We move.
Two men go ahead as scouts. Kirill and I follow. Raina peels off to the south ridge with one guard. The rest of the team fans out to cover rear angles and flanks.
The lake looks the same as before. Narrow, pale, quiet. The line of cottages sits along the shore, dull blue roofs against the sky. The fox-door house waits near the end of the row.
We don’t go to the front.
The cellar entrance is behind the cottage, down a short slope. A concrete bulkhead, low door, rusted lock. Same as before. No new footprints. No fresh tire tracks on this side. He hasn’t been back since the last time we came. Good. That means we’re on schedule.
Oleg cuts the lock. We slip inside one by one, careful of noise.
The cellar is low and smells of old wood and dust. Racks line one wall. There’s a workbench with old paint cans and tools. No fresh bomb. No device. This place is for storage, not for show.
“Positions,” I murmur.
We spread out.
Two men take the stairs halfway up, covering the door that opens into the main room. One sits near the bottom, rifle up, watching the line of the steps. Kirill and I take the far corners, with sightlines that cover the stairs and the small cellar window. Two more position near the back wall, ready to move.
I check my watch. The time matches the cycle we pulled from Ilya’s old logs. He tends to circle his main nodes in late morning. It gives him the rest of the day to shift again if needed.
We wait.
Waiting is its own kind of fight. Your mind tries to wander. It wants to imagine trouble that isn’t there yet. I push that aside. I focus on my breath, the small sounds, the rhythm of the room.
The radio in my ear crackles once. Raina’s voice comes through, low and calm. “Position set. I see the road. No movement yet. Lake side clear.”
“Copy,” I say.
Minutes pass.
Snow from outside reflects a thin light through the small cellar window. Dust motes hang in the air. A drop of water falls from a pipe and hits the floor. My men don’t shift much. This isn’t their first stakeout.
Then the radio clicks twice. Raina again. “Car,” she says. “Small sedan. Dark. Came in from the main road. He passed the third bridge, took the turn. Alone in the car from what I saw.”
“Plates?” I ask.
“Fake,” she says. “Too clean. No dirt, no scratches. But the driver… Sergei, it’s him. I saw his face when he passed under the bare branch. It’s Ilya.”
My chest tightens. “Copy,” I say. “Maintain eyes.”
I picture him. The same boy from the old block, now in a good coat, with better teeth and sharper eyes, thinking he finally flipped the board on me. He never understood I could read him from a mile away.
I listen.
The car engine grows faint as he gets closer to the cottage line. Then it cuts. A door slams far above us. Boots crunch on frozen ground.
Raina speaks again. “He’s walking in,” she says. “No men with him. No second car. He looks relaxed. Hands in pockets. No panic. He thinks no one’s here.”
“Good,” I murmur.
Footsteps pass overhead. The boards creak. He moves to the front of the house. There’s a soft scrape as he unlocks the door and swings it open.
The men on the stairs grip their rifles, fingers resting just off their triggers.
We hear the front door close. Then slower steps. He walks across the main room. I know the pattern already from earlier. Table first. Bed second. Hardware third.
A chair scrapes. Something light hits wood. He set a bag down.
