Signals in the Dark: "From the Static" (Kyiv, Ukraine)
Chapter Five of Signals in the Dark, a novella serialized by Political Tips. Beginning in Ukraine and moving through Iran, Turkiye, Georgia, Russia, and Belarus, you are invited into a world on fire.
(Signals in the Dark is my way of presenting my fact-infused fiction to readers who understand the world is on fire and wish to immerse themselves in it. I ask that if you appreciate my work, please help contribute to my writing through PayPal or by subscribing now. - Please like, share, and comment on this story and every chapter from Signal's in the Dark. Your feedback matters.)
Chapter 5: From the Static
Kyiv, Ukraine
Beneath Podil’s cracked streets, the team worked, hoping for any moments of quiet, however brittle and temporary. Under the muted sounds of a city moving into its fourth year of full-scale war, Kyiv’s nights bristled with a cacophony of muffled horns and groaning trams bleeding into the atmosphere of Kostiantynivska Street, two blocks up.
Dmytro Hrytsenko leaned over the map table, his knee tapping beneath—a habit he couldn’t shake—fingers tracing red lines frayed at the edges, snaking north from Volgodonsk under a bulb’s stuttering glow, each mark a nerve Lis had threaded into his skull before her feed cut. Cargo shipped west. Army trucks. No destination.
Korol slouched across, another cigarette smoldering to ash between his fingers. Flecks of the burnt remains floated into a dusty metal tray, bent and nicked, scavenged from a wrecked café in Bahkmut. His gray beard, pungent and stained, hung wildly as his eyes latched onto a patch of crumbling, chipped plaster.
Like the others, now stationed in Kyiv, he also knew Donetsk and Kharkiv, all the east really, and especially Russia; his broad frame shifted in a chair more suited to schoolchildren. In a rasping, circumspect voice, he offered, “She’s overdue—means agents got her, or she’s done. Gone.” He flicked the stub off from his fingers. “For good.”
“Or she’s holding,” Hrytsenko snapped. The tempo of the tapping found a rhythm, its pace increasing. He absently reloaded the screen, daring it to blink. “Lis doesn’t crack—basically Kovolov blood, his tool, his sharpest one. He molded her.” He went silent again, searching for meaning in her last words. They became heavier with each read-through: Unknown—likely fieldwork.
With a couple of crates substituting for a desk, Bilozir pecked at the keyboard, the massive screen reflecting back, peering through perpetually smudged glasses, he read off the responses coming in. “Twenty-two minutes,” he said, voice quick, flipping a page. “GUR’s got no one near Volgodonsk—SZRU’s silent. NIFC might bite if NATO’s still listening—”
“She’s out there,” Hrytsenko cut in, eyes tight, mind racing to her first drop eight months back—T4-phage diverted north, VBF-9 strain, armed—spotters confirmed it when he’d doubted her calm voice masking the risk.
Korol lit up another one, the tray clinking as he dropped his lighter next to it. “They cleared drives—Moscow’s call. GRU torched files like that in Donetsk—hit, then ‘oops.’ She’s bait or gone.” Hrytsenko’s jaw clenched; he remained silent, masking his disagreement and rising anger. A crackle flared from Bilozir’s radio—a faded Soviet relic, its casing worn from the moisture of the Dnipro—static spitting as he twisted the dial; no voice yet, just noise toying with the quiet.
Hrytsenko’s knee stilled, breath catching as he spun to it, the map’s lines and marks sharpening—Volgodonsk west. “NATO?” Korol asked, leaning forward. Pointedly pressing his cigarette forward, he repeated it as a statement. “NATO.”
“NIFC call—patch it,” Hrytsenko ordered, voice steady, shoving the map aside as Bilozir punched a secure line, a faint buzz, then a voice breaking through—clipped, British: “Kyiv station, confirm—status? Ghost’s trail’s hot—Batumi’s lit up.”
Hrytsenko froze—Ghost, a codename NIFC had flagged months back, a shadow disrupting Kovolov’s runs, now tied to Lis’s silence. “Dark—twenty-two minutes,” he said, leaning into the mic, the bunker’s chill biting as he pictured her—Kovolov’s favored operative. “Last drop: cargo west, army trucks, no fix. Batumi—Ghost’s hit?” “Thermal’s weak—Volgodonsk fringe, small group, moving fast,” the voice crackled, static flaring. “Batumi’s a snag—Kavkaz Trans rig stalled, agents scrambled south. Ghost’s work—disrupted it, no-kill. NIFC has no ground-backing pursuit; we can spare it. Your call—pull her?”
Hrytsenko’s pulse amplified—Kavkaz Trans, Lis’s mark from eight months back, now tangled in Batumi, Ghost’s shadow—Agnes?—crossing her path. “No pull—she’s holding,” he said, fingers hovering over the keys, typing—*Volgodonsk west, Batumi snag, NIFC thermal*—sending it to GUR, SZRU, any line open, his knee tapping hard now. “Cargo specs—chemical?” “Unknown—trucks, no manifest,” the voice said, fading as sleet hissed louder. “They’re scrambling—drives wiped, Moscow’s spooked. Ghost’s hit threw them—could be her signal. Pull or push?”
“Asset had code if they closed—she didn’t,” Hrytsenko said, steady. “What’s moving—steel, oil, worse?” “Could be steel, could be worse,” the voice crackled, cutting out—“…lockdown logged… site-4…”—then silence, the buzz a hollow echo against the pipe’s drip. Hrytsenko’s mind raced—Lis’s tips: Taganrog parts, Tehran’s shadow, outlaw crude from Rostov’s tankers pooling south, blockchain ledger masking it all, now Batumi’s snag, Ghost’s hand—Agnes?—disrupting Kovalenko’s web. “Bilozir—dark pool feeds, now.”
Bilozir pivoted to the crates, glasses slipping as he hammered commands, the screen flickering blue against the gloom. “Spiking—hour back, Russian cash, no proxies yet. Matches her drop—westbound, fast.” Korol exhaled, smoke curling toward the vent. “They don’t scare—they hit, they kill. But spook they don’t. Donetsk—chemical slip, ‘accident.’ She’s caught or dead.” “She’s not bait,” Hrytsenko said, steady, eyes on the map—Volgodonsk west, Batumi south, a thread humming, her shadow dipping to and fro in the chaos. “Ghost’s hit’s our window—we need eyes—GUR, SZRU, NIFC, anyone.”
“GUR’s got no one,” Bilozir said, voice tight, flipping pages. “SZRU’s sipping vodka in embassies—NIFC’s watching us bleed unless it’s their fight.” “Patch NIFC again,” Hrytsenko ordered, the bunker’s chill pressing harder, Lis’s last words a weight—Hold. Stay quiet. Wait.—her echo a signal he’d chase with Ghost’s shadow or lose in Kyiv’s endless grind.
In case you missed it, here is Chapter Four of Signals in the Dark:
Signals in the Dark: "Storm Tide"
(Signals in the Dark is my way of presenting my fact-infused fiction to readers who understand the world is on fire and wish to immerse themselves in it. I ask that if you appreciate my work, please help contribute to my writing through PayPal or by subscribing now. - Please like, share, and comment on this story and every chapter from Signal's in the D…