Smoke filled the hallway of the Kuntsevo Dacha. Thick, black, choking smoke.
"Fire! West Wing!" a guard screamed.
Boots thundered on the parquet floor. Taranov burst out of the staff quarters, buttoning his tunic with one hand, grabbing a fire extinguisher with the other.
"The prisoner!" Taranov roared. "Get the prisoner!"
He ran toward Nadya's room. The door was hot to the touch.
He kicked it open.
A wall of heat hit him. The velvet curtains were a pillar of fire. The bed was burning. The wallpaper was peeling like dead skin.
"Nadya!"
He sprayed the foam into the inferno. It hissed, turning to steam.
The room was empty.
Taranov dropped the extinguisher. He scanned the room through the haze. The window boards were intact. The closet was open and empty.
"She's gone," a guard coughed behind him.
"She can't be gone," Taranov snapped. "The perimeter is sealed."
He looked at the floor. In the chaos, he saw footprints in the soot. They didn't lead to the door. They led to the bathroom.
Taranov ran into the tiled room. The window here was small, high up, and barred.
But the ventilation grate...
The grate was removed. It lay on the floor, screws neatly undone with a makeshift tool.
Taranov looked into the dark shaft. It was barely wide enough for a child. Or a starving woman.
"She crawled into the vents," Taranov whispered.
He grabbed his radio.
"Lock down the grounds! Watch the exhaust outlets! She's in the walls!"
Inside the ventilation duct, Nadya was suffocating.
The metal was freezing cold against her stomach, but the air coming from behind her was hot with smoke.
She crawled. elbows scraping. Knees bruising.
It was dark. Absolute darkness. She navigated by touch and terror.
She knew the layout of the house. Jake had shown her the blueprints once, bragging about the filtration system meant to stop poison gas.
Left at the junction. Straight for ten meters. Then down.
She reached the junction. She turned left.
A rat scurried over her hand. She bit her lip to stop a scream.
"Keep moving," she told herself. "For Yuri."
She reached the vertical shaft. The laundry chute.
She shimmied down, bracing her legs against the sides. She slid, faster than she wanted.
She hit the pile of linens in the basement laundry room with a soft whump.
She scrambled out of the basket. The basement was dim, lit by a single bulb.
She heard shouting upstairs. The fire was spreading.
She ran to the coal chute. It was the only exit not guarded by men with guns.
She climbed the pile of black coal. Dust filled her nose. She pushed the iron hatch open.
Cold air rushed in. Freedom.
She pulled herself out into the snow. She was covered in soot, invisible against the dark night.
She was outside the house. But she was still inside the perimeter fence.
She saw the searchlights sweeping the yard.
She crouched behind a snowbank.
She needed a vehicle.
The Garage.
The ZIS-101 limousine sat gleaming under the lights. The driver was gone, helping with the fire.
Nadya crept through the side door. Her hands were black with coal dust.
She tried the handle. Locked.
She cursed.
She looked around the garage. Tools. Tires. Gasoline cans.
And Taranov's personal motorcycle. A heavy Ural with a sidecar.
It was parked near the door. The keys were in the ignition. Taranov was confident. Arrogant.
Nadya ran to the bike. She had never ridden one. But she had watched Jake ride. Clutch. Kickstart. Throttle.
She straddled the seat. She kicked the starter.
Sputter.
"Come on," she begged.
She kicked again. Harder.
ROAR.
The engine came to life. The sound was deafening in the enclosed space.
The garage door opened. A guard stood there, rifle raised.
"Halt!"
Nadya didn't halt. She slammed the bike into gear and gunned the throttle.
The Ural lurched forward. The sidecar clipped the guard, sending him spinning into a rack of tires.
She shot out into the snowy courtyard. The rear wheel fishtailed on the ice.
"Stop her!" Taranov's voice boomed over the loudspeakers.
Bullets whizzed past her. Ping. Ping. One sparked off the fuel tank.
She aimed for the main gate. It was closing. The heavy iron bars were sliding shut.
"Too slow," she whispered.
She leaned forward. She twisted the throttle to the max.
The bike screamed. It squeezed through the gap just as the gates clanged together.
She was out.
She tore down the Mozhaisk Highway, the wind tearing at her face. She was freezing, filthy, and hunted.
But she was driving away from the monster.
The Kremlin. Two hours later.
Jake stared at the phone.
"She escaped?"
"Yes, Boss," Taranov said. He sounded broken. "She took my bike. She's heading West."
Jake closed his eyes.
He imagined her. Alone in the snow. Riding a stolen motorcycle toward a border she couldn't cross.
"She thinks she can get to Finland," Jake said. "She thinks the British will help her."
"We have roadblocks on every highway," Taranov said. "We will catch her before dawn."
"Don't hurt her," Jake said. "Taranov... if she resists..."
"I know, Boss. Soft gloves."
Jake hung up.
He looked at the map. Nadya was a loose end. A loose end that knew about the Red Pill. About the hunger guidance. About everything.
