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“You’re him,” he says.

“I’ve been given this role before.”

The bear wears pink trousers and has no rank I can identify. Misha returns to the toy basket and this time he brings me a wooden truck. He places it on my thigh.

“You drive.” He makes a loud engine noise.

“Where should I go?” I pick up the truck.

“To school.”

“Which school?”

“Little Birch.”

“Is that your school?” I move the truck three inches. The chessboard lies open and unused.

“No.” Misha takes the truck from me. “It goes here first.”

He drives it around a wooden block, beneath the table, and over my foot.

“Why?”

“It has to pick up Masha.” He turns the truck from side to side, flies it through the air like a helicopter, then drives it up the leg of my chair.

“This route is difficult,” I tell him.

“It has a tunnel.” He makes one with his hands.

“That’s not a tunnel.”

“It is now.” He arches one hand and pushes the truck beneath it with the other, then sends it toward some destination only he understands.

“You’ll fall.” I reach out to catch him.

He leaves the truck on the rug and comes straight to me. “Where were you hurt?”

The radio at my waist crackles.

“Orlov,” Abramov says through the radio. “My team has finished the second sweep.”

Misha freezes and stares at my waist.

I lift the radio. “Report.”

“The west wing is sealed. We replaced the service door, checked every access panel, and removed the transmitter from the medical bay wall. The new cameras are live.”

“And the gates?”

“No fresh tracks near the service road. We found the contractor’s van on footage from the service gate fourteen days ago. Its credential opened the chapel maintenance passage that afternoon.”

“That’s probably when they planted the transmitter. How many workers?”

“Two. Both passed all three gates with clean records. The foreman took our guard to the water controls.”

“Leaving the other worker alone at the open wall.”

“Yes.”