The nightmares always began the same way—with silence.
Not the comfortable silence of solitude or the reverent silence of prayer, but the hollow silence that follows catastrophe. The silence of death.
Gul stood amid the ruins of what had once been a village market. Smoke curled from the blackened remains of stalls. The air smelled of cordite and burning flesh. Bodies lay scattered across the ground, some whole, others in pieces. And all around him, silence.
He knew what came next. Had relived it countless times in the three years since the border war. The silence would be broken by a sound—a child crying.
On cue, he heard it. A soft whimper coming from beneath the collapsed awning of a fruit stand. He moved toward it, his boots crunching on debris. His rifle hung heavy at his side, useless against what he would find.
The child couldn't have been more than four years old. A girl, her dark hair matted with dust, her eyes wide with shock. She sat beside the body of a woman—her mother, presumably—one small hand still clutching the dead woman's sleeve.
In the nightmare, as in reality, Gul knelt beside her. "It's okay," he said in her language, the words feeling like ash in his mouth. "I won't hurt you."
But here the nightmare diverged from memory. In reality, he had called for a medic, had the child evacuated to a field hospital, had even checked on her days later to ensure she'd been placed with surviving relatives.
In the nightmare, the child looked up at him, and her eyes were not the eyes of a traumatized four-year-old. They were ancient, knowing, accusatory.
"You did this," she said, her voice impossibly adult. "You killed them all."
"No," Gul protested, as he always did. "It was an artillery strike. A mistake. Wrong coordinates. I tried to stop it."
The child smiled then, a terrible smile that split her face too wide, revealing teeth that were sharp and numerous. "But you didn't stop it. You never stop anything. You just follow orders."
The market around them began to shift, the scene changing to the interior of Farsi's compound. The professor stood by his desk, showing something on a laptop to the woman Gul had observed through the window.
"You won't stop this either," the child-thing said, now standing beside him as he watched the scene unfold. "You'll follow your orders. You'll kill him. You'll take the evidence. And more children will die."
"No," Gul said again, but with less conviction.
The child laughed, and it was the sound of breaking glass. "Look," she said, pointing.
The scene shifted again. He was standing in a city square—Azadi Square, he recognized it from news footage. A demonstration was underway, thousands of people holding signs, chanting for reform. Many had brought their families. Children sat on parents' shoulders, waving small flags.
Then came the first crack of a rifle, and a child toppled from his father's shoulders. Blood bloomed across his small chest like a flower.
For a moment, the crowd didn't understand what had happened. Then another shot, another child fell. And another.
Panic erupted. People ran in all directions, trampling those who fell. More shots rang out, precise and methodical. Snipers, positioned on rooftops surrounding the square.
"Stop it," Gul said, trying to move, to do something, but finding himself frozen in place. "Stop!"
"You can't stop what's already happened," the child-thing beside him said. "But you could prevent it from happening again. If you choose differently this time."
The scene shifted once more. He was back in Farsi's compound, watching the professor and the woman. But now he noticed something he hadn't before. On the laptop screen was an image—grainy but unmistakable. A sniper team on a rooftop overlooking Azadi Square. Their uniforms bore the insignia of the NKVI special operations division.
His division.
"They'll say you did it," the child-thing whispered. "That it was your team. Your finger on the trigger."
"That's not possible," Gul said, cold sweat beading on his forehead. "I wasn't even in the country then. I was still at the border."
"Does truth matter when they need a scapegoat?" the child asked. "When the evidence needs to be buried along with its keeper?"
The implication struck him like a physical blow. He wasn't being sent to retrieve evidence. He was being sent to destroy it—and anyone who had seen it.
Including himself, once the mission was complete.
The realization woke him, as it always did, with a gasp that tore at his throat. He sat up in bed, sheets soaked with sweat, the small room spinning around him.
Outside, the first light of dawn was breaking over the city. The call to prayer would sound soon from the nearby mosque. Another sleepless night nearly complete.
Gul swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat there, head in his hands, trying to separate nightmare from reality. The village market had been real. The child had been real. But the rest—Azadi Square, the implication that he was being set up—that was paranoia. Had to be.
He reached for the bottle of pills on his nightstand—government-issued medication to help servicemen "readjust" after combat duty. He'd been taking them for three years. They dulled the edges of his thoughts, made it easier to follow orders without question. Made it easier to sleep.