If the Americans got her... they would put her on every radio station in the world. The wife of Stalin, exposing him as a butcher.
It would destroy morale. It would topple the regime.
He had to stop her.
But he couldn't kill her. He couldn't.
He picked up the phone again.
"Get me the Air Force," Jake said. "I need a search plane. With thermal optics."
"For a fugitive?"
"For my wife," Jake whispered.
The Highway near Smolensk.
The snow was blinding. Nadya couldn't feel her hands. They were frozen claws on the handlebars.
The fuel gauge was low.
She saw headlights in the rearview mirror. Three pairs. Fast.
Trucks. NKVD pursuit vehicles.
She pushed the bike harder. The engine whined in protest.
Ahead, a bridge over a frozen river.
A roadblock. Two trucks parked sideways. Soldiers with machine guns.
She was trapped.
She looked left. A slope leading down to the river ice.
It was steep. Suicidal.
"Better the ice than the cage," she said.
She jerked the handlebars. The bike left the road. It bounced violently down the embankment.
She flew out of the saddle. She landed in a snowdrift. The bike tumbled, crashing onto the ice below.
She lay still. Pain shot through her leg. Broken? Sprained?
She heard shouting from the road above. Flashlights swept the slope.
She dragged herself into the tree line. She crawled through the deep snow, leaving a trail of blood and soot.
She found a hollow under a fallen pine tree. She squeezed inside.
She curled into a ball.
She was freezing to death. She knew it. The cold wasn't painful anymore. It was warm. Sleepy.
"Yuri," she whispered.
Her eyes closed.
The Sky above Smolensk.
Volkov sat in the cockpit of the experimental scout plane.
He wasn't strapped in like a missile this time. He was flying.
But he wasn't alone.
The helmet was on his head. The wires connected him to the infrared camera mounted on the belly of the plane.
He saw the world in heat. The trucks were bright orange blobs. The soldiers were red sparks.
"Target acquired," Turing's voice said in his ear. "Sector 4. Riverbank."
Volkov banked the plane.
He scanned the trees.
Everything was blue. Cold. Dead.
Then, a faint smudge of pink. Under a tree.
A fading heat signature. A dying mammal.
"I see her," Volkov said. His voice was flat. The drugs had burned out his empathy.
"Is she moving?" Taranov asked over the radio.
"Negative. Temperature dropping. She is hypothermic."
"Mark the location," Jake's voice cut in. "We are sending a recovery team."
Volkov circled. He looked at the pink smudge.
He remembered his own wife. He remembered how he had been dragged away.
He looked at the button on his stick. The flare drop.
He could drop a flare. Guide them to her. They would take her back. put her in a cage. Or worse.
Or...
He could let her sleep.
"Pilot," Jake ordered. "Confirm location."
Volkov looked at the heat fading. It was becoming blue. Peacefully blue.
"Signal lost," Volkov lied. "The target has gone cold."
"What?" Jake screamed. "Find her!"
"There is nothing here," Volkov said. "Just a deer carcass cooling in the snow. She must have moved downriver."
"Search downriver!"
Volkov pulled the stick back. He flew away from the tree.
He left her there. In the dark. In the quiet.
It was the only mercy he could give.
The Kremlin. Dawn.
Jake sat by the radio.
"Nothing," Taranov reported. "We searched for ten miles. The bike is on the ice. But no tracks leading away. The wind covered everything."
Jake dropped his head into his hands.
She was gone. Frozen in the Russian winter. Buried under white silence.
He had killed her. Not with a gun. But with his world.
He felt a tear slide down his cheek. It was hot.
"Call off the search," Jake whispered.
"Boss?"
"She's dead, Taranov. No one survives a night like this."
He stood up. He walked to the window.
He looked at the sunrise. It was blood red.
He felt something snap inside him. The last tether to humanity. The last reason to be careful.
Nadya was the brake. Now the brake was gone.
"Menzhinsky," Jake said. He didn't turn around.
The spy chief stepped out of the shadows.
"Yes, Comrade."
"Full mobilization," Jake said. "Total war economy. Rations cut to 100 grams. Mandatory 16-hour shifts in the factories. If they collapse, drag them out."
"The people will break."
"Let them break!" Jake screamed. He spun around, his eyes wild. "I have nothing left to protect! No more safe houses! No more mercy! We build the rockets. We build the swarm. And we burn the world that took her!"
Menzhinsky nodded slowly. He saw the change. The man was gone. The monster was fully grown.
"And the Americans?" Menzhinsky asked.
"Tell Turing to empty the prisons," Jake said. "I want a thousand guidance units. I want a sky black with eyes. If Hoover wants a staring contest, I will gouge his eyes out."
He walked back to his desk. He sat down.
He picked up the photo of Yuri.
"You're an orphan now, son," Jake whispered. "But you're going to be the King of Ash."
He placed the photo face down.
"Get out," Jake said. "All of you."
The room cleared.
Jake sat alone in the silence.
He had saved the world from Hitler. But he hadn't saved it from himself.
And now, with the winter in his heart, he was ready to freeze hell over.