Chapter 3

We left the station and crossed a wide square where pigeons scattered like old letters. The air smelled of diesel and wet stone. She turned down a narrow street lined with shuttered shops, then into a courtyard where a black car waited. She opened the passenger door and gestured for me to get in.

I hesitated. The car was old, a Soviet-era model with cracked seats and a faint smell of tobacco. But the stones in my pockets were warm, and the need to know pressed against my ribs. I got in. She slid behind the wheel and started the engine without a word.

The car pulled out of the courtyard and onto a road that led away from the city center. The buildings grew sparser, replaced by empty lots and rusted factories. I watched the sky turn from gray to a deeper gray, the clouds low and heavy.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Somewhere we can talk," she said. "Somewhere the kanjbsls won't hear."

The word sent a chill through me. "Kanjbsls. You know what that means?"

She nodded. "Everyone in Erzvilkas knew. They were the middlemen—the ones who moved people and goods across the new borders without papers. They weren't criminals in the old sense. They were opportunists. The Schengen opening created a vacuum, and they filled it."

"And the children?" I said. "I remember children. A lot of them."

She was quiet for a moment. The car passed a sign for a village I didn't recognize. "The children were currency," she said finally. "Kanjbsls would take them across borders, then sell them to families or factories. The parents paid what they could. Sometimes they paid with eggs."

I thought of the woman holding out a single egg. "And the '40gama hope'? I've been trying to decode it."

"It's not a code," she said. "It's a location. 40 kilometers from the Gama checkpoint. That's where the Audir team set up a temporary shelter. We called it 'Hope.' It was a waystation for children we managed to pull out of the kanjbsls' hands."

"You were part of Audir?"

"I was a field officer. I was there the day you came."

I stared at her profile. "You remember me?"

"I remember everyone who came to Erzvilkas. Most left quickly. You stayed. You watched. You didn't understand, but you felt it. That's why I came when I saw your search."

She pulled the car off the road and onto a dirt track that wound through a birch grove. The trees were white and slender, like bones reaching for the sky. She stopped in a clearing and killed the engine.

The silence was sudden and thick. She turned to face me.

"The email you received was from an old colleague," she said. "He's dead now. I found his account and sent you that message. I needed you to come in person."

"Why?"

"Because the story isn't finished. Erzvilkas is not a ghost town. It's still there, in a different form. The kanjbsls evolved. They're more organized now. They use encrypted apps and fake NGOs. The children are still being moved. The parents are still paying with eggs."

"And NATO? The message I remembered said 'stop aufutation of nato.'"

She laughed, a dry sound. "That was a misheard phrase. A desperate translation. 'Aufutation' isn't a word. What the man meant was 'occupation'—stop the NATO occupation. But there was no occupation. There were only rumors. The kanjbsls spread stories to frighten the villagers, to make them think the military was coming, so they would flee and leave their children behind."

I felt a weight settle in my chest. "So the children were taken because the parents ran."

"Yes. And the Audir project was supposed to prevent that. We were supposed to monitor the borders, report irregularities, protect the vulnerable. But we were underfunded, overwhelmed, and, in some cases, corrupt. The report you found—'Audir cycle.audit report'—was a formality. It said nothing. It was filed and forgotten."

"But my mother remembered it."

"Your mother worked in the office. She never went to the field. She saw the paperwork, not the people."

I looked down at my hands. "And the kanjbsls? The drunjers and the gams drugers?"

"Drunks and drug users, yes. They were the foot soldiers. The kanjbsls paid them in alcohol and pills to keep the villagers distracted. The village was a trap. The 'too much Schengen liberalism' post you found was one of ours—a warning we tried to spread online. But no one listened."

She reached into her coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She handed it to me. "This is the address of a safe house near Erzvilkas. The building still stands. Inside, you'll find the files we never submitted. The real audit. The one that names names."

I took the paper. The address was handwritten, the ink faded. "Why me?" I said. "Why not give this to the authorities?"

"Because the authorities are part of the problem." She opened her door and stepped out. I did the same. The cold bit through my jacket. "I've done what I can. The rest is up to you. If you want to check Erzvilkas, truly check it, go to this house. But be careful. The kanjbsls have long memories."

"Will you come with me?"

She shook her head. "I've already said too much. I have a life here, a family. I can't risk it."

"Then why did you bring me here?"

"Because someone needs to know the truth." She looked at me with those gray eyes. "And because you were the one who stayed. You were the one who saw the line of people and didn't look away. That counts for something."

She got back in the car. I stood in the clearing, the paper cold in my hand. The engine started, and she drove away without a backward glance.

I stood there for a long time, listening to the wind in the birches. Then I walked back to the road, my pockets heavy with stones and hope.

That night, I booked a room in a small hotel near the old border post. I unfolded the paper and read the address again. It was a place I had never been, but I knew it. It was the next stone in the stream.

I didn't sleep. I sat by the window, watching the streetlights flicker, and thought about the children and the eggs and the woman in the long coat. The story was not finished. It had only just begun.

At dawn, I left the hotel and started walking toward the safe house. The air was sharp and clear. The stones in my pockets seemed to pulse with a rhythm I could almost hear. I did not know what I would find. But I knew I had to check Erzvilkas, one last time.