The Memories of a Dead Pilot

            


"The Hero of Our Time, kind sirs, is indeed a portrait, but not of just one man: it is a portrait composed of the vices of our entire generation, at the height of their development.";— "The Hero of Our Time" Mikhail Lermontov, 1841
"There have been worse times, but none more deceitful.";— Prince Hamlet
The key characters—along with all those admirals, officers, their wives and mistresses, colleagues, and drinking buddies—are not based on any real people, let me assure you. I invented them with a single aim: to sully our once-glorious past—a time when family values, religious beliefs, and familiar morals were swallowed whole by the grip of Communist ideology. And if, by any chance, you start to think that such things might have actually happened, think again.
No, it wasn’t like that.



Prologue

Every part of my body aches. Darkness surrounds me as I struggle to see. Slowly, I force my eyes open, and the objects around me come into focus. The source of my excruciating pain becomes clear: the plane’s control column is jammed into my chest, pinning me against my bulletproof seat. A burning sensation in my abdomen signals broken ribs and internal bleeding.

I turn my head, searching for my crew. The navigator’s cabin at the front is obliterated. Captain Vasiliev’s station is now a mangled mess of aluminum, glass, crushed equipment, and bloody body parts. Flight engineer Gennadiy Rybnikov, seated between me and the co-pilot during landing, is slumped forward. His seatbelt saved him from being thrown through the windshield, but his forehead is fused to the instrument panel. His lifeless hands hang limp, and blood drips from his head onto the now-dead radio operator.
Just before we crashed into the storm drain’s collector column at Cam Ranh airbase—once American, now Russian—the radio operator, Nikolai Onoprienko, had been sitting behind my co-pilot. He was transmitting our landing report in Morse code to the Pacific Fleet’s fifteenth flotilla. In his desperation, he crawled beneath the flight engineer’s seat, hoping to see how I would land the plane with only half the landing gear. He preferred facing the danger over ignorance. He almost reached the cabin when the impact threw him against the navigation equipment.
My co-pilot sits headless. His head and the headrest were severed by the jagged lining of the fuselage. His lifeless head, still held by the headset, leans toward me, his blank eyes seeming to glare at me with a mix of contempt and shock. He never had the chance to tell me the price the Vietnamese paid to board our flight from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh.
Before takeoff, the flight engineer smuggled thirty locals into a pressurized cabin designed for ten, without proper clearance. Our original destination was the former capital of South Vietnam, but we were rerouted to Haiphong to pick up Soviet cargo. Knowing landing there could mean a prison sentence for transporting illegal passengers on Ministry of Defense property, I quickly came up with a Plan C—there was no Plan B. I sent my co-pilot, Sergey Kovalenko, to compile a list of passengers and get the signature of the aviation supervisor at Hanoi’s military airport. It would require a substantial bribe. Sergey returned fifteen minutes later, visibly troubled.
"What happened?" I asked.
Gasping, he replied, "Smirnov wants twenty-five percent of the money collected from the Vietnamese for his signature."
"And how much is that?" I took the bundle of notes from him, without time to count.
"Trust me—you don’t want to know. Our venture is definitely not going to be profitable." He groaned.
Takeoff was imminent, and I decided to handle the financial mess after we returned from the mission.
Now, Kovalenko wouldn’t utter another word—to me or any military investigator.
First responders rushed toward the plane from all directions. They were in for a shock when they found my hidden passengers. But why was it so quiet back there? During the landing, I had drained almost all the fuel from the wing and fuselage tanks, which is why we hadn’t exploded on impact. While the cockpit was a twisted wreck, the passenger cabin should still be intact. Yet, there wasn’t a sound. Odd. Still, I couldn’t focus on them at that moment.
Rescuers swarmed around me, trying to pry my broken body from the wreckage. My vision was blurred, but one thing was clear: I needed to remember how I ended up in this disaster, both literally and figuratively. Memories began flooding back—a grim sign my brain had accepted the inevitable and was now reflecting on the defining moments of my wasted life.



Chapter 1: Orders from the Sky

On October 22nd, I landed in Kamchatka to begin my military service after graduating from the Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots. In my hand was an order to report to the commander of the 304th Independent Long-Range Aviation Regiment and receive my assignment.
Grabbing my suitcase and sports bag from the conveyor belt, I exited the terminal building.
Yelizovo Airport greeted me with warm winds and a light drizzle. By late October, central Russia is already gripped by frost, but here, the trees still displayed vibrant yellow, red, and maroon leaves. Birds that hadn't yet migrated south circled above in flocks, practicing their group flying. "They're preparing for a long journey. From Kamchatka to Japan along the Kuril Islands is no short distance," I thought, taking in the surroundings.
I was confident that as a young officer arriving from the mainland, I’d be met at the airport. Not by the chief of staff’s UAZ with a warrant officer at the wheel—that level of treatment was reserved for higher-ranking officers, like squadron commanders. I’d hoped for at least a courier sailor, but my expectations weren’t met.
My fellow passengers trickled out of the terminal, heading quickly to the bus stop. They paid no attention to me, eager to get home to warm showers and decent food after our cramped, ten-hour flight.
The bus from Yelizovo Airport to Central Market let out a hiss as it pulled up to the stop, loaded passengers from our flight, and rolled off down Star Street.
“Sir,” a stern voice called from behind. I turned to see a police sergeant approaching, with two officers standing in the doorway behind him. “Why didn’t you head into the city?”
“I’m not going to the city. I need to get to the garrison. I’m a pilot.”
“May I see your orders?” he asked, his tone softening.
I pulled the document from my jacket pocket and handed it to him.
“You need the number eight bus. It comes every twenty minutes,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Next one’s in three minutes.”
The sergeant returned to the terminal, and I hurried to the bus stop.
The officer on duty, a sullen, imposing captain, greeted me coldly in the hall of the two-story, fifties-era building. He led me to the reception room of the rocket carrier squadron commander.
Behind a worn but sturdy oak desk sat a strikingly attractive young woman, a sergeant. She wore a cream blouse, black necktie, and a black skirt—a somewhat incongruous sight in this remote military outpost.
As I caught a glimpse of her crossed legs beneath the desk, I was taken aback by the unexpected sight. The captain exchanged a few words with her, but I barely registered their conversation, my attention fixed on the hem of her skirt. Noticing my stare, she coolly picked up the phone and informed the commander of my arrival.
The captain nudged me with his elbow and whispered, “Don’t get any ideas. A bigger fish already has an eye on her, if you know what I mean…”
The sergeant hung up the phone, gestured toward the commander’s office, and resumed tapping her slender fingers on the typewriter.
I left the commander’s office as the co-pilot on Commander Major Gribov’s crew—assigned to an aging TU-16 rocket carrier with an uncertain future. There were no other options.

For four years, I flew in this position, living out my bachelor days in wild drinking bouts with my colleagues and indulging in casual love affairs with local women. To my regret—or perhaps to my fortune—none of those women were the commander’s secretaries. Rumors swirled that the girl I met earlier wasn’t just an excellent typist but possessed many other talents as well.
I could have continued flying as a co-pilot for another three or four years, but my commander, stationed at this garrison for too long, had lost his filter. He no longer felt the need to keep his thoughts to himself, and his boldness led to a scandal. Ironically, this became my chance to escape the destructive cycle of card games, strangers’ beds, and bar counters.
During one of our usual drinking sessions, Major Gribov shared what he thought was a harmless anecdote with his friends. It was a conversation between the Secretary of the Communist Party organization and a nearby church priest.
“Father,” the party leader said, “let me borrow some chairs from your church for a communist conference tomorrow.”
“I won’t lend them to you,” the priest replied. “Last time, your comrades carved indecent words into them with their knives.”
“Well, I won’t send you any more Boy Scouts to sing in your church choir,” the party organizer shot back.
“Then I won’t send any monks for Saturday volunteer cleanup,” the priest retorted.
“And I won’t give you any Young Communist League members for the procession of the cross,” the party leader persisted.
But the priest had the final word. “Then there won’t be any more nuns for your sauna.”
The local party leader fell silent for a moment, then barked into the phone, “For that, Father, you’ll have to turn in your Communist Party membership card.”
We all laughed at the story, aware of the potential consequences of such jokes.
The Orthodox Church had long been entwined with the state, collaborating with the KGB, the police, and the Communist Party of the USSR. Though these connections were concealed from the public, criticizing or joking about them—even as late as the 1980s—could lead to severe punishment, such as expulsion from the party or losing one’s job.
Despite knowing the risks, we laughed along with Major Gribov.
A few days later, however, he became the target of a formal investigation by the Party Committee. Who wrote the denunciation, I never found out. As I wasn’t a party member, I escaped suspicion. Gribov, on the other hand, was voted out of the party and, as expected, dismissed from his post.

The next day, I was called in for an interview with the wing commander. To my surprise, the entire regiment staff was gathered in his office. Standing on a worn rug before the commander's desk, I wondered why such a grand assembly had been convened in my honor.
“Comrade Colonel, First Lieutenant Grigoryev, reporting as ordered.”
I stood in front of the commander's desk, feet planted on a well-worn carpet, my head bowed, glaring up from beneath my brow at the high-ranking officers. In my mind, I imagined myself as Kamchatka’s military governor, Zavoyko, once standing at Signal Cape, peering through a spyglass at the approaching Anglo-French fleet.

"Why am I being given such a grand reception?" I wondered, my thoughts racing. "Is this heavy artillery about to tear me apart, or will I leave here with honors, like the governor who defended Petropavlovsk over a century ago?"
The chief of staff began questioning me about my background, carefully comparing my responses with the information in my personnel file. It felt as though he was checking to make sure I wasn’t a CIA agent, but just who I claimed to be. Luckily, my answers matched what was in the red file folder, and he closed it with a satisfied smirk, handing the secret document to the wing commander.
The colonel placed both hands on the folder, his strong palms covering the Soviet Union's coat of arms embossed on the front. He glanced at his assistants and deputies, who stood along the walls, took a deep breath, and began, "Well, Grigoryev, your time has come. The Motherland, represented by me, and the Communist Party, represented by the deputy commander of political affairs, have decided to entrust you with the position of rocket carrier pilot-in-command."
Despite the formality of his words, I couldn’t help feeling a surge of pride. My shoulders straightened involuntarily. But the moment of elation was brief as he continued, "However, we have a few unresolved issues with you."
The pride drained away, replaced by a creeping sense of dread as I braced for what was coming next.
"You must promise to fulfill three conditions: First, you must enroll in the Communist Party. Second, you must get married. And third—and not least important—you must cut back on your drinking."
I took a deep breath. None of the demands seemed impossible, so I solemnly promised to meet the first two within six months and to quit drinking starting tomorrow.
"Why not today?" asked the deputy commander.
"Got to celebrate the promotion, Comrade Colonel," I replied, prompting hearty laughter from the room.
The hammer didn’t fall after all. As the laughter died down, I quickly assessed the demands. Joining the Party might not be too difficult, and marriage could be arranged somehow. But cutting back on drinking—that was the real challenge. Vodka had always been the faithful companion of military men stationed far from civilization. Still, I signed the papers they placed before me, committing to fulfill all three conditions within the next six months.


Chapter 2:  Into Command and Chaos

The promotion brought more respect from those around me and a modest pay raise, but it also came with a heavy load of new responsibilities. Gone were the days when I could vanish on my two days off, spending them in Lyudmila Salnikova’s bed or showing up for pre-flight exams with a face swollen from vodka. I remembered the doctor occasionally remarking while taking my blood pressure,;“Grigoryev, at least breathe to the side. Your vodka fumes are making my eyes water.”
Everything changed abruptly. My reckless youth was now behind me, and I had to embrace discipline.
The day before the tragedy that would change my life forever, I was sitting in a flight briefing with fellow commanders, listening to where, when, and why my crew and I would be heading out.
The reports on weather, potential enemies, supplies, maintenance, and communications barely registered. What mattered was that the next morning, I would take off at 0800 hours, and by noon, I’d be back at the base. Four hours later, I’d be in the officers’ mess with my friends, celebrating the successful completion of my first combat mission.
As I glanced at the large placards showing TU-16 rocket carrier crashes from the past decade, I felt confident. Most of the disasters were attributed to pilot error or poor decision-making—“the human factor.” I was determined not to end up like those unlucky pilots. The mission to the American Aleutian Islands was a sign of the confidence placed in me, and I smirked at the thought. Analyzing the mistakes of others, I reassured myself, “You won’t catch me off guard. I won’t let anyone get me killed.”
As a co-pilot, I had flown this route many times, my primary job being to back up the commander without interfering with his control of the aircraft and crew. However, if the commander became incapacitated—by sudden death, loss of consciousness, or even illness—it was my duty to take over and ensure the flight's safety.
Now, the situation had changed, but my carefree attitude had not. My crew and I spent only an hour preparing for the mission along the American border. Afterward, more experienced pilots approached us, and we headed to the garrison's sports arena to play volleyball. I spent the last two hours of that day at the card table, tucked away in the doctor’s office with the regimental doctor, communications officer, and squadron navigator. Our excited shouts were well-muffled by the sign on the door: “Do Not Enter: Patient Exam in Progress,” padded with cotton and black leatherette.
The next morning, I sat in the pilots' mess, waiting for the waitress, Lyudmila, to bring my breakfast. Our brief fling had ended six months earlier, but we had stayed on friendly terms—until rumors spread that I had gotten married. Her attitude toward me changed completely.
Nobody knew who my wife was or why a lifelong bachelor like me had taken such a big step. When I informed the commander I had fulfilled one of his three conditions, he made no secret of it, leading to a noticeable decline in service for my crew in the mess. The squadron’s jokers wasted no time making fun of me.
That day, I had no energy to deal with Lyudmila’s coldness. Being the first scheduled to take off for the regiment’s fly day, I needed to get to the pre-flight briefing quickly.
Trying to get her attention, I raised my hand like a schoolboy eager to answer a question. When she didn’t respond, I raised my other hand too. The pilots around me put down their forks, watching to see what would happen next.

But Lyudmila passed my table without acknowledging me and, with a sneer, said, "Grigoriev, you could raise your leg too, but you're still going to be the last to eat."
I replied loudly, separating each word and layering as much sarcasm as I could muster:;"Lyudmila, raising legs—especially parted—is more your style, don’t you think?"
The pilots’ squad erupted in laughter, and Lyudmila, caught off guard by my biting remark, dropped her tray of dishes and fled the room in tears. A few moments later, a new waitress, Veronica, arrived to serve our table. She didn’t hesitate to share her thoughts:;"I always told her she'd get nothing but filth from you."


