Beneath the frost-covered branches and fallen trees, a rifle protruded from underneath the brush.
Across the clearing, a man stood beside a tree, relieving himself into the snow while another cut firewood beside a weathered log cabin. Smoke drifted from the chimney and disappeared into the grey Alaskan sky.
None of that would have been unusual in the area. The cages behind the cabin were.
Adam Costanza scanned the area through the scope. He had tracked these people in the woods for 3 days, and at 13 years old, 3 days of cold, little sleep, and energy bars felt much longer than it sounded.
His gloves were damp. His toes had gone numb sometime earlier. The muscles between his shoulders ached from spending hours in the same sniping position.
He ignored all of it.
"Mind over body."
Grigori had repeated the lesson often enough that Adam could even hear the words without his father being there.
He shifted beneath the camouflage of branches and dead leaves, careful not to disturb the frost around him.
At least 5 men. That was the number he trusted. There might have been more inside the cabin. The cabin's windows gave him poor angles, and the men never all stepped outside at the same time.
Over 3 days, Adam had recorded movements, meals, watches, trips into the woods, and who vanished into the rear of the cabin for hours at a time.
He had confirmed 5 men and 1 captive. Possibly more of both.
Before sending him into the forest alone, Grigori had given him 1 hint: wait for the opportunity. Everything after that-approach, timing, execution-was Adam's decision.
That had been most of the trip so far. Waiting. Watching. Being cold.
The Costanzas took trips like this during school breaks. Sarah thought they camped. Lena thought Grigori was trying to turn Adam into the world's least interesting outdoorsman.
Neither knew what actually happened once father and son were far enough from home.
Grigori always said they wouldn't understand. Adam wasn't sure he did either.
His father delivered mail for the postal service. That was the explanation everyone knew.
Mail did not explain where Grigori had learned surveillance, weapons, field medicine, escape routes, interrogation resistance, or any of the other things he had spent years teaching his son.
His Army service before Adam was born could explain some of it. But official records said he had only been a sergeant.
Honorably discharged.
2 deployments.
That still did not explain the equipment.
It definitely did not explain the cabin.
Adam had asked when he was younger. Grigori's answer had always been the same.
"You'll understand when you need to."
At home, his father laughed loudly, complained about work, kissed Sarah whenever he thought the kids weren't paying attention, and occasionally came back from his route with too much candy.
Out here, that man disappeared. His voice became flatter. His eyes changed. Instructions started to sound like orders.
Adam loved his father. On training trips, he also learned to be afraid of him. He had learned not to think too hard about the contradiction.
Movement at the cabin pulled his attention back to the scope.
3 men moved outside the door.
Adam's breathing slowed.
All 3 were dressed for the cold and carried long rifles. Bolt actions from the look of it.
They spoke near the porch before separating and heading towards the same stretch of woods they had used the previous days.
Hunting. Just as before.
Adam waited until the last one disappeared among the trees, then withdrew from his hiding spot and moved.
It was time to roll out his plan.
The forest swallowed him quickly. Snow softened his footfalls.
He followed the route he had already chosen toward a rise overlooking a clearing where deer had been feeding. The hunters liked the spot. So did he.
By the time he reached the ridge, his hands were shaking from the cold. Adam settled behind the rifle, covered himself just enough to break up his outline, and checked the weapon.
7.62 millimeter subsonic. Suppressed bolt action.
From this distance, the shots could be mistaken for something else.
Half an hour passed.
Then another.
3 men eventually emerged at different points around the clearing. They spread out, more interested in deer than in one another. Adam scanned using the scope again.
Not yet.
One of the men raised his rifle. Adam waited still.
The shot cracked through the forest. The deer scattered.
Adam fired.
The first man dropped. Adam chambered another round and shifted to the second target.
He pulled the trigger.
His next shot missed.
The man jerked in surprise and started turning toward the trees, his eyes rattled.
Adam's heart slammed once against his ribs. Too fast.
He corrected, fired again, and the man went down before he could shout.
Adam stayed behind the scope. His breathing had changed. He forced it back under control.
Keep calm.
Tenet 6. Separate yourself from your emotions while on a mission.
Panic made decisions for you. Just keep calm.
Grigori had taught him that too.
The third hunter was farther away, still moving toward where the deer had fallen. He had not noticed what happened behind him.
Adam centered the reticle and pulled the trigger.
The man folded into the snow.
Silence returned gradually.
Not still silence, but wind, branches shifting, something small fleeing through the undergrowth.
But no voices, and no return fire.
The first phase was complete. 3 down.
