Page 102 of Shadowfox

Two more guards moved along the fence line. I checked my watch, making a mental note, then waited. The pair passed us every eight minutes. The Soviets were rigid in their consistency. I had to grant them that.

Inside the manse?

We had no idea.

The windows were too high and too dark. We could see no lights in the widows of the top floor.

On a side wing, a light flickered. A silhouette passed the illuminated window and was gone. The light winked out.

Will reached into the duffel bag and pulled out a pair of binoculars we’d found at a secondhand store in one of the shopping districts, a likely relic from some long-dead soldier lost during the war. He scanned slowly, methodically, handing them to me after a few minutes.

“Four outside,” he whispered. “I think that’s it.”

I nodded. “Could be more at the rear. Could be dogs.”

He didn’t reply, just kept scanning.

I’d hoped . . . I wasn’t sure what I’d hoped for. Fewer guards? More clarity? A better lay of the land? For Eszter to appear in a window, lock eyes with us, and mouth, “There aren’t any guards inside”?

Ridiculous.

We knew so little. Hell, we knewnothingabout the inside of the house. Not the layout. Not the number of guards. Not even, with certainty, the presence of our target.

We weren’t operating in darkness. We were blind.

Every mission we accepted carried the possibility—no, the probability—that one of us might not return home. Nothing was ever simple, never easy. They didn’t send us in when the sun shone and birds sang. We were the tip of a very dark spear, one made for the night and coated in blood.

We watched for another twenty minutes. Every sound stretched. Every blink a gamble. Somewhere in the street behind us, a cat hissed, and I felt my heart pause.

Will and I moved in silence for the first few blocks.

We kept our hands buried deep in our coat pockets, our heads down, and our steps casual. The neighborhood had returned to its nighttime hush—one broken by the low growl of a passing truck or the distant bark of a dog.

Behind us, there was no echo of footsteps. No tail. No flickering light that didn’t belong.

Still, I checked.

Every corner.

Every car.

Every shadow.

A spy doesn’t survive very long by trusting the quiet. That was one of our first lessons back at Camp X, when we were young and new and thought we might make a difference.

We still wanted to believe that, hoped our efforts might do a little good in a dark world, but one never knew what mark they left until it was too late to see it.

“I don’t like it,” I said, finally breaking the silence.

Will glanced at me. “What part?”

“The back of the property, we couldn’t see it. There were too many trees. That whole rear wall could be crawling with guards or have an exit we can’t control. There might be dogs or listening devices or—shit, we just don’t know. For that matter, the girl could already be gone, and we wouldn’t know until it was too late. We never saw her—or any sign of her.”

He didn’t answer right away. We walked another hundred feet before he said, “She’s still there. I saw the lights flicker in what looked like a bedroom.”

“Doesn’t mean she’s there.”

“Doesn’t mean she’s not.”

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