Pav released him and stood. “How many?”
“Ten. Maybe twelve.” The man’s head dropped, and he muttered a curse.
Pav zip-tied his wrists to the radiator, then checked the other bodies systematically.
One had a charged sat phone. Another had a GPS unit with recent coordinates still logged. He took both and laid them out on Katya’s kitchen table. There was blood on it now. The cat sat under the table, watching him with unblinking yellow eyes.
He powered up the GPS unit. Recent tracks loaded slowly. A line from the main road to Katya’s guesthouse. Another from the town. Then a stored waypoint forty kilometers southeast, tucked near the border road.
No label, but it didn’t need one.
He checked the sat phone call log. Three outgoing calls to the same number. The last one pinged from the same grid. The live one had told the truth or enough truth to be useful.
Pav picked up the sat phone and dialed the number he’d memorized before the extraction.
It rang twice.
“You’re late.” Fox’s voice was clipped.
Pav breathed out, dipped his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“They found us. They took Harper.” Her name caught in his throat. “Katya Sokolova, too.”
The line went quiet.
“Location?”
Pav gave Fox the coordinates.
“Timeline?”
“Hours. Not days.” A beat. “They’ll move them over the border.”
“We’re mobile.” A rustle. “We can be at the target in four.”
“I’m not waiting four hours.”
“Pav—”
“I’m moving now. I’ve sent you the coordinates. Meet me there.”
A muttered curse. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’ll do what I have to.” He ended the call.
The kitchen was cold. Blood on the floorboards was drying to brown. He checked his weapons and spare magazines, then collected Katya’s truck keys from the hook near the door. The sat phone disappeared into his jacket. He checked the GPS again.
Two access roads.
One main and one service track. He’d take the service route.
He dry-swallowed two painkillers from his med kit. He considered a third one and took it, but no more. He needed the pain below the threshold where it stole function, not gone enough to make him slow. His feet were bleeding. He taped them fast, ugly and tight, then shoved them back into his boots.
His ribs throbbed with each breath. His shoulder ground where the joint had taken a hit. He ignored all of it. Pain was information. Nothing more.
He would find her.
The rest was logistics.
