30. Dmitri
DMITRI
Twenty minutes earlier, in the security annex, Oleg is back at his logistics desk pretending he has a normal workday ahead of him.
The internal camera catches him reaching for his coffee and missing the cup the first time. His eyes keep jumping to the corridor. A clerk says something beside him, and Oleg smiles half a second late.
Fear does that. It shows up in the small things.
My first answer waits in my mouth. Bring him down. Close the door. Keep him talking until Patrick falls out.
Cara says patience is the key.
She is near the monitors, pale from no sleep, hair loose around her face, standing on tension and fury. I cross to her.
She notices me coming and lifts her chin. “If you’re about to order me upstairs, save your voice.”
My hand stays at my side. “Mikhail will wake soon. Kathryn will need you. You have been awake all night.”
Cara’s mouth tightens. “Oleg knows Patrick’s channel.”
“For the next few hours, Oleg is mine,” I say, keeping my voice low.
Around us, everyone finds a screen, a file, or a phone worth looking at.
I hold her gaze. “Go upstairs, Cara. I promise, if anything happens, I’ll call you.”
Her eyes search my face, and the fight in her starts to falter.
No command leaves my mouth, and no cage gets built around her. The truth is all I give her, and I let her decide what to do with it.
Cara rubs one hand over her wrist. “You’ll tell me what he gives you.”
“Yes,” I say and let the answer sit between us.
She waits for a long second, then tips her head a fraction. “Fine.”
I walk her to the corridor, and a guard steps forward, ready to escort her.
I look at him. “Give her space.”
The guard moves back at once.
Cara glances at me, her mouth curving. “A firewall with footfalls.”
“Try not to insult him before breakfast,” I say, falling back.
“He’ll survive,” she says and starts down the corridor.
She turns toward the north wing with the guard several steps behind her. She doesn’t look back. That earns the smallest smile from me. Then I return to the annex and become the man Oleg Baranov should have feared from the beginning.
Abramov stands beside the central console with his phone in one hand. “We start?”
I look at Oleg’s screen. “Make him feel watched.”
Yuri sends the first piece. A routine audit request goes through logistics, asking for supporting paperwork on the Sable Crown delivery order and the municipal records pass. It doesn’t mention Oleg.
Kirill routes an old Sable Crown correction file near Oleg’s station. Another clerk opens it, and Oleg can see the batch number from his desk.
Dima walks through the clerk corridor with a sealed evidence sleeve marked with New Harbor’s batch code. He doesn’t look at Oleg.
Oleg only sees pieces moving around him. On the feed, he reads the audit request and loses color. His hands stop over the keyboard. He makes one wrong entry, deletes it, wipes his palms on his trousers, and checks the nearest camera once, then again.
When Dima passes with the evidence sleeve, Oleg looks down so fast he nearly knocks over his coffee. Dima keeps walking.
Abramov watches him through the internal feed. “He knows.”
“He suspects,” I say, keeping my eyes on the screen. “Suspicion travels faster.”
“Heart rate would be useful,” Yuri mutters, leaning toward the camera feed.
Abramov looks at him. “His face is doing enough.”
Kirill marks Oleg’s next keystroke. “He opened the same clearance menu three times and closed it without saving.”
“He wants to know what we found,” I say, watching Oleg’s shoulder jerk.
Dima returns to the annex with empty hands. “He looked ready to throw up.”
“Not enough,” I say.
Abramov glances at me. “Lunch?”
“Let him ask,” I say.
At twelve twenty, Oleg sends a request to leave early for a doctor’s appointment.
Abramov shows me the request on his phone.
I read it once. “Approve it.”
Dima smiles without warmth. “He runs.”
“Yes,” I say, taking my coat from the back of the chair. “And this time, I go with the tail.”
Abramov looks up. “You don’t need to be visible.”
“I won’t be,” I say.
At twelve forty, I follow Oleg out of the estate. Roman has the car waiting at the side entrance with the engine on. His face is blank behind the wheel. I get into the back, and Dima slides in beside me.
Abramov stays in my ear, Yuri tracks the feeds from the annex, and Ilya’s second team follows farther back in a car no one can connect it to Volkov.
We wait near the service road, parked between a delivery van and a rusted hatchback with one dead tail light.