Adam stayed where he was. The men at the cabin had heard the hunters' first shot. When the 3 failed to return, someone should come looking. Then Adam would learn how many remained.
For the first hour, patience felt easy. By the second, his eyes burned. He shifted to ease his muscles and ate half an energy bar without taking his attention fully from the clearing.
Nothing.
Daylight began losing its color.
Don't fall asleep now.
His eyes closed anyway.
____________________________________________________________________________
Adam woke with darkness creeping between the trees.
For 1 confused second, he didn't know where he was. Then the cold hit him and he lifted his head sharply.
The clearing.
The bodies.
The cabin beyond the trees.
Nothing had moved.
3 black dots on a field of white.
There was no need to tell the time. Adam had fallen asleep too long.
"Damn it."
He scanned the clearing again. No search party. No movement.
That didn't make any sense.
The men at the cabin should have heard the shot. Even if they thought nothing of it, 3 people had been gone for hours.
Unless Adam had misunderstood their pattern.
Maybe the hunters had another route. Maybe no one expected them back before dark.
Cold sweat formed beneath his hat despite the temperature.
He had made the plan around what he knew.
He had forgotten what he didn't.
A metallic pressure touched the back of his head.
"Don't fucking move."
The voice came directly behind him.
For one brief, humiliating moment, Adam closed his eyes. This was not part of the plan.
Something struck the side of his head.
All went black.
____________________________________________________________________________
Grigori Costanza watched the men carry his son toward the cabin.
He remained still beneath the trees.
He could have stopped them. Easily.
Adam's plan had been good-better than Grigori had expected from a 13-year-old operating alone in winter against armed men.
That was still a problem.
Good plans killed people when preparation was mistaken for certainty.
Adam had watched the cabin for 3 days and decided he understood it. Then he fell asleep.
Grigori had seen the men approaching Adam's hiding spot. He had known what would happen, and he had let it happen.
His jaw tightened.
Tenet 5. Reveal nothing.
Surveillance, shooting, cold, hunger, navigation-those could all be trained until they became instinct.
Captivity was different. Pain was different.
A person could believe they would hold out under interrogation right up until somebody made it torture.
Grigori knew from experience.
He wanted Adam to learn it while Grigori was close enough to control the outcome.
At least, that's what he told himself.
A shout carried from the cabin.
Grigori's chest tightened.
What the hell is wrong with you?
He had asked himself versions of that question for years. More than a decade in the Contingency had shifted the boundaries of what he considered preparation.
He loved his son. He was certain of that.
The problem was that love and fear had become tangled too tightly to separate.
He could not promise Sarah that he would always come home. He could not promise Adam that he would always be there when something terrible happened. He could not promise Lena anything if he was dead.
So he prepared Adam.
So that he would never be helpless when the time came.
Too much preparation, perhaps.
Probably.
Another shout came from the cabin.
Grigori moved.
A compact pistol rested beneath his jacket, with a bow slung across his back.
2 men were visible from his approach. 1 had gone inside with Adam, while another climbed onto the upper balcony and settled behind the wooden railing with a rifle.
At least now they had finally started behaving like men who understood that they might be in danger.
The daylight was gone. The woods around the cabin were turning into black trunks against the gray snow.
Darkness favored Grigori. It usually did.
He stalked closer.
From inside came another voice, muffled by the log walls.
"Who else is out there?!"
No answer.
A strike.
Then Adam sobbed, the sound breaking halfway through.
Grigori stopped for half a second. Every instinct in him demanded that he go in and kill everyone quickly.
He didn't.
Separate from your emotions while on a mission.
Another question followed.
"How many are you out there?!"
Adam cried again. Still no answer.
Pride came first. Then disgust at himself for feeling it.
Grigori drew a slow breath as he unslung the bow from his back.
He waited until the balcony guard's attention turned.
He nocked an arrow and drew the bow back.
He let go.
The arrow slammed right into the cabin guard's neck, the body falling down from the railing with a thud that was covered by the man's yelling inside.
Grigori slowly entered the cabin.
The interior was almost bare: rough walls, a table, crates, cheap bedding, and a stove that filled the place with dry heat and wood smoke.
The cages were harder to ignore.
Several stood along one wall. Only one was occupied.
A boy sat inside, about Adam's age and perhaps even thinner. His hair was dirty and uneven.
His clothes were little more than layers of worn fabric, and small cuts and bruises marked the skin Grigori could see.
He didn't look local.
The boy looked at him.
No cry for help. No sudden rush towards the bars.
Not even a warning to his captors.
He simply watched.
Grigori recognized the look.
He was a survivor.
Grigori decided he would come later. Adam was the priority.
