The iron gates of Kuntsevo Dacha slammed shut. The sound echoed like a gunshot through the forest.
Nadya watched the heavy bars lock into place from the back of the ZIS-101 limousine.
Beside her, Yuri was asleep. He was clutching a new toy soldier Taranov had given him. A Red Army sniper. Even his toys were killers now.
"We are home," Taranov said from the driver's seat.
"This isn't a home," Nadya whispered. "It's a kennel."
The car stopped. The doors were opened by guards who didn't salute. They just watched. Their hands hovered near their holsters.
Nadya stepped out into the snow. The dacha loomed ahead, green and imposing. It was surrounded by a double perimeter of barbed wire.
She picked up Yuri. He was heavy, dead weight in her arms.
"I will take him," a nanny said, stepping out of the shadows. Nadya didn't recognize her. She had a face like stone.
"No," Nadya said.
"He goes to the nursery, Nadya," Taranov said. "You go to the study. The Boss is waiting."
Nadya tightened her grip. Then she looked at the snipers on the roof.
She kissed Yuri's forehead.
"Go with the lady, little bird," she whispered. "Be brave."
She handed him over. As the nanny walked away, Nadya felt a phantom limb pain, as if her heart had been ripped out of her chest.
She turned to the main door. She straightened her coat.
She wasn't going to beg.
The study smelled of pipe tobacco and stale coffee.
Jake sat behind the massive desk. He looked ten years older than the photo in Pravda. His eyes were red-rimmed. His hair was thinning.
There was no laptop. Just piles of paper.
"You look tired, Koba," Nadya said.
She remained standing.
Jake looked up. He didn't smile.
"I am tired," he said. "The world is heavy."
"You chose to carry it."
"Someone had to."
He stood up and walked around the desk. He stopped three feet from her. Close enough to touch, far enough to feel the abyss between them.
"Why, Nadya?" he asked. "Why give the British the file? They would have used it to blackmail us. To starve us."
"Because you are poisoning people," she said. "That soldier in the hospital... he wasn't a man anymore. He was a chemical fire burning inside a skin suit."
"He was a weapon," Jake snapped. "To stop Hitler."
"You are becoming Hitler."
The slap didn't come. Jake just flinched, as if she had hit him.
"I am saving Yuri," Jake said. "I am saving you. Do you think the Nazis care about your morality? They will turn you into soap, Nadya. I am the only thing standing between you and the oven."
"So you put me in a cage?"
"Until the storm passes," Jake said. "Yes."
Nadya looked at the window. It was barred.
She took a breath. She shifted tactics. Anger wouldn't work. Jake was immune to anger; he lived on it.
She needed to be smarter.
She softened her shoulders. She let a tear fall.
"I'm scared, Koba," she whispered. "I'm just... scared."
It was a lie. She was furious. But she saw Jake's eyes soften. He took a step closer. He wanted to believe she was just a frightened woman, not an enemy combatant.
"I know," Jake said. He reached out and touched her arm. "I know."
"Can I... can I at least have tea?" she asked. "I'm cold."
"Of course," Jake said. He pressed a button on his desk. "I'll have the staff bring it. You should rest."
He was buying it. He thought she was broken.
"Thank you," she said.
She turned to leave. As she walked to the door, her eyes scanned the room.
No phone. No radio. But she saw the wastebasket. It was full of crumpled notes.
She needed a courier.
The bedroom was luxurious. Silk sheets. Mahogany furniture.
And a lock on the outside of the door.
Nadya sat on the edge of the bed.
A knock came. The door unlocked.
A young maid entered with a silver tray. Tea, jam, and crackers.
The girl looked terrified. Her hands shook as she poured the tea. She was young, maybe nineteen. A village girl.
"What is your name?" Nadya asked softly.
"Lena, Comrade," the girl squeaked.
"Don't call me that," Nadya said. "I'm just Nadya."
She stood up. She walked to the girl. She fixed the girl's collar. A motherly gesture.
"You have family, Lena?"
"In Tver, Ma'am."
"Do you write to them?"
"Yes, Ma'am. Every Sunday."
Nadya reached into her pocket. She had palmed a small pencil stub from the study when Jake wasn't looking.
She wrote on the linen napkin. Just four words.
Alive. Prisoner. Tell Paul.
Paul was her brother. He was a Red Army officer. If he knew, he could make noise. He could rally the family.
She folded the napkin into a tiny square.
She pressed it into Lena's hand along with a gold ring she took off her finger.
"Take this ring," Nadya whispered. "Sell it. Send money to your mother."
Lena's eyes went wide. "Ma'am, I can't—"
"Take it," Nadya commanded gently. "And the note. Just drop it in the post box when you go to the market. Please. For a mother who misses her son."