At twelve fifty-four, Oleg’s battered sedan rolls past us and turns toward the commuter settlement beyond the forest road.
He drives under the speed limit with both hands on the wheel. His neck is rigid above his collar.
Dima watches the road ahead. “He looks cornered.”
“He’s checking his options,” I say, eyes on Oleg’s brake lights. “That means he’s about to choose one.”
At the edge of the settlement, Oleg parks behind a pharmacy and walks through the front door without looking back.
Yuri comes on the line. “He paid for something inside. Different name, same payment account he used last night.”
Oleg comes out six minutes later with a small paper bag in one hand and a receipt folded into his palm. He gets into a gray sedan, and the car pulls away.
Dima asks, “We follow?”
“Car two follows,” I say, watching the sedan leave. “Keep distance. If the driver starts checking mirrors, rotate the tail.”
The gray car takes him toward the city edge, drops him near a tram stop, then disappears into traffic. When Oleg steps out, he has a thin folio tucked under his arm.
Oleg stands under the tram-stop shelter. With his free hand, he wipes sweat from the top of his head. When the tram arrives, he waits until the doors start to close before stepping on.
Ilya’s voice comes through. “I have a car ahead of the next stop.”
“Good,” I say. “We stay behind the tram.”
Roman keeps our sedan two cars back while the tram moves through the city.
Oleg sits by the window for six stops with his bag on his knees and his face turned toward the passing shops. At every stop, he looks toward the doors, then back to the glass.
Abramov’s voice comes through my earpiece. “He’s heading toward the old freight transfer point.”
Yuri comes in after him. “Medical delivery lanes. Same district as last night’s runner.”
“Pavel Sidorin?” I ask.
“Likely,” Yuri says. “No face yet.”
The transfer point sits behind a row of gray industrial buildings with broken signs, loading bays, cold-storage units, and medical supply crates stacked under plastic.
One private security guard stands near the gate, bored enough to miss anything he’s paid to miss.
Oak and Tron has men nearby. They aren’t here to fight.
They’re here to warn whoever owns the route.
Oleg gets off the tram and walks toward the side bay, clutching his coat closed with one hand and his folio in the other. Pavel Sidorin waits near the shutter with a messenger bag and a phone in his hand.
Pavel sees Oleg’s face and steps back. He knows something went wrong.
“Close the exits,” I say.
Roman pulls in near the loading bay. Dima opens his door before the car fully stops, and I get out after him. Ilya’s second team blocks the service lane. The private security guard near the gate reaches for his phone, but Roman takes it out of his hand before the call connects.
Pavel turns to leave. Dima catches him by the back of the jacket and drives him against the metal shutter. Oleg freezes with his folio pressed to his chest. I walk toward him.
“Oleg,” I say.
His knees almost give. “Mr. Antonov.”
Pavel struggles once.
Dima tightens his grip. “Don’t embarrass yourself,” he says, pressing him harder into the shutter.
Oleg’s mouth opens and closes. “I didn’t know.”
I stop in front of him. “You don’t know what I’m asking yet.”
He starts crying anyway, and I have the answer I need.
We move them into an empty dispatch office at the edge of the site, away from workers, loading crews, and anyone with a phone.
Our second car rolls past the main gate and parks by the far loading bay. Ilya’s men step out, light cigarettes, and block the service lane without looking our way.
The scene stays contained. Glass stays intact. Workers hear nothing worth repeating.
Dima checks the folio before we sit Oleg down and drops it on the table in front of him. Route copies, blank claim sheets, one city-stamped correction form. Cover papers. Nothing worth carrying unless someone told him to carry it.
Oleg breaks before I touch him.
Patrick paid him first for small things. Clearance changes, timing shifts, batch approvals. Corrections no one important would read twice. Then Patrick came back with more money, cleaner names, and warnings that made Oleg shake when he repeated them.
“He said clerks survive because they stay useful,” Oleg says, his voice shaking. “He said a man who forgets that gets replaced.”
His breath catches, and he makes a small sound.
“I never knew about the boy,” Oleg says, hands shaking on his knees. “I swear. I never knew the clinic was a threat.”
I believe that part. Oleg is scared into talking, and he doesn’t have the spine to lie well.
“Where is Patrick?” I ask, standing over him.