Chapter 3:

My mission was to test the anti-aircraft defenses of a potential enemy.
From Elizovo to Attu Island was just over six hundred miles. In two and a half hours, we could have flown there and back, reporting to command by lunchtime. An experienced pilot would have done just that, but at twenty-six, I wanted to impress the senior commanders with my initiative.
After the briefing, I approached the squadron commander and proposed conducting my training flight under near-combat conditions.
"I'll approach the enemy airbase not by the shortest route but in a wide arc, coming up on Yankee radars from the Alaska side," I said. Hearing no objections, I added, "This maneuver will triple the distance, but it will ensure surprise."
The lieutenant colonel gave me a look of surprise. His eyes seemed to ask, "What’s the point of this?"
In the brief silence, I already regretted my suggestion and considered apologizing, but before I could speak, he shrugged and said,;"Prepare according to your plan, under the squadron commander's supervision."
My Tu-16 rolled out of the "Post Number 4" bunker, following the front wheel turn handle. As we passed the terminal with its neon sign "Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky," we glided between the transport squadron’s parking lots and the air defense squadron’s concrete shelters. A few interceptor pilots on their way to their MiG-25s waved to me. I took their gestures as wishes for a safe flight and tipped my cap to them with my left hand. It wasn’t by the book, but sitting in the commander's seat, I was facing them with my left side—they couldn’t see my right hand anyway.
That day, we were the first to take off.
We flew over the Kronotsky Nature Reserve at our practical ceiling, passing its active volcano, a large lake, and numerous geysers, then admired Bering Island as we flew northeast along the International Date Line for over an hour.
Three hundred miles from Saint Matthew Island, we turned south and began our descent.
  To delay detection as long as possible, I guided the aircraft toward our objective: Adak Airfield. We flew at a mere two hundred feet, hurtling through the air at six hundred knots. As we approached a hundred miles from the Rat Islands, a pair of patrolling fighters caught my eye.
Our war game was over; we had been detected and theoretically shot down. But we didn’t consider ourselves losers. Just six minutes earlier, my navigators had successfully simulated a missile launch against the American air force forward base.
In a real battle scenario, the three-ton cruise missile, upon exiting the bomb compartment, would climb to sixty thousand feet before descending almost vertically onto its target. The impact would shatter the runway, sending debris flying hundreds of feet in all directions.
The McDonnell Douglas F-18 Hornet fighters quickly moved to flank my aircraft.
The lead pilot saluted and signaled me to open the bomb compartment, pressing his palms together horizontally, then turning them vertically—a clear request to check for weapons. I nodded, and my navigator pressed the button. An indicator on my panel lit up: bomb compartment open. The American pilot dived beneath the rocket carrier to inspect and confirmed it was empty. He took his position above our left wing, gave me a thumbs-up, and we flew together for about twenty minutes under their escort.





During our joint flight, the second fighter pilot positioned his aircraft above our right wing. To entertain my co-pilot, the American casually flipped through the glossy pages of a Playboy magazine, holding it up for the young lieutenant to see through the plexiglass canopy, showcasing the allure of nude models mid-flight.
Eventually, I signaled farewell to the fighter pilots, and they sped up, putting distance between us before performing a couple of aileron rolls and banking away toward their base.
A sigh of relief escaped me. My first battle assignment was successfully completed.
I called out to anyone who cared to listen, "Let’s get the hell out of here!"
With the tension fading, I allowed myself to relax, letting my thoughts drift back to the leave I had just completed.
Two months earlier, after receiving leave papers from the chief of staff, my crew and I headed to Vladivostok. From there, our paths diverged. My subordinates scattered across the country to visit their families, while I checked into a hotel with the romantic name Dawn of the East. My attention was soon caught by the local medical school’s discotheque. I spent two weeks partying with students and enjoying a few romantic liaisons—until I unexpectedly faced rejection from a future physician. Her firm ‘No’ left me stunned and preoccupied with thoughts of her.
“How could this happen?” I wondered. “A naval battle pilot like me, getting turned down? I’ve never heard that word from a woman before, and I certainly don’t want to hear it now.” But she was more stubborn and clever than I expected. By the middle of my leave, we were married. There was another factor behind my hasty decision—her father was a Rear Admiral, the Commander of the Soviet Union Pacific Coast Defense. Despite his lack of direct connection to naval aviation, his influence wasn’t lost on me.
Suddenly, the navigator’s voice snapped me back to reality:;“Commander, we’ve reached the descent point.”
“Roger that.” I pushed the control column forward, lowering the nose of the aircraft and idling the engines. The cabin grew quieter. I glanced at my co-pilot, who sat staring blankly ahead, clearly bored. The rare ice floes scattered on the Pacific’s surface could only hold a young pilot’s attention for so long. It was obvious his mind was elsewhere—likely still occupied by the images from that globally renowned magazine, the captivating allure of those beautiful models lingering in his thoughts.

Giving him a glance, I shifted back to the role of a crew commander — to myself. My thoughts wandered to Vladivostok and my new wife.
The latter part of my leave had turned into a honeymoon. Our wedding had been so rushed that we hadn't even had time to plan a proper vacation, and with her winter term approaching, my wife barely had any free time. Fortunately, my in-laws had a solution: they stayed in a fancy downtown hotel, leaving their home entirely to us. We spent most of our days in bed, combining Olga's lecture notes with more intimate, hands-on studies of anatomy. We particularly focused on the structural differences between male and female bodies. Though no revolutionary discoveries were made, the process was pleasurable for both of us, and the memories brought a smile to my face.
"Commander, my radar screen just went blank!" The navigator's voice snapped me back to reality. Oddly, I was hearing it directly rather than through the aircraft's communication system. I glanced at the instrument panel. Among the thirty or so gauges and indicators, my attention locked on two: the RPM gauges for the left and right engines. Both needles were quivering, a clear sign that the engines had stalled. I checked the fuel flow indicators. The truth hit me — nothing! The tiny arrows were pinned at zero.
"Shut off all electrical devices!" I shouted to the navigators, co-pilot, gunner, and radio operator. My focus then shifted to the engine control levers, and suddenly, everything became clear.
About eight minutes earlier, during our descent from thirty thousand feet, I had moved the engines from cruise to idle. But in my distraction, I must have pulled them too far — into the cutoff position. Without checking the instruments, we had descended smoothly to ten thousand feet, draining the batteries in the process, especially with the radar still running.
I pressed the "air start" button for the third time, but nothing happened. The older TU-16 lacked a "lock flight idle" feature, which would have prevented the control levers from moving freely. Lost in my pleasant memories, I had inadvertently shut down both engines.
Back in the early '50s, when Stalin's engineers designed this aircraft, they couldn't have predicted these planes would still be flying forty years later — or that the pilots would be more preoccupied with women than with the engines. The level of "idiot-proofing" they built in hadn't accounted for such long-term service or for pilots whose minds were elsewhere.
Killing me once wouldn't be enough. I deserved to be killed, buried, dug up, and killed again. The water loomed ever closer, and I couldn't even send out a distress call. The radio was dead. Parachuting out was no longer an option — not that it would help. Even if we made it into individual life rafts, with the air temperature at twenty degrees Fahrenheit, we'd survive no more than two hours.
A shiver ran down my spine. "This is it. I've never done a water landing before. What if I misjudge the altitude?" It was a foolish question. I already knew the answer. Any pilot would. We’d glide eight to ten meters above the water, losing speed, and then crash. Despite its liquid softness, the water would be as hard as concrete. The fuselage would split along the riveted seams, the wings and tail would tear off, and the crew's spines would snap from the brutal impact. We'd sink, still conscious, paralyzed, and helpless.
The picture that emerged wasn't enviable. Fear gripped my heart. My shoulders twitched involuntarily, and nausea rose in my throat. I looked at the co-pilot on the right. The Lieutenant gripped the control yoke so tightly that his fingernails turned as white as chalk. His pale face was covered in large drops of sweat.

"Look at that, a paradox. Not a drop of blood on his face, yet he's as wet as if he just stepped out of a steam bath. I wonder, do I look the same or even worse?"

This thought pushed my own concerns out of my head.

I grabbed the control yoke, gently swayed it left and right, and in complete silence, with a calm voice, I said to my assistant,
"Release it."

He placed his hands on his knees and closed his eyes.
 
"Bidding farewell to life," I managed to think, trying to find a landing spot relatively free of ice.



Chapter 4: The Edge of the Sky and Sea

Just before the water's surface, I pulled the control yoke towards myself. The plane slowed its descent, the fuselage kissed the water, and, clearing separate floating pieces of ice with the glass nose of the navigator's cabin, it glided on the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

The water landing was successful. Miraculously, my rocket carrier remained intact, and at least two navigators, the co-pilot, and I were alive. The fate of the gunner and radioman was unknown to me. Now, the most important thing was to leave the plane as quickly as possible.

As I focused on the landing, the navigator, bombardier, and co-pilot left their stations, gathering beside my seat, poised to operate the emergency hatch above us. With a brief struggle, they managed to release it, allowing me to crawl out first. I sprinted back along the top of the fuselage toward the mid-station hatch, which had automatically blown open upon impact with the water. Reaching for the silk lanyard, buoyed by a compressed air balloon and connected to the orange-shrouded inflatable emergency raft floating near the open hatch, I retrieved my knife from my flight jacket. I severed the balloon, securing the remaining lanyard around my hand. Stumbling and slipping, I dragged the raft behind me to the aircraft's nose.

At this point, the three crew members were standing on the fuselage, ready to descend onto the port wing, now partially submerged with small ripples and a veneer of ice coating the super-cooled metal.

Just as my mind registered the hazard posed by the icy aluminum, and a split second before my voice caught up, my co-pilot leaped onto the wing. His legs lost traction, throwing him off balance. He tumbled onto his back, skidding down the wing. His arms flailed wildly, attempting to grasp onto anything, everything. In a despairing cry, choked and cut off, he vanished beneath the water's surface.

His fur parka, insulated coveralls, and high leather boots lined with dog fur turned into an enormous sponge, absorbing water and leaving him no chance to stay afloat, not even for a moment.

Horrified by the scene before us, we stood frozen beside the open upper hatch of the cockpit—until the metallic thuds against glass jolted us back to reality.

The gunner and the radio operator, situated at the tail of the pressurized hull, were pounding their pistol handles against the plexiglass of the rear hatch.

The muffled echoes of their desperate attempts reverberated eerily along the entire length of the fuselage. The tail section hatch, designed to open downward under normal circumstances, was now submerged under at least three feet of icy water, and the opposing pressure rendered any attempt to open it futile. This left the two NCOs trapped in the sealed compartment. With inadequate advance notice of an imminent emergency water landing, they had remained within the compartment—now, completely unable to be reached from the outside or to escape from within.

In an emergency, they were supposed to parachute out, but without my command, they couldn’t act, and when the internal radio failed, I lost the ability to issue that life-saving order.
Still haunted by the gruesome fate of the co-pilot and now staring down the grim reality of the two men trapped in the aft compartment, the navigator, bombardier, and I helped each other make a cautious descent onto the slick wing. Every movement felt perilous, each step a reminder of how fragile our situation had become.
We carefully maneuvered the inflatable raft closer to the aircraft’s side, the cold, choppy water licking at our boots with increasing ferocity. The wind howled around us, biting into our faces. I instructed the bombardier to jump first. The young lieutenant, fresh to the service—only a month into his duties—looked at me with resignation, his eyes wide with fear. Yet, trusting my experience, he took a deep breath and leaped. The icy wing, offering little to no traction, caused him to lose balance almost immediately. His right leg struck the raft’s tough rubber wall, sending him skidding dangerously over the water’s surface. For a heart-stopping moment, I thought he was lost, swallowed by the unforgiving Pacific, but in a stroke of luck, his fingers latched onto the thin safety line encircling the raft.
A wave momentarily engulfed him. He disappeared beneath the freezing water, only to resurface a second later, gasping for air. The navigator dropped to his knees, his hands trembling as he clung to the bombardier’s soaked flight jacket collar, preventing him from sinking back into the abyss. I pulled the raft’s line taut, bringing it flush against the trailing edge of the wing. Together, we dragged the lieutenant onto the flap, where he collapsed into the raft, shivering violently but alive.
While we fought to save the bombardier, the aircraft continued its slow, agonizing descent into the ocean. What had started as mere ripples over the wing had become full-fledged waves, washing over the fuselage and tugging us toward the sea. The icy water stung as it crept higher, soaking through the tops of our boots, numbing our feet with its brutal cold. The navigator and I, now soaked ourselves, clambered into the raft after the lieutenant. Once inside, we began rowing with desperate intensity, battling the wind and waves to put as much distance between us and the sinking aircraft as possible.
As we floated past the tail compartment, I saw a horrifying sight. The gunner and radio operator, now wild-eyed and frantic, pounded their fists against the plexiglass windows. Their faces were twisted in terror, their mouths open in silent screams. But more terrifying than their expressions was the sight of their pistols—.35 caliber handguns—clutched in their trembling hands. They were firing shot after shot at the glass in a frenzied attempt to escape. The deafening cracks of gunfire echoed over the waves, reverberating across the fuselage. For a brief, surreal moment, it seemed as though they were shooting at us.
My stomach churned, and I had to tear my eyes away. I gripped the oar harder, rowing with more force, as though I could escape not just the plane, but the haunting sight of my doomed comrades.
We hadn't yet put much distance between ourselves and the plane when I turned to the navigator. My voice sounded detached, hollow, even to me. "They must know that the glass of their compartment is impervious. Not even a six-barrel Vulcan cannon would break through it. They’d be better off saving a bullet or two… to end their suffering. Otherwise, they’ll face a gruesome death—suffocation in that freezing tomb.”
The navigator, his voice wavering as tears filled his eyes, responded softly, “Very true, Commander. But I’m afraid their fate, much like the co-pilot’s, will weigh heavily on your conscience.”
I bit back the bile rising in my throat. "Row harder, damn it! The plane could go under at any moment. If we’re too close, we’ll be sucked down in the whirlpool. We can discuss my conscience later," I growled through gritted teeth. After a moment, I added in a lower tone, “If we manage to survive at all.”
The bombardier remained silent throughout the ordeal, curled into a fetal position, his body trembling uncontrollably as the icy air gnawed at him. His wide, vacant eyes stared blankly ahead, lost in shock. I didn’t have the strength or time to rouse him.
About a hundred feet away, we turned to witness the final moments of the plane that had carried us through the skies. The nose of the aircraft tilted upward, rising higher and higher, the tail disappearing beneath the waves. With a sharp, almost violent motion, the plane slipped beneath the water, vanishing into the depths. For a second, silence reigned. Then, massive bubbles surged from the forward hatch, a geyser of air and water shooting into the sky—a final, mournful salute to a once-proud machine.
As the geyser erupted, I barely managed to seal the rubber door of the raft. The bitter wind howled outside, while inside, the only sound was our labored breathing. We huddled together, knowing the fight for survival had only just begun.
We were lifted upward and then violently tossed downward as if we were mere playthings in the hands of the sea. The cold, relentless waves surged over us, but soon the ocean, having claimed three souls from our six-man crew, gradually settled back into its eerie calm. The silence that followed felt almost mocking, as if the sea itself was indifferent to the lives it had just taken.
Now, there was nothing left for us but to conserve our strength and wait.
Our fate rested in the hands of the long-range radar operator. I reassured myself that he was carefully tracking our flight, watching for any anomalies, and would swiftly notice the disappearance of our aircraft from the radar screen. I could almost picture it—the flash of concern on his face, the urgency in his voice as he reported the lost signal. Once the alarm was raised, I believed the entire fleet's resources would be deployed in search of us. Helicopters, ships, every available means would be sent to scour the ocean. They would find us—there was no doubt in my mind. The thought of it, a daring rescue against the odds, gave me a flicker of hope. I shared this conviction with the navigators, trying to sound composed, though a knot of doubt began to twist in my chest.
The bombardier, however, broke the fragile silence with a desperate mutter, "The hell they'll find us."
His voice, raw with fear and exhaustion, hung in the cold air. His eyes, darkened with hopelessness, barely lifted to meet mine. The weight of his words crashed over me, threatening to shatter my fragile optimism.
The older navigator, hardened by years of experience, responded quietly, but there was a bitterness that couldn’t be ignored. "They will undoubtedly find us," he said, his voice low and resigned. "But the real question is... when?"
His words carried the weight of hard truth—the kind that gnaws at you, making it harder to keep the faith. We all knew the longer we waited, the slimmer our chances of survival. The ocean was vast, and the odds of being found in time, with the frigid temperatures working against us, were far from favorable.


