“Alena,” he said, striking his palm against his forehead, “I’m an idiot. I brought food, but nothing to drink. Could you run out to a store, even if they only have juice or water? I’ll give you the money. Don’t spend it on wine. You probably don’t even have tea or real coffee here. I’ll wait for you.”
She was more than happy to take the hrynia. “Sure, it’ll just take a few minutes. There’s a kiosk not far from here.”
“Don’t buy the junk they sell from kiosks,” he said. “Find a real store and bring back some imported coffee.”
He waited for the door to close behind her and then went to the living room where a high cabinet stood against the wall. He started pulling out the drawers one after another. There were maps, documents, lists, and a diagram of command duties. Types of weapons, battle plans.
Good Lord! He was almost overwhelmed. His blood churned, threatening to burst through thin veins. This was more than he could have hoped — an invaluable discovery.
Using his smartphone, he photographed everything. The Ukrainian intelligence operative spread out every page, checked the focus, and pressed the button to capture every secret on the small screen and store it safely away in the phone’s memory. He determined to copy every document regardless of what might happen.
He left Alena after an hour. The cell phone seemed heavy in his pocket. Now came the second part of the operation: alter the credentials and pay a visit to Vasya of the MGB — and then get out of town as fast as possible.
A talk with Vasya could not be more appropriate. Following the full-scale invasion by Russian forces at the end of August, local fighters in many occupied Donbas cities faced serious difficulties. Professional Russian troops entered Gorlovka almost immediately, accompanied by GRU Spetsnaz. The GRU was ruthlessly efficient. Some separatist field commanders simply disappeared, some were dismissed, and others arrested.
“Bes” and his closest advisors had left the city a few days earlier for an undisclosed location, and those who remained behind occupied themselves with “cleansing.”
The Russian “stewards” did not forgive their Ukrainian satellites the slightest initiative or disobedience. Amid the confusion, Gorlovka officials became so concerned for their own fates that they neglected to deal with the dissent among the common people.
The lower ranks did not know who their commander might be the next day and thought of only one thing: guess who it might be and do anything to please him. Some groups resisted the “cleansings” and engaged in armed skirmishes with the invaders. To be on the street after curfew could be fatal. In other words, it was hard to take advantage of the dark in Gorlovka.
Chapter 18
Mihailo found Vasya the next day at a table in a small café near MGB Headquarters and headed straight for him.
“Greetings,” he said with abroad smile. “Remember me? You gave me a ride to Donetsk the other day.”
Vasya leaned away. “Yeah, I remember.” His voice was not particularly friendly. Maybe things were not all well with the MGB.
“They promoted me.” Mihailo sat without an invitation and pulled out the altered identification. “You probably heard that the command has changed, there’s a new Chief of Staff, and he knows me.”
“Congratulations.” Vasya had no desire to get on the bad side of anyone of rank.
“I have an almost official request for you,” Mihailo began. “The new command is looking things over, and they want to know what we have in the old Gorlovka munitions plant. They need to know exactly where the mines have been placed so that our boys don’t accidentally blow themselves up.”
“I can’t help you,” sighed Vasya. “You need to send an official request to Command. That’s the only way.”
Mihailo gave Vasya a stare usually reserved for the mentally disabled, and then spoke slowly and carefully. “Vasya, What Command do you have in mind? Yesterday they found the head of the Gorlovka militia on his own doorstep with a cracked skull. The assistant prosecutor was shot. Your Command won’t be around tomorrow, and the day after they’ll find them in a ditch. Don’t you understand? They’re taking out all of the locals, all of them. I survived only because I serve the Russians. And you have to serve them too, if you want to survive. They’re the bosses now. Forget about anyone else. I looked you up because I remembered you and want to help a good guy. If you do a good job for the new powers that be, they won’t bother you. Think about it. Things have changed. ‘Bes’ is gone. If you want to act like a bureaucrat you’ll end up like all the rest.”
The effect was immediate. “Actually there is no placement diagram,” he said. “I helped plant the explosives and can show you where they are.”
“Excellent. Let’s go.”
“Right now?”
“No time like the present.”
The ruined hulk of the abandoned factory resembled the set of an American post-apocalyptic movie. A clear September sky was visible through the shattered windows. Overhead, teetering slabs of destroyed walls leaned against steel girders, threatening at any moment to bury the entire building. Girders and rebar showed through gaps in crumbling sections of the floor.
Mihailo followed Vasya, climbing over piles of stone and rubble and stumbling on the uneven floor through half-ruined machine shops.
Periodically, Vasya would point out the location of a mine in a debris-covered corner. “Over here, and in the basement, too.”
Mihailo silently photographed it all with his smartphone and noted the positions on a crude building diagram he had drawn.
“Is that everything?” he asked Vasya after what seemed an interminable period.
“I suppose so.”
“You suppose so, or is that everything?”
“That’s everything.”
They were preparing to leave when footfalls sounded on the other side of the wall and echoed throughout the enormous space. Mihailo froze, and Vasya fixed him with a questioning eye. A camouflaged figure appeared around a corner with a machine-pistol Mihailo recognized as a Bizon 9X18mm Makarov, the same weapon he had trained on in Kharkov. The gun was pointed directly at them.
“Who are you?” barked the soldier. “What are you doing here?”
Vasya spoke first. “The Deputy Commander here wanted me to show him where the mines were planted.”
“Deputy Commander?” the guard squinted at them, the epitome of suspicion. “I spoke with the Deputy Commander not ten minutes ago, and he ordered me to see who was sneaking around the factory. The patrol reported a civilian vehicle on the property.”
“What do you mean?” Vasya stared at Mihailo, a shadow of comprehension clouding his face. He reached for his holster.
Mihailo reacted without thinking. He struck Vasya on the jaw with one hand and grabbed his pistol with the other before diving behind a fallen section of ceiling.
A shot rang out behind him, and then a burst of automatic fire. He sprinted for a door and turned the corner.
He’d last fired a weapon was during training hurriedly organized by the Donbas Battalion in Kharkov. He’d never fired on a living person in his life. Would he be able to pull the trigger now?
He ducked into another corridor and then another. Cries of alarm and the sound of many feet told him there was more than one pursuer.
Mihailo took a darkened flight of stairs to the basement, tripping over piles of debris, bumping into walls. His life was measured by the length of his stride, his laboring lungs, and the beat of his heart against his ribs. Bare pipes and metal mesh reinforcement crawled along the walls. He found another stairway that took him up to an abandoned foundry with mountains of rubble and iron sheets on the floor. Wind howled through breaches in the walls and roof.