And its name was: Death Wish.
The plan, like dominoes, was slowly pushed forward one piece after another, advancing toward its final objective.
Meanwhile,
inside the temporary command room,
Svetlana slowly set down the quill in her hand. Her gaze was deep and complicated, as though she had already foreseen the coming storm.
The Moscow Night Watch branch chief turned to her adjutant, a trace of imperceptible heaviness in her voice:
"For the next operation, even I cannot predict the outcome.
Perhaps,
we may all lose our lives in this battle.
So, if the worst truly happens, the final messages I told everyone to leave for their families—
have they all been written?"
Upon hearing the question, the adjutant was just about to answer that they had all been collected.
After all, this was a secret operation. They could not use any wide-area internet communication devices that might leak intelligence, so they could only use this crude and antiquated method, with Svetlana personally uploading the messages to a remote server for safekeeping.
However, at that critical moment,
a reckless young man suddenly rushed into the command room.
He bowed deeply to Svetlana and the adjutant, his face filled with apology as he said:
"Ma'am,
may I add a few more words to that letter?"
Svetlana looked into his eyes before finally nodding calmly.
"You have thirty seconds."
Hearing that,
the young man nodded repeatedly.
Overflowing with gratitude, he said, "Ma'am, I'm truly sorry. I won't need thirty seconds. Ten will be enough."
Then,
on the back of the slightly yellowed letter beneath the lamplight, he wrote a few simple words with trembling hands:
Daddy, Mommy, I'm sorry I can't say this to you in person.
I love you.
Just like that,
he dropped to his knees and slowly kowtowed once