Chapter 5:

We didn’t know at the time that the operator of the P-35 "Saturn" two-coordinate radar station, Sergeant Konstantin Yelizarov, had his attention fixed on matters far removed from duty. A twenty-year-old village boy, Yelizarov cared little about airplanes, ships, or military service in general. His heart wasn’t in it, and neither was his mind. He had other priorities.
"Go grab your lunch in the mess hall," he barked to the first-year serviceman standing beside him, his voice dripping with the authority of someone who enjoyed lording over newcomers. "And bring my lunch back here. Make sure it doesn’t get cold, or you'll find yourself peeling potatoes in the galley again. Got it, rookie?"
The younger sailor, visibly irritated but unable to voice his frustration, replied with a flat, "Got it."
Yelizarov wasn’t having it. "Not 'got it.' It’s 'affirmative, Sergeant.' Now, say it properly."
With clear reluctance, the first-year sailor muttered, "Affirmative, Sergeant."
"Good," Yelizarov said, a self-satisfied grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Then, almost as if extending an olive branch, he added in a softer tone, "And take your time on the way back. No need to rush."
Now alone at his post, Yelizarov wasted no time in indulging his real agenda. He picked up the garrison telephone and dialed quickly, his fingers moving with the eagerness of someone who had done this many times before. When the line clicked, his voice dropped into a more familiar, intimate tone.
"Svetlana," he said, a sly smile creeping across his face. "Get over here quick. I’ve got at least forty minutes before anyone’s back."
Svetlana Mukhina, the object of Yelizarov’s affections, had been stationed at the garrison for three years. She wasn’t exactly passionate about her job either, but being the daughter of the communications battalion commander had its perks. After finishing high school, she had stubbornly refused to continue her studies. Her parents had pushed her to apply to one of Vladivostok’s universities, but Svetlana had no interest in academic life. She wanted something more exciting, something less structured. So her father, using his influence, arranged for her to work in the communications office under his watchful eye.
A year later, during the routine morning battalion assembly, the commander introduced a new officer to the unit: Lieutenant Victor Fedorov, a dashing twenty-two-year-old who had just arrived at military sector 357. Young, ambitious, and full of charm, Fedorov was placed in charge of the communications office—a position that soon put him in close contact with Svetlana. The moment he walked into the room, the atmosphere shifted. His sharp uniform, confident stride, and effortless charisma made an impression on everyone, especially on Svetlana, who couldn’t help but notice the young lieutenant.

Beyond his excellent professional qualifications, Lieutenant Victor Fedorov possessed a sharp wit and a knack for captivating an audience. His storytelling abilities, coupled with his natural charisma, quickly made him a favorite among the female telephone operators under his command. Svetlana, like the others, was soon enchanted. Within weeks, Victor became a regular guest in Lieutenant-Colonel Mukhin's home, welcomed with open arms by her family.
The relationship between the young lovers progressed swiftly, fueled by mutual attraction and the thrill of secrecy. Victor’s ego was constantly stoked by the knowledge that the commander’s daughter spent every lunch break in his office. She would either lie beside him on his leather couch, wrapped in his embrace, or sit straddling his lap at his desk, her fingers tracing the brass buttons of his uniform. The trysts were as passionate as they were risky, adding a layer of excitement to their affair.
Svetlana, swept up in the romance, had already begun dreaming of a future together—a future filled with marriage, happiness, and stability. She imagined a life as the Lieutenant’s wife, certain their bond was unbreakable. But all those hopes crumbled in a single, devastating moment.
One evening, at a routine family dinner, Svetlana sat with her younger sister, Oksana, and their parents. Victor, the ever-charming Lieutenant, raised his wine glass to offer a toast. Svetlana's heart raced, fully expecting him to propose. After all, wasn’t it obvious? But then, in an instant, her world shattered—Victor's proposal was not directed at her. It was for Oksana.
Oksana, overjoyed, let out an excited squeal, clapping her hands in delight. She leaped from her chair, throwing her arms around Victor’s neck, planting an exuberant kiss on his cheek. The room buzzed with congratulations, her parents beaming at their younger daughter’s apparent good fortune. Meanwhile, Svetlana sat frozen in her chair, her heart splintering as her future evaporated before her eyes.
Her eyes brimmed with tears, shimmering under the dim light of the dining room. She fought to hold back the sobs threatening to escape, her mind spinning with disbelief.
“What’s the matter?” her father asked, his face glowing with a smile, oblivious to the undercurrent of betrayal swirling around the table.
Svetlana forced a smile, dabbing at her tears with a napkin. “It’s... it’s just tears of joy for my sister,” she managed to choke out, her voice trembling.
Her parents exchanged a quick, puzzled glance, sensing something unusual, but the moment passed without further inquiry. They had no idea that Svetlana’s relationship with Victor had ever gone beyond a professional acquaintance. To them, his frequent visits were a natural step toward connecting with their elder daughter. They were clueless that their younger daughter had unexpectedly won his heart—or perhaps, simply his ambition.
Victor wasn’t just intelligent—he was calculating. When the chief of staff introduced the Lieutenant to the communications battalion, he had initially shown no special interest in Svetlana, blending her into the group of operators under his command. But once he discovered that the cheerful, round-faced telephone operator was the daughter of his immediate superior, his attitude shifted almost overnight. What had once been casual, professional interactions quickly became personal. He made a strategic move, wooing Svetlana, knowing full well the advantages such a connection could offer.
Yet, as time went on, Victor began to regret his hastiness. Svetlana, once a charming prospect, soon revealed herself to be unpredictable, impulsive, and difficult to manage. She wasn’t the docile partner he had envisioned. Her demands far exceeded simple needs, and her emotional unpredictability became a source of constant frustration. On more than one occasion, she would accuse him of being late for battalion formation simply because, in her view, he hadn’t kissed her enough before leaving.
Victor, ever calculating, realized that his ambitions couldn’t be tied to someone so unruly. And so, his eyes turned toward Oksana—young, innocent, and far more malleable. She was the perfect solution, a far less complicated path to a stable future, both personally and professionally. And in one fell swoop, he chose to sever the complications of his relationship with Svetlana by proposing to her sister.
Oksana burst into exuberant applause, enveloped her fianc; in a tight embrace, planted a kiss on his cheek, and wholeheartedly embraced his proposal.

Svetlana's eyes shimmered with tears.

"What's going on?" her father inquired, a smile playing on his lips.

"It's tears of joy for my sister," Svetlana explained, wiping away the salty drops.

Her parents exchanged surprised glances, the room momentarily filled with silence. They had no inkling that Svetlana's relationship with Victor had advanced to such a point. Yet, they had assumed that the Lieutenant's visits were intended to connect with their older daughter.

The Lieutenant wasn't just intelligent; he was also shrewd. When the chief of staff of the communications battalion initially introduced his team to Fedorov, the Lieutenant didn't single out Svetlana from the rest of the women. However, once he learned that the cheerful, plump telephone operator was the daughter of his immediate superior, his attitude towards her underwent a sudden shift.

Soon, Victor started to rue his haste. It turned out that Svetlana was rather unpredictable and largely resistant to being controlled. Her desires consistently exceeded necessities, and sometimes she even went so far as to believe that the Lieutenant was late for battalion formation simply because he hadn't kissed her enough.

In a bid to avoid causing a scene, he had to acquiesce to her whims; he couldn't sever their connection. Stopping their rendezvous would effectively mean waving goodbye to any chance of career promotion. He found himself trapped with seemingly no way out. He feverishly searched for a solution to his dilemma and stumbled upon it during his first visit to Svetlana's home.

It was Oksana’s eighteenth birthday, and the family had gathered for the celebration. Victor, ever the charming guest, danced with Oksana throughout the evening. The atmosphere was light, the music lively, and no one—neither Svetlana’s parents, who sat contentedly at the festive table, nor Svetlana herself, slightly tipsy after a few glasses of wine—paid much attention to what seemed like the innocent interaction of a young officer entertaining the birthday girl.
From that night onward, Victor began meeting Oksana in secret. Every evening, under the guise of going to the movies or attending dances with her friends, Oksana would rendezvous with him. Victor insisted on discretion, warning her that they had to keep their meetings hidden. He told her it was to avoid workplace gossip, but in reality, he feared Svetlana might catch wind of their affair before he had fully secured Oksana's commitment to marry him.
As the weeks went on, these secret meetings became increasingly risky. Victor was always on edge, glancing over his shoulder whenever they were together in a park or at a cozy caf;, constantly worried that one of his colleagues might recognize him. Even worse, he feared Oksana’s youthful excitement might someday lead her to confide in her sister about her "remarkable" new lover. That would spell disaster. Yet, as precarious as it all was, Victor had an endgame in mind. He counted down the days, waiting for the inevitable moment when Oksana would come to him with news from the doctor—a pregnancy would be his ace in the hole.
Finally, one evening, Oksana approached him, her face pale with anxiety, her hands trembling as she shared the long-anticipated news. Victor, brimming with relief, didn’t have to feign happiness. He smiled warmly, reassuring her with all the sincerity he could muster. Without hesitation, he proposed marriage, promising to ask her parents for their blessing that very night. The engagement was swiftly formalized.
But what followed was a storm of chaos at the communications office the next morning. Svetlana, having learned of her sister’s engagement, unleashed a whirlwind of fury upon Victor. Anything within reach—papers, books, even a telephone—became a projectile aimed at him. Victor did his best to dodge the onslaught, shielding his face with his hands, all the while begging her to calm down. The initial waves of her rage subsided, but only to give way to uncontrollable sobbing. She collapsed onto the old office couch, her body shaking with hysteria.
Victor approached cautiously, sitting beside her, trying to soothe her with soft words. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, gently pulling her closer. “You have to understand,” he whispered, his voice low and persuasive. “It’s for the best. Please, forgive me.” His hand slid down to her breast, and before she could resist, he began kissing her neck. As he reassured her that his marriage to Oksana wouldn’t interfere with their ongoing rendezvous, Svetlana, still shaken and confused, responded to his touch. She kissed him back, fervently, passionately, as if the betrayal could be erased in that moment of physical connection.
Outside the office door, several female colleagues, telephone operators of various ages, stood quietly, eavesdropping on the unfolding drama. They exchanged glances as they caught snippets of the conversation—the Lieutenant’s pleading, Svetlana’s breathless responses. And then, the unmistakable creaking of the old office sofa reached their ears, followed by soft, muffled sounds of Svetlana’s pleasure. The women, their faces contorted in disgust or disapproval, glanced at one another in silent understanding. Slowly, they dispersed, returning to their posts, leaving behind the scandalous scene to resume their duties in uneasy silence.
Victoria, Svetlana’s best friend, voiced what they all were thinking: “Svetlana has lost the last of her pride.”
The Lieutenant kept his word when he promised to maintain his special relationship with his girlfriend. He hadn’t changed his habits. Every night, he returned to his composed, slender wife, but during the day, he met secretly with her passionate older sister.
It was hard to predict how long this situation could last or how it might end. But the intervention of Colonel Medvedev, head of the Pacific Fleet's counterintelligence, soon changed the course of events. He summoned Lieutenant-Colonel Mukhin to his office, and given their ten-year acquaintance, he wasted no time getting to the point.
"Good morning, Nikolai," Medvedev greeted, offering his hand.
"It’s not such a good morning if it starts in your office," Mukhin replied, his tone edged with concern.
"It’s not where it starts that matters; it’s where it ends. And I’d rather it not be in the KGB’s pre-trial detention center," Medvedev responded with a thin smile.
"Is my situation really that bad?" Mukhin asked, masking his unease with a hint of humor.
“Not catastrophic, but serious,” Medvedev replied, his voice firm.
Mukhin had known Medvedev long enough to recognize that if this were an emergency, the conversation would be much graver. They’d be discussing an enemy infiltrator or a suspicious encounter involving one of his signalmen and a foreign tourist. But this "morning call" still didn’t bode well, and Mukhin braced himself for the real issue.
"Anything new in the battalion?" Medvedev asked.
"Nothing significant," Mukhin answered.
"And in the family?"
Mukhin knew this was the heart of the matter. There was no point in pretending otherwise. Medvedev wouldn’t ask about his family without a reason.
"It’s worse at home than in the battalion," Mukhin admitted.
"Really?" Medvedev acted surprised, though Mukhin sensed he already knew much more.
"Unfortunately, yes. My son-in-law is involved with both my daughters. He doesn’t seem to care. The younger one is naive and doesn’t realize it, but the older one has always been unruly, and now it’s worse. She hisses at me like a snake when I bring it up."
Medvedev’s expression turned cold. His words came slow, deliberate, and without any trace of humor.
"How long will you allow this to continue in your battalion? How long will Lieutenant Fedorov be allowed to maintain affairs with both your daughters? I understand—the temptation is obvious. But turning the communications department into a scandal is unacceptable. More importantly, as a Fleet communication officer, he has access to top-secret information. His behavior makes him an ideal target for foreign intelligence. He could easily be blackmailed, or worse, fall victim to a honey trap. You need to put a stop to this."
The shift in Medvedev’s tone was unmistakable. "He’s testing me," Mukhin thought. "Evaluating whether I can still handle command."
Mukhin said nothing, but Medvedev’s words hit hard. He wasn’t just a commander; he was a father who deeply cared for his daughters. He could have ended this messy situation long ago, but doing so would mean hurting one of them—and that was the real tragedy.
Noting the pause, Medvedev misinterpreted it as resistance and concluded the meeting with a warning: "If you don't resolve this issue within two weeks, then I will take care of it. In that case, you'll retire to your country house and tend to cucumbers." With a nod toward the window, Colonel Medvedev ended the conversation.

“Yes, comrade Colonel, you're absolutely correct, if he continues an intimate relationship with Svetlana, it could indeed provide grounds for blackmail. However, I'm not familiar with the term 'honey trap.'"

"Honey trap involves placing a woman in the path of the targeted individual, with the aim of creating a pretext for blackmail," the chief counterintelligence officer of the fleet answered. "In our scenario, there's no need for such manipulation. He has already entangled himself in more than he should have.”

Mukhin wasted no time and sought out his immediate superior.
Colonel Razumov, head of Communications for the Pacific Fleet, was deeply absorbed in a chess game with his assistant when Mukhin approached. Without hesitation, Nikolai requested the reassignment of Svetlana to a distant garrison, proposing to replace her with his younger daughter.
"Not a bad idea," Razumov mused.
He picked up a knight from the chessboard, studied it thoughtfully, and remarked, "If a knight can't find peace between two pawns, we move one forward. How about the Yelizovo Airbase on the Kamchatka Peninsula for your elder daughter?"
"That will do perfectly," Mukhin agreed.
"Have Svetlana submit a transfer application tomorrow for Yelizovo. I'll approve it right away," Razumov instructed.
Razumov had long been aware of Fedorov's reckless behavior. Yet, he'd hesitated to step in, given his own frequent interactions with the young telephone operators. Oddly enough, Victoria Toropova—his favored “pet” within the department—was the very same friend who had openly condemned Svetlana's conduct.

