The port in Narvik, Norway, was a place of frozen silence.
The only sound was the low, mournful groan of the Swedish freighter's hull as it shifted against the ice-choked pier. The mission, as Kato had outlined it, was simple. Get on board, secure the cargo, get out.
Pavel moved like a ghost. He flowed up the gangplank, a dark shape against the snow, his movements economical and silent.
He encountered the first Norwegian guard near the bow. The man was bundled in a thick coat, his breath a white cloud in the frigid air. He never heard Pavel coming.
One arm snaked around his throat, cutting off any sound. A single, brutal twist. The crunch of bone was a small, dry sound in the vast silence. Pavel lowered the body gently to the deck, out of sight.
There was no hesitation. No remorse. Just the cold, efficient completion of a task.
Watching from the shadows of the pier, Kato felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. She had wanted a soldier. She had created an automaton.
The second guard was in the small watch station overlooking the cargo cranes. Pavel was a shadow at the door, a flicker of movement. The guard started to turn, his mouth opening to form a question. He never finished it. Pavel's garrote was a thin, dark line that appeared and vanished in the same instant.
Pavel gave a short, sharp nod. The signal. All clear.
Kato and Murat moved, their boots quiet on the packed snow. They boarded the ship. The air on deck was clean and sharp, but as they descended into the ship's interior, it grew thick and heavy with the smell of diesel and cold steel.
The faint, coppery smell of blood clung to Pavel as they passed him. He said nothing, his face a blank mask in the gloom.
They made their way to the main cargo hold. The experimental British artillery shells were exactly where the German intel said they would be. Three massive wooden crates, stenciled with English warnings and the crest of the Royal Arsenal.
The plan was elegant. Use the ship's own small deck crane to lift two of the crates directly onto the flatbed of a waiting truck Ivan had procured. A simple, quiet theft.
"Murat, we have the cargo," Kato whispered into the speaking tube that connected them to the deck. "Prepare the crane. We are coming out."
"Understood," Murat's voice crackled back, tinny and distant.
Pavel and Kato began attaching the heavy crane hooks to the thick ropes binding the first crate. Their movements were practiced and efficient, a silent dance in the dim light of their hooded lantern.
As they tightened the last hook, a shape detached itself from the deeper shadows of the hold.
A man. The ship's first mate, carrying a lantern and a heavy, industrial wrench. He wasn't on any watch schedule they had seen. A random inspection. A ghost in their machine.
He saw them. His eyes went wide with shock and fear. His lantern cast long, dancing shadows that turned the hold into a cavern of moving monsters.
He opened his mouth to shout.
Before Kato could even raise her pistol, before she could process the threat, Pavel moved.
It was not a takedown. It was an explosion of pure, horrifying violence. He didn't try to silence the man. He tried to obliterate him.
He lunged forward, not with a knife, but with his entire body. He drove the heel of his heavy boot into the first mate's knee with the force of a battering ram. The sound of the man's leg shattering was a wet, cracking noise that echoed horribly in the steel hold.
The man screamed, a high, thin sound of pure agony, but it was cut short. As he fell, Pavel brought the steel-plated butt of his rifle down on the side of the man's skull. The sound was a sickening, hollow thump, like a melon splitting open.
The first mate collapsed in a heap, his lantern flying from his hand. He fell without another sound.
It was utterly efficient. It was brutally final. It was monstrous.
I told him to handle it, Kato thought, her mind reeling, a cold dread washing over her. I never thought... he wouldn't know when to stop.
The dead man's lantern, its glass shattered, rolled across the steel floor. It came to a stop against a stack of oil-soaked tarpaulins. The burning wick ignited the oil.
A sudden, hungry whoosh filled the hold as a wall of orange flame erupted, licking at the dry canvas.
And that wasn't the worst of it.
The heavy, jarring impact of the first mate's body hitting the deck must have triggered something. A tripwire. A pressure plate.
A loud, clanging alarm bell began to ring, its frantic, desperate clangor screaming throughout the ship and echoing across the silent docks.
They were trapped.
The fire was spreading, casting a hellish, flickering light on the scene. The alarm was a physical assault, a screaming announcement of their failure. From the deck above, they could hear the sudden shouts of the awakened crew, the sound of running feet.
Pavel stood over the body, his rifle held loosely in his hands. He looked down at his handiwork, his expression utterly, terrifyingly blank. As if he had just tidied a messy room.
Kato looked from the spreading fire to the dead man, to the empty expression on Pavel's face.
The monster she had created had just saved her life. And it had doomed them all.
She scrambled for the speaking tube, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"Murat, forget the cargo! Scuttle the plan!" she yelled into the tube, her voice tight with a cold, rising panic.
"We need an exit! Now!"