Chapter 41: Opening Move
The morning before the southern operation started quietly.
Anya woke to the low sound of water running in the bathroom and the faint smell of coffee already brewing in the private kitchen attached to their wing. For a few seconds she stayed still under the sheets, letting the unusual calm settle around her. Nights like the previous one always left a mark on the following day. Not regret. Just weight.
Dmitri came out of the bathroom with a towel around his neck, hair still damp. He looked more rested than he had in days, but the focus in his eyes had already returned.
"You’re up early," she said.
"So are you." He walked over, leaned down, and kissed her once, slow enough to be deliberate. "Katya will be here in twenty minutes. Eat something before the day becomes only decisions."
Anya sat up, pushing her hair back. "You’re unusually domestic this morning."
A faint edge of amusement touched his mouth. "Don’t get used to it."
They ate together at the small table near the window. Bread, eggs, black coffee. Simple food. Dmitri drank his coffee the way he did most things without rush, without distraction. Anya watched him over the rim of her cup.
"You’re thinking about the factory zone," she said.
"I’m thinking about timing," he replied. "If we hit too soft, they recover. If we hit too hard, we force a war before the southern line is fully stable."
"And your preference?"
"Controlled damage. Enough to make them bleed. Not enough to make them desperate."
Anya nodded slowly. "Desperate men make messy choices."
"Exactly."
By the time Katya arrived, the quiet of the morning had already begun to thin. She entered the study with a tablet under one arm and the expression of someone who had slept very little.
"Both plans are ready," she said. "Factory-zone storage and the vehicle depot. I’ve also pulled the latest movement reports. The Orlovs shifted two extra crews closer to the depot overnight."
Dmitri took the tablet. "Then we don’t touch the depot first."
Anya glanced at him. "Factory zone?"
"Yes. Harder for them to reinforce quickly. And if we cut their storage, the depot becomes less useful anyway."
Katya brought up the map. "You’ll have two entry teams. One from the service road. One from the rear loading side. Extraction window is tight. Twelve minutes from first shot to exit."
Anya studied the layout carefully. "Who leads the rear team?"
"You do," Dmitri said.
She looked up. For a second the room felt stiller than before.
"You’re sure?"
"I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t." His eyes held hers. "You know the timing. You keep a clear head. And the men already listen when you speak. That matters more than rank on paper."
Katya watched the exchange without interrupting. There was a flicker of something like approval in her expression before she returned to the map.
The rest of the morning was spent refining details. Entry points. Fall-back routes. Signal codes. What to do if the Orlovs had moved more men into the building than expected. Through all of it, the atmosphere remained focused but not frantic. This was not a desperate attack. It was a calculated opening move.
Near midday, Dmitri dismissed the others and poured himself a second coffee. Anya remained by the map, arms folded, still reading the structure of the building in her mind.
"You’re quiet," he said.
"I’m preparing."
He came to stand beside her. "Doubt?"
"No." She shook her head once. "Responsibility."
Dmitri looked at her for a long moment. Then he rested a hand against the small of her back, the touch firm and grounding.
"Good," he said. "Keep that. Leave everything else here."
Night settled over the southern industrial belt with a low, heavy sky. The factory-zone storage building sat between two long rows of darkened warehouses, its loading bays sealed and its side lights reduced to a minimum. From a distance it looked ordinary. Up close, the number of men near the entrances made its importance obvious.
Anya moved with the rear team along the narrow service path behind the building. The air smelled of wet concrete and machine oil. Every step was measured. Every sound mattered.
Through the earpiece, Dmitri’s voice came through clean and low.
"Front team in position."
"Rear team ready," she answered.
There was a brief pause. Then: "Execute."
The first moments were controlled. The rear door went down faster than expected. Anya’s team pushed inside in a tight line, clearing the immediate corridor before the men deeper in the building could fully react. Shouts erupted from the front side as Dmitri’s team entered hard and fast.
For the first few minutes, the plan held.
Anya advanced through the storage hall with two men at her shoulder, moving between stacked crates and metal shelving. Gunfire cracked from the far end of the building. An Orlov captain tried to organize a defense near the main offices and was cut down before the order fully left his mouth. The structure of the enemy resistance began to bend.
Then the first complication appeared.
"Rear stairwell!" one of her men called.
Extra Orlov fighters came down from the upper level more than the reports had shown. The clean timing of the raid stretched. Anya took cover behind a forklift as bullets sparked off the metal near her head. She returned fire, dropped one man, and forced the others back long enough for her team to regroup.
"Dmitri," she said into the earpiece, breathing hard. "Upper level was reinforced. We’re delayed."
"Push through," he answered. "Front is nearly clear. You have four minutes."
They pushed.
By the time the two teams linked near the center of the building, the worst of the resistance had collapsed. The storage rooms were secured. Charges were set on the main product holds. The extraction window was close, but still open.
Anya found Dmitri near the front offices. There was blood on his sleeve that did not look like his own. His eyes moved over her once, checking for injury, before he spoke.
"You’re late."
"You’re welcome," she replied.
A faint breath left him almost a laugh, gone as soon as it appeared. "Charges?"
"Set."
"Then we leave."
They were halfway to the exit when the second complication hit.
An unexpected convoy rolled in from the east access road Orlov reinforcements that should not have been close enough to respond in time. The first burst of heavy fire caught the extraction line on the open ground between the building and the vehicles.
One of Dmitri’s men went down hard. Another was hit in the leg and dragged behind cover. The clean end of the operation fractured into a fighting retreat.
"Move!" Dmitri ordered.
Anya laid down covering fire as the wounded were pulled into the nearest vehicle. The night filled with muzzle flashes and the sharp echo of rounds off concrete. For a few violent seconds it was unclear whether they would break clear before the reinforcements fully closed in.
They did but only just.
The convoy pulled away under continued fire, leaving the storage building burning behind them. Inside the lead vehicle, the atmosphere was tight and silent except for the heavy breathing of the men and the low hiss of pain from the wounded.
Anya sat across from Dmitri, her pulse still high, the smell of gunpowder clinging to her clothes. His eyes met hers in the dim light of the cabin.
The opening move had succeeded in damaging the Orlovs.
But it had not been clean.
And the cost was already marked in blood.