Ten
The Republic of Georgia
Anya watched them through the helicopter’s scratched side window as the black ridge line came slowly into view, sharp and cold against the pale gray of dawn.
The farther east they flew, the less the world looked inhabited.
Roads narrowed into threads. Villages thinned into scattered roofs and smoke.
Beech and pine forests swallowed the valleys whole.
It was good ground for hiding, and better ground for hunting. Which was precisely why she hated it.
He looked up before she realized she’d been watching him.
“Something?” he asked over the headset.
“No.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. There was always something different now—a shift in the wind, a fleeting face in a reflection, or a silence so deliberate it made her skin crawl. Most of all, Justin Franks kept standing where her instincts still expected a ghost.
That part irritated her most because it wasn’t his fault.
The helicopter dipped lower.
Devon’s voice crackled through comms, steady and clear despite the distance. “Ground team, confirm visual.”
Ice looked down at the tablet, then toward the window on his side. “Visual on the village.”
Justin keyed his mic. “Copy. Any movement?”
“Nothing overt,” Devon replied. “Antonov’s last signal ping was from a relay tower one klick north of the village. After that, he went dark.”
Anya shifted slightly in her harness and studied the cluster of stone buildings below. They were small, cold, and tucked into the mountain’s base as if trying not to be seen.
“Too quiet,” she said.
Justin glanced at her again. “You expected different?”
“I expected a man being hunted by Sokolov to either run or fortify.” Her gaze remained on the village. “This looks like waiting.”
Charlie Four, Keyanna “Gucci” DuPont muttered from farther down the bench, “That’s encouraging.”
No one disagreed with her.
The helicopter banked and descended toward a narrow clearing cut into the trees well outside the village perimeter. The pilot brought them down fast, skids kissing frozen earth with a bone-rattling jolt.
The side door slid open with a hiss. A blade of cold sliced through the air. Charlie Team burst out—movements precise, rifles up, rotor wash whipping frost and needles into a wild dance.
Anya dropped into the clearing, rifle case slung over one shoulder, boots crunching on frost and old pine needles. The air smelled like wet bark, diesel, and mountain water running somewhere unseen beneath stone.
Justin landed beside her, already scanning. “Charlie Team spread wide.” His voice was clipped now that boots were on the ground. “No hard entry until we confirm Antonov is breathing and not already compromised.”
Ice nodded once. “Charlie Four with me.”
“Charlie Five, Six, on me,” Frosty said.
The team split smoothly, melting into the trees with a predator’s grace—no wasted motion, no repeated orders, just the kind of silent trust that made survival look like choreography.
Anya unsnapped her rifle case, instinctively feeling her way through the familiar sequence as she assembled the weapon—barrel, bolt, scope, magazine. The weight was constant and reassuring as her hands moved with practiced ease.
Justin watched her for a second too long, and something inside her shifted. Something she wasn’t ready for in their relationship.
He raised his eyebrows. “You planning on taking the village from up here?”
“If I have to.”
“We’re trying not to turn this into a war zone.”
Her mouth curved, humorless. “You brought Charlie Team to the Caucasus, Justin. It was a war zone before we landed.”
That earned her the ghost of a smile.
He crouched beside her and unfolded the paper map again, holding it against one thigh to keep the wind from catching it. “Antonov’s house should be here.” He tapped a square near the northern edge of the village. “Single-story stone structure. Adjacent outbuilding. Old root cellar beneath.”
“Escape route?”
“Ravine to the east. Tree line to the west. Narrow road south.”
Anya shouldered the rifle and looked through the scope toward the village below. There was no visible movement, no dogs, no children, and no smoke from half the chimneys.
Her pulse slowed, vision narrowing. This was bad. The air felt charged, waiting for the first shot.
“What do you see?” Justin asked.
She narrowed her gaze on a pickup truck beside the well.
Ice crystals webbed across the windshield, and no fresh tire tracks disturbed the surrounding snow.
Laundry hung stiff between two posts, frozen mid-breath.
In the distance, a church spire stabbed the sky, its cracked bell hanging silent like a warning.
Then, within Antonov’s supposed house, the faintest flicker of reflected light caught the eye. It wasn’t fire—just glass—a subtle, shimmering optic.
