his shoulder blade, scattering droplets across the concrete like rubies catching the light.
He hit the floor hard, the sound of bone striking stone echoing down the narrow passage. His uninjured arm wrapped around Krause's leg, anchoring the scientist where he fell.
Vasilyev cursed under his breath. His shot was blocked. The hunt was over.
For a second, time thickened — heavy, viscous, surreal.
Two more muzzle flashes split the darkness.
Mikhail and Olki fired simultaneously. The orange flames licked the air, bullets twisting, leaving trails of heat through the smoke.
Vasilyev felt the first round punch through his left chest — a cold, crushing impact — followed by the second burning into his right.
The shockwaves collided inside him, and his heart stuttered.
Across the corridor, Philip still held his Colt.
He didn't even realize his finger had squeezed the trigger until his head snapped back.
The bullet entered just above his left eyebrow.
His skull burst apart like a shattered melon — a fine mist of blood and bone raining over the floor.
As Krause fell, his old Zeiss spectacles slipped from his pocket. They hit the ground twice before the frame split apart, the lenses scattering into shards.
Each fragment caught a different light — the bloody moon, the flare of gunfire, the pale glow of the emergency lamp — and reflected them like fractured prisms.
Vasilyev hit the concrete hard, the back of his head ringing with a dull, metallic thud.
Somewhere beyond the haze, he heard the low growl of an approaching car — the Swiss recovery team, coming to extract the Germans. Always neutral, always on time.
His vision blurred. The world bled red around the edges.
He reached for his revolver, fingers brushing cold steel—
—and then a black leather shoe crushed his wrist into the ground.
The imprint of the sole pressed deep into his skin.
Mikhail leaned down, his shadow swallowing Vasilyev's fading sight.
"Tell Moscow," he said, his Polish accent thick and deliberate, "next time—send someone competent."
Outside, tires screeched to a halt.
The last image reflected in Vasilyev's glassy eyes was Dr. Krause bending to pick up his broken spectacles.
The Zeiss logo glinted faintly under the moonlight — elegant, indifferent, eternal.
Vasilyev wanted to laugh.
He had known from the beginning that this would be the end — twelve years in the shadows always led to the same darkness.
But those who killed him would not live long, either.
He could already see Begov's cold eyes in his mind, already hear the wind of Siberia howling through Europe.
The hunters would become the hunted soon enough.
And yet, as death crept in, what surfaced in his mind was not blood, not Moscow, not his orders—
but the dim glow of his desk lamp, the small apartment where he once read newspapers and drank cheap vodka in silence.
He had broken necks, burned families, erased names from ledgers — but in this final moment, what he wanted was only a quiet, ordinary life.
He heard voices — Swiss German, calm and muffled — doors opening, footsteps, his own heartbeat slowing like a metronome winding down.
Then everything went black.