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Dima closes the rear doors.

“Looping the garage feed,” Yuri says through my earpiece. “You have forty seconds.”

Cara opens the side door from the camera-blind passage. Vera passes Misha into her arms, and he clings to the yellow car.

Cara touches Vera’s shoulder. “I’ve got him.”

Vera kisses his hair. “Go straight to Elena.”

Oksana steps into the passage beside Cara.

Misha looks back at us. “Finish the trick.”

“We will,” I say, holding his gaze.

Sergei waits beyond the first door with two guards. Cara carries Misha through, Oksana follows, and the steel door closes behind them.

Vera stares at the empty side entrance until Dima shuts it.

“Four seconds,” Yuri warns.

She places the blue blanket over the empty child seat and shapes it around the pediatric kit. From the rear windows, the bundle could pass for a sleeping child.

Dima returns to the front. Dmitri starts the engine, and I brace one hand against the bench as the ambulance moves.

“The garage feed is live again,” Yuri says through my earpiece.

Several minutes later, Abramov’s voice comes through the radio. “The family suite confirms receipt. Misha is inside with Elena, Cara, Oksana, Mikhail, and Lev. Sergei holds the outer passage.”

Vera’s phone vibrates before we reach the outer gate. She opens the image and turns it toward me. Misha sits inside the inner family suite with the yellow car in his lap. Mikhail is beside him, rebuilding the block city across the rug. Vera releases a slow breath and puts away the phone.

The ambulance follows the service road toward the estate gate. Roman follows in the armored vehicle, keeping enough distance for the escort to look protective instead of planned.

Ilya reports from the eastern junction ahead, where his men are waiting behind the abandoned weigh station beside the railway bridge.

Vera checks the covered child seat, then looks at me. “How long before they make a move?”

“If they believed the leak, they’re already on their way.”

Kirill’s voice comes through my earpiece as the estate disappears behind the trees.

“Two vehicles entered the bypass behind you,” he says. “A black SUV and a gray sedan. Roman let them pass and is now holding behind both.”

I look at Vera.

Belov took the bait.

30

VERA

The black SUV appears first through the ambulance’s rear windows. The gray sedan stays close behind it.

Alexei presses one finger to his earpiece. “Roman has both vehicles in sight.”

I grip the edge of the bench as Dmitri takes a curve. The blue blanket remains tucked around the empty child seat, and Misha’s yellow cup shakes inside the pocket of my medical bag.

“How far to Ilya?” I ask.