The boots were on the ladder. Elias could hear the creak of metal, the grunt of a man hauling his weight upward. Mira was pressed against his chest, her small body trembling, and he had one arm wrapped around her while his other hand fumbled for the revolver. But the grain was deep, waist-high, and moving was like wading through wet sand. Rina was beside him, her transmitter still in her hand, her eyes wide with something that looked like calculation.
Then she did something unexpected. She shoved the transmitter into Elias's free hand and whispered, "When I say now, throw this as far as you can toward the rear of the car." Before he could ask why, she scrambled out of the grain, her hands raised, and called out in a clear, steady voice: "Don't shoot! I'm unarmed. I'm a civilian." The flashlight beam swung toward her, and a gruff voice ordered her to climb down slowly. She obeyed, leaving Elias and Mira buried in the wheat.
The moments stretched like taffy. Elias heard Rina speaking to the border patrol, her voice calm and apologetic: "I'm sorry, officer, I was trying to hitch a ride. I didn't know this was a restricted train." A pause, then the same gruff voice asked for identification. Rina fumbled, produced a card, and the officer grunted. "You're from the Interior Ministry. What are you doing on a freight train at 4 AM?" Rina's reply was quick and smooth: "Undercover operation. I'm tracking a fugitive auditor. He's got a child with him. They might be on this train." Elias's blood ran cold. She was selling him out. But then he heard the crackle of a radio, and the officer's voice became uncertain. "Ma'am, we have no notification of any operation." Rina laughed—a light, dismissive sound. "Of course you don't. That's the point. Call your supervisor. Ask about code V-7." There was a long silence. Then the officer muttered something into his radio, and after a moment, he said, "Stand down, ma'am. We'll clear the train for you. But you should have told us earlier."
Elias heard boots descending, doors slamming, and the train shuddered back into motion. He stayed buried in the grain for another five minutes, his heart pounding, before he dared to raise his head. The grain car was empty except for him and Mira. Rina was gone. He had been abandoned—or betrayed. He checked the transmitter she had shoved into his hand. It was a small device with a single button, no markings. He pressed it experimentally. Nothing happened. He pressed it again. Still nothing. He threw it into the wheat and cursed under his breath.
The train rumbled through the night. Elias crawled to the edge of the grain car and peered out. They were passing through a dense forest, the trees black against a grey sky. He had no idea where he was, but the northern railhead was supposed to be another hour away—if Rina's directions had been honest. He checked Mira, who was shivering. He wrapped his coat around her and held her close. He thought about Rina's performance—the way she had talked her way past the border patrol, the way she had mentioned code V-7. She had been lying to the officers, but she had also been lying to him. She was not a fugitive signals officer; she was still connected to the Interior Ministry, or at least she had access to their codes. The question was why she had helped him at all—and why she had given him the transmitter.
The train began to slow. Elias looked out again and saw the lights of a small station. A sign read "Broken Creek"—a name that meant nothing to him. He grabbed Mira's hand and jumped from the moving car, landing in a ditch filled with wet leaves. He pulled Mira down beside him and covered her mouth. The train continued to roll, and no one saw them fall. They lay in the ditch for ten minutes, listening to the silence. Then Elias got up, lifted Mira onto his back, and started walking along the tracks toward the station.
Broken Creek was a hamlet of no more than twenty houses, clustered around a single dirt road that disappeared into the forest. There was no taxi, no bus, no sign of life except for a dim light in a general store. Elias approached cautiously, peering through the window. An old man sat behind the counter, reading a newspaper. Elias knocked. The old man looked up, studied him for a long moment, then unlocked the door. "You look like you need help," he said. Elias nodded. "I need a phone and a map." The old man gestured to a payphone in the corner. Elias dialed Rina's number—the one that was supposed to be deactivated—and to his surprise, it rang. She answered on the second ring. "Elias. You're alive. Good. Listen—I had to leave you because the patrol would have searched the car if I'd stayed. I'm about three kilometres north of you, at an old logging camp. There's a vehicle here. Get to me, and we'll still make the border." He wanted to scream at her, to demand answers, but all he said was, "Give me directions." She did.
He bought a loaf of bread and a bottle of water from the old man, who refused payment and instead pressed a compass into his hand. "The woods are tricky," the man said. "Stick to the creek and you'll find the camp." Elias thanked him and set off into the forest, Mira walking beside him now, her small hand in his. The trail was muddy and overgrown, but the compass kept him oriented. After an hour of trudging, he saw the sagging roof of a log cabin through the trees. A battered pickup truck was parked outside. Rina was sitting on the porch, cleaning a pistol. She looked up as he approached and said, "You made it." He stopped ten metres away, his own revolver in his hand. "Explain," he said. "The transmitter, the code, everything."
Rina sighed and set down the pistol. "The transmitter was a dummy. I gave it to you so they'd find it on the train and think you'd jumped off earlier. The code V-7 is a dead protocol—it doesn't exist anymore, but old-timers still remember it. I took a gamble, and it worked." She met his gaze. "I used to work for them, Elias. I know their playbook. That doesn't mean I'm still on their side." He studied her face, searching for the lie. He found exhaustion, fear, and something else—a flicker of genuine desperation. He lowered the revolver. "Fine. But if you try anything again, I'll shoot you and leave you in the woods." She nodded. "Fair."
They loaded into the pickup, Rina driving. The truck's headlights cut through the pre-dawn mist, illuminating a narrow logging road that wound through the forest. Mira slept in Elias's lap, exhausted. Rina spoke in a low voice, telling him the full story: the Drakon Holdings shell was just the tip. The money flowed through six layers of off-shore accounts, then into a series of casinos owned by the president's younger brother, Viktor Kostas. Those casinos were used to launder payments for weapons bought from a banned militia in the northern provinces—a group that had been fighting a low-level insurgency for years. The operation was overseen by a man named Inspector Karn, a veteran of the Interior Ministry's secret police division, who had a reputation for making people disappear. Karn had been the one to "suicide" Hektor, and he was now personally leading the hunt for Elias.
