The air in the alley tasted like iron.
Kato stood in the shadows, a ghost in a dark wool coat. Across the street, the "debriefing center" was a silent, brick-faced monster, its windows dark and watchful.
The cold seeped into her bones, but she felt nothing. She was a machine of pure, focused purpose.
Pavel shifted beside her, his breath a white cloud in the frigid air. "They will kill her if this goes wrong, Kato."
She didn't look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the building. "It will not go wrong."
She turned, her gaze finally meeting his. It was a commander's gaze, devoid of warmth, filled with absolute certainty. She gave him a simple, sharp nod. The signal.
"Remember the plan," she said, her voice a low command. "No heroics. Get her out."
She held his gaze for a second longer, a silent warning. "We are ghosts, Pavel. Not soldiers."
Pavel hesitated, then nodded back, the fear in his eyes warring with his trust in her. He melted back into the deeper shadows to join the others.
The first part of the plan began exactly two minutes later.
A motorcar, its engine roaring, screeched to a halt in front of the building. The passenger door flew open, and Colonel Dmitri Orlov stumbled out onto the street.
He was magnificent. A perfect portrait of a ruined aristocrat, fueled by brandy and a righteous, desperate fury.
"Assassins!" he bellowed, his voice echoing in the quiet street. He hammered on the heavy oak doors with both fists. "Cowards! Show yourselves! You dare to touch a guest of the Russian Empire!"
The front door cracked open. Two guards, hard-faced men in plain clothes, stepped out, their hands on their weapons. They tried to calm him, but Orlov was a force of nature. He was chaos, a beautiful, tragic diversion.
As the guards' attention was fixed on the front, Kato gave a second, almost imperceptible signal.
Across the street, a mountain moved.
Murat flowed from the shadows, crossing the street with a speed that was terrifying for a man his size. He reached the rear of the building, a dark, windowless wall that led to the cellars.
There was no sound of a lock being picked. There was only a single, dull, wet crack as his shoulder met the reinforced cellar door. The frame splintered, the wood groaning in protest as the lock assembly was torn from its moorings.
Murat and Ivan slipped inside.
The sudden, thick smell of mildew and stale air hit them. They moved down a short flight of stone steps, their feet silent. They were predators in the dark.
They found her in the second cell. Sofia was on a cot, pale but seemingly unharmed. Standing between them and her was Stern's man, Yagoda.
He was not a brute. He was a professional. He had a pistol in his hand before Ivan had even fully entered the room.
"That's far enough," Yagoda said, his voice calm.
He never got to finish his sentence. Murat didn't rush him. He simply took one long, ground-eating stride and threw the heavy wooden cellar door he had ripped from its hinges.
Yagoda fired once, the shot deafening in the enclosed space. The bullet buried itself in the thick oak. The door slammed into him, pinning him against the stone wall with bone-jarring force. The gun clattered to the floor.
Before Yagoda could even gasp for breath, Ivan was on him, a knife appearing in his hand as if from thin air. The blade was a cold line of steel against Yagoda's throat.
The fight had lasted less than three seconds.
Pavel rushed in moments later, his own pistol drawn, his face a mask of fury. He saw Sofia, then his eyes landed on Yagoda, pinned and helpless.
"He's one of them," Pavel snarled, raising his weapon. "Finish it."
A shadow filled the doorway. Kato stood there, her presence instantly commanding the room. Her voice was quiet, but it cut through the tension like a razor.
"No."
Pavel turned to her, his face contorted with confusion and anger. "Kato, he's a monster! He would have killed her!"
"A dead monster is a corpse," she replied, her eyes fixed on the terrified man under Ivan's knife. "A living one is a message."
She walked forward, her heels clicking softly on the stone floor. She looked down at Yagoda, her expression one of utter, dismissive contempt.
"Tell your master he miscalculated," she said, her voice like chips of ice. "Tell him he mistook a servant for a pawn. Tell him the queen sends her regards."
Back in the Stockholm safe house, the air was thick with the scent of antiseptic. Sofia was wrapped in a heavy blanket, her trembling finally starting to subside.
Pavel paced the room, a caged tiger, his adrenaline slowly turning to confusion. They had won. They had gotten her back.
But Kato was not celebrating.
She stood at the telegraph machine in the corner of the room, her fingers tapping out a rapid, complex rhythm. The clicking filled the tense silence.
Pavel watched her, a frown creasing his brow. He knew their communication protocols. He knew all their coded frequencies.
This was not one of them. The cadence was wrong. The call signs were foreign.
It wasn't a message for Jake. It wasn't a report for their network.
He finally realized who she was talking to. The frequency belonged to a German military attaché in the city.
She was sending her report of Stern's unsanctioned actions—his kidnapping, his ransom demand, his failure—to a different player entirely.
The message wasn't for the king.
It was for the man who owned the board: Oberst Nicolai.