The report felt like filth in Stern's hands.
He placed the thin folder on Kato's desk without a word. The simple act was a small, humiliating surrender, and it cost him more than he would ever admit.
"Your intelligence, Frau Commander," he said. The title was a deliberate, venomous insult, a sliver of defiance in his defeat.
Kato ignored his tone. She didn't look at him. She opened the folder, her focus absolute.
The report was meticulous, its type neat and precise. The cold, orderly text was a stark contrast to the messy, human chaos it described. It was a psychological profile of Sofia Morozova.
Fragile mental state. Fits of weeping. Paranoia.
She was talking in her sleep. Whispering about her brother. About a man named "Dmitri." About a life that had been stolen from her.
Kato read the final, damning line: Subject is a high-risk security breach. Recommend immediate neutralization.
She closed the folder. The soft click of the cover echoed in the silent room.
She looked up at Stern. "You are dismissed."
He gave a stiff, formal nod and left, the quiet click of the door his only reply.
Kato summoned Pavel.
He entered the room hesitantly, his eyes full of a cautious, fragile hope. He saw Sofia not as an asset, but as a victim they had a duty to save.
Kato slid the folder across the desk to him. "Read this."
Pavel's brow furrowed in confusion. He opened it. As he read, the color drained from his face. The hope in his eyes curdled into a sick, dawning horror.
He looked up at Kato, his face pale, his voice a strained whisper. "She is broken, Kato. We broke her."
He pushed the folder away as if it were contaminated. "We have to help her. We can do what Stern offered. Send her away, give her money, a boat to America. A new life."
His voice was a desperate, protective plea. It was the voice of the man he used to be, the man who believed in redemption.
Kato's expression did not change. She saw his compassion not as a virtue, but as a dangerous, sentimental weakness. A flaw in the machine.
She reached out and closed the folder with a soft, final click.
"A new life?" she asked, her voice devoid of emotion. "Where she can be found by the Okhrana and tell them everything she knows? Where she can have a moment of weakness in a bar and whisper Koba's name to the wrong person?"
She stood up and walked to the window, staring down at the cold, orderly streets of Stockholm.
"She knows too much, Pavel. She knows our faces. She knows our methods. She is a loose thread that could unravel everything we have built."
Pavel recoiled as if she had struck him. "What are you saying?" he asked, his voice trembling. "You want to kill her?"
Kato shook her head, a flicker of something—pity, perhaps, or weariness—in her eyes before it was extinguished. Her solution was colder, more pragmatic.
In some ways, it was far more cruel.
"Killing is messy," she said, turning from the window to face him. "It creates ghosts. It creates martyrs."
She walked back to the desk, her movements calm and deliberate. "I don't want her dead, Pavel. I want her gone."
She paused, letting the words sink in. "There is a private sanatorium outside the city. Quiet. Discreet. For wealthy families with embarrassing problems. The doctors there are very… accommodating, for the right price."
The horror of it finally dawned on him. It was a cold, creeping thing that settled in his stomach like a block of ice.
She wasn't going to put a bullet in Sofia's head. She was going to have her drugged, declared mentally unstable, and locked away under a false name for the rest of her life. An elegant, bloodless assassination of the soul.
"No," Pavel whispered, shaking his head. "No. I won't do it."
His voice grew stronger, filled with a defiant, righteous anger. "I recruited her. I lied to her. I will not be the one to put her in a cage."
"She is already in a cage, Pavel," Kato replied, her voice turning to steel. "This one just has padded walls. And you will do it."
She stared at him, her authority absolute, her will unbreakable. "Because I am in command."
She walked to the heavy steel safe in the corner of the room. She opened it and removed two items.
A small, unlabeled glass vial filled with a clear liquid. And a thick, heavy wad of Swedish currency.
She placed them on the desk in front of the horrified Pavel. A doctor's dose of a powerful, long-lasting sedative, and a bribe to make a soul disappear.
The order was no longer just words. It was a physical, undeniable reality.
"She is a broken weapon, Pavel," Kato said, her voice leaving no room for argument. "And broken weapons are a danger to everyone."
She looked at him, her eyes cold and hard as diamonds.
"You will handle it."