Five
Gdańsk, Poland
Gdańsk shipping lanes reeked of salt, diesel, and old money—wealth clinging to the docks like barnacles, pretending it belonged to the sea.
Justin sat in the back of a nondescript delivery van two streets off the docks, eyes on the live feed Devon had routed to the tablet mounted between the seats.
The screen showed a narrow service corridor behind a shipping office, the kind of place where men moved packages that never existed on manifests.
Charlie Team was already in place. They always were.
Ice’s voice came through, low and clipped. “Overwatch set. No heat anomalies.”
Justin kept his tone calm. “Copy. Hold. We’re not touching anything until we see the hand.”
Across the street, the office fa?ade looked harmless—all glass and clean lines, a flag fluttering in the morning breeze, everything arranged to look legitimate. It would fool a tourist. It wouldn’t fool him. Justin saw the lie in every reflection.
Devon’s voice cut into his ear. “I’m pulling the rotation list now. Cross-referencing with historic intake.”
“Give me the overlap,” Justin said.
There was a pause, with a keyboard clacking. Devon always sounded like he was typing inside a storm. “Three names. Two dead. One alive.”
Justin’s eyes narrowed. “Alive where?”
“Here,” Devon replied. “Gdańsk. He’s not a node, Justin. He’s a courier. Human transport.”
“Good,” Justin said quietly. “Then he can lead us to the spine.”
The van’s engine idled like a heartbeat. Outside, morning traffic drifted past—people moving with the easy arrogance of the unthreatened, never guessing how close they were to the edge of a purge.
Justin’s burner vibrated once.
Not Jesse or Devon. Unknown.
He didn’t answer immediately. He stared at it for a beat, letting the vibration finish and die.
Then it pinged again. Same number. No caller ID.
Devon’s voice tightened. “You getting something?”
“Yeah,” Justin said. “Someone’s trying to get cute.”
He answered on the third ring.
Silence—a calculated pause. The kind that made your skin crawl, as if someone was watching from just out of sight.
Then a voice—disguised, but not well enough. Russian, trained to sound neutral but failing because the bones of the language still lived in every syllable. “Franks,” the voice said, soft as a knife eased from its sheath. “You’re early.”
Justin didn’t shift his posture or let the van’s cramped space betray his tension. “You called a burner I haven’t used in weeks.”
A faint chuckle. “And yet you answered.”
Justin’s jaw tightened. “What do you want?”
The voice hummed as if savoring the question. “You’re guarding the sister.”
Justin didn’t deny it. Denial gave people room to argue. He didn’t owe anyone room.
“She’s...valuable,” the voice purred. “Prototype survivors always are. They remind the new ones just how far the past can reach—and just how quickly the past can become the present.”
Justin’s gaze flicked once more to the street, then darted to the office, the alley, the corridor—unchanged.
But his instincts felt the change.
“Who is this?” Justin asked.
The voice didn’t respond. Instead, it said something else. “Tell her the shadow is coming.” The words in Russian were deliberate. Familiar. As if it had been used before, in a place Anya might remember deep down.
Justin’s throat went tight. “You’re not Silent Night.”
A pause. Then, “No.”
That single syllable carried a lot of arrogance.
Justin leaned forward slightly, voice flat. “You’re the offshoot.”
“Say it however you like,” the voice replied. “But understand this: we didn’t return to correct mistakes.”
Justin held perfectly still.
“We returned to erase them.”
The call ended.
The van felt colder—not from the weather, but from the new rules settling over the city like a shadow. The game had changed, and every street now thrummed with threat.
Devon’s voice came through instantly. “Justin. What was that?”
Justin didn’t look away from the street. “They’re in our comm layer.”
Devon cursed under his breath. “That shouldn’t be possible.”
“It’s possible,” Justin said. “It’s happening.”
A beat of silence. Then Devon’s voice snapped back to its usual rhythm. “I can isolate the channel, but if they found you, they’re watching the watchers.”
Justin’s gaze sharpened. “Then we act like they are.”
He keyed the team comm. “Charlie Team, all eyes up. We have hostile comm access. Assume you’re being observed.”