Chapter 6: Dangerous Liaisons and Tactical Moves

"A week later, Svetlana found herself aboard a transport plane en route to her new post. She was the only passenger. Anger swelled within her—toward her parents, her younger sister, even her former beloved. As she stared out of the window at the endless stretch of dense forest below, tears welled up in her eyes, spilling onto her black military jacket. Two dark streaks of mascara trailed down her cheeks.
An officer stepped out from the cockpit into the cabin. Noticing her pale, tear-streaked face, he asked, "What’s the matter, sweetheart? Did someone hurt you, or is it just motion sickness?"
"The flight’s fine, Commander. I’m just feeling a bit down..." she replied softly.
Sensing the opportunity for a meaningful conversation, the political affairs deputy of the transport wing, who was acting as the navigator, took a seat beside her.
"Tell me what’s weighing on your heart. It might help lighten the burden," he said gently, placing a fatherly hand over hers.
"I'm not really in the mood to talk about it," Svetlana replied, her voice distant.
"Did you have a falling out with your boyfriend?" the political officer asked, his tone professional but laced with curiosity about matters of the heart.
"Something like that," Svetlana responded, hoping to brush off the conversation.
"Maybe a drink would lift your spirits? We’ve got beer, vodka, and grain alcohol," he suggested.
"If you're willing to join me and find something to go with it, I wouldn't mind a bit of vodka," she agreed.
The political officer slipped into the cockpit and returned shortly with a briefcase in hand. After locking the cabin door behind him, he said, "I’m the navigator for this flight, and I’d rather not have the pilot catch me drinking on duty."
"Isn’t that a bit risky for us?" she asked, a hint of apprehension in her voice.
"First of all, we’ve still got three hours in the air. Second, I’m not going to overindulge. And third, you can call me Leonid," he said with a smile.
He poured two glasses and introduced himself, "I’m Leonid."
"My name’s Svetlana," she responded, lifting her glass. "Cheers."
They drank, snacked, and soon he refilled her glass.
"And what about you?" Svetlana asked, already feeling a bit light-headed.
"I’ll stick with a beer. I can’t afford more than one shot while I’m on duty," he said, casually picking up a plastic fork and digging into a tin of smoked sardines. He raised his glass and offered a toast, "To a safe landing."
Svetlana intended to sip slowly, but Leonid mischievously tipped the bottom of her glass with his finger, urging her, "A toast like that calls for bottoms up, dear."
After two glasses of vodka on an empty stomach, Svetlana was thoroughly intoxicated. She laughed at every joke Leonid made, and the forty-three-year-old officer seemed to grow younger in her eyes. When he leaned in to kiss her, her head swam, and she didn’t resist as his hands slid beneath her skirt. Encouraged by her passivity and his own growing desire, he undressed her and gently laid her across the passenger seats.
The sensation of the familiar never left Svetlana the entire time Skvortsov was fussing over her. The same abruptness in his words, the same haste, the same movements restricted by clothing, and absolutely no tenderness. The sole difference resided in the location where men positioned her on each occasion—whether it was on an old office sofa, over the airplane seats, or on the kitchen table in her parents' apartment, just a brick wall away from where her younger sister was taking a shower standing in the tub in the next room.
"No," Svetlana thought as she pulled on her panties and adjusted her slightly askew bra. "This has to end someday."
She shot a disdainful look at the Deputy Air Regiment commander in political affairs as he fastened his pants, humming smugly to himself. His favorite tune, The March of the Communist Brigades, filled the room:
"People will have happiness,; Happiness forever;; The Soviet Power; Has great strength."
"The power of the Soviet government might indeed have 'great strength', but your strength, my friend, not so much. One might even say quite the opposite—very weak," she mused, half-smiling to herself.
Still not fully sober, she toyed with the idea of saying it aloud to the senior officer, but the moment slipped away. Leonid casually placed the empty bottle and glasses back into his briefcase and, without a word, disappeared into the pilots' cabin.
For several months now, Sergeant Yelizarov and Svetlana had stolen every chance they could to be together. As soon as the door closed behind her, Konstantin eagerly pulled her into a series of tender kisses, guiding her toward his desk.
Their passionate embrace happened to align with the very moment my aircraft, gliding silently with its engines powered down, vanished from the radar—just two hundred miles from home base. The tiny glowing point on the green screen flickered, then faded into oblivion.
Oblivious to this, Svetlana sat on the desk, her skirt bunched up around her waist, her back resting against the radar screen.
Konstantin, the radar operator, was whispering words of love and grand promises of a bright future. But Svetlana, five years his senior, remained skeptical. She had long lost track of how many times young sailors, full of youthful enthusiasm, had promised to take her back to their hometown after military service.
Here, though, in the isolation of the radar station, where the massive aerial whirred overhead and miles of equipment surrounded them, she felt free. There were no nosy neighbors to eavesdrop, no need to hide her lover under the bed to avoid the prying eyes of the garrison superintendent. She cried out, feeling liberated in a way she could never be anywhere else.

The Sergeant was growing weary. Struggling to maintain his balance while standing, he held Svetlana’s plump legs in his grasp. His arms ached, so he sat down in a nearby chair, hoping for a brief respite. But Svetlana had other plans. She swiftly moved onto his lap, her body pressing warmly against his. Konstantin kissed her neck, but as his eyes drifted over the radar screen, his body suddenly stiffened.
Svetlana immediately sensed the change. She leaned back slightly, searching his face with a piercing gaze.
Her tone turned sharp as she demanded,;"What’s the matter, Konstantin? Why did your 'friend' suddenly go soft? Did I do something wrong?"
His voice was barely a whisper, filled with a quiet dread.;"Where is he?"
Svetlana frowned in confusion. "Who are you talking about?"
"The crew with callsign 716," he muttered, eyes locked on the now-empty radar screen.
Realizing something was off, Svetlana climbed off his lap, her curiosity turning into concern.;
"Where was he?" she asked, standing up and adjusting her disheveled skirt.
"When you came in, he was right here," Konstantin said, pointing to the spot on the radar screen where the aircraft had last appeared. Glancing at his wristwatch, he added, "Right now, he should be at least a hundred miles closer, but... he’s gone."
Svetlana's expression shifted from playful to serious. Having served in the Fleet’s communication battalion for over five years, she knew how dire the situation could be. Buttoning her blouse and smoothing her skirt, she spoke with urgency.
"Report the disappearance of the target immediately to the flight director."
Without waiting for his response, she darted toward the iron staircase that led out of the radar station. Her heart pounded as she nearly stumbled down the steps, rushing between parked aircraft, heading straight for the communications office.
The moment the door closed behind her, Konstantin’s hand trembled as he lifted the receiver of the direct line to the flight director. His voice shook with urgency as he reported, "Comrade Lieutenant-Colonel, this is Sergeant Yelizarov, operator of the long-range radar station. Mark 716 vanished from the radar ten seconds ago."
He added, recalling the exact data from memory, "At a distance of two hundred miles, azimuth 105 degrees."
That was the precise location where the plane had last appeared, just ten minutes earlier—right before Svetlana had entered the room.

Chapter 7: Drifting on the Edge of Life and Death

Securing all the rubber door buttons, I stretched out on the floor of the raft. The inflated base shielded us from the icy ocean beneath. Sadly, we had no source of heat—neither vodka nor grain alcohol to rub down the completely drenched bombardier. His responses to our questions had diminished over the past few hours. We tried to warm him with our bare hands, but our energy soon gave out. Exhausted both physically and mentally, we succumbed to sleep. When we awoke the next morning, we found the young lieutenant had passed away.
The navigator's grief erupted as he wailed over the cold body. The bombardier had been like a younger brother to him. They had shared countless hours together, during which the seasoned navigator taught him the intricacies of bomb hatch operations, bomb release angles, and adjustments for wind and altitude—all the skills of his trade. In the midst of his lament, the navigator suddenly lifted his head and glared at me with a menacing expression. He seemed ready to speak, but a cough from deep within choked off his words.
A fever burned in his eyes. It dawned on me that he was overheating. The previous day, while rescuing his comrade, he had pushed himself far harder than I, ending up partially soaked.
I wasn’t too worried about my own condition. We had enough provisions for ten days, especially since we were just two now, not the six that the supplies had been planned for. But the navigator’s deteriorating state suggested we might not even last two days.
By that time, we should be found. Based on my calculations, we were only a hundred miles from the peninsula. I even knew the direction of the Kamchatka shore, though that knowledge felt useless now.
The navigator slumped against the side of the raft, sitting on the rubber floor. He shot me another menacing look.
Suddenly, I remembered we both had pistols—eight bullets each in the left pocket of our coveralls.
This realization didn’t add to my usual optimism. Hoping to preempt any rash actions from him, I unzipped my jacket and reached for my pistol with my right hand.
The navigator’s eyes widened. His pupils darted around, and I saw on his face that he was beginning to grasp the situation.
Not wanting to provoke him, I slowed my movement. Calmly grabbing the pistol’s handle, I eased it out of my pocket. Without taking my eyes off him, I aimed the barrel upward and loaded a bronze-coated bullet into the chamber.
The navigator’s lips twisted into a sardonic smile.
"You're afraid of me, Commander?" he asked, still sitting rigid.
"No," I replied, "I'm more concerned about polar bears prowling the ice floes for seals. If one of them decides to tear through the rubber raft, our fate would be much worse than that poor bombardier’s."
"But it would be easier than the fate of the radio operator and the gunner. Tell me honestly, Commander—have you already forgotten about them?"
"Quite the opposite," I said. "I remember how they shot out the glass of their cabin, and it reminded me that we still have firearms. In case of an emergency, we can use them too."

He fell silent for several minutes, staring into the endless, icy void before finally speaking. "But you lied about the bears, Commander. The chances of encountering one are so slim you wouldn't even flinch. Not until you heard someone else’s breath in this eerie silence." He let out a deep, trembling sigh, his voice heavy with exhaustion and bitterness. After a pause, he continued, his words dripping with resignation.
"We both know I'll be the first to go. And you—my Commander—you’re worried I might shoot you before I die. Maybe to settle the score for the deaths of those good men. You should be worried. It hadn’t crossed my mind before, but now I see it’s not such a bad idea. So, here's a proposition: shoot me now. Don’t wait. Toss my body into the sea. You can tell the investigators I perished alongside the co-pilot. There won’t be any witnesses left to question your supposed negligence. After all, our young bombardier won’t be telling anyone anything."
His voice faltered as he spoke, as though every word took more out of him than he had left to give. I could feel the weight of his anguish settling over us like the clouds overhead, thick and suffocating. He was broken, teetering on the edge, and I knew it. But he wasn’t the only one.
So, if he wanted to speak openly, I thought, I might as well do the same.
"You’re right," I said, my voice calm but laced with weariness. "It’s not the bears I’m truly worried about—the gun is just a precaution in case you get any ideas." I paused, feeling the bitter wind cut through my jacket, and continued. "Have you ever thought about why, in the late 1960s, the Soviet Union and China nearly pushed each other to the brink of crisis?"
He said nothing, but his eyes flickered with a faint interest, so I went on, almost as if I were speaking to myself.
"Back then, Mao Zedong was on the decline, but still very much in control. Our government had serious concerns that a dying Mao might pull the trigger on a nuclear war, dragging millions from both nations into the abyss. Dying men are unpredictable." I glanced at him briefly, watching his gaunt face in the dim light. "That’s why my pistol is cocked, resting in the unzipped pocket of my jacket. The safety is on, but I can draw it faster than you. You can think whatever you like about me, but it would be wise to keep your hands off your own pistol."
"Then kill me," he said flatly, his lips curling into a contemptuous smile. "I already suggested that."
So he had been listening after all. I had to admire his tenacity, even in the face of certain death.
"That won’t work," I replied curtly.
"Why?" His voice was sharper now, a spark of defiance lighting in his eyes.
"Because accidentally shutting off the engines is one thing, but cold-blooded murder is a whole different level."
"But if I survive," he shot back, "I'll tell the investigators everything. You’ll stand trial, and you’ll rot in a cell for the rest of your life."
I nodded, the words washing over me like the waves slapping against the raft. "I have no doubt. But I’ll find a way to live with the guilt of the mistake that’s already cost four lives." I emphasized the number, driving it home. "What I could never live with is taking a life on purpose."
Silence fell between us, thick and suffocating. The navigator’s eyes burned with fever and something else—a primal fear, perhaps, or the slow unraveling of a man who knew his time was running out. I felt it too, that gnawing sense of inevitability, but I couldn’t let it consume me. Not yet.
I pulled out the survival kit and began methodically inspecting its contents, desperate for any distraction from the weight of his gaze. The compass was useless for now, so I set it aside. I picked up the signal mirror and the flare gun, opening the raft’s rubber door wider as I stared at the sky. The clouds stretched from one horizon to the other, thick and low, a heavy blanket smothering any hope of rescue.
Even if I hear the sound of a passing plane, I thought grimly, neither the mirror nor the flare gun will be of much help. The signal rocket would barely pierce the gray clouds, disappearing into the gloom before anyone could spot it. And the mirror—without sunlight, it’s just a piece of metal, useless for anything other than watching my own reflection as my beard grows longer, a reminder of how little time we had left.
Returning to my spot, I resumed my examination of the survival kit. I pulled out a fishing kit filled with hooks, bobbers, lures, and weights. For a moment, I stared at it in disbelief, wondering who in their right mind thought this would be useful. I wasn’t much of an angler, and the absurdity of it all gnawed at me. Did they expect us to fish in this desolate ocean? Even if I tried, I’d need live bait—a worm, a fly, a scrap of meat. And what about a fishing pole? A lure doesn’t just dangle uselessly; it needs to mimic a fish in motion, swimming through the water. The whole idea felt hopelessly pointless. I tossed it aside with a growing sense of frustration and hopelessness.
Next came the knife. Why include a knife in this kit? Every crew member carries their own. I twirled it in my hand, feeling its weight, as if the act of holding it might offer some form of comfort. But it didn’t. I tossed it back in the kit and picked up the medical box. It was filled with bandages and pills, sterile and cold, just like everything else in this cruel, indifferent raft. Without even opening it, I tossed the kit toward the navigator’s feet and said, "Navigator, see if you can find some antibiotics. Maybe it’ll bring your fever down, at least for a little while."
“That’s no use,” he muttered, his voice hollow and lifeless.
The biting edge in his tone from earlier was gone. The tension between us—born from fear, distrust, and guilt—seemed to have evaporated. In its place was something far worse: resignation. I hated it. I couldn’t let him slip away into that void just yet. Pushing the survival kit aside, I crawled across the raft on my knees to his side. Without a word, I opened the box of tablets, spilling a handful of antibiotics into his palm.
"Swallow them," I ordered, my voice firmer than I felt.
He shook his head, his eyes dim with exhaustion, his lips chapped and cracking. I wasn’t going to let him refuse. I retreated back to my corner, scooping up some seawater with the aluminum lid from the fishing kit. I threw in two purification tablets, watching them dissolve slowly, stirring the water with my finger. The motions felt mechanical, routine, something to keep me from thinking too much. When it was ready, I crawled back to him and held it out.
"Drink this," I said softly, the words barely audible over the eerie silence around us.
He took a couple of swallows, grimacing at the taste before looking up at me, his eyes flickering with a faint curiosity. "Why are you doing this? Do you really think there’s a chance we’ll be rescued? Or that we’ll even be alive when they find us?"
His question hung in the cold air between us, heavier than the weight of the ocean beneath our fragile raft. I didn’t answer immediately. The truth was, I wasn’t sure anymore. I wasn’t sure of anything. But I couldn’t afford to admit that—not to him, not to myself.
"Today, I’m not certain of either," I finally replied, keeping my voice steady. "But there’s nothing else to be done. Why not fight a little longer? For now, let’s hold on. Just look—while we’ve been talking, while I’ve been rummaging through this useless kit, day has already turned to night. We’re still here, aren’t we?" I paused, letting the darkness settle around us. "I’ll check our food supply, and after supper, we’ll rest. Tomorrow is another day."
I opened two cans of hash, their contents oozing out like something better suited for an animal than for us. I nudged one toward him with my foot, tossing him a packet of wafers. Then, I began eating in silence. The food was tasteless, gritty, and cold. Every bite felt like chewing on sandpaper, but I forced it down.
The navigator stared at the can for a long moment before finally picking up the spoon. His hand trembled as he brought the food to his lips, and I saw him wince as he swallowed. "Do you really think it’s worth it?" he asked quietly, his voice stripped of its earlier defiance, replaced now by something softer, something almost childlike in its vulnerability. "Do you think we’ll make it through this?"
I hesitated, feeling the cold seeping into my bones. The truth? No, I didn’t think so. But I couldn’t say that. Not now. He was hanging on by a thread, and so was I.
"I don’t know," I answered, staring at the horizon where the sea met the sky in a dark, indistinguishable blur. "But as long as we’re still breathing, there’s always a chance. And that’s enough for me."
He didn’t say anything more. We ate in silence, the only sound the faint lapping of the waves against the raft. The night felt endless, stretching out before us like a vast, impenetrable blackness. Somewhere in the distance, far beyond the reach of our sight, there might have been ships, or planes, or maybe just more water. But here, in the fragile space of this raft, it was just the two of us—two men clinging to life, to hope, to whatever scraps of sanity we had left.
The next two days brought a storm that raged across the ocean, plunging us into darkness, both outside and within. We lay motionless on the raft’s floor, the rubber door firmly buttoned shut, while the waves tossed us violently, spinning our world into chaos. It felt like being trapped inside the belly of a beast, our bodies thrown around as if we were nothing but rag dolls. The nausea was relentless, gnawing at us constantly, though there was no vomiting—our stomachs had been empty for far too long. All we could do was hope to lose consciousness, to be free of this living nightmare for just a few hours and wake up when it was all over.
But it never ended.
The navigator fared no better. From time to time, his feverish body, much like the bombardier's before him, rolled over onto me, dead weight in the gloom. His labored breaths echoed through the cramped space, sometimes sharp with pain, sometimes just a ragged whisper. The storm outside was merciless, but the storm inside was worse. We were being eroded, piece by piece, by the cold, the hunger, the silence.
By the end of the fourth day, hope—whatever thin strand I’d been clinging to—was unraveling fast. The navigator’s fever had become a blazing inferno. He drifted in and out of reality, mumbling incoherent fragments of conversations, calling out to his wife, sometimes laughing softly as if he could see his two sons playing in the room with him. It was unbearable to listen to. I didn’t know which was worse—his delirium or the unbearable silence in between.
Unable to take it anymore, I took cotton wool from the medical kit, stuffed it into my ears, and lay there, trying to block out his voice. But the sound of his suffering clung to me, wrapping around my thoughts like the ropes of the sea pulling us under. I tried to move as little as possible, willing my mind to slip away, to detach from the horror of what was happening.
And yet, a single, inescapable thought gnawed at me in the dark: What will become of me if I am found?
Would I be saved, only to face judgment for the deaths of my crew? Could I live with their ghosts, with the weight of guilt pressing down like the waves that now tossed us about? Or would survival only be the beginning of a different kind of torment?
While my mind spiraled in that desolate thought, hundreds of miles away, a different kind of storm was brewing.

