The world beyond the makeshift hospital was a blur of motion and chaos. The German breakthrough was no longer a neat line on a map; it was a flood, a gray-green tide of men and machines pouring into the gaping wound in the Russian front. Koba and his reduced team moved through it like sharks in a feeding frenzy, ignoring the main currents of the advance and cutting through the eddies of confusion.
They were a strange, hybrid unit. Two of Koba's loyalists, Murat and Ivan, and four German stormtroopers, including the now utterly devoted Sergeant Klaus. Their respect for Koba had transformed into something bordering on religious awe. He was not just a commander; he was an oracle who had led them through the mouth of hell and delivered them, unscathed, onto a field of victory. They followed his orders without question.
Oflag 17 was not a camp so much as a festering sore on the landscape. A few hastily constructed barracks and a perimeter of barbed wire, now trampled and torn, set in a featureless muddy field. The chaos of the front had arrived here ahead of them. Guards had fled, prisoners were a milling, confused mass, and the first German units on the scene were more interested in looting the storehouses than imposing order.
"This is a mess," Sergeant Klaus grunted, chambering a round in his rifle. "Finding one man in this pigsty will be impossible."
"Nothing is impossible," Koba stated, his eyes scanning the chaos with a predator's focus. "It is merely a problem of incentives."
He strode into the main compound, his team fanning out behind him. He ignored the German soldiers and grabbed the first Russian prisoner he saw, a lanky man with the terrified eyes of a rabbit.
"Food," Koba said in simple, clear Russian, holding up a tin of German canned beef he'd taken from Klaus. "Information."
The man's eyes locked onto the can. He hadn't seen that much protein in a year.
"I am looking for a man," Koba continued. "A professor. An old man with glasses. A chemist."
The prisoner stared blankly. Koba tossed the can to Ivan. "Next."
They moved through the crowd like this, a ruthlessly efficient information-gathering machine. They were not interrogating; they were purchasing data. Most prisoners were too shell-shocked or ignorant to be of use. But after the fifth man, they struck gold. A former university student, his face lighting with recognition at the word 'chemist'.
"Ipatieff," the student whispered, his eyes darting nervously towards the guards' barracks. "The professor. They said he was a troublemaker. An intellectual. They kept him apart from the others. In the solitary block." He pointed a trembling finger towards a small, grim-looking brick building at the far end of the camp.
Koba tossed the student two cans of beef. The man scrambled after them like a dog.
The solitary block was deserted. The door to one of the cells was barred from the outside with a heavy wooden plank. Koba didn't bother with the lock. He stepped back and delivered a single, powerful kick. The wood splintered and the door flew open with a crash.
Huddled in the corner of the tiny, windowless cell, blinking in the sudden intrusion of light, was a man in his late forties. He was thin, with a wild, unkempt beard, but behind the grime and the fear, his eyes shone with a brilliant, fierce intelligence. It was Vladimir Ipatieff. He flinched, shielding his face with a thin arm, fully expecting a bullet.
Koba stepped into the cell, his presence filling the small space. Murat and Klaus stood guard at the door, their rifles ready.
"Professor Ipatieff," Koba said, his voice calm, his Russian perfect and academic. It was the voice of a peer, not a conqueror. "My name is Koba. Please, do not be alarmed. You are not my prisoner. You are my new colleague."
Ipatieff slowly lowered his arm, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and confusion. He had been preparing for a summary execution. This was something else entirely. "Colleague?" he croaked, his voice rough from disuse. "What… what do you want from me?"
Koba smiled, a thin, predatory expression. He was not here to threaten. He was here to tempt. He was offering a bite from the apple of knowledge, and he knew his man.
"The Tsar's government," Koba began, taking a step closer, "wanted you to make bigger shells, to refine their explosives by a few percentage points. They saw your genius as a tool for their clumsy, brutal war. The Germans, were they to find you, would have you working on more efficient ways to formulate poison gas. They are all the same. They want to put your mind in a cage and feed it problems that serve their own grubby ambitions."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, the words charged with an almost seductive power. "I am offering you something different, Vladimir Nikolayevich. Something you have dreamed of your entire life. I am offering you a laboratory. Not a repurposed shed, but a true laboratory, built to your specifications. The best equipment Germany can procure. An unlimited budget for materials. A staff of your choosing. And most importantly, no political oversight. No generals looking over your shoulder asking for a bigger bomb."
Ipatieff was staring at him now, his fear being eclipsed by a dawning, incredulous hope. Koba could see he had him. He delivered the final, irresistible temptation.
"I do not want to give you problems to solve, Professor. I want you to show me what problems are possible to create. I want to see what a mind like yours can do when it is finally, completely, unleashed."
It was a devil's bargain, an appeal to the purest, most dangerous form of intellectual pride. He was offering Ipatieff a scientific Eden, a playground where the only sin was a lack of imagination.
Before Ipatieff could answer, the world outside the cell door erupted. A sudden, chaotic fusillade of rifle fire, punctuated by the wild, high-pitched war cries of Cossacks.
"Ambush!" Klaus roared from the doorway. "Cossacks! To the south!"
Koba reacted instantly. He grabbed Ipatieff by the arm, yanking the stunned professor to his feet. "Stay with me!" he commanded, pulling him out of the cell.
The scene in the camp had devolved into a running firefight. A cut-off unit of Don Cossacks, now operating as little more than bandits, had swept in from the woods, looking for plunder. They were clashing with the disorganized German troops, and Koba's team was caught in the middle.
It was a brutal, close-quarters brawl. Bullets zipped through the air, thudding into the thin wooden walls of the barracks. Sergeant Klaus and his three remaining Germans formed a defensive line, laying down disciplined fire.
"We need to pull back!" Klaus yelled, reloading his rifle. "To the north gate!"
Koba saw the tactical reality in a split second. The path to the north gate was a clear, fifty-yard dash across open ground. But Klaus and his men were pinned down, drawing the majority of the Cossack fire. To save them would mean exposing his own team, and more importantly, his asset, to that open ground.
The calculation was instantaneous and utterly without sentiment. Klaus and his men were a tool that had served its purpose. Ipatieff was the foundation of his future kingdom.
"Murat! Ivan! With me! West!" Koba roared, pointing towards a collapsed section of the wire fence near the woods. He didn't give the order to retreat. He gave the order to abandon their allies.
He shoved Ipatieff ahead of him. "Run!"
As they sprinted for the fence, Koba glanced back. He saw Sergeant Klaus look over, his face a mask of disbelief and betrayal as he realized what was happening. He saw the Cossacks swarming the Germans' position. He saw Klaus go down in a hail of gunfire.
Koba didn't flinch. He didn't look back again. He, Murat, and Ivan vaulted the broken fence, dragging the terrified, gasping chemist with them, and disappeared into the relative safety of the woods, using the sounds of the Germans' last stand as cover for their own escape.
They had their prize. As they paused deep in the forest to catch their breath, Ipatieff, his chest heaving, looked at Koba. The professor's face was pale, but the fear in his eyes was now mixed with something else: a chilling, profound understanding. He had just witnessed, firsthand, that this strange man who called himself Koba would sacrifice anything and anyone to protect his investments. And he, Vladimir Ipatieff, was now the most valuable investment of all.