The Kremlin at dawn was a mausoleum of power. Its red walls loomed against the bruised sky, towers stabbing upward like spears raised against eternity. Even the snow seemed silenced here, muffling the world into a breathless pause.
Christian slipped through the service passage with the precision of a blade. Every sense was sharpened, every nerve stretched taut. His forged papers burned against his chest like a brand. One misstep, one glance too long, and Moscow's heart would crush him.
He had rehearsed the rhythm in his mind. Guards in pairs, boots echoing every ninety seconds. A cough here, a mutter there. He had memorized their beats like notes on a score. His own heartbeat was the drumline against which he moved.
At one corner, he froze as two soldiers appeared, their rifles slung casually, talking of vodka and women. The stench of tobacco drifted past. He pressed himself flat into a sliver of shadow until their voices faded. When silence returned, he slipped onward.
Every corridor whispered paranoia. The portraits of Lenin, of commissars and marshals, seemed to track him with painted eyes. In every draft of cold air he smelled suspicion. Somewhere in the labyrinth, his cover was already unraveling, though he dared not admit it.
He descended narrow stairwells, stone sweating with damp, the air heavy with coal smoke. He moved past kitchens where exhausted women stirred pots of cabbage, past storerooms stacked with crates stamped with Cyrillic. Servants saw him and looked away; eyes trained not to linger on men with authority.
Finally, he reached it: the door. Heavy oak, bound in steel bands. The whispered destination of every coded map, every briefing, every night of training. Behind this, the heartbeat of the Soviet Union.
His hand trembled against the latch. He closed his eyes, and for a heartbeat, Kristina's face swam before him: the candlelight on her cheek, her voice in the dark telling him to survive. The ring she gave him pressed against his finger like a vow.
He swallowed and turned the handle.
The door creaked open.
The chamber was smaller than he expected. Not a throne room but a cage dressed in power. A broad table dominated its center, maps scattered across it like wounds on the world. A samovar hissed in the corner, its steam veiling the air.
At the table sat Joseph Stalin.
He was not the titan of propaganda posters, but a man of compact strength, his hair graying, his mustache shadowing his lips. He ate in silence; black bread, sausage, a glass of tea dark as blood. A cigarette smoldered between his fingers, trailing lazy ribbons of smoke.
Stalin looked up. His eyes were not surprised. They were bottomless pits, steady, unblinking. A smile tugged at his mouth, slow and deliberate.
"So," he said, his Georgian accent thick, his voice a gravel road.
"You are the one Hitler sends?" The words dropped into the air like stones into water. Christian's breath caught. His hand twitched toward the satchel; the weapon inside but he couldn't move. "You are just a boy." Stalin's gaze pinned him in place as though iron chains bound his limbs.
For a long, unbearable silence, only the hiss of the samovar and the ticking of a wall clock filled the room.
Then the silence shattered. Doors on both sides burst open. Red Army guards poured in, rifles raised, bayonets gleaming. Boots thundered like artillery. Shouts in Russian filled the air "Ruki vverkh! Hands up!"
Christian's pulse detonated in his chest. He spun, searching for an exit, but steel and flesh closed around him. Every direction was sealed by the muzzle of a gun.
Stalin rose from his chair. He did not rush. He brushed crumbs from his mustache, his cigarette still burning between his fingers.
"You Germans think the world is yours," he said calmly. "But Moscow is no Paris. Here, wolves are hunted." Christian's mind raced. His mission was collapsing, seconds from annihilation. His cover blown. His life measured in breaths.
And then, another voice cut through the chaos.
"Young Wolfe"
The voice was soft, almost polite. Christian turned. From the rear doorway stepped Herr Müller.
Immaculate, as if untouched by the filth of Moscow. His coat gleamed, gloves polished, cap tilted just so. His pale eyes glimmered with the cold delight of a man who has played every move of the game.
The soldiers obeyed his presence as if rehearsed. Rifles lowered fractionally. Even Stalin tilted his head, like a host welcoming an expected guest.
Müller's smile was the slow curl of a knife unsheathing.
"You disappoint me, Christian," he said, his voice smooth as oil. "All that training, all that loyalty… yet you stumble into the Kremlin like a child." Christian's throat tightened. "You…"
"Yes," Müller said, stepping closer. "Did you truly believe Canaris was the only master of your fate? That you were the hunter, not the bait?" He looked to Stalin, who regarded the scene with quiet amusement, smoke circling his head like a crown.
"This wolf was never sent to kill," Müller continued. "He was sent to draw out Moscow's teeth. To test the walls of the citadel. To prove the Reich's reach and its limits."
Christian's knees threatened to buckle, but rage held him upright.
So it had always been Müller, lurking in the shadows, pulling strings. Not rival, not hunter, but something worse: an architect of betrayal who served two masters.
Stalin stubbed out his cigarette. His smile was thin, almost tender.
"So, Herr Müller… shall we see what strength your wolf has?" Müller did not break his gaze from Christian. "Oh, yes. Let us."
The rifles lifted again. Christian's fingers hovered near the satchel, sweat slicking his skin. His pulse thundered, his vision narrowing, every second stretching like wire pulled to snapping.
Here he was: trapped between two monsters, the dictator of Russia and the serpent of Germany. Betrayed, cornered, his fate dangling by a thread. And then the chamber door slammed shut behind him, sealing him inside the den of the great bear.