The interrogation was taking place behind a closed interior door. Grigori listened, checked the remaining angles he could see, then looked through the narrow gap.
Adam was tied to a steel chair.
Blood ran down one leg. A thin knife had been driven into his thigh.
For an instant, Grigori forgot every lesson he had ever learned. Rage surged through him so violently that his vision began to blur.
His son. 13 years old. Bleeding because Grigori thought this was a learning experience.
He buried the feeling.
Tenet 6. Separate yourself from your emotions while on a mission.
He drew the pistol and opened the door.
The interrogator barely had time to react. One moment he was standing over Adam. The next he was on the floor.
Grigori slammed his head against the floor.
The confrontation ended there.
"D-Dad?"
Adam's voice was barely more than a breath.
Grigori immediately looked toward him. "Don't move."
Adam gave him a look that would have been insulting under different circumstances. He was tied to a chair with a knife in his leg.
Grigori almost smiled.
Almost.
"Stay awake," he corrected.
He checked the rest of the cabin before returning. He had to make sure those men were it.
That mattered.
The boy's surveillance had been good. But it might not have been complete.
By the time Grigori came back, the cabin was quiet. Those were all of them.
He knelt beside Adam. Up close, the injuries looked worse: bruising along the face, split skin at the mouth, blood on the shirt, and the wound in his thigh.
Grigori's stomach turned.
He had seen far worse wounds. That wasn't the problem.
The problem was who they belonged to.
You let this happen.
The thought arrived without mercy.
Grigori cut the restraints and caught Adam when he sagged forward.
"Easy."
"I'm fine."
"You are not fine."
Adam swallowed as Grigori examined the leg. "It's bad?"
"Painful. Not fatal. There's a doctor waiting at the motel."
Adam nodded weakly, then looked down.
"Dad?"
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry."
Grigori frowned.
"I failed."
For a moment, Grigori said nothing.
There it was. Not fear. Not anger. Apology.
The boy had been beaten, cut, and terrified, and somehow believed the important part was disappointing his father.
Something inside Grigori twisted.
He placed a hand against the back of Adam's head.
"You made mistakes."
Adam looked up.
"So do I."
That surprised him. Grigori rarely admitted such things during training.
"You're alive," Grigori continued. "That means the lesson isn't finished."
Adam swallowed. "What lesson?"
"Adapt, or fail."
The words sounded colder than he intended.
Adam gave a small nod.
Grigori lifted him carefully. Adam tried putting weight on the injured leg and immediately went pale.
"No."
"I can walk."
"No, you cannot."
"Dad-"
"Adam."
That ended the argument.
Grigori carried him out of the room. Adam's head eventually settled against his shoulder, and by the time they reached the main cabin, his eyes had closed.
The boy in the cage was still watching.
Grigori stopped.
Up close, the resemblance he had sensed earlier became clearer.
Not physical.
The eyes.
The boy wasn't pleading. He wasn't crying. He wasn't even visibly relieved that the men holding him were gone.
He was measuring Grigori.
The doors.
Adam.
The distance to the exit.
Cold. Calculating. Blank.
Like mine.
Grigori adjusted Adam's weight against his shoulder.
"You have family waiting for you?"
The boy shook his head.
"Anyone?"
Another shake.
"Name?"
A hesitation.
"Aaron."
His voice was rough from disuse.
"Last name?"
Aaron shook his head again. He never looked away.
Grigori considered the cage, then the child, then his unconscious son.
A sensible man would call the authorities. A sensible man would arrange for the boy to be placed with people trained to handle this.
A sensible man probably would not have brought his 13-year-old son into the woods to dismantle a trafficking operation as a training exercise.
Grigori had stopped using himself as a measure of sensible years ago.
"You want to come with us?"
For the first time, Aaron's expression changed.
Suspicion.
He looked toward the open door, then at Adam, then back to Grigori.
Most captives would have agreed before the question was finished.
Aaron didn't.
That told Grigori more about him than an immediate yes would have.
The boy had learned that an open cage did not automatically mean safety.
Good.
Terrible.
But good.
After several seconds, Aaron nodded.
Grigori lowered Adam carefully onto a blanket near the wall and opened the cage.
Aaron did not rush out. He stepped through slowly and moved far enough away that nobody could put him back inside without a fight.
Grigori noticed.
Of course he did.
He picked Adam up again.
Aaron stood near the doorway, waiting.
Grigori looked at the 2 boys: one unconscious against his shoulder, the other barefoot, filthy, and watching him like a cornered animal.
Sarah's face appeared in his mind.
Grigori sighed.
"Alright."
Aaron looked at him.
"I don't think my wife is going to like this, one bit."