No. No, that’s wrong.
It can’t be right.
I’m hearing things.
I’m already going back through the last thirty seconds in my head, trying to find the point where this could still be wrong. Delay. Misread. Someone else’s call sign bleeding through. Anything.
“Confirm it,” I hear myself say out of raw insistence, as if saying it differently might change what I hear back.
There’s a pause on the other end. Then it comes again, slower this time, as if spacing it out might somehow help. “K. I. A.”
This isn’t happening.
No.
No.
No.
THIRTY-FOUR
ARSENY
They pull me into a room too warm for the weather outside. That’s the first thing I notice. Heat from a vent somewhere, stale and dry, pressing against the back of my neck while one of the officers in front of me shuffles papers he has no real reason to touch. There’s a table, chairs, and a map pinned to the wall with coloured markers stuck into it.
I stay standing. Sitting would invite the kind of concern I don’t want from men like this. Concern leads to eyes staying on you too long. Eyes staying on you too long leads to questions, and I already know enough to hate whatever answers they think they are about to give me.
The officer started speaking before I was fully through the door, as if getting the words out quickly will lessen the damage.
British-led operation. Comms failure. Unexpected presence.
One K. I. A.
The language they use is clean and efficient. It’s made for reports, not people. I take it in the way I take most things in: piece by piece, slotting each part where it belongs, keeping my face empty while my head starts moving ahead of the speaker. A British-led operation. Comms. One dead.
Then he says the name.
Zakirov. Nikorin.
For a second, my vision swims. The officers in front of me lose detail, and the map on the wall becomes a smudge of colour and paper. The only thing left with any clarity is my brother’s name sitting in the air between us.
The officer keeps talking, because of course he does. Timings are outlined, and coordinates are mentioned. The recovery protocol is referred to in the same tone he might use for a vehicle delivery.
Then, almost as if he regrets forgetting to mention it sooner, he says, “There had been concerns raised about Senior Sergeant Zakirov remaining on active duty so soon after his bereavement.”
He glances down at the paper in front of him before looking back up. “His CO advised against assigning him to the detail. The recommendation was that he be kept off the mission. The British liaison argued otherwise.” My body goes stiff, then cold all over as he continues. “Lance Corporal Varrik insisted Sergeant Zakirov knew the route, knew the terrain, and was fit to continue. He pushed for him to remain attached to the operation. The call was made from their side.”
Caiden.
He pushed for him to remain and ignored the advice against it.
He made the call.
The officer keeps talking in that thin, careful tone of his, trying to sound neutral. Operational need, familiarity with the area, misjudged risk and incomplete intel. All the littlephrases men like this use when they want a death to sound like bad weather rather than the result of several stupid fucking decisions.
I don’t speak. Not because I have nothing to say, but because if I allow myself to react now, I will kill every single person in this room. “We’re sending a retrieval detail. It wouldn’t be appropriate for you to attend,” the other one says.
Appropriate?
