The railyard was a vast, open wound in the center of the city.
Peter ran toward it, his boots slamming against the frozen gravel. His breath came in ragged, tearing gasps that tasted of iron. He was running on the fumes of adrenaline, propelled by the screams of Hanke that still echoed in his mind.
He crested the embankment, sliding down the scree of coal and snow, and stumbled onto the tracks.
"Comrades!" Peter croaked. He waved his empty hand. "The Sergeant is here! Report!"
He expected to see the grey sharp angles of Tiger tanks. He expected to see the camouflage smocks of the Grossdeutschland elite infantry. He expected the roar of engines, the organized chaos of a counter-attack.
Instead, he saw the silence.
The railyard was a graveyard of steel. A hospital train lay on its side, the red crosses on the roofs painted over with soot and snow. A locomotive, blown off the rails, lay hissing steam like a dying dragon.
There was no division. There were no reserves.
The "army" Peter had promised Hanke, the hope he had fed to Schultz, was a phantom. It was a rumor born of desperation, a lie he had told so well he had started to believe it himself.
Peter walked slowly between the twisted rails. The wind whistled through the shattered boxcars, a lonely, mournful sound.
He found a few men. They were not the elite. They were the debris of the retreat—wounded men left behind, huddled under blankets in the lee of a coal wagon. They didn't look up as he passed. They had already checked out of the war.
"Where is the perimeter?" Peter asked a soldier who was sitting on a crate, staring at his boots. The man had no rifle. He had no helmet.
"Gone," the soldier said softly. "Everyone is gone."
Peter stood there, the snow falling on his shoulders. The crushing weight of the truth settled on him.
He had led them to nothing.
Klein burned in a tomb. Muller buried under a street. Schultz shot in a factory. Hanke executed in a cellar. All of them dead to get Peter here, to this promised land of steel and fire, and there was nothing here but rust.
He fell to his knees.
He didn't cry. He was too dehydrated to cry. He just shook. A dry, rattling shudder that started in his chest and shook his hands.
"I lied," he whispered to the rails. "I killed them with a lie."
He pulled the MP40 from his shoulder. It was heavy. Useless. He looked at it with hatred. It was a tool that had failed him. It couldn't save his friends. It couldn't bring back the dead.
Clank.
A sound behind him.
Peter turned.
Standing on the embankment, outlined against the grey sky, was a Soviet T-34 tank. Its turret rotated slowly, the long 85mm gun lowering until it pointed directly at Peter's chest.
Behind it, infantry appeared. Dozens of them. They wore snow-white capes over their padded jackets. They held their PPSh submachine guns ready.
They didn't fire. They just watched. They knew he was alone. They knew the game was over.
Peter looked at the tank. He looked at the black hole of the muzzle.
It would be easy.
All he had to do was raise the MP40. Just lift the barrel. They would cut him in half before he even found the trigger. It would be quick. He would join Hanke. He would join the squad. He wouldn't have to carry the guilt anymore.
His thumb moved to the safety catch. Click.
He tensed his muscles. Do it. End it.
Then, he felt the pressure against his ribs.
The packet.
The letters.
I release you, Dolce.
If he died now, the letters died. They would be looted by a Russian conscript, used to roll tobacco, or left to rot in the mud. Dolce would never know. She would wait. She would sit by the fountain in Verona, year after year, turning into an old woman, waiting for a ghost that never came.
That was the cruelty of the "heroic" death. It was selfish. It bought peace for the dead, but it left the living in purgatory.
Peter looked at the gun in his hand. Then he looked at the pocket over his heart.
He realized then that he was no longer a Sergeant. The Sergeant had died with Hanke in the cellar.
He was a courier. And a courier does not die until the message is delivered.
Peter took a deep breath. It was the hardest breath of his life.
He uncurled his fingers.
The MP40 dropped from his hand. It hit the frozen rail with a metallic clatter.
He reached up and unbuckled his helmet. He let it fall into the snow.
He raised his hands.
" Surrender, " he said. The word tasted like ash.
The Russian infantry moved down the slope. They were cautious, weapons raised. A young officer barked a command. Two soldiers rushed forward, grabbing Peter by the arms. They were rough, slamming him against the side of the coal wagon.
Hands patted him down. They took his belt. They took his knife. They took his watch—the stolen watch he had meant to sell.
One soldier reached for the breast pocket of his tunic.
"No!" Peter flinched, trying to pull away.
The soldier shouted, driving the butt of his rifle into Peter's stomach. Peter doubled over, gasping, falling to the snow.
The soldier ripped the button open. He pulled out the packet.
Peter watched, helpless, from the ground. "Please," he wheezed in Russian. "Paper. Just paper. Letters."
The soldier looked at the packet. He unfolded the oilcloth. He saw the cheap, yellowing paper. He saw the pencil scrawl. No maps. No intelligence. No money.
He scoffed. He said something to his comrade and tossed the packet onto Peter's chest.
" Musor, " (Trash), the soldier spat.
Peter grabbed the packet. He clutched it with both hands, curling around it like a miser protecting gold.
"Up! Up!"
They kicked him. Peter scrambled to his feet.
He was shoved into a line of other prisoners being marched out of the railyard. They were grey, broken men, heads bowed, shuffling toward the east. Toward Siberia. Toward the camps.
Peter joined the line. He didn't look back at the tank. He didn't look back at the city.
He walked.
He was stripped of his rank. He was stripped of his weapon. He was stripped of his friends. He was stripped of his honor.
But as he marched into the captivity that would last for years, he pressed his hand against his chest.
The letters were safe.
The mission had just begun.