Chapter 8: Rescue from the Abyss

The search and rescue operation for my crew began the moment Colonel Maksimov, commander of the independent aviation regiment and the officer in charge of flights that day, ordered all airborne crews to return to their base. At the same time, he instructed his deputies, the commander of the communications battalion, and the commander of the independent helicopter squadron of the border detachment to report to the command and dispatch center.

         After reporting over the phone to the Fleet Air Force Commander about the disappearance of Captain Grigoriev’s crew from the long-range radar station’s screen, Maksimov leaned over the map and, without addressing anyone in particular, asked:

         "Sergeant Yelizarov reported that the last sighting of Seven-One-Six was at a range of two-fifty, altitude eight. What’s the rangefinder error at that distance?"
         "Negligible, Comrade Colonel. No more than two hundred meters in range and six angular minutes in width," responded Lieutenant Colonel Ilyin, the independent commander of the communications battalion.

         Maksimov gave the signal officer a sidelong glance.

         "My mistake, Comrade Colonel—about six hundred meters by azimuth," Ilyin corrected himself.
         "The fact that you're at fault, Ilyin, I have no doubt. But the degree of your guilt will be determined by the military prosecutor’s office."
         "What exactly are you accusing me of?" the lieutenant colonel asked, visibly taken aback.
         "Of the fact that you had a sergeant in charge at the P-35 instead of a captain or, at the very least, a senior lieutenant."

         As they waited for the helicopter squadron commander to arrive at the command and dispatch post, Maksimov approached the chief of staff. The major was tracing circles south of the Commander Islands with a compass. Maksimov studied the rings radiating from the marked point and quietly asked:
         "Do you believe he went down in the sea?"
The major removed his glasses and looked his commander straight in the eye, saying nothing.
         "If he landed on the Aleutian Islands, at the Americans’ base, you and I are going to prison. You understand that, right?" Maksimov pressed when no answer came.

         The chief of staff wiped sweat from his large receding hairline with a handkerchief before finally responding:
         "I don’t think he would have done that. He just got promoted, recently married. His career was on an upward trajectory. I see no reason for him to betray his country."
         "The military counterintelligence will find reasons fast enough. Don’t forget—Grigoriev served under Gribov for four years. And we didn’t kick the major out of the Party for drinking or adultery. Grigoriev could have easily absorbed his former commander’s apolitical sentiments."
         "What about his wife?"
         "His wife?" Maksimov scoffed. "Remember ‘1976? When Viktor Belenko took off from Chuguyevka air base in a MiG-25 and landed on Hokkaido? He had a wife. He had a daughter. He was even up for a deputy squadron commander position. Nothing stopped him.”

         The Major shifted uncomfortably, his hands fiddling with the compass as if trying to draw a different outcome on the map.
         "If Grigoriev had planned to land on the Aleutians, he would have done it immediately. There was no need to fly nearly a thousand kilometers back. He’d have simply shot the crew to keep them from interfering and landed without any unnecessary risk at an enemy airbase."

Maksimov paused, considering the words. There was a truth to what the Major was saying, but suspicion still gnawed at him, an unrelenting doubt. He looked back at the circles on the map, tracing the invisible lines of what-ifs and worst-case scenarios.
"Well," he said finally, his voice soft but tense, "I hope you’re right. If we find wreckage in the ocean, we’ll get reprimands. But if my suspicions are confirmed, we’ll have to face the consequences."

         While the two men spoke in hushed tones, officers gathered around the oval table, the room filled with an undercurrent of quiet conversation. Their faces were tense, every line etched with the weight of the unknown. The air crackled with unspoken anxieties, each of them wondering what had really happened out there. The meeting began, with the chief of staff delivering a brief on what little they knew so far.

Over the course of an hour, a complex, coordinated effort was devised by the naval and air forces of the Kamchatka flotilla. The chief of staff, along with senior navigators, meticulously mapped out a circular search area with a radius of forty miles based on Sergeant Yelizarov's report. The outer half of this search area was assigned to the TU-16 squadron, while the inner half was shared between the anti-submarine squadron’s Be-12 flying boats and the border guard helicopter squadron. Surface ships were dispatched from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka, steaming out to aid the air forces in scouring the presumed disaster zone.

For seven days, the pilots flew low, tirelessly skimming the ocean’s surface from dawn until dusk, their eyes straining for any sign of life—or death. But despite their best efforts, neither they nor the sailors aboard the frigates found a trace. Not an oil slick, not a shard of metal, not a body. The ocean swallowed everything. To them, it was as if we had never existed at all.

But I existed. I was drifting much closer to shore than any of them could have predicted, alone now among the ice floes with the two deceased navigators. Slowly, quietly, I was losing my grip on reality.

It started with a hollow sense of detachment. I tried to push the dark thoughts away, convincing myself that help was coming, that they couldn’t just abandon us. But as the hours turned to days, I felt myself unraveling. To keep my mind from collapsing into that endless black hole of despair, I began to sing. It was a pitiful, desperate attempt to tether myself to something—anything—that still felt human.

I sang every song I could remember, one after the other, filling the freezing air with broken melodies. At first, it distracted me. But when I reached the eleventh verse of Mikhail Svetlov’s "Grenada," the weight of my situation crashed down with such brutal force that it felt like a physical blow. I repeated the lines over and over, each repetition dragging me deeper into a hollow, spiraling abyss.

The platoon didn’t notice the loss of the man;
And sang its last “Apple” song out—but in vain—; For soft through the sky in its traces there ran;
On dark sunset’s velvet the tears of the rain.

The words blurred as tears streamed down my face, hot and bitter against the cold wind. The rain in the song became my own, pouring silently down my cheeks, mixing with the salt of the sea air. I was losing myself, slipping into a place beyond hope, beyond fear.

It wasn’t long before my mind began to conjure illusions so vivid they felt more real than the biting cold. I was no longer in the raft; I was back in Captain Likhovtsev’s office, facing an interrogation I knew was inevitable. His office was sterile, the walls draped in an oppressive silence. On the wall behind him hung the severe portrait of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Extraordinary Commission, his cold eyes staring down at me like judgment incarnate. Behind me, two investigators from the Military Prosecutors' Office sat quietly, their hands busy transcribing my every word. I could feel their presence like a weight pressing on the back of my neck, though I wasn’t allowed to turn and face them.

Captain Likhovtsev sat behind his desk, his voice soft—almost affectionate—but he was relentless, like a wind-up toy that wouldn’t stop. He kept repeating the same question, his words biting with an edge of practiced cruelty.

"Well, what exactly happened during your flight, Grigoriev?"

I told him the story, recounting every detail of how the engines had failed. But he kept asking, over and over, the same question, never satisfied with my answers. I repeated the story again and again, my voice growing hoarse, my nerves fraying. His smile was calculated, cold, and cruel, the kind that made your skin crawl. The investigators behind me chimed in with their own questions, clarifying details, but I wasn’t allowed to respond to them directly. I could only answer Likhovtsev, who stared at me with the same intensity as Dzerzhinsky’s portrait.

The room felt like it was closing in on me. Suddenly, Likhovtsev leaped to his feet, his chair scraping across the floor. He leaned over the desk, his face inches from mine, his breath hot and rancid. His voice exploded in my ears.

"Don’t lie to me, Grigoriev! The engines couldn’t have just failed! You must have shut them off! Because you’re the enemy!"

I felt myself crumble, tears welling up in my eyes as I mumbled through sobs, "They could have failed on their own. They could have!"

Without warning, his hand came down hard, striking my chin. The force sent me tumbling backward, the chair clattering to the floor as I collapsed in a heap. I lay there, stunned, my heart racing, the taste of blood sharp in my mouth.

The sharp smell of ammonia snapped me back to the present like a slap across the face. My head jerked back, my senses reeling. I opened my eyes slowly, squinting against the light, my vision blurry and disoriented. Above me stood an officer in a white coat, the high collar of his naval uniform peeking out beneath it.
A wave of recognition washed over me, and for a fleeting moment, hope surged in my chest. Doctors. They’ve found me. I’m not hallucinating anymore—they’ve found me. The realization sent a jolt through my body, but it was a fragile hope, held together by a thin thread of sanity.

Doctors on naval vessels and submarines still adhered to the old tradition of wearing their white coats over their uniforms. That detail alone gave me an anchor in reality. It meant that, for now at least, I was under the care of doctors—not being interrogated by investigators in some windowless room.
I tried to lift myself up, my arms trembling as I propped myself onto my elbows. The officer’s face came into clearer focus, his expression unreadable, but his presence grounded me. The room spun slightly as I blinked, struggling to hold on to the fragile sense of reality.
But even as the fog of hallucination lifted, I knew deep down I couldn’t escape my fate forever. The interrogation would come. The questions, the suspicions, the blame—it would all come crashing down. For now, I was alive. But survival was just the beginning of a different kind of battle.

"Just stay down, Lucky, and don't move," the military doctor instructed, his voice calm but firm. "At least until you're off the intravenous."
I glanced at my left arm, where a needle was embedded, delivering a steady flow of something into my veins. A comforting warmth began to spread through my body, thawing the icy tension that had gripped me for days.
"Is that glucose you're giving me?" I asked, my voice sounding weaker than I intended.
"Yes," he replied briefly, barely looking up as he continued jotting notes in his journal.
In that moment, a flood of emotion surged through me—gratitude, affection, even a strange kind of love. I adored this submarine doctor in the way a patient adores the surgeon who, when asked, "Doctor, will I survive the operation?" offers not a cynical or indifferent reply, but a warm, reassuring smile and says with quiet confidence, "Absolutely, you’ll be just fine."
The relief I felt for this man—this lifeline—was overwhelming, more profound than the vast Pacific that had nearly claimed me. I had come to loathe the ocean, its endless expanse now a bitter reminder of isolation and death. But here, in the cramped quarters of this submarine, with a needle in my arm and warmth spreading through my body, I felt something I hadn’t allowed myself to feel for days: hope.
Only those who have stared into the abyss and been spared at the last possible moment can understand the depth of my gratitude. It was the kind of relief that only comes from knowing you’ve been saved from a death sentence—like a last-minute pardon from the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union.
“What’s the date today?” I asked, suddenly desperate for human connection, for any scrap of normalcy.
“It’s the eighteenth,” the doctor replied, sensing my need for conversation. He set aside his notes and looked at me, giving me a sliver of attention I hadn’t realized I craved.
"I lost two comrades," I murmured, my voice raw with the weight of it. "One just two days ago, the other five days ago." I wasn’t sure why I said it, hoping maybe he’d understand, or find some significance in the fact that I’d survived when they hadn’t.
But he remained silent, offering me no consolation, no words of comfort. Just silence.
My mind, still swirling in the haze of glucose and warmth, grasped at the details. "How was I found?" I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.
The doctor glanced at me briefly before answering. He explained that submarines, during their return to base, surface for the last fifty nautical miles of the journey. It was then, when they breached the waves, that the duty officer spotted my orange raft drifting among the ice floes. From that moment, the primary concern wasn’t the wreckage or what had happened—it was whether anyone was still alive.
“We reported your rescue to headquarters immediately,” he continued, glancing at his watch. “You’ll be on shore in about an hour. I believe the hospital ambulance is already waiting for you.”
His words felt distant, though the reality of rescue was finally sinking in. Soon, I would be on solid ground again. I should have felt joy, maybe even relief. But all I felt was a gnawing hollowness. The kind that settles deep in your bones when you realize survival comes with its own burdens.