Rina reached into her pocket and pulled out a photograph: a man in his fifties, gaunt and sharp-featured, with eyes that held no warmth. "Karn," she said. "He's got a network of informants, drone operators, and financial analysts. He's already traced your ID to the taxi you took from the depot. He knows you're heading north. We have about twelve hours before he narrows down the search grid." Elias stared at the photograph and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. "Why does he care so much?" he asked. "Because you have the ledger," Rina said. "And that ledger doesn't just show the theft—it shows where the weapons went. It shows transactions with the militia's suppliers. It's a direct line to the presidential palace. If that gets published, the government falls. Karn's job, his pension, his life—everything depends on stopping you."
The pickup rumbled through a shallow creek, then climbed a ridge. Through the trees, Elias saw the grey expanse of the northern plains, and beyond them, the distant peaks of the Ragnar range. The border was somewhere between those peaks. He felt a surge of hope, but Rina's face was grim. "We're close," she said. "But the border crossing is a narrow pass called the Hjalmir Gate. It's guarded by Karn's people. They'll have facial recognition, thermal scanners, the works. We can't just drive through." Elias thought for a moment. "What about the old aqueduct? You mentioned it before." Rina shook her head. "That's flooded—I checked. But there's another way: a trail used by smugglers, called the Goat's Ladder. It's a vertical climb up the cliff face. It takes six hours, and it's dangerous. But it bypasses the gate entirely." He looked at Mira, then at the mountain, and said, "Show me."
They abandoned the pickup at the base of the cliffs and began the climb. The Goat's Ladder was not a ladder in any conventional sense—it was a series of iron pegs driven into the rock, spaced at irregular intervals, many of them rusted and loose. The wind howled, and the drop below was hundreds of metres. Elias went first, with Mira strapped to his back in a makeshift harness made from rope. Rina followed, carrying the supplies. Every handhold was a prayer, every foothold a gamble. Mira was silent, her face buried in his neck, her small fingers gripping his collar. He thought about Anneliese, about the hospital bill, about the two billion krone that could have bought a new wing for the children's ward. He climbed because he had no other choice.
Halfway up, the wind shifted, and a drone buzzed overhead. It was a small, insect-like machine, its camera swiveling. They froze against the rock face, pressing themselves into a shallow crevice. The drone hovered, scanning, then moved on. Rina whispered, "Thermal. It didn't see us because the rock is cold and we're pressed tight. But it'll be back." They resumed climbing, faster now, their muscles screaming. After four more hours of agonizing ascent, they reached the top—a narrow ridge that overlooked the border post below. On the other side was Svelland, a patchwork of green fields and white farmhouses. Freedom was a hundred metres away.
But the ridge was exposed, and as they started to descend, a voice echoed from behind them: "Elias Voss. Stop." He turned. Inspector Karn stood at the edge of the ridge, flanked by two armed men. He was wearing a long coat, and his face was as expressionless as the photograph. He held a pistol in his hand, aimed at Elias. "Give me the drive," Karn said, "and the girl will live. You have my word." Elias looked at Rina. She was staring at Karn with a mixture of fear and hatred. Then she did something that surprised him—she stepped forward, placing herself between Elias and Karn. "You killed my sister," she said. "You cut the funding to her hospital, and she died of pneumonia because they ran out of oxygen. I've been waiting for this moment for two years." Karn's lips curled. "I don't remember your sister. But I do remember you—Rina Tess, the signals officer who couldn't keep her mouth shut. You should have stayed in hiding." He raised his pistol.
Elias pulled the revolver from his coat and fired. The shot went wide, ricocheting off a boulder. Karn's men returned fire, and the ridge erupted in chaos. Elias grabbed Mira and ran, sliding down the scree slope toward the border. Rina followed, shooting blindly behind her. Bullets whizzed past, kicking up dirt. Elias reached the bottom and stumbled across a line of painted stones—the border. He was in Svelland. He turned to see Rina still on the ridge, firing at Karn's men. She was hit—a bullet caught her shoulder, spinning her around. She fell to her knees but kept firing. Elias shouted for her to come, but she shook her head. "Go!" she screamed. "Publish it! Don't let them win!" Then a second shot hit her, and she crumpled.
Elias ran. He ran until his lungs burned, until Mira was crying, until the gunfire faded behind him. He found a farmhouse and hammered on the door. A frightened farmer opened it, saw the child and the bleeding man, and let them in. He gave them water and bandages, and Elias collapsed on a cot, holding Mira, the USB drive still tucked inside his sock.
He had lost Rina. He had lost Hektor. He had almost lost himself. But he had the data, and he was free. He closed his eyes and dreamed of numbers—columns of them, receding into darkness. When he woke, the farmer was standing over him with a grave expression. "There's a man asking for you," the farmer said. "He says he's from the Svelland intelligence service. He says he can help you publish the evidence." Elias sat up, his hand going to the revolver. But the farmer added, "He also says to tell you that Inspector Karn is dead. He fell off the ridge during the gunfight. They found his body this morning." Elias felt no relief, only a deeper, colder dread. Karn was a tool. The real power—the president's brother, the casino empire, the weapons dealers—was still out there. And now, someone from Svelland intelligence was at the door, wanting the data. Elias looked at Mira, who was sleeping peacefully, and knew that his fight was just beginning. He nodded at the farmer. "Let him in."
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