Ice answered. “Copy. Adjusting pattern.”
Justin exhaled slowly. This was classic Silent Night: pressure and perception, making you doubt your comms and second-guess your team. But this was something worse. This was eradication, not fracture.
His phone buzzed again.
This time it was a message, not a call. A photo. Low-res. Grainy. Taken from a distance.
Anya.
Not here, in Poland. Somewhere else. In the woods, at the facility. Rifle braced. Head slightly tilted like she was listening to a sound no one else could hear.
Time stamp: 02:19.
Justin’s stomach tightened. That was the minute he’d arrived.
Someone had been watching them both from the start.
Another message followed. Just text.
Unknown: —She doesn’t trust you. She shouldn’t.—
Justin stared at the screen for half a second too long, then locked the device and shoved it into his pocket, as if it could burn through fabric.
He keyed Devon. “They’ve got eyes on the facility footage. They’re pushing it now.”
Devon’s voice went thin. “They’re trying to destabilize her before you even get eyes on the courier.”
Justin swallowed the anger down. Anger was useful. If you used it. Not if it used you. “Then we don’t let her sit with it alone.”
Devon paused. “Justin, you’re in-country.”
“I’m not talking about physically.” Justin’s gaze flicked to the building again. A man stepped out into the alley, carrying a small bag, his posture too rigid for a normal courier. “I’m talking about the narrative.”
Devon exhaled. “You want me to tell her now?”
“Yes.”
Devon hesitated. “She’s going to take it as provocation.”
Justin’s voice dropped. “She’s going to take it as truth if she hears it from them first.”
Another beat.
“Copy,” Devon said. “I’ll deliver it clean.”
Justin watched the courier move—eyes cutting left and right, every step too measured, too careful. That was the rhythm of someone who’d survived training designed to erase the weak.
The courier came to a halt, lifting his head as his eyes sharply scanned the surroundings, fixing upon the van.
Justin didn’t move.
Ice’s voice whispered through the comm. “He’s clocking us.”
Justin’s pulse stayed steady. “Let him.”
Frosty said, “He just got a signal.”
Devon’s voice layered over it, tight. “We’ve got outbound ping. They’re checking if the bait is online.”
Justin’s mouth went cold. They weren’t testing the courier. They were testing him.
For a fraction of a second, something pierced through his calculations: Anya—rifle steady, head tilted, listening for danger no one else could hear.
He knew that posture, not from intel, but from proximity.
He’d seen her go still before the world erupted—had learned the difference between distance and distrust. The message in his pocket tried to twist it into suspicion.
He let it burn. Because Anya Morozov didn’t waste instinct on people she didn’t trust.
His jaw set. “Charlie Team,” Justin said, voice flat and lethal. “We’re not taking him yet. We’re following. Quiet. No heroics. We want the hand he reports to.”
Ice replied. “Copy. Shadowing.”
Justin watched the courier disappear into the pedestrian traffic, bag swinging as if it held something trivial.
It never did.
Justin slipped out of the van, vanishing into the crowd as if he’d always belonged there—coat collar up, hands empty, eyes cold with intent. He moved with the kind of confidence that said he didn’t care. That was the trick: you never let them see what you’re willing to risk.
Care got you killed.
As he moved, his comm vibrated with Devon’s voice, quieter now. “She got the message. She didn’t respond.”
Justin kept walking. “She will.”
“How do you know?”
Justin’s gaze tracked the courier’s path, the angles of escape, the possible counters. Because she doesn’t ignore pressure, he thought. She weaponizes it. “Because she’s Anya Morozov.”
He slipped into the shadow of a doorway as the courier turned onto a quieter street.
This was Silent Night’s favorite part: the solitude, the winding alleys, the absence of witnesses.
Justin smiled, humorless. They thought they were the only ones who knew how to hunt in silence. They’d forgotten what happened when the prey knew the forest better than the wolves.
They were about to learn what Charlie Team looked like when the objective wasn’t correction—it was elimination, and the city would never see them coming.
And Justin Franks didn’t do elimination alone.