Chapter 9: The Burden of Survival

        On the pier of the 25th Submarine Division in Vilyuchinsk—though, strictly speaking, the division’s piers were located in Vilkovo—the regiment commander and Captain Likhovtsev were waiting for me. Standing two meters apart in their black woolen greatcoats under the drizzling rain, they silently watched as two seamen carried me down the iron gangway on a stretcher.

It was completely unnecessary.

Back in the medical bay of the nuclear submarine, while discussing my disembarkation, I had told the doctor there was no need to carry me onto the pier on a stretcher.
"I’ll have to climb the vertical ladder myself anyway. I can walk the twenty meters down the gangway just fine."
But the wise doctor had his own way of doing things.
"If you resist," he warned, "I’ll have you carried out on a stretcher through the torpedo-loading hatch—right after the bodies of your dead navigators. I’ll assign six seamen instead of two for the job. But if you cooperate, you’ll walk out of the conning tower ‘on your own,’ on the opposite side of the floating dock. There, you’ll lie down on the stretcher, and two seamen will carry you straight into the sticky hands of justice. I know what’s best for you. You’ll thank me later.”

The squadron commander and Captain Likhovtsev faces were solemn, unreadable. I should have felt something seeing them—relief, fear, maybe even gratitude—but my emotions were numb, dulled by exhaustion and the overwhelming weight of everything that had happened.

As they transferred me from the submariners' stretcher to the ambulance, I recounted the incident to them in brief, halting sentences. The counterintelligence officer hurried off to naval headquarters to report the situation, leaving me alone with Maksimov.

He stood quietly by my side, watching the medics work. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, he said, "Valery, I don’t believe your version of both engines failing simultaneously. But I’ll stand up for you."
I turned to him, searching his face for understanding. "Why, comrade Colonel?"

He sighed, his eyes hardening as he spoke. "I don’t believe it because in eighty-five percent of aircraft equipment failures, people are to blame. Mostly pilots. But I’ll defend you because you survived. You didn’t shoot yourself, and you didn’t throw your dead comrades overboard."

His words hit me like a blow, the weight of them sinking in slowly. In his own way, he was offering me redemption, even if he doubted my story. He wasn’t accusing me outright—he was giving me the benefit of survival. And in this world, survival seemed to be enough to earn his reluctant respect.

"Thank you for that, Commander," I whispered, though my gratitude felt hollow. Surviving the ocean was one thing. Surviving what was coming next—that was an entirely different battle.

Captain Likhovtsev, the counter-espionage officer, had tried to station an armed guard outside my room in the intensive therapy ward. I wasn’t surprised—it was typical of him to assert control, even here. But Colonel Ivanchenko, the head of the hospital, was not a man to be easily overruled. When he found out about the guards, he wasted no time in sending them away, declaring firmly, "For the time being, I am in charge here, not the KGB officer."

It wasn’t long before the chief of counter-espionage for the flotilla got involved, escalating the situation. He personally contacted Ivanchenko, explaining in painstaking detail why my presence in the therapy department was of such vital importance to their investigation. I could imagine their conversation—one filled with bureaucratic tension, each man determined to have the final say. After what I can only assume were lengthy and exhausting negotiations, Ivanchenko reluctantly gave in. He allowed sailors to be stationed outside my door but insisted they remain unarmed. They were to sit discreetly at a small desk, blending in as much as possible to avoid arousing suspicion.

An official investigation into the deaths of my five crewmates had begun almost immediately after I recounted the circumstances of how each of them had perished. Those recountings weighed on me heavily, each one a ghost I could not shake. I knew ahead of me lay hours upon hours of interrogation, each session pulling me deeper into a web of questions and accusations. Whether I remained a witness or became the accused hinged on my defense—on how well I could convince the investigators that I had nothing to hide.

The investigator from the military prosecutor’s office, who had been assigned to my case, was no fool. He knew the dangers of too many people getting close to me. He rightly believed it would be better to shield me from potential informants—people who could manipulate, influence, or even extract information from me. Still, I craved information myself. I was desperate to know what the investigator knew, and more importantly, what he didn’t. That knowledge was the key. It would determine whether I could uphold my alibi, or if I’d be caught in a lie that could spiral into something far worse. Every word I said, every moment I spent in that hospital, was part of a careful balancing act.

Interacting with an armed guard would’ve made things harder—guards are trained to watch for everything, every shift in tone, every misplaced word. But a sailor on watch? That was something else entirely. First Lieutenant Filatov, the ground technician for the lost aircraft, didn’t face much trouble slipping past the unarmed sentry. A bottle of vodka was all it took. He handed it to the drowsy sailor at my door, who happily promised to forget he had ever seen anyone visit me.
Filatov was clever, bringing fruit as a cover for his visit, playing the role of a loyal subordinate visiting his ailing commander. To anyone who asked, he was simply delivering something to help me recover from my time among the ice floes.
When the First Lieutenant stepped into my room, I hardly recognized him. His once dark hair had streaks of gray, a reminder of how the ordeal had aged us all. He sat beside me, and in a hushed tone, shared what I had been so desperate to hear. After our disappearance, everyone in the squadron had been thoroughly interrogated. Every detail of our preparations for the flight was picked apart, analyzed, and scrutinized. Nothing had been overlooked—not even the volleyball game we played or the card games that took place in the doctor’s office.
I absorbed every word he said, realizing just how much the commission knew. This was crucial for me. It clarified the path I needed to take in my defense, guiding me toward the truth I could tell, the lies I had to keep hidden, and the traps I had to avoid.
I looked at Filatov, feeling the weight of gratitude settle over me like a warm blanket in the cold. "Thank you, First Lieutenant," I told him quietly, knowing his information had just given me a fighting chance. In that moment, his visit was more valuable than any medicine or treatment they could offer me in that ward.

His seemingly innocuous nighttime visit had saved me from the clutches of prison. Yet, in my darker moments, I wondered if perhaps spending five years in the Kamchatka flotilla’s prison—as the prosecutor had promised—might have been preferable to the image I could never escape: the haunting sight of my navigator’s blood gushing from his throat in those final, agonizing moments before death. Prison might have been more merciful than being trapped with that memory.



        A week after being discharged from the hospital, I was summoned to the office of the regiment’s chief of staff.

        "Valeriy," he said in a quiet voice. "With no witnesses, your explanation of the incident is irrefutable. The regiment’s command is fully on your side. But as you know, there’s an ‘office’ in the garrison that operates independently of us. They have their own objectives and their own opinions—about everything, from global affairs to what happens right here. I don’t want to scare you, but I have to warn you—any day now, you’ll be invited for a conversation at the counterintelligence headquarters."

        The lieutenant colonel rose from his desk and walked over to the map of the military town and airfield hanging on the wall.

        "Here," he said, pressing his finger against a small square as if trying to push through the thick drafting paper. "By the bypass road, a couple of hundred meters from the northern end of the runway—that’s their den. It’s about an hour’s walk at a leisurely pace. Have you ever dealt with them or their colleagues before?"

        "By the grace of God, no," I replied.
      
        "Well, then it’s in His hands." The lieutenant colonel gave a small nod. "Just stay calm during the conversation. The more composed you are, the fewer questions they’ll have for you. Understand?"

        "Forewarned is forearmed. Thank you for the advice, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel."

        "Think nothing of it. Go home and wait for the summons. Until the investigation is over, you’re excused from duty."
 
        "Understood—stay home until the investigation is complete."


        I approached the metal mesh fence surrounding the one-story military counterintelligence building exactly five minutes before my scheduled time. It was my first time here, and as I scanned the area, a strange unease settled in my chest.

        "Clever counterintelligence officers. They've hidden themselves well—in the forest, away from prying eyes. No one would just wander here by accident. It's at least five kilometers from the regimental headquarters, and that's if you cut straight across the runway. Take the long way around, and it's a full seven."

        A rusting electric doorbell was bolted to the metal gate. As I pressed the button, my pulse quickened. I couldn’t help but wonder how this interrogation would go—and, more importantly, what would happen once it was over.

        A few seconds later, the door to the counterintelligence office creaked open, and a Leading Seaman emerged. A bayonet knife dangled from the leather belt at his waist, the top button of his tunic was undone, and his regulation cap hung loosely in his hand.

        "So much for discipline," I thought, preparing to reprimand him. But I didn’t get the chance.

        "Name," the Leading Seaman demanded curtly, ignoring any formalities.

        I stiffened at his audacity. For a moment, I considered calling him out on it, but instead, I simply answered, "Captain Grigoriev."

        "Follow me, Captain," he ordered with a smirk—an arrogant, knowing smirk. As if he already had insight into my fate, something I had yet to grasp.

        I followed the insolent bastard toward a small wooden gazebo about fifteen yards from the entrance.

        "Son of a bitch. He’s enjoying this. Must mean he knows he won’t be punished for it."

        As we passed the hexagonal structure—a wooden shelter with a table in the center and benches lining the slatted walls—the Leading Seaman motioned toward a bench without looking back.

        "Wait here," he ordered.

        I stepped under the roof and turned to watch him.

        "Where’s he going? Toward the dog enclosure? What the hell for?"

        My fingers tightened around the edges of the table as I forced myself to focus. I picked up a copy of the 1975 Disciplinary Regulations of the Armed Forces of the USSR, flipping straight to Chapter Three: Disciplinary Sanctions Imposed on Soldiers, Sailors, Sergeants, and Petty Officers.

        I had just reached Paragraph 48—"The following disciplinary actions may be imposed on Privates and Seamen..."—when a voice cut through the tense silence behind me.
      
       "Reading the disciplinary code?" The Leading Seaman’s voice was laced with mockery. "You’re wasting your time. You should be reading the Criminal Code instead."

       As if casually tossing a death sentence my way, he turned and strolled back toward the headquarters building. Meanwhile, the German Shepherd that had followed him sat at the gazebo’s entrance, staring at me with cold, black eyes.

       "So that’s their play? Intimidation? Trying to break me before the interrogation even starts? If they actually had something on me, they wouldn’t need this circus act with the Leading Seaman and the dog."

       I smirked, leaned back, and shifted slightly away from the exit.

       "What, Blacky? They roped you into this game too? Nothing personal, I get it—orders are orders."

       A sudden urge to scratch behind the Shepherd’s ears flashed through my mind, but I stopped myself. Just in time.

       The office door slammed open, and Captain Likhovtsev appeared in the doorway.

       "Valery Sergeevich," he called out with a saccharine smile. "Welcome to our little gathering."

       The moment I stood, the dog bared its teeth, lowered its head, and let out a low, guttural growl.

       "Oh, forgive me," Likhovtsev drawled, his grin stretching wider. "I forgot to mention—our dear Onyx here is your personal bodyguard today."

       In the next instant, his face hardened, all pretense of friendliness vanishing.

       "Onyx! To your post!" he barked.

       The Shepherd immediately straightened and trotted off toward the kennel, where the same Leading Seaman stood waiting.


       The wooden floorboards of the Special Department headquarters in the Yelizovo garrison creaked treacherously beneath my feet.

       "Strange... I don’t hear the footsteps of the Operative Commissioner of the Committee for State Security of the USSR for Our Military Unit," I thought. "What is he, some kind of weightless divine being, gliding silently across the floor in polished shoes? Funny, I never really noticed his footwear before, even though I’ve seen him plenty of times—at the regiment’s grave site, in the garrison club. But now it stands out. Black patent leather shoes... In Yelizovo, of all places? A town where in summer there's dust, in autumn and spring—mud, and in winter—a slushy, filthy mess? That’s absurd."

        Likhovtsev pushed the door open and motioned for me to step inside the office of Major Solovyov, head of the Special Department.

        The portrait of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the first head of the Soviet secret service, was missing from its usual place behind the desk. That was the first discrepancy between reality and the dream I’d had several nights ago in the medical bay of the nuclear submarine.

        "Take a seat, Captain," Solovyov offered politely, pointing to a chair in front of his desk. "This conversation will be brief but very important for your future."

        I lowered myself onto the edge of the chair. Behind me, I heard the leather of the sofa creak.

        "Just like in the night-dream," I smirked internally. "Likhovtsev will be sitting right behind me."

        "Valery," Solovyov began, opening a folder of documents. "Tell me—how long have you been collaborating with foreign intelligence?"

       I froze.

       “Well, this is a fucking disaster." That was the first thing that flashed through my mind. So it’s not enough that, in their view, I sank an air missile carrier and lost five crew members. Now they want to frame it not just as sabotage but as outright treason—an offense punishable by execution."

       "I have never collaborated with any foreign intelligence services, never spoken with a single foreigner, and never even had an interest in learning a foreign language. From school-level German, all I remember is ‘Ich hei;e Valery,’ ‘Wie alt bist du?,’ ‘Nicht schie;en,’ and ‘Hitler kaputt.’ And from what we studied at flight school, I only recall that an airplane is called a ‘Flugzeug,’" I said, squinting slightly as I smiled.

       "You like to joke. That’s good." Solovyov leaned back slightly. "Then explain why, in the presence of fellow officers, you made the following statement: ‘A private in the Turkish Armed Forces receives a monthly salary of two thousand dollars, while you, the commander of an air missile carrier crew with three officers and two warrant officers under your command, earn only four hundred rubles. That’s the equivalent of forty dollars on the black market.’"

        "Those bastards ratted me out," I thought. But out loud, I said something else:

        "It's unfortunate that my words were misunderstood. All I meant was that the Turks will only defend their homeland for a hefty paycheck, while we, Soviet citizens, do so out of ideological conviction. There’s a reason the money we receive is called ‘monetary allowance’ and not ‘wages.’"

        "Who informed you about the salary of a Turkish private? For what purpose? Have they attempted to persuade you to defect with your aircraft to Japan?"

        "First of all, no one has ever suggested that I land an aircraft on foreign soil. Secondly, I read about it in an article titled ‘The Armed Forces of Turkey’ in a monthly informational-analytical journal published by the USSR Ministry of Defense. I don’t remember which issue. As for comparing a Turkish private’s salary with my own—that was my mistake. I believed in the recently declared policies of Perestroika and Glasnost, as announced by Mikhail Gorbachev. I’ve learned my lesson."

       "And what lesson is that?" Likhovtsev’s voice came from behind me.
"That I was too trusting and undiscerning in my choice of friends," I answered without turning around.

       "You’ve drawn the wrong conclusion, Comrade Captain," Solovyov said coolly. "We will verify your statements and draw the correct conclusions. As for the disaster involving your crew, I must inform you that our department, in coordination with the central KGB apparatus, will scrutinize all your connections, question every man and woman who knows you, and then issue a final assessment of your moral character—particularly regarding the possibility of deliberate actions that caused material and human losses to the state."

       "We’re not done with you, Valery," Likhovtsev added, rising from the sofa. "This is our first meeting, but far from our last. For now, you’re free to go. The duty Leading Seaman is waiting outside—he’ll escort you to the gate."



