The countdown had begun. Three days. Seventy-two hours until the arms shipment moved. Seventy-two hours to pull off a plan balanced perfectly between genius and suicide.
The first morning broke cold and gray. The sky hung low, the color of dishwater. For most of St. Petersburg, it was another day of survival. But for the hunters, the city pulsed with purpose.
In a small bakery in Liteyny, an Okhrana agent kneaded dough with steady hands, his eyes fixed on a tenement window across the street—a known Bolshevik hideout. Near the Haymarket, a street urchin with angel eyes and a jackal's grin pocketed a few kopeks from a plainclothes cop after reporting a false sighting. His lie would waste two hours of police time and buy him a hot meal.
The city had become a weapon. Stolypin's machine worked flawlessly—cold, vast, and relentless. Every gear turned, every ear listened, every eye searched for one man.
Inside the teahouse, Koba didn't see it. Or maybe he did and simply didn't care. He stood before his map like a general on the eve of war. Jake Vance was gone. The guilt, the fear, the disgust—sealed away. What remained was Koba: calm, ruthless, and surgical.
Anya and Timur stood with him, silent soldiers in the heart of enemy territory. Timur paced, restless, muscles tight, energy spilling out of him like steam.
"The waiting is poison," the Chechen muttered. "My men grow bored. They are fighters, not thinkers."
Koba didn't turn. His finger followed the railway lines on the map. "Patience is a weapon, Timur. The strongest one. But the waiting is over. It's time to move the first piece."
He looked at Pavel, who stood by the door like a shadow. "Your task," Koba said. His voice was sharp, precise. He described the tool they needed—a hydraulic bolt cutter. Industrial. Silent. Strong enough to bite through steel. "It's in the Nikolaevsky Railway Yard. Maintenance shed 4B. We'll borrow it."
"It's essential," he finished. "No mistakes."
Pavel nodded once. He didn't ask how Koba knew such a thing existed. Koba's knowledge was treated like weather—strange, unpredictable, but real. Pavel left, silent as smoke.
Timur followed to brief his own men, leaving Koba and Anya alone again. The air between them had changed. Since Koba revealed the truth about his mission, something had shifted—a dangerous closeness built on understanding. She'd seen what drove him, and it made his cold logic even more magnetic.
They leaned over the map. Two minds sharpening each other. Two predators planning a perfect kill.
"Timur's men," Koba said, moving pebbles across the map, "are ammunition. Their purpose is to be spent. Noise and chaos for the least possible cost."
Anya said nothing. She only watched him. The calm way he said it chilled her—and thrilled her. He could send men to die with the same tone another man used to discuss numbers.
"They must fight with desperation," Koba went on. "We'll give Timur's captain, Ruslan, a false objective. You'll brief him. Tell him there's payroll gold in Warehouse Three."
Anya's voice was soft. "There isn't."
"Of course not," Koba said. "But he'll believe there is. His men will. They'll fight like devils. They'll hold the guards long past reason. They'll die for a fortune that doesn't exist. And their greed will buy us time."
Anya met his gaze. "They'll be slaughtered."
"Yes," he said simply. "That's their function."
Something dark and mutual passed between them then—a shared recognition. It wasn't attraction, not yet. It was something colder. The understanding of two killers who saw the world as it really was.
Hours dragged by. Only the scrape of the map and the muffled noise of the city broke the silence. By evening, the door opened. Pavel stepped in, face grim.
"The tool is there," he said. "Exactly where you said. I saw it through the window. But I can't get it."
Koba didn't react. He only waited.
Pavel explained, anger roughening his voice. "The yard's under new security. Railway Police. Ex-army. Disciplined. Not the kind you bribe. The shed's locked, patrols constant, fences wired."
He clenched his fists. "It's a fortress. Even a riot at the main gate won't pull them far enough. We'd never reach the shed and escape before they sealed it off."
The first move had failed. The machine Koba built had jammed before it began to turn. A handful of honest guards—men too stupid or too pure to be bought—now stood between him and the first step of his grand design.
The clock kept ticking.