Through the rifle scope, the world shrank to four inches of light.
Inside that narrow circle, Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili — Koba, the Warlock — was alive.
Stern saw everything in perfect, merciless detail: the weave of his dark wool suit, the silver at his temples catching the gaslight, the slow rhythm of breath in his chest. The entire city, the war, the noise of the harbor — all of it faded until only one heartbeat mattered.
Lenin's order thudded in his mind like a drum. Neutralized. Permanently.
His finger rested on the trigger. His hatred had been forged into focus — every humiliation, every betrayal, every drop of blood distilled into one simple act. A breath in. A breath out.
He began to squeeze.
Then Koba moved.
A slight step to the side — just enough to spoil the shot. Two other men exited the Svea Shipping building behind him, and Koba turned to meet them.
Stern froze. His finger stopped. His eyes narrowed.
The newcomers weren't soldiers. They carried briefcases. One had the rumpled look of a scholar, hair wild, movements restless. The other, neat and controlled, had the surgeon's hands of someone accustomed to order and precision.
They weren't underlings. They deferred to Koba, yes — but not as servants. They spoke with animation, excitement, showing him diagrams, notes, ideas. Koba listened, nodded, opened one of their cases, examined its contents — pages filled with formulas and sketches — and closed it with quiet satisfaction.
And in that instant, the truth hit Stern like a blow.
He saw the pattern: the impossibly accurate intelligence, the refined propaganda, the whispers of German funding. It was all too organized, too systematic.
This wasn't a lone traitor.
This was a government in exile.
Koba wasn't just running agents; he was running a state — a shadow empire of scientists, informants, and killers. The professor and the surgeon weren't followers. They were the engine of his machine, the source of his impossible reach.
The realization knocked the air from Stern's lungs. He understood at last what kind of war he was fighting.
To kill Koba now would be idiocy. The action of a hothead, not a strategist. Yes, the man would die — but the machine would live. The Germans would replace him in days, the network would burrow deeper, the hydra's heads would multiply in the dark.
Lenin's order, he realized, had never meant murder. It meant erasure. Not the killing of a man — the extinction of a system.
Slowly, painfully, Stern eased his finger from the trigger. The tension drained from his body, leaving only exhaustion. The rifle felt suddenly heavy, almost obscene.
Beside him, Yagoda exhaled shakily. "Comrade… why? You had him."
Stern said nothing at first. He watched Koba and his companions step into the waiting car, watched the lights disappear into the Stockholm fog.
Then he spoke quietly. "Look at them, Yagoda. Those aren't guards. They're the brain of the operation. The Warlock's not just one man — he's the nucleus of something far greater."
He began dismantling the rifle, methodical, cold. "Killing him would change nothing. We have to destroy what he's built. The network, the scientists, the funding — every strand of his web."
He looked out across the harbor, the city glittering below like a map of invisible wars. The fire of vengeance that had driven him for months was gone, replaced by something harder, sharper, infinitely colder.
"This isn't a hunt anymore," he said. "It's a purge."
He glanced at Yagoda, eyes like shards of ice.
"We're not going to kill the Warlock," Stern said. "We're going to burn his entire kingdom to the ground."
The personal vendetta had ended.
The war of shadows had begun.