Katya’s voice was flat. “What do you mean by zones?”
The man beside him stepped forward eagerly. “High-population clusters. High impact. Maximum visibility.”
She inhaled slowly through her nose. “Visibility for what?”
“For our message.” The tall man apparently thought he was clarifying things. “When people see, people understand. Fear is the clearest language.”
“Revenant didn’t mention any demonstrations,” I said.
The tall man shrugged. “Revenant gives us tools; we decide how to use them. They trust us.”
Katya shot me a look that carried the weight of everything she wasn’t saying. They hadn’t wanted her here because they knew she would see this for what it was.
These weren’t freedom fighters.
This was a terrorist group.
One of the men stepped closer to Katya without permission, eyes bright with fascination. “And you,” he declared with apparent pride, “will witness history.”
She didn’t move. “If I witness anything, it won’t be what you’re thinking.”
I stepped in front of her just slightly, blocking his line of sight. “Let’s get this meeting underway,” I interrupted. “We have a schedule to keep.”
“Yes,” the tall man said, smiling again. “Upstairs. Our leadership is waiting.”
As we followed them deeper into the compound, Katya brushed my arm lightly and whispered, “This is worse than I thought.”
“I know.”
“They’re planning mass casualties.”
“I know.”
“And Revenant knows they’re planning mass casualties.”
“I know that too.”
At the top of the stairs, the tall man stopped in front of a steel door. His smile stretched wider, manic around the edges. “Your partners are waiting inside,” he said.
Partners. As if the Dragunovs would partner with this madness. As if Revenant hadn’t set us up to walk directly into a nest of weaponized zealots.
Katya leaned close again, her voice barely audible. “We’re not leaving until we understand exactly what Revenant has dragged us into.”
I glanced at her. She held my stare, fierce and determined, fire glinting in her eyes.
“Agreed.”
The steel door screeched open, and the air that drifted out was colder than the hallway. Inside, a long concrete table dominated the center of the space. On it were maps, blueprints, and photos. Scattered crates of equipment that didn’t look military issue but didn’t look homemade either were shoved against the walls.
At the head of the table stood the man who was apparently their leader.
He wasn’t tall, but his presence filled the room in a way that made my skin prickle. He was mid-fifties, wiry frame, a short beard trimmed with obsessive neatness. His eyes were the problem. Too bright. Too focused. The kind of eyes that didn’t look at you so much as through you, like he was studying the bones under your skin.
He smiled when he saw us, an unsettling stretch that didn’t shift the rest of his face.
“Andrei Dragunov.” He said my name like an announcement. His voice was calm, but there was a vibration beneath it, a strange energy I didn’t like. “Welcome. My name is Bashir al-Khayran. I see that you’ve brought company.”
Katya didn’t flinch under his stare. “I’m here to observe,” she stated calmly.
