ШТУРМ СЕКРЕТНОГО БУНКЕРА АБВЕРА ПОД ЗЕМЛЁЙ В 1944 ГОДУ

The darkness underground has weight. I crawled headfirst through a tin ventilation shaft, my every breath clanging like a bucket on concrete. We dragged the assault rope behind us—our only way back. Somewhere down below, three meters below me, the Germans were preparing to burn what we'd crawled into this grave for—the archives of their intelligence school. The emergency light in the corridor glowed dimly yellow, flickering from the nearby artillery strikes above, as if counting our seconds. The captain whispered faintly from somewhere behind me, from the darkness at my feet: "The charge is already in place." I knew I'd be the first to enter this concrete coffin. And I wasn't sure I'd emerge. The tin felt cold against my cheek. I lay in the pipe like a cartridge in a barrel, unable to breathe properly or turn over. The taste of rust on my lips. The smell of burning and TNT wafted from below, through the cracks in the grate, straight into my nostrils. My name was Yefim Podgorny. Thirty-four years old. A sapper-scout in the assault team. The pipe sloped downward. I braked with my elbows to keep from slumping forward prematurely. The scale creaked under my palms. Every movement echoed throughout the shaft, like someone hitting a drainpipe with a stick. A rivet twisted under my left palm. An old, loose one. The sheet metal sagged, slammed down onto my finger, and I hung there, spread-eagled, my elbows gripping the sides of the pipe. My heart sank into my throat. The sheet metal beneath me groaned thinly, drawn-out, like ice on a river before it cracks. I held my breath. I waited. If this sheet breaks, I'll fall into the corridor right under the Germans' boots, with all the roar of torn iron. The sheet held. I shifted my weight to my right hand, slowly, millimeter by millimeter, moving away from the damned rivet. Sweat beaded on my back like a cold film. The bag of charges slid forward, right up to my head, and pulled down. I picked it up with my elbow and pressed it to my side. It contained TNT, detonators, fuse, scissors. Everything I lived with and everything I could kill us all with. The strap cut my neck. I grabbed it with my teeth for a moment, slung it over my shoulder differently, so the load would lie more evenly. The metal under my belly groaned again, and I froze until the groan died away. Below, through the bars, I saw the corridor. Narrow. Concrete. Gray walls streaked with damp. The lamp on the bracket flickered yellow from the nearby explosions above—one, two, darkness, one. The shadow from the grate crawled back and forth across the floor. Three meters. Between me and that corridor were three meters of sheet metal and one hinged shutter. I wasn't counting seconds. I was counting my breaths, because each one gave me away. Behind me, three buildings away, at the very mouth of the shaft, a group waited. Captain Adam Korz breathed on the soles of my feet. Forty-one years old, his voice like a rasp, his orders clipped and whispered. Behind him, soldiers. And between them, pressed against the wall, was the captured signalman Wojciech—a Silesian conscripted into the Wehrmacht, whom we dragged toward this light like a guide. The lamp flickered. I froze. Down in the corridor, a strange light flared. A lantern. Sharp, white, not like an emergency. The sound of shoes scraping on the concrete. Two of them. They spoke German, quietly, casually—the way people speak when they're at home and not expecting anyone. I pressed myself against the tin. I stopped breathing completely. One of them passed right under me. I saw the top of his head—a short, buzzed cut, his cap in his hand. The other paused, flicked a lighter. The flame flickered, illuminated his cheekbone, and went out. The smell of tobacco seeped through the bars, momentarily overpowering the soot. If one of them lifts their head, they'll see the bars. See me behind them. And it will all end here before it even begins.