I clung to my story like a lifeline, repeating it with the precision of a well-rehearsed mantra. The engine failure during the transition from ‘Idle’ to ‘Cruise’—that was my truth. In my official reports, I admitted to everything: the card games in the doctor’s office, the volleyball matches before the flight, even the carelessness that led to our ill-fated takeoff. But I didn’t admit to my own inexcusable error. That part I buried deep, knowing it was the one thing that could truly damn me.
When the investigators had exhausted their questions, and there was nothing more to pick apart, I was sent to Vladivostok to await my fate. The command was eager to ensure I didn’t linger in the garrison any longer than necessary. It was as if my presence had become a burden, something that reminded everyone of the disaster they would rather forget.
The timing was perfect—or perhaps it was a necessary escape. The psychological atmosphere around me had become unbearable, thick with suspicion and resentment. During the symbolic burials of empty coffins, the widows of my comrades grieved not just for their husbands but for their shattered lives. Their pain turned to anger, and their curses, whispered through clenched teeth, were aimed squarely at me. I could feel the weight of their hatred, as if they were certain that my survival meant I must be the one responsible for the deaths of their loved ones.
As the days passed, the hero’s welcome I had received in the first days after my rescue evaporated. The void that replaced it was chilling, a cold, silent indictment that followed me wherever I went. Once, people had looked at me with awe, with pity, even with admiration. Now, they looked at me with suspicion, with quiet accusations simmering beneath their eyes. I was no longer the man who had survived a terrible ordeal—I was the man who had lived while others had died.
The widows of the fallen, dressed in black headscarves as they mourned their husbands, would cross paths with me on the street. Their faces were lined with grief, but it was their words that cut the deepest. They would turn to their children, their voices sharp with bitterness, and say:
"Look, my child, there goes the man who killed your father."
Their words hung in the air like a curse, and I would walk on, feeling the sting of guilt even though I had clung so fiercely to my story. No matter how many times I told myself it wasn’t true—that I wasn’t responsible—their words burrowed deep into my soul, becoming harder and harder to ignore.


Chapter 10: The Calm After the Storm

       I had to endure more than a month of agonizing anticipation, waiting for the official results of the investigation. Each day dragged on, the uncertainty pressing down on me like a weight I couldn’t shake. If not for that looming dread, these days could have passed for a well-deserved vacation—a brief respite from the ordeal I had been through. But there was no escape from the waiting.

During that time, a trial took place in Yelizovo for Lieutenant Colonel Ilyin. His offense? Allowing the duty officer of the radar station to leave during flights because of his wife’s illness. Alongside him stood Sergeant Yelizarov and the telephone operator, Mukhina.
The outcome was swift and brutal. The commanding officer of the independent communications battalion was stripped of his military rank and discharged without a pension—his career, his life in the Armed Forces, ended in disgrace. The radar operator, Yelizarov, was sentenced to two years in a punishment battalion, a harsh fate, but he had at least escaped with his freedom intact. As for Mukhina, she was declared innocent. The tribunal found no grounds to accuse her of a crime, though she didn’t escape unscathed. She was dismissed from military service for “abandoning her post while on duty with no negative consequences resulting,” and sent back to Vladivostok. A dismissal, but without the lasting stain of a conviction.
One day, in the midst of all this, Svetlana called me. I didn’t know her, and at first, I tried to politely decline her request to meet. I wasn’t in the mood for company, especially from a stranger. But she persisted. She said she felt terrible about the people who had died and wanted to express her sorrow, if only to ease her own burden. I made another attempt to avoid it, telling her I had forgiven everyone involved long ago, but she wasn’t satisfied with that. She pleaded with me, and in the end, I gave in.
“Why not go?” I asked myself. "My wife’s at the institute, my father-in-law’s on Russky Island for spring exercises with the marines, and my mother-in-law’s either at home or out shopping. I’ve got nothing to do, so why not spend a couple of hours? What harm could it do?"
I agreed to meet with Mukhina. “Where should we meet?” I asked, still unsure.
“Cafeteria Aigul, on Equipage Street, number twenty. You know it?” she suggested. It was right in the heart of the city.
"You’ve got to be kidding," I thought. “It’s just past the stadium, near the Military Investigation Department for the Vladivostok garrison. Of course I know it. I’ve been there many times—between interrogations.” My heart hesitated for a second.
“So, will you come? Or does it remind you of bad times, making it hard to relax?” she asked, her voice almost teasing, though I could sense a certain vulnerability beneath it.
The walk from the fleet headquarters to the caf; was about forty minutes. There was no chance of running into my father-in-law there, which made it feel like neutral ground. Safe, in a way.
"I’ll be there in an hour," I promised, still unsure if I was making the right choice.
As I turned the corner from the Naval History Museum onto the wide boulevard, I couldn’t help but find it amusing. I was on my way to meet Svetlana, walking down Svetlanskaya Street, and I didn’t even know what she looked like. The irony of it wasn’t lost on me. I realized I’d forgotten to ask during our call, and now I had no idea how I would recognize her.
But my worry was unnecessary. Svetlana turned out to be more clever than I’d expected.
When I entered the caf;, I saw her immediately. She was seated by the window at a small table for two, an empty flower vase in front of her. Leaning against it was a napkin, and written on it in elegant handwriting was “SVETLANA.” I couldn’t help but smile at her resourcefulness.
I looked from the napkin to her face and thought to myself, She’s not only clever but attractive. Maybe I was wrong to resist meeting her for so long. Then again, it’s not too late to change my mind.
I approached the table, took a seat across from her, and with a casual smile, I asked, “Sveta, how about a shot of cognac in the morning?”
“Absolutely,” she replied, smiling back, her eyes warm with amusement.
I waved to the waitress and ordered a bottle of Ararat cognac and a box of Maritimes Classic bird’s milk chocolates. The waitress gave me an appreciative nod.
“You’ve got good taste, Captain. That’s a limited export set,” she said before heading to the bar.
“An officer’s choice,” Svetlana remarked, her tone playful, but there was something guarded behind her smile.
“Lots of experience with officers?” I asked, trying to keep things light, though a part of me was genuinely curious.
“Yes,” she said, her voice softening. “And not always pleasant,” she added, her words hanging in the air like a faint warning, though she kept her tone diplomatic.
There was more to her than I’d anticipated. She wasn’t just here out of guilt or sorrow. I could see that now. She was navigating something deeper, something I couldn’t yet fully understand. But I was already starting to wonder if this meeting would unravel things I wasn’t prepared to face.

"I hope your time with me will be more enjoyable than with my predecessors," I said, raising my glass in mock solemnity, trying to inject a little lightheartedness into what could have been a tense first meeting.

“We’ll see,” she responded, her eyebrow arching slightly, her tone making it clear that she wasn’t about to let me off the hook so easily.
“Well, as the philosophers say, ‘While there’s life, there’s hope,’” I offered with a grin, hoping to pass for insightful, or at least optimistic.
Her smile was wry, but she played along. "I suppose you’re right. For now."
After some playful banter that helped ease the initial awkwardness, our conversation settled into a more peaceful rhythm. Surprisingly, the atmosphere was friendly—two people connected by tragedy but not weighed down by it. No apologies were exchanged, no tears of pity shed. It was almost unnervingly... normal. A few sips of cognac later, and Svetlana was opening up, sharing the entire dramatic tale of her first love. She left out the racier details, but, well, I have a healthy imagination.
As she spoke, I found myself taking in more than just her story. My mind wandered briefly, and I couldn't help but think about her sister’s husband, Lieutenant Fedorov. Lucky guy—he’s stationed in a battalion surrounded by two dozen young women. It’s like letting the fox into the henhouse. Now, if I had his job, even for just a month, I doubt I’d last longer than that. Exhaustion would get the better of me, no question. But what a way to go.
My attention started to drift as my eyes took a leisurely tour from her face to her breasts, two inviting curves nestled beneath the neckline of her dress. Not exactly subtle on my part, but then again, it wasn’t exactly a dress designed for subtlety either.
Noticing my wandering gaze—and realizing I wasn’t fully listening to her tragic love story—Svetlana shifted gears. She leaned in just a bit, her tone turning more intimate, more deliberate. “Valeriy, would you mind continuing our conversation at my place?”
She didn’t need to ask twice. Hell, she didn’t even need to ask once. I grabbed the half-full bottle of cognac off the table, nodded like the gentleman I’m absolutely not, and followed her out of the caf;.
Starting the morning with a good bottle of cognac? That had been a solid decision. By two o’clock, we were already sharing a shower, exchanging what could only be described as well-earned compliments. The kind of compliments that come after spending a few very productive hours in bed, getting to know each other in ways that required absolutely no tragic backstory.
A few hours later, as I was putting my clothes back on, we exchanged the usual pleasantries about staying in touch. It was all so cordial. I mean, we both knew we’d see each other again. There was no need for big promises or dramatic exits. She knew perfectly well I wasn’t about to leave my wife for her. That wasn’t part of the arrangement. But then again, she didn’t seem to mind. There was something comfortable about it. No one watching the clock. No rush to leave right after the shower. She appreciated that I could listen, that I wasn’t just using her, and honestly, I appreciated her too.
I was content with Mukhina. We both were, I think. We understood each other, no strings, no delusions. She wasn’t trying to change me, and I wasn’t pretending to be anyone other than the man sitting across from her in that caf; earlier that morning. It worked for us.
But it’s a shame, really—a pity, as they say—that all of this is in the past.
   
        A week later, I received a summons from the Pacific Fleet Aviation Commander. The way he greeted me, with a calm demeanor and a hint of warmth, gave me hope that maybe things weren’t as dire as I’d feared. The fact that his questions only focused on what happened after the emergency water landing was a good sign. No interrogation about the disaster itself—just curiosity about how I had managed to survive those nine long days on the raft. I described the ordeal, detailing every challenge and every fleeting thought I had while staring at that survival kit, and the valuable lessons I’d learned from first-hand experience.

Lieutenant General Yuri Gudkov was no ordinary commander. He was a legend. Graduating with honors from the Nikolaev Naval Mine-Torpedo Aviation School at the age of 20, becoming a colonel and an “Honored Pilot of the USSR” by 40, and a lieutenant general by 50, the man’s career was something you’d see in an official biography—polished and gleaming like a perfectly pressed uniform. The kind you couldn’t imagine ever getting a speck of dirt on.
His relaxed mood made me think my situation might not be so grim after all. He didn’t prod my emotional wounds or push for answers about the crash. Instead, he left his imposing chair, sat down on a stool across from me like a father having a heart-to-heart with his son, and asked in a gentle tone, “Tell me in detail, how did you survive on the raft for nine days?”
The shift in tone threw me off a bit. I’d been bracing myself for something far more combative. Instead, I was being asked to recount my survival story as if it were some grand adventure. I indulged him, recounting everything, down to the painful lack of waterproof suits. “Our clothing was always soaked, which meant we were always freezing,” I said, knowing full well that this was my one chance to make it clear what we were missing out there. Gudkov nodded thoughtfully and then asked me to prepare a full report for headquarters on the value of the survival kit—what worked, what didn’t, and, more importantly, what I’d found most essential. I promised I’d get it done in three days.
As our conversation wound down, General Gudkov posed a significant question:;"Captain Grigoriev, if you were offered the position of Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of the search and rescue service, would you be willing to accept it?"
And there it was—the career trap disguised as a promotion. For a moment, I pictured myself stuck in some dull office, watching the clock, filling out forms from nine to five, slowly withering away in the corridors of military bureaucracy. Even worse, I imagined becoming the fall guy for all the inadequacies in crew training for emergency situations, just like the unfortunate soul who’d held the position before me. Was that really my future?
Even the tempting prospect of bypassing the rank of Major and skipping right into the coveted Lieutenant-Colonel title couldn’t sway me. Not when the alternative was returning to my true love—flying.
Fate had granted me another chance at life, but I wasn’t about to throw it away behind a desk. I felt a sense of pride swell within me as I answered, “Comrade Lieutenant-General, if the alternative to your proposal is any pilot position, I would choose that position.”
Gudkov sighed, but there was a glimmer of understanding in his eyes.;
"Too bad," he said, though there was no real disappointment in his voice. "In the entire history of our Naval aviation, no one has managed to survive for nine days under such conditions. Your experience could prove invaluable to others, and you, as a living example, would instill confidence in the crews who must fly over the ocean for hours on end. But I understand and respect your choice."
He picked up the phone and dialed the chief of staff of the aviation fleet.;
“What do you hear about Grigoriev?” Gudkov listened for a moment before nodding. “Good.” He hung up, then turned to me with a meaningful smile and added, “The order will come from Moscow within the week. I believe you have nothing to worry about.”
I left his office feeling lighter than I had in weeks. Nearly sprinting down the hall, I made my way to my father-in-law’s office, eager to share the news of my victorious defiance. But instead of the praise I expected for standing firm, I was met with a withering stare and harsh criticism.
"You’re only thinking about yourself," he snapped. "Have you forgotten that you have a wife? It would be better for you to serve under my protection at headquarters and let my daughter finish her studies. Otherwise, they might reassign you to some remote outpost, like Khorol. And then you’ll learn what happens to those who refuse the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Do you even know why we called the air base Khorol?"
I blinked. “No.”
He sighed deeply, like a man disappointed in the universe. “Take a look at the map, and you’ll understand why the locals refer to their Far East as a massive backside, with Khorol as the hole.”
He paused, letting the visual sink in. After a few seconds, he continued, “Khorol air base has a reputation, you know. Do you understand what I mean?”
“No, I’ve never met any pilots from that base.”
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, as if he were imparting the great unspoken truth of the Soviet Navy.; “They say, ‘If the entire USSR Far East is like a big ass, then Khorol air base is its asshole.’”
I stared at him, momentarily speechless. It was the kind of blunt, crude wisdom you didn’t expect from a man who was normally so composed. But there it was.
“Well,” I finally said, “I’m glad I won’t be going quite that far.”


As promised by General Gudkov, my new assignment arrived within a week. I was handed the role of pilot-in-command for the AN-12 aircraft at the aviation transport wing. It wasn’t exactly the glamour of combat missions, but after everything that had happened, I was content with flying again—content, and perhaps a little relieved.
The 593rd Separate Transport Aviation Regiment was stationed about forty kilometers from the capital of Primorsky Krai. The base, nestled near the village of Zapadnye Knevichi, was nothing particularly special. Rows of military transporters sat parked in neat lines perpendicular to the runway, while the Tu-16 aircraft from the 183rd Missile Regiment loomed ominously along its entire length. To the south, a taxiway led to the civilian airport "Vladivostok," where the more routine world of commercial flights hummed away, oblivious to our military choreography.
The entire aircrew of both regiments lived in a small mining town named Artem, after Fyodor Sergeyev, better known by his party pseudonym, "Comrade Artem"—one of those revolutionary names you couldn’t escape in Soviet Russia. And there, in an officers' dormitory on Sevastopolskaya Street, House Five, I was destined to spend the rest of my days.
Life, as it turns out, has a remarkable sense of humor.