Usually.
He stared at the white tablet in his palm, then at the glass of water beside it. Something felt different this morning. The nightmare had been more vivid, more specific. Not just trauma recycling itself through his subconscious, but something... purposeful.
A warning, perhaps.
He put the pill back in the bottle, then rose and moved to the window. His apartment was on the third floor of a dilapidated building in one of the city's oldest neighborhoods. The view was of a narrow street lined with similar buildings, facades crumbling with age and neglect. At the end of the street stood the mosque, its single minaret reaching toward the lightening sky.
Below his window, an old woman was sweeping the sidewalk in front of her door. Umm Nazir, his landlady. She had a son about Gul's age who had gone missing during the protests following Azadi Square. She never spoke of him, but his picture still hung in her small sitting room.
As if sensing his gaze, she looked up. Their eyes met briefly before Gul stepped back from the window. Had there been accusation in her gaze? Knowledge? Or was that just the remnants of his nightmare, coloring his perception?
He moved to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, avoiding his reflection in the cracked mirror. He knew what he would see—a face too young for the eyes it contained. At thirty-two, he looked older, worn by experiences that had aged him beyond his years.
The Azadi Square massacre had occurred six months ago. He had been deployed to the northern border then, part of the elite unit targeting militant groups operating in the mountain regions. He had no connection to the domestic security operations that had resulted in the killing of peaceful protesters.
And yet, the nightmare had felt so real...
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. The display showed no number, just a blank screen. He answered anyway, knowing who it would be.
"Yes?"
"Status report." The voice was clipped, professional. Colonel Vasiliev, his handler at NKVI.
"Surveillance complete," Gul replied, his own voice neutral. "Target's location confirmed. Security minimal. Entry points identified."
"And the woman?"
Gul hesitated. "Foreign journalist. Alex Chen. Associated Press."
A pause on the other end of the line. "That complicates things."
"How so?"
"A dead academic can be explained away. A dead American journalist creates... diplomatic issues."
Gul felt a chill at the casual confirmation that Farsi was to be eliminated, not just his evidence secured. "She'll be gone before I make my move."
"See that she is." Another pause. "Are you taking your medication, Captain?"
The question caught Gul off guard. "Yes, sir."
"Good. We wouldn't want a recurrence of your... episodes. Particularly during a mission of this importance."
Gul's hand tightened on the phone. "That won't be a problem, sir."
"Excellent. Your landlady, Umm Nazir—she called our citizen assistance line yesterday. Reported disturbances from your apartment. Screaming in the night. She was concerned."
The revelation struck Gul like a physical blow. Umm Nazir had reported him? To the NKVI?
"Just nightmares, sir. Nothing that affects my operational capacity."
"Of course," Vasiliev said smoothly. "Nevertheless, I've arranged for a supply of stronger medication. It will be delivered today. I suggest you use it. For everyone's peace of mind."
"Understood, sir."
"Good man. Complete your mission by tomorrow evening. The courier with the final piece of evidence arrives then. We want all loose ends tied up before anything changes hands."
The call ended, leaving Gul standing in the center of his sparse apartment, phone still pressed to his ear. Slowly, he lowered it, his mind racing.
How had Vasiliev known about his nightmares? Had Umm Nazir really reported him out of concern? Or had his apartment been bugged? Had they been monitoring him all along?
And if they had, then they would know about his hesitation. His doubts.
He moved quickly to his closet, pulling out the small go-bag he kept packed for emergencies. Inside was a change of clothes, a few thousand in mixed currency, a backup weapon, and false identification papers—standard precautions for someone in his line of work.
If he ran now, he might get a head start. Might make it across the border before they realized he'd gone rogue. Might even...
He stopped, hand still in the bag. What was he doing? Preparing to desert based on a nightmare and paranoia? He was a soldier. He had sworn an oath to protect his country. To follow orders.
But what if those orders served neither the country nor its people? What if they protected only those in power?
Gul zipped the bag closed but left it on the bed. A contingency, nothing more. He would proceed with the mission as planned. But he would gather more information first. Determine the truth about Farsi's evidence.
And if that truth confirmed his nightmares...
Well, he had always been good at improvising.