Oleg wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “I don’t know. He doesn’t meet clerks now. He uses Pavel, receipts, claim numbers, and phrases.”
Pavel turns his face away.
Dima grips his shoulder. “Eyes forward.”
Oleg rubs his hands together. “Patrick is your man, not me. I’m nothing. I only changed what they told me to change.”
Oleg’s fingers start picking at the edge of his folio. “Patrick has names. The cleanup records from when Morozov moved money. He knows who paid New Harbor and who made it look legal.” Oleg leans forward. “You don’t need me. You need him.”
“Which people?” I ask.
Oleg shakes his head fast. “I don’t know names. I swear, I don’t know names.”
“You heard something,” I say, leaning in.
“I heard Sable Crown wasn’t only moving deliveries,” Oleg says quickly. “They matched delivery slips to fake renovation jobs. A medical crate goes one way, and the paper says paint, flooring, clinic supplies, whatever they need it to say.”
He swallows hard. “Some of those crates used the same clearance path as the Riga aid shipment. I changed small things. Times. Labels. Route notes. Nothing big alone.”
Oleg’s voice breaks on the last word.
I step closer. “Big enough to put Volkov’s name near dirty cargo.”
Oleg nods fast. “Yes.”
I lean closer. “And the fire?”
Oleg’s mouth opens, then closes.
“Oleg,” I say, and his name comes out rough.
He flinches. “There were old payments. Before my time. After the Antonov house burned…” He stops midway. His face turns ashen white.
“Continue,” I say, and no part of me wants to relent today.
Oleg bleats, “I heard money went through a renovation account. I don’t know who took it. I don’t know who ordered it. Patrick knows where that record is.”
His voice cracks, and he sobs into his hands.
“Patrick is your man,” he says. “Not me.”
Pathetic.
Dima looks at me, then away. I keep my hands open at my sides.
“What payments around the fire?” I ask.
Oleg starts shaking. “Cleanup money. Men paid after your family house burned. I don’t know names. I swear, I only heard Pavel say Patrick kept copies.”
Pavel’s face drains.
Dima leans closer to him. “You want to add something?”
Pavel says nothing.
I look back at Oleg. “What does Morozov use the hotel for?”
Oleg closes his eyes. “Vostok Meridian?”
“Yes.”
“I heard it gets used when something needs to disappear,” he stammers.
My hand closes around the edge of his chair, and he flinches. “Define disappear.”
“Men disappear there,” Oleg says, words tumbling over each other. “From files, from phones, from payroll. Names change. Security changes before shipments. Sometimes before people move. Oak and Tron guard it because Morozov’s men can’t always be seen near it.”
Pavel grinds his teeth. The sound grates through the room, and Dima looks at him like he knows a hard knock could cure it.
“You can have your turn next,” Dima says.
Oleg folds over himself. “I can work for you. Please. I can pass changes before they close. I can tell you when Patrick’s courier channel moves again.”
I look down at him and feel nothing close to forgiveness.
“Of course you can,” I say.
Hope flashes across his face. I let him have it for one second.
Then I look at Dima. “Lock him down. No one knows we have him. Make him useful.”
Dima glances at Pavel. “And Sidorin?”
“Same.”
Pavel goes pale. “You can’t.”
“Watch us.” I push the chair back and stand.
“Congratulations,” Dima tells Oleg, patting his cheek once. “You found new employment.”
I leave the transfer point with the hotel name, the courier channel, and proof that Patrick is alive because Morozov needs what he knows. We suspected it before. Now Oleg has said it on tape.
Near evening, I return to the estate. In a service washroom, I clean my hands twice, though there is nothing on them. The water runs clear. My fingers keep closing and opening until I force them flat against the sink.
Mikhail’s red car is in my coat pocket. I don’t remember putting it there.
The north wing is warmer than the rest of the house. A folded blanket sits over the back of a chair. Someone has left a half-finished cup of tea on a side table. The guards stand farther from the nursery door, and staff cross the corridor with their eyes down.
Somewhere ahead, a child laughs once, then Kathryn answers with tired patience.
I head for Cara’s door expecting anger, strategy, or both. Raised voices reach me before I knock, Kathryn first, then Cara. My hand stops near the wood.
Oleg led me through Moscow, Patrick’s courier channel, and Morozov’s hotel. None of that helps me open this door.