Lena looked at the ring. Then at Nadya's desperate eyes.
The girl nodded. She slipped the napkin and the ring into her apron pocket.
"I will do it," Lena whispered.
"Thank you," Nadya said. "Go now. Before they see."
Lena hurried out. The lock clicked shut.
Nadya let out a breath.
It was a long shot. But it was a crack in the wall.
Dinner was served in the main dining room.
The table was long enough for twenty people. Only Jake and Nadya sat at it, at opposite ends.
The silence was heavy. The only sound was the clinking of silverware.
Jake was cutting his steak with precise, surgical movements.
"How is Yuri?" Nadya asked.
"He is playing," Jake said. "He likes the fortress set."
"He needs to see his mother."
"Soon," Jake said. "When you are calm."
Nadya ate a spoonful of soup. She felt a glimmer of hope. Lena had left the house an hour ago for the evening shift change. The note was probably in a mailbox by now.
The double doors opened.
Taranov walked in. He wasn't carrying a weapon. He was carrying a silver platter with a domed lid.
He walked to Nadya's side of the table.
He placed the platter down.
Jake stopped eating. He put his knife and fork down. He looked at Nadya with an expression of profound disappointment.
"Open it," Jake said.
Nadya's hands trembled. She reached for the handle of the lid.
She lifted it.
On the silver platter sat her gold ring.
And the napkin.
Unfolded.
Alive. Prisoner. Tell Paul.
Nadya stopped breathing.
"Lena was a good girl," Jake said softly from the other end of the table. "She had a spotless record. Her father was a factory worker."
Nadya stood up. Her chair scraped loudly against the floor.
"Where is she?" Nadya demanded.
"She was stopped at the gate," Taranov said. "Routine search. We found the contraband."
"She didn't know!" Nadya shouted. "I forced her! I bribed her!"
"She took a bribe from a traitor," Jake said. "That makes her a conspirator."
"She is a child, Koba! Don't hurt her!"
Jake picked up his wine glass. He swirled the red liquid.
"I didn't hurt her," Jake said. "But she can't work here anymore. She has seen too much."
"Where is she?"
"On a train," Jake said. "Heading East. Magadan is lovely this time of year."
Nadya gasped. Magadan. The Gulag. A death sentence for a girl like Lena.
"You sent a nineteen-year-old girl to the camps because I wrote a note?" Nadya screamed.
"No," Jake said. He slammed his glass down. The wine spilled like blood on the white tablecloth.
"YOU sent her to the camps, Nadya!"
He stood up. He looked terrifying. The exhaustion was gone, replaced by a cold, demonic energy.
"You used her. You knew we check everything. You weaponized her innocence against my security. Her blood is on your hands."
Nadya fell back into her chair.
He was twisting it. He was turning her resistance into guilt.
"I just wanted my brother to know..."
"Your brother is a soldier," Jake said. "If he finds out, he has to choose between his sister and his Commander-in-Chief. Do you want him executed for mutiny? Is that your plan? To kill your whole family to spite me?"
Nadya covered her face with her hands.
"Stop it," she sobbed.
Jake walked over to her. He stood behind her chair. He put his hands on her shoulders. His grip was iron.
"You are dangerous, Nadya," he whispered in her ear. "You are smarter than the British spies. You leverage emotion. You exploit kindness."
He leaned down.
"So I am removing the temptation."
He looked at Taranov.
"Fire the staff," Jake ordered. "All of them. The maids. The cooks. The gardeners."
"All of them, Boss?"
"Everyone," Jake said. "Replace them with deaf-mutes from the state orphanage. Or non-Russian speakers from the Asiatic republics. I want no one in this house who can understand a word she says."
Nadya looked up in horror.
"You're making me mute?"
"I'm cutting the lines," Jake said. "You will live in luxury. You will have food, heat, and clothes. But you will not speak to a soul other than me or Taranov."
He squeezed her shoulders one last time.
"You wanted to play the game," Jake said. "Checkmate."
He walked out of the room.
Taranov picked up the silver platter with the ring and the napkin.
"I'm sorry, Nadya," Taranov said quietly.
He followed his master.
Nadya sat alone in the massive dining room.
She looked at the empty doorway.
She had tried to use empathy as a weapon. Jake had just nuked the battlefield.
She was truly alone.
And somewhere, a girl named Lena was shivering on a train to hell, crying because she had trusted a woman with kind eyes.
Nadya grabbed the tablecloth and ripped it off the table. Dishes crashed to the floor. Crystal shattered.
She screamed. A primal, raw sound of fury and grief.
But in the empty house, with the deaf servants coming to replace the dead ones, no one heard her.