Night closed over Berlin like a curtain, muffling the city into shades of sound and shadow. The rain had stopped; the cobbles breathed steam under streetlamps, and the safehouse felt farther away than it should have. Soufiane moved with the calm of a man whose nerves had learned to be still under pressure. He checked the faces in his small band—Amal's jaw set though her arm was steady, Meriem breathing shallow and focused, Abderrazak loose and ready, Mourad quieter now but alert. Everyone knew the stakes.
They reached the alley that led to the safehouse perimeter at dusk. Meriem slipped onto the roofline like a cat, settling into her vantage point. From above she could watch the courtyard, the courtyard hatch, and the northeast fire escape Soufiane had noted. Soufiane and Abderrazak took the alley entrance; Amal waited near the basement hatch with Mourad as backup. Shadows folded around them; the world reduced to a handful of breathing bodies and a plan practiced one too many times to be theoretical.
Timing was everything. They had watched guards' rotations for a full day and a night—two men by the front, one on the side who did a lazy sweep every twenty minutes, the camera that swung at odd angles but left a brief blind spot between sweeps. Tonight the blind spot would be their slipping-in point.
Soufiane checked his watch. The first guard made his pass. The second drifted toward the courtyard to feed a cat he'd trained to come for scraps—a seemingly harmless ritual that Soufiane had used to predict the guard's exact arc. On cue Meriem gave a knuckle-tap into the comms; Soufiane's world narrowed to the cadence of her heartbeat through the tiny earpiece and the distant drone of the city.
Abderrazak moved like a shadow with a blade of muscle behind it. He slid to the side door, low and efficient, prying the rusted latch. The door yielded with a whisper. Inside, the air smelled of detergent and the faint chemical tang of whatever kept the safehouse occupants awake. Soft voices—two guards chatting—carried from the stairwell.
Soufiane and Abderrazak froze, pressed to the wall. A lamp clicked in the corridor, and the two guards' laughter drifted closer. For a breath the plan wavered. Then the guards turned away to follow the ritual: biscuit, cigarette, meaningless small talk. Movement resumed. Abderrazak signaled with a sharp flick of his fingers. Soufiane slid through the doorway like smoke.
They kept to the shadows, a choreography of small practiced motions. Meriem watched from above and mouthed directions: left corridor, two doors down; third floor, window open; basement lock—coated in oil. Amal slipped down the hatch into the courtyard in perfect silence, the iron cover closing softly behind her. Mourad stayed atop the hatch like a sentinel, ready to pull her through.
The safehouse folded them into its belly: a narrow staircase, the hush of bare bulbs, a corridor lined with doors. Soufiane's pulse was a steady drum under his ribs. He moved to the third-floor landing indicated by Meriem. The window there had a latch worn from weather, an easy weakness. Soufiane worked it free and eased himself through.
Inside, the room smelled of stale coffee and something like iron. There were shells of clothing, a small table with two plates, and a door that led deeper—the inner room where his sister would be kept if the patterns held. He paused. The building's silence seemed to listen.
A muffled sound from the next room—footsteps on old boards, a cough, then a voice speaking to someone with a clipped tone. Soufiane slipped his blade free, one movement, and edged the door.
And then the light came on.
Not from the hall but from inside the room. The lamp snapped to life, harsh and sudden, turning every shadow into accusation. The voice cut off. A figure moved inside, not one of the guards they'd seen in rotation. Different manner, different gait—someone alert, expecting trouble. Soufiane's hand tightened around the knife until his knuckles whitened.
Outside, Meriem radioed, dead-quiet, "Three downstairs, two rotating—camera sweep in thirty." Her voice was a thread of ice.
Inside, a chair scraped—too loud—and the figure turned. A woman's profile, then a man stepping into the doorway behind her. Both frozen. Their eyes widened as they saw Soufiane in the doorway.
All motion halted. The city seemed to inhale.
Then, from the floor below, the clatter of a loose shutter slamming—an alarm triggered somewhere else in the building: a dog barking, tin cans knocked. From the street outside, a door banged open.
Somewhere in the dark, boots began to run.
Soufiane didn't have time to think. He only had the space to move. He lunged. The blade arced forward.
Outside, through the thin windowpane, a figure detached itself from the streetlight—a silhouette moving toward the house with an unusual, purposeful gait. Not a guard. Not alone.
Meriem's whisper cut through Soufiane's mind like a blade: "They knew we were coming."
The cliff of the night broke. The breach had become a trap.
And the rescue — if it succeeded at all — would cost them more than they had prepared to pay.