The infiltration began as a slow bleed of shadows detaching themselves from the deeper shadows of the forest. One hour after the briefing, the four men moved, not as a group, but as four independent points of a coordinated attack, each with a clear, singular objective. The air was frigid, so cold it felt sharp in the lungs. Every sound was magnified in the unnatural stillness: the soft, rhythmic crunch of their boots on the thin crust of snow, the distant, boisterous laughter from the cookhouse, the lonely clang of a hammer from the blacksmith's forge.
Murat and Ivan moved with a fluid, predatory grace, their dark clothing making them all but invisible against the backdrop of stacked timber and log buildings. They were in their element here, the familiar geometry of walls and alleys, a welcome change from the terrifying, shapeless expanse of the forest. Their target was the foreman's office, the camp's brain and its only connection to the outside world.
They reached the building, a simple, dark log structure with a single window glowing a weak yellow. The telegraph pole stood beside it like a skeletal sentinel. Murat, agile as a cat, needed no instruction. He tested the pole for stability, then began to climb, his boots finding easy purchase on the rough-hewn timber. He moved with a swift, silent efficiency, a creature of the vertical world. A few meters up, he braced himself, drew a pair of heavy wire cutters from his belt, and located the single, gleaming wire. There was a sharp, metallic snip, unnaturally loud in the quiet night, and the camp's nervous system was severed.
He slid down the pole and joined Ivan at the door. They didn't waste time trying the handle. They drew their pistols, not to fire, but as bludgeons of weighted steel. On a silent count of three, Ivan kicked the door. The simple lock splintered with a sharp crack, and they burst inside.
The scene was one of mundane tranquility shattered by sudden violence. The telegraph operator, a young man with a thin, wispy mustache and ink-stains on his fingers, looked up from the newspaper he was reading by the light of a kerosene lamp. His mouth opened, a circle of pure, uncomprehending shock. Before a single sound could escape, Ivan, moving with a speed that defied his bulk, had crossed the small room and smothered the man's shout with a massive, gloved hand.
The operator's eyes went wide with terror as he was hauled from his chair. The fight, if it could be called that, was over before it began. While Ivan held the struggling man in a grip of iron, Murat worked with a practiced, brutal efficiency. He tore a strip of oily canvas from a nearby supply sack and shoved it into the man's mouth, silencing him completely. He used the man's own belt to bind his hands behind his back, then a length of spare telegraph wire to hobble his feet. They laid him down, not ungently, in the dark space beneath his own desk. He was a non-variable now, a problem solved. The silent coup had taken less than a minute.
Simultaneously, on the far eastern edge of the camp, Koba and Pavel reached their objective. The woodpiles were even more colossal up close, massive, house-sized cubes of seasoned pine, stacked with geometric precision. The air around them was thick with the clean, sharp scent of resin. They were bone-dry, the perfect fuel for a spectacular conflagration.
Koba pulled a small, metal flask from his coat. It was not filled with vodka, but with the last of the kerosene they had taken from the farmhouse—a final, ironic tool from their last sin, now repurposed for the next. He soaked a bundle of rags he had prepared, the flammable liquid turning the cloth dark and heavy.
"Here," he whispered to Pavel, pointing to a spot deep inside the nearest pile, a hollow space where the irregular stacking of the logs had created a natural chimney. "Deep inside. The airflow will feed it from the bottom. It must look like an accident. A stray spark from the forge that smoldered for hours before catching."
Pavel, his face set and grim, took the soaked rags. He moved to the woodpile and began to shove the bundle deep into the gap, pushing it far into the structure's dry, flammable heart. He struck a match, the small flame a brilliant, defiant star in the darkness. He touched it to the edge of the rags.
For a moment, nothing happened. The rags seemed to suck the flame into themselves without effect. Then, a low, hungry whoosh echoed from deep within the woodpile. A flicker of orange light, barely visible. Another. Then, a single, determined tongue of flame licked its way out from between two massive logs, tasting the cold night air. A second tongue followed, then a third. Within a minute, a section of the pile was burning with a steady, crackling roar.
The diversion had been lit.
They retreated into the shadows between two buildings and waited. The fire grew with astonishing speed, the dry pine catching like tinder. The crackling became a roar, and the light of the flames began to cast long, dancing shadows across the entire camp, turning night into a flickering, hellish day.
Shouts finally erupted from the cookhouse, followed by the bunkhouse. "Fire! The kiln-wood is on fire!" The camp, which moments before had been settling into a quiet evening routine, exploded into panicked, disorganized chaos. Men poured out of the buildings, some without coats, their faces pale with alarm in the firelight. They grabbed buckets, axes, anything they could find, and began to run towards the blaze.
The diversion was working perfectly. The camp was a stirred anthill, its attention focused entirely on the spectacular pillar of fire that now threatened their livelihood.
Koba and Pavel used the confusion to slip through the chaos, moving towards the foreman's office to rendezvous with the others. According to Koba's meticulous observation, the foreman—a big, bearded man named Borodin—should have been in his office, or running out of it at the first shout of "fire." Pavel's secondary mission was to intercept him, to create a smaller, targeted pocket of chaos to occupy the camp's leader.
But as they approached the darkened office, Murat stepped out from the shadows of the doorway, his face a mask of urgent alarm. "He wasn't there," Murat hissed, his voice tight with tension. "The office was empty, except for the operator. We have not seen him."
A cold spike of adrenaline, sharp as a needle, pierced Koba's calculated calm. A critical piece was off the board. A powerful, unaccounted-for variable was loose on the field. The most important man in the entire camp, its leader, its brain, was missing. Where was he?
[Jake]: A miscalculation. A fatal one. Abort the mission. Get out now, while the fire is still a good distraction.
[Koba]: Negative. The mission parameters have changed, but the objective remains. Re-evaluating threat landscape. Locating missing asset.
Koba scanned the chaotic scene, his mind racing, processing the new data, searching for the missing foreman. The loggers were a disorganized mob, throwing buckets of water that seemed to turn to steam before they even hit the roaring blaze. They were no threat. But a leader… a leader could turn them into a disciplined, dangerous force.
He spotted him.
Borodin, the foreman, was nowhere near his office or the fire. He was down at the railway siding, his large frame silhouetted against the roaring inferno behind him. And he was not alone. He was directing a small crew of five other men. They were using heavy lanterns to guide the late-night loading of a flatcar with neatly stacked, finished timber. They were right next to their primary objective, the engine and the empty flatcars. The diversion, instead of drawing every man in the camp away from their escape route, had inadvertently left a dedicated, disciplined crew guarding it.
The foreman turned, shouting an order to his men, his hard, bearded face clear in the firelight. Koba studied him through the chaos, and a chill went down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold. This was not just some fat, drunken brute of a foreman. The man stood with his shoulders back, his feet planted, his hands on his hips. He moved with an economy and purpose that spoke of years of ingrained discipline. Jake's historical knowledge supplied the horrifying context. That was the posture of a decorated Feldwebel, a senior non-commissioned officer in the Imperial Army.
The easy target had just become a formidable, experienced opponent.
Koba looked at his own men, hidden in the shadows just meters away from the siding. The original, elegant, multi-phased plan was now a useless piece of paper. He had seconds to decide. Retreat was the logical, safe option. But the rifles, the horses, the entire future he had promised them, was just across that brightly lit patch of ground.
He gave a series of sharp, decisive hand signals. A fist. A slicing motion across the throat. A finger pointing directly at the crew on the siding. The meaning was as clear as it was terrifying.
Forget the diversion. Forget the subtlety. Plan B. We take them all. Now.