Late in the afternoon, a green UAZ-3163 Patriot SUV pulled up in front of the headquarters building and parked. Almost immediately, a trim, efficient-looking colonel with jet-black hair and ice-cold blue eyes got out from behind the wheel. For a brief moment, she stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the area with a disdainful expression. The black-and-gold patch on her right sleeve showed the medieval helmet and crossed sword and marshal’s baton of Russia’s general staff. A big, beefy man wearing a dark black civilian suit climbed out behind her. His broad, clean-shaven face was harder to read.
Every building in sight had dirty windows and peeling paint. Trash cans stacked beside them were full to overflowing. Gravel walkways were rutted and unraked. At first glance, the Spetsnaz compound looked almost completely deserted. Apparently, most of the brigade’s officers and men were away for the weekend or off duty for other reasons.
“It seems our information was correct,” Colonel Irina Zakharova said to her companion. She shook her head in disbelief. “If this is what passes for an elite unit, I would hate to see what a ragtag conscript force looks like. My aged grandmother and two of her arthritic friends could take this place over without breaking a sweat.”
Thoughtfully, the big man nodded. “Perhaps, Colonel. But I suggest we find out just how deep the rot goes before coming to any firm conclusions. After all, appearances can be deceiving.”
“True enough,” she agreed with a faint smile.
Together, they trotted up the steps, entered the headquarters building, and strode briskly toward the security desk blocking the front hall.
The senior sergeant on duty rose to his feet as soon as they came through the door. Andrei Isayev, a hard-bitten veteran of combat in Chechnya, Ukraine, and Poland, frowned slightly. He knew trouble when he saw it. And these two looked like trouble. Wiping the frown off his face, he threw a quick, precise salute to the woman colonel. “How may I help you, sir?” he asked politely.
“We want to see the officer of the day,” she snapped. “Immediately.”
Without delay, Isayev picked up a phone and relayed her demand to his immediate superior, Captain Dmitry Leonov. Moments later, the captain, who looked absurdly young for his rank, appeared — hurriedly buttoning his uniform jacket and then straightening his tie. From his rumpled look, he’d probably been caught napping after a heavy lunch in the mess.
Swallowing hard, he straightened to attention. “Welcome to the Twenty-Second Guards Spetsnaz Brigade, Colonel…?”
Wordlessly, the two strangers exchanged disgusted looks and then showed the young officer their identification cards. He stared at them in surprise.
“My name is Zakharova,” the colonel told him coldly. “I am assigned to the Main Army Command.” She indicated the big man at her side. “This is Oleg Solomin. He works for the Ministry of Defense, in the Financial Inspectorate. Our orders are to conduct a snap inspection of your brigade’s personnel records, equipment inventory, and other relevant files.”
If anything, her expression grew even icier. “Your unit’s most recent readiness reports have been found to be highly unsatisfactory, Captain.” Her voice hardened. “And I must inform you that the ministry and the general staff are not at all pleased by this sorry state of affairs.”
Oh shit, Leonov thought. With his commanding officer on leave in St. Petersburg, he was the one in the hot seat here. And if there were a worse time for Moscow to start poking its nose into the brigade’s internal activities and readiness, he could not imagine when that might be.
Recently promoted from lieutenant, Leonov had been transferred to this Spetsnaz unit from a regular motorized rifle battalion only weeks before. But already he could tell that things were in a bad state. Too many key officer billets were either vacant or filled by greenhorns like him. Except for a couple of diehards like Sergeant Isayev, the same thing could be said about the brigade’s enlisted ranks. Everyone at Bataysk seemed to be just going through the motions, with little evidence of the rigorous standards of physical fitness, marksmanship, and discipline he’d been assured were the hallmarks of Russia’s vaunted Spetsnaz troops. He gulped.
“Don’t just stand there gawping at me like some useless peasant, Captain!” Zakharova said. Her voice cracked like a whip. “Are you prepared to cooperate with this inspection? Or not?”
Desperately, Leonov fell back on the military courtesies pounded into him as a fledgling officer cadet. He threw his shoulders back, stiffened to rigid attention, and clicked his heels together. “Of course, Colonel! I will do whatever is necessary to assist you.”
“Fortunately for us and, I suspect, for you, that will not be much,” Zakharova said, with thinly veiled amusement. “For now, all we require is access to your database. And an office to work in.”
Thoroughly cowed now, Leonov escorted them down the hall to the small room set aside for the officer of the day. With a muttered apology, he swept the old newspapers and tabloid magazines stacked next to his computer screen and keyboard into a trash can. From the disgusted sneer on her attractive face, Zakharova probably thought he should have been boning up on weapons and tactics manuals instead.
Sweating, he brought the computer screen to life and typed in his user ID and password.
“Good,” the colonel said flatly. She jerked her head toward the door. “Now you can go, Captain Leonov.” Her eyes flashed. “But don’t go far. Depending on what we find in your unit’s records, we may have more questions for you.”
Nervously, Leonov checked his watch. The two bigwigs from Moscow had been locked away inside his office for almost an hour. He wished he had some clearer idea of how much longer they would be there. He supposed it depended on how far back in time they were digging into the brigade’s files.
Like all organized armies around the world, Russia’s ground forces made a fetish of record keeping. You wanted a new rifle or pair of boots? Fill out the required form, Corporal. Going on leave to visit your family? File your request through the appropriate channels, Sergeant. Organizing a training exercise for your platoon? Complete the necessary requisitions for ammunition, firing-range time, and transportation, Lieutenant. The only difference now was that almost everything was stored in digital form rather than being kept on paper.
“You don’t look too happy about this situation, Captain,” Sergeant Isayev commented quietly from his post at the security desk.
Leonov forced down a bitter laugh. “What’s there to be happy about?” He stopped pacing and waved a hand toward his office. “We both know nothing good can come out of this surprise inspection.”
“If there’s a problem, Colonel Andreyev may have more to worry about than you,” the sergeant pointed out, referring to the absent commander of the 22nd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade.
Leonov snorted. In a just world that would be true. Whatever deficiencies this Colonel Zakharova and the accountant Solomin turned up ought to be laid squarely at the feet of Andreyev and his battalion commanders — not pinned on someone like him, a freshly minted and very junior captain. Unfortunately, justice was not usually a concept associated with Russia’s armed forces. If Moscow was really pissed off, the brigade commander was going to be hunting around for scapegoats… and blame, like raw sewage, always flowed downhill. And even if Andreyev went down instead, nobody on his staff could hope to escape being tarnished by the same aura of sloth, incompetence, and possible corruption.