"Fifteen." His voice carries no room for negotiation. "If you're not out, I breach."
I want to argue. Want to tell him I can handle myself, that I've survived worse than a Committee safe house. But I see the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers have gone still on the camera. He's letting me do this because he trusts my judgment. The least I can do is give him a timeline he can live with.
"Fifteen," I agree.
I leave the café through the back, circle around to approach the safe house from a different angle. My cover is simple. Confused tourist, looking for a restaurant that doesn't exist, phone in hand showing a map that leads nowhere. It's gotten me through doors before.
The guards at the front entrance are bored. That's the first thing I notice. They've been standing in the cold for hours, watching nothing happen, waiting for a shift change that can't come soon enough. When I approach with my phone extended and my most helpless expression, they barely react.
"Excuse me? I'm looking for Restaurace U Modré—" I butcher the pronunciation deliberately. "My map says it should be here, but I can't find..."
The taller guard sighs. Points down the street. Rapid Czech that I pretend not to understand, shaking my head, asking him to repeat. He's annoyed now, stepping away from his post to gesture more emphatically.
The door behind him is unlocked. I noticed when Gracheva entered. Magnetic lock, disengaged during business hours. Lazy security for an organization that should know better.
"Oh, that way?" I point in the wrong direction, and he corrects me again, turning his back completely.
I move.
Through the door, into a hallway that smells like cigarette smoke and old carpet. Stairs to my left, voices above. I have maybe thirty seconds before someone notices the guards aren't at their post, before the confusion at the door resolves into alarm.
The office is on the second floor. Cross's intel was specific about that. Webb's people use it for communications, for coordinating with Kosygin's network. The terminal there connects to both organizations' systems.
I take the stairs two at a time, keeping my footsteps light. The second floor hallway is empty. Three doors, one open, light spilling out. I hear voices inside, Russian and English mixing, the cadence of an argument.
The office is the second door. Closed but not locked. I slip inside, close it behind me, and find myself in a small room dominated by computer equipment. Servers humming, monitors dark, the digital nervous system of the Committee's Prague operation.
Thirty seconds to find the right port. Another thirty to upload Tommy's file. The data will sit dormant until someone accesses the shared drive, and then it will spread. Financial records that show payments to Western intelligence services. Communication logs that suggest Kosygin's people have beencompromised for months. Enough evidence to shatter the fragile trust between two organizations that already don't like each other.
The upload completes. I pull the drive, pocket it, and turn for the door.
Gracheva is standing in the hallway.
For a moment, neither of us moves. Recognition flickers in her eyes, the journalist from the café, the nobody she dismissed without a second thought. Then her hand moves toward her hip, toward the weapon I know she carries.
Training takes over. Close the distance before she can get the gun clear. Strike to the throat. She staggers, choking, and I'm past her before she recovers.
The stairs. Shouts behind me now, the argument in the other room spilling into the hallway. I hit the ground floor at a run, blow past the guards who are just turning from their conversation with the confused tourist who isn't there anymore.
Outside. Cold air. The street stretching in both directions, and Dylan emerging from the café across the way, moving to intercept.
"Go," he says. "Now."
We don't run. Running draws attention. We walk fast, two tourists who realized they're late for something, weaving through pedestrians and side streets until the safe house disappears behind us.
"Did you get it?" Dylan asks.
"It's done. The file's uploaded."
"Gracheva?"
"Saw me. Didn't stop me."
His jaw tightens, but he doesn't slow down. "She'll report. They'll know someone breached security."
"They'll find Tommy's file. Webb will do the rest." I allow myself a small smile. "He'll tear his own operation apart looking for the leak."
"While Kosygin wonders why Webb's suddenly suspicious."
