Stalingrad was a city gnawed to the bone. Rubble lay in heaps where apartment blocks once stood; charred beams jutted from broken foundations like the ribs of some carcass. Christian walked through the desolation with his collar up, face shadowed by a worker's cap, the disguise that had been practiced, tailored, tested. Every step now was a mirror of the ritual drilled into him. Every inhalation of the smoke-stained air was part of the pattern.
The streets were slick with ice, mud, and the stench of death. He passed a line of prisoners in shackles, their gaunt faces turned away. A Soviet guard barked at them in Russian. Christian's ears caught the cadence, the rhythm of syllables he had rehearsed. He didn't understand every word, but he knew the tone, the beat. He kept walking, not too fast, not too slow. A shadow among shadows.
At the second checkpoint the first test came. Two Red Army soldiers, rifles slung, their breath visible in the winter air. "Documents," one demanded.
Christian produced them without tremor. His hands knew the weight of the forged papers the way a priest knows the feel of scripture. He looked downward, just enough to feign humility, just enough to appear smaller than he was. The soldier glanced at the papers, then at him. The silence stretched like a blade.
"Move." He walked on, each step measured. When the sound of boots behind him faded, he allowed himself a single breath, long and slow, before returning to the rhythm.
The building was ahead, a gutted factory on the Volga's edge, its walls scarred, its windows patched with boards. This was where Antonov met his circle. The rehearsals came alive in his mind: the creaking stair, the loose plank in the landing, the doorway that stuck if pushed too quickly. Every step he had carved into his memory.
He slipped inside. Darkness and dust swallowed him. Rats scattered across the floor, squeaking. The stair groaned under his boot, exactly as expected. But another sound followed; footsteps above. He froze, pressing into shadow, heartbeat climbing his throat. A soldier passed the landing, yawning, muttering about vodka. Christian waited, counted the breaths, and moved only when silence returned.
Up the stairs. To the corridor. His mind whispered the steps like liturgy: three doors, turn right, lean into the wall where the plaster is cracked, and wait by the fourth.
From behind the warped wood he heard voices. Antonov's, unmistakable, rough, authoritarian. Others echoed around him, men speaking of supplies, of "traitors in Moscow," of moving pieces on a map.
Christian lowered his head. The ritual broke here, where preparation ended and blood began. He slipped the knife from his coat. Cold steel, weightless and eternal. His hand trembled, just once, before he closed his grip tight.
The door opened. A man stepped out, adjusting his belt. Christian moved before thought could intervene, his hand clamping over the man's mouth, the blade finding the gap beneath his ribs. A muffled groan, a collapse. He dragged the body into shadow and pressed against the doorframe. Inside, Antonov was pouring vodka.
He entered.
The world became narrow, sharp. Antonov turned, startled, glass spilling. For a heartbeat they looked into one another's eyes, predator meeting predator. Christian struck.
The knife sank into flesh, twisting, pulling life away in silence. Antonov gasped, clawing at Christian's sleeve, muttering something about "the Motherland." Then his knees gave, and he toppled backward onto the table, scattering maps and bottles. The vodka bled across the papers like another wound.
Silence. Then shouts from deeper within.
The escape was chaos. The rehearsed routes buckled under fire and noise. Guards stormed the corridor. Christian shot one, ducked beneath another's bayonet, slammed the butt of his pistol into a third. He ran, boots hammering the stair, gunpowder choking the air. The body on the landing was discovered; cries rang out behind him.
Through a side door, into the alley, his lungs tearing, his disguise shredded by blood and sweat. The streets were alive with searchlights now. He dropped into a sewer grate, the stench of rot and iron enveloping him. He crawled through filth and darkness, each breath a ragged prayer. Above, voices shouted, boots stomped, dogs barked. He pressed forward, deeper, until silence reclaimed the tunnels.
When he emerged hours later, he was alone, soaked, stinking, but alive. The night sky above Stalingrad was lit by flames and tracers, a cruel aurora.
He leaned against the ruin of a wall, chest heaving. His mind tried to replay the mission, to catalog what went wrong, what went right, but the only image that held fast was Antonov's face in that final moment, eyes wide not with fear, but with a kind of recognition, as if he had seen Christian before in some unspoken prophecy.
Christian wiped the blade clean, slowly, carefully, ritual intact even in the aftermath. Then he disappeared into the night, carrying silence and death like twin burdens.