She lowered the rifle an inch. “They’re here.”
Justin didn’t ask how she knew. “Confirm.”
“Second-floor window. North wall. Scope flash.” She exhaled slowly. “And they want me to see it.”
His eyes sharpened. “Hunter?”
“Yes.”
“Orlov?”
“Maybe.” Her jaw tightened. “Maybe someone worse.”
Justin tapped his comm. “Charlie Team, hold positions. We have eyes in the village. Repeat, hold. This is not a rescue. This is a read.”
To keep their positions covered, two quick double-clicks of the mic, versus a verbal response, revealed that both Ice and Frosty had copied.
Anya scanned the scene again. Nothing moved.
That was the problem—a real village never slept this deeply.
Somewhere, a curtain should flutter, a door should creak, smoke should curl from a chimney, and a dog should trot across a lane.
A woman should shake out a blanket. Here, everything was wrong in its stillness.
This place looked staged—life frozen mid-breath, every detail a lure for the unwary. A trap with a heartbeat, and the bait was them.
“They evacuated it,” Anya said.
Justin’s attention sharpened further. “Antonov?”
“No.” She held the scope steady on the dark window. “Sokolov.”
A silence passed between them—short and heavy.
Then Justin stood. “Charlie Team, shift to containment. We’re not entering blind.”
He turned to Ice, who had reappeared soundlessly from the western tree line.
“I want the outer perimeter mapped and a thermal sweep confirmed.”
Ice nodded. “Already in progress.”
Justin glanced back at Anya. “You’re with me.”
Her brows lifted slightly. “That sounded dangerously like an order.”
“It was.”
She considered arguing, but ultimately chose not to. That alone should have unsettled her more than it did. She didn’t follow, yet she would follow Justin into hell and back if needed.
They moved downslope through the trees, boots silent on the frozen ground. The village seemed to grow quieter the closer they got, until even the rotor noise from the departing helicopter had faded into memory.
At the first broken fence line, Justin raised a hand to halt their advance.
Anya froze behind him and listened. It took a moment, but she caught it. Very faintly, a generator hummed beneath the earth.
Her gaze moved toward the northern edge of the village. “Not the house,” she murmured.
Justin followed her line of sight. “Cellar?”
“No.” She tilted her head, tracking the vibration under the stone. “Lower. Reinforced.”
He looked back at her. “Underground room.”
“Yes.”
“Silent Night?”
“Maybe.”
She hated how often that word had entered her internal calculations in the last seventy-two hours.
Before they could move again, Devon’s voice came through, tighter than before. “You’ve got movement. Two heat signatures coming in from the east ridge. Fast.”
Justin keyed in instantly. “Approaching us?”
“Yes.”
Anya had already turned.
The forest to their right remained still, but stillness had stopped meaning safety days ago.
“Orlov,” she said.
Justin raised his weapon. “You sure?”
“No.” She took one step backward toward the cover of a crumbling stone wall. “But whoever it is, they know where to look.”
Frosty’s voice cut through. “Contact east. Two hostiles. Suppressed weapons.”
The first shot cracked through the trees a heartbeat later.
Not at them. At Ice, who dropped hard behind a stacked woodpile and returned fire in a sharp burst.
The village detonated into chaos—doors slammed, boots thundered, gunfire ripped the cold to shreds. Every wall hid an ambush. Every street became a kill box.
Doors opened where she had sworn no one remained. Three more armed operatives spilled out from opposite sides of the square, moving fast and low toward the church and the well. They weren’t villagers or Antonov. This wasn’t a local hideout. It was a funnel.
“They seeded the whole village,” Justin snapped.
“Yes.”
“Then where’s Antonov?”
Anya’s pulse settled into cold precision. “He was never the objective.”
Justin looked at her. And knew. “They wanted us here.”
“Yes.”
For a fraction of a second, the chaos around them blurred—gunfire cracking, Ice calling angles, bodies dropping into the snow.
Justin’s gaze held hers. No question. No doubt. Just the same realization landing in both of them at once.
His hand shifted against the stone wall, close enough to hers that the back of his knuckles brushed her glove.
Anya didn’t look down. But she felt it—steady, grounded, exactly where it needed to be.
“Then we don’t disappoint them,” he said quietly.
Her answer came just as low. “We don’t.”
The contact broke as he moved to engage. But the alignment stayed.
Charlie Team opened up from the tree line, controlled and disciplined. The first operative near the well went down immediately. Another dove behind the truck and fired back.
Anya dropped to one knee behind the stone wall and sighted in. There was no hesitation and no wasted movement. She took the shooter at the truck through the shoulder seam and shifted immediately to the church door, where another man appeared with a carbine.
One breath. Pressure. Fire.
He disappeared backward into the shadows.
Justin moved beside her, using the wall as cover while barking clean orders into comms.
“Frosty, push west. Ice, take the north corner. No one enters the central house until I say so. They want us to split.”
The ground battle intensified around them, yet Anya’s gaze repeatedly wandered to the northern house. Her eyes were drawn to the shadowy upper window, while the hum beneath the village captured her attention.
Someone important was down there. Not just Antonov. The real story was deeper—buried under stone, cold, and secrets measured in old loyalties and new betrayals.
A figure flickered in the upstairs window—this time, not a shooter but a woman, dark hair pulled back from a pale face, standing utterly still. Watching. Not aiming. Just waiting, and weighing the odds.
Anya’s skin went cold. Irina Malenkova
The woman remained impassive—no smile, no wave, no sign of recognition. Without a word, she quietly stepped back from the window and disappeared into the shadows.
“Justin,” Anya said sharply.
He was already moving to her side. “What?”
“She’s here.”
“Who?”
“Irina.”
His expression changed instantly. “Confirmed?”
“Yes.”
That mattered. Irina didn’t come for cleanup work. She came when the operation had layers. When Silent Night wanted not just blood, but pressure.
Justin keyed his mic again. “New priority. We have Ghost in play. Repeat, Ghost is in play.”
Ice answered from somewhere near the churchyard. “Copy.” Frosty breathed, “Copy.”
Gunfire continued in controlled bursts around the square, but already the tempo had shifted. Charlie Team was winning. The outer shooters had apparently expected a smaller response.
They hadn’t expected Justin to arrive with a team. Or Anya to take the high-angle kills this fast.
A final burst near the church cut short with a choked shout.
Then quiet again. Too quiet.
Justin swore under his breath.
“What?”
“They stopped shooting.”
Anya’s grip tightened on the rifle.
This meant the outer ring had fulfilled its purpose. Distract. Contain. Delay.
Beneath them, the generator’s hum shifted its tone, descending into a deeper resonance before settling into a steady rhythm. Then, a door creaked open somewhere deep underground.
Anya went cold all over, and it wasn’t from the frigid temperature outside. “They’re moving him.”
Justin didn’t waste time asking who. “Charlie Team, converge on North House. Move.”
They broke from cover together.
The sprint across the square was a gauntlet—glass shattering underfoot, frozen mud slick and treacherous, smoke curling from the ruptured generator. Every step was a gamble with fate, and the only way out was through.
Justin hit the front door first and kicked it open.
The interior of the house was stark and empty, with a battered table turned on its side, two abandoned chairs, and a lone lamp casting faint shadows. Dust blanketed the surfaces, a silent reminder of a life once lived here.
A stage set—too perfect, built for witnesses and bodies both.
Charlie Team flowed in behind them.
“Clear left,” Ice reported.
“Clear right,” Frosty responded.
“Stairs,” Justin barked.
Anya took the stairs two at a time, Justin on her shoulder, Ice right behind.
The upstairs room was empty, with the window open. The scope mount was still warm on the sill.
Irina was gone.
A narrow trapdoor stood open in the floorboards near the bedframe. Below it, concrete stairs vanished into darkness where the generator’s hum was louder.
Justin looked at Anya.
She looked back.
This wasn’t Antonov bait anymore.
This was infrastructure.
And Sokolov had just shown them something far more dangerous than a surviving prototype.
He had operations running beneath abandoned villages.
Justin signaled Charlie Team into stack formation.
Then, without looking away from the dark below, he said quietly: “We’re going down.”
Anya tightened her hold on the rifle. Good.
Because if Silent Night wanted them underground, Anya would make sure the ghosts down there remembered her name.