Twenty-seven years ago, I had come into this world just two kilometers from that very dormitory, in the maternity hospital on Partizanskaya Street. The same streets where I played as a child were now the backdrop for my adult life. My kindergarten? Just a hundred meters from my new home. School No. 16, where I’d suffered through my first two grades? A mere two hundred meters down the road. It was as if fate had decided to pull me full circle, like some cosmic joke I couldn’t escape.
As a boy, I spent my first nine years running around Frunze Street and Budyonny Passage, both named after heroes from the Russian Civil War. Now here I was, a man on the cusp of his new life, back where it all began.
And yet, this wasn’t the end of the story. Not yet.
On my way home from the fleet headquarters, I decided to pay a visit to Svetlana, the woman who had unexpectedly become something of a fixture in my life. It felt like a good excuse to celebrate my new assignment, like a mini holiday. Instead of the cognac she preferred (which we’d polished off just two weeks earlier), I brought two bottles of champagne. Classy, right?
As we settled into the familiar warmth of her apartment, I teased her a little, stroking her back as she nestled against me. “I’m going to be working under the watchful eye of your old intimate friend, Political Officer Skvortsov,” I said, a grin pulling at the corners of my mouth.
She pressed herself closer, clearly savoring the moment, her head resting on my chest. With a sly smile, she asked, “You’re not feeling jealous of my past, are you?”
“Jealous? No. Envious of your future, maybe,” I replied, laughing. “By this time tomorrow, I’ll be gone, and by the day after, you might already have forgotten what I look like.”
That earned me a light slap. She tried to pull away from me, her playful mood shifting as she prepared to make a grand exit from the bed. “All you men think women are possessions,” she said, her voice suddenly sharp. “You have wives waiting at home, but that’s not enough. You want a faithful mistress as well.”
Ah, the eternal complaint. I didn’t want to argue, not with a bottle of champagne only half-finished and my departure looming. So instead, I recited a poem I’d once heard from an unknown author—one that seemed to perfectly fit the situation:
The seeker asked the sage so wise,;      "Pray, reveal, with your knowing eyes,;   A clear response, I earnestly implore,;          What’s worth more than a beauty’s lore?";     The sage mused deep within his mind,;     And gently replied, "Two will be fine."
She laughed, the tension breaking, and settled back into my arms with a sigh. “All I can promise you, Valeriy,” she said in a much softer tone, “is a spot beneath my sheets whenever you feel like taking it.”
Now that was the kind of promise I could appreciate.



Chapter 11: The Wisdom of the Generals

The generals and senior officers stationed at headquarters really do know a thing or two, especially those in charge of making difficult decisions. Transferring me to a transport wing? Well, that was nothing short of brilliant. A clever way to sidestep a potentially thorny situation, giving me a role that kept me flying while keeping me out of the spotlight.
It was a promotion, yes, but one that came with just the right amount of distance from the high drama of my earlier days. Flying transport wasn’t glamorous, but it was necessary. And more importantly, it kept me in the air, away from the endless bureaucracy and even farther from the emotional mess that had followed me since the crash. They had handled it all quite neatly, I had to admit.
As for me? I couldn’t complain. Not anymore.
The investigation commission scrutinizing the catastrophe couldn’t come to a unanimous conclusion about the simultaneous engine failure. The engineering representatives, naturally, were inclined to blame the aircraft's commander—suspecting I’d made some concealed error that I was keeping to myself. After all, it's easier to blame a pilot than admit the machine might just betray you at the worst possible moment. On the other hand, seasoned pilots backed me up, insisting that, theoretically, anything could happen up there. Aircraft weren’t exactly known for their forgiving nature. They cited the prosecutor’s decision not to pursue criminal charges due to “insufficient evidence” and dug their heels in to defend me.
The result? An artfully worded reassignment—cleverly crafted to pacify both sides.
Officially, this shift from rocket carrier pilot to transport wing was a demotion, but to me, it felt more like a reward. It was better than any medal or promotion to Major. The kind of reward you don’t brag about but secretly savor.
Here’s the thing: every pilot harbored a hidden desire for an assignment like mine. Whether you were a fighter pilot, a bomber pilot, or—at worst—a helicopter pilot, deep down, you dreamed of joining the transport crew. Oh, sure, you’d never admit it. Not even to yourself. And certainly not in front of your colleagues. But there was no mistaking the quiet envy you felt when you saw those transport crews stroll into the pilot's mess, fresh from delivering cargo or personnel, looking all too relaxed. You’d think to yourself, "What a mistake I made enrolling in Tambov, Barnaul, Borisoglebsk Pilot College—or any pilot academy, for that matter. I didn’t know back then about the glorious existence of Balashov Transport Pilot College."
Even if you had known about it, your youthful arrogance would have led you to believe that real pilots lived for dogfights, cruise missile launches, or flying low over the ocean, hunting submarines with buoys and torpedoes. Or maybe you fancied yourself cruising at 45,000 feet, fantasizing about intercepting the American spy plane SR-71 Blackbird—futile though that hope was.
In reality, you spend eight hours flying in one direction, then eight hours flying back, strapped into a parachute harness, oxygen mask glued to your face, praying you might spot an American aircraft carrier, though knowing full well you'd be lucky to see a seagull. And slowly, as the years of combat missions drag on, you start to understand why those transport crews, the ones you used to sneer at, never want to retire—no matter how many sticks you wave at them.
Meanwhile, your friends, the so-called "real" pilots, start counting down the years until retirement a mere three or four years after graduating. They calculate every flight hour with one eye on the pension prize, knowing the formula well: "one year of flights equals two years of service." Their goal? Get out as soon as possible with the maximum pension in hand.
Of course, I felt sorrow for my fallen comrades. That weight never left me. But sometimes, in the quiet moments, I couldn’t help but think that every tragedy comes with a silver lining. And deep in my heart, I found myself grateful—not just to fate but to my father-in-law—for giving me the opportunity to land the very position I’d secretly longed for all along.
The guys from my new crew welcomed me as an experienced, battle-tested commander. Their tactfulness regarding my past surprised me. No prying questions, no hints, no whispers behind my back. They let the past lie, and for that, I was grateful.
Before my arrival, this crew flew under the leadership of Major Voytsekhovsky, the squadron deputy commander. And according to the navigator, my predecessor left quite the impression.
“He was a short guy,” Vasilyev told me. “A bit chubby, with a square face and thin, light hair. In short, your classic Russified Pole.”
I raised an eyebrow, already intrigued. “And?”
“He served four years past his retirement age. And believe me, those four years felt like the longest of our lives.”
Vasilyev leaned in, lowering his voice as if he were sharing state secrets. “The major was under constant pressure—retirement looming over him like a bad cold that just wouldn’t go away. And boy, did he let us know it. Every day, he found a reason to express his dissatisfaction with everything we did. In his opinion, we couldn’t fly properly, prepare properly, or even behave properly on business trips. And God forbid there was a moment of laughter in the crew, because he was convinced we were laughing at him—laughing because he was twice as old as any of us, short, fat, and Polish.”
I smirked. “That sounds… challenging.”
“Oh, and it gets better,” Vasilyev said, waving his hand dramatically. “On top of all those charming qualities, he was also stingy and mean as a snake. But his real gift? Manipulation. One time, when he was still in charge, he gave me a lesson on managing subordinates.”
“And what was his brilliant advice?” I asked, already expecting the worst.
“Almost word for word, he said: ‘Promise your subordinate a promotion. Let him treat you to vodka, bring women to your bed, carry your personal belongings from headquarters to the plane and back. In short, make him serve you like a dog. And then, when the time comes to deliver on that promotion, find some tiny flaw—anything will do—and say: No, buddy, you didn’t quite cut it. Maybe next time.’”
I burst out laughing, despite myself. “So, he was a true master of leadership.”
Vasilyev grinned. “Oh, the best. Honestly, after that, I almost miss him.”

Vasilyev felt sick to his stomach after hearing Voytsekhovsky’s pearls of wisdom on "leadership," but there was nowhere to run. After all, we were in the middle of a briefing, and escaping wasn’t exactly an option. He just had to sit there, marinating in the absurdity of it all.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Oh no. On the very first day of meeting my new crew, the radio operator, Onoprienko, casually asked if I smoked. I told him no, I didn’t, and his reaction was priceless—like I’d just announced that vodka was now calorie-free.
Then came the explanation. “During flights, Voytsekhovsky smoked a lot. And I mean a lot. He’d light one cigarette with another. A pack of Bulgarian 'TU-134' cigarettes would disappear in three to four hours of flight,” Onoprienko said, shaking his head at the memory. “It was a smoky symphony of misery. Sometimes, during the landing approach, the cigarette burning on his lips would puff smoke directly into his eyes. He’d squint, try to dodge it, but would he drop the stub? Of course not! That thing was practically glued to him.”
He continued, with a kind of weary resignation, “The aircraft’s air conditioning system couldn’t handle the smoke. We coughed, suffered headaches, rubbed our teary eyes, but what could we do? Complaining was pointless. It’s not like we could ask him to stop.”
Suddenly, it all made sense—why the news that I wasn’t a smoker was greeted with such palpable relief. I swear, my new crew almost shouted "Hooray" three times on the spot. I’d never seen such collective joy over someone’s personal habits before.

Three months later, after countless training flights and finally being classified as a "first-class pilot," my crew and I received our first real transport mission. This wasn’t just any run-of-the-mill assignment. We were about to traverse the entire expanse of the Soviet Union. Excluding a couple of planned refueling stops, the flight actually seemed... appealing. Our mission? Deliver one ton of military cargo from Vladivostok to Moscow.
Now, you don’t have to be a genius to realize that “military cargo” is often a euphemism for something far less official. Judging by the smell coming from the crates, it wasn’t hard to guess that this time, it was illegal red caviar. Probably obtained in ways that would make a fisherman blush.
From Moscow, we were scheduled to head to Saky, Crimea, to pick up six pilots who had just completed training on vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. As part of the trip, we were also supposed to unload some commercial cargo there. After that, we’d fly to Leningrad, load up seven tons of paper for the naval newspaper "On Guard," and head back to Vladivostok. It was like a Soviet Union grand tour—if the grand tour involved paper, pilots, and smuggled caviar.
What the head of the wing staff hadn’t detailed, however, was the nature of this so-called “commercial cargo.” I thought we’d be delivering something modest, maybe some crates of uniforms or spare parts. But no. That morning, as we prepared for departure, I was greeted by two fully-loaded five-ton trucks sitting beneath the open cargo ramp—packed to the brim with Japanese electronics. Televisions, VCRs, you name it. If it plugged into a wall and played moving pictures, it was in those trucks.
Beside the trucks stood three civilians, a petty officer, and five ordinary seamen. They all wore the expressions of men who knew they were part of something sketchy but were too deep into it to care.
I couldn’t help but shake my head in disbelief. Here I was, ready for my first mission as a transport pilot, and instead of hauling serious military cargo, I was stuck playing delivery boy for black-market electronics.
“Well,” I muttered to myself with a touch of sarcasm, “at least it’s not cigarettes.”
        The businessman, deeply engrossed in a heated discussion with the Petty officer in charge of the loading crew, seemed to be arguing about—what else?—money. It wasn’t just any argument either. From the tone of things, this was a matter of principle. Should they pay the sailors for handling the commercial cargo or not?

As I approached, I caught a bit of the conversation. The businessman, clearly exasperated, was saying, “You military types have really gotten above yourselves. In Vladivostok, at fleet headquarters, I only had to pay three generals. On this airbase, two officers have already taken their share, and now you want me to pay you and the sailors, too?”
He turned to his bulky companions, spreading his arms wide in frustration. “Everyone claims to be so concerned about the state’s interests, but when it comes down to it, they all take cash. And good luck getting a receipt from anyone!”
I couldn't help but smirk at the sight. The guy couldn’t have been more than thirty, but he was dressed to impress—or at least to mimic the latest Western fashion trends. He sported a dark blue double-breasted jacket with padded shoulders that screamed “power suit,” a crisp white shirt paired with a burgundy tie in a checkered blue pattern, and, of course, acid-washed jeans that had been boiled to just the right shade of blue. To complete the look, he wore a pair of black shoes with a subtle platform, just high enough to give him an extra inch of authority. The finishing touch? A leather briefcase clutched tightly in his right hand, while his left arm waved around, flashing an absurdly large, expensive watch at anyone close enough to care.
One of his bodyguards—silent, sullen, and clearly unimpressed by all the posturing—pointed me out. It was like being introduced as the head of some unsanctioned tribunal.
The businessman turned toward me, and with the look of someone who suddenly realized they needed to explain their way out of a parking ticket, he said, “Ah, you must be the commander. Let me explain...”
Yeah, no need. I’d already figured it out. This was your classic “who pays who” fiasco, wrapped up in black-market electronics and the good old Soviet barter system.
I nodded, my suspicions fully confirmed, and motioned for the Petty officer to join me. “Get the cargo loaded,” I ordered, my tone just this side of friendly. “We’ll discuss payment once I’m back, in the wing commander’s office.” I saw the Petty officer’s face pale, as if he’d just been handed a death sentence.
But, not wanting him to die of fright while waiting for the impending ‘execution,’ I leaned in close and whispered, “Don’t worry. You won’t have to sell your house just yet.”
His eyes widened in confusion, and I left him there with just enough hope to keep him sweating for a while longer.
“If I don’t forget about this incident during the course of the mission,” I muttered, leaving the Petty officer with just enough doubt to keep him on edge.

He scurried off to carry out my order, while the businessman stepped forward, extending his hand with a practiced smile. “Pavel, commercial director of OptTrade Far East,” he said, handing me his business card like he was sealing some corporate deal, not participating in a sketchy military cargo run. He gestured to the two burly men flanking him and added, “These are my guys. They’ll be flying with me to guard the cargo.”
Ah, of course. His “guys.” Two slabs of muscle that looked like they had more experience breaking legs than filling out customs forms.
“Are they armed?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
Pavel nodded like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Legally?” I raised an eyebrow.
He shook his head, and I couldn’t help but smirk. Of course not. Why would they be?
“Tell your guys to hand over their guns to the aircrew gunner,” I instructed, nodding toward the Tatar standing under the wing, deep in conversation with the loader. “That’s Ildar, the fire control commander. You’ll get the guns back after we land in Crimea. No, scratch that. I’ll handle it myself.” I called out to my gunner, “Ildar! Over here!”
Ildar shook hands with his buddy, then walked briskly toward the cargo ramp, all business.
“Take their guns and keep them in your cabin,” I said, making sure the bodyguards could hear every word. “Lock them in the ammunition box until we land in Crimea. Lock the cabin, too. Got it?”
“Copy that, commander,” Ildar responded, already sizing up the bodyguards.
Pavel’s “guys” looked like they didn’t appreciate the plan, but they weren’t about to argue. Not when they saw the quiet authority Ildar carried, plus the fact that I wasn’t giving them a choice.

The whole flight to Moscow, I couldn’t stop thinking about my bosses—the real puppet masters who’d orchestrated this whole thing. They’d pocketed a not-so-insignificant amount of cash just to arrange this mission. And here I was, sitting on top of my parachute for seven hours, staring at prehistoric instruments, while they sat comfortably in their offices, probably playing chess or cards, counting the money they'd made from these businessmen. Not a bad setup if you’re on the right side of the deal.
I wonder how legal this cargo is from a customs standpoint? I thought, staring at the crates below. Maybe it’s contraband. That wouldn’t be shocking, given how everything else had played out.
Then another thought popped into my head—a bit more self-serving. Why not earn a little something myself in this regard? I glanced at my co-pilot, and a plan started to form. I only needed one helper, and Kovalenko seemed more than suitable.
"Gennadiy," I called out to the flight engineer, deciding to start setting the wheels in motion, “why don’t you go relax in the passenger cabin? Play some backgammon with the businessman or the radio operator. Have some fun.”

Rybnikov glanced at me with confusion in his eyes. Silently, he descended from his seat, moving to the emergency hatch and folding the chair to clear the narrow passage to the navigator's cabin. I leaned over the radio operator, whispering something into his ear, my voice barely audible over the hum of the engines.
Sergeant Onoprienko, seated behind the right pilot, his back to the flight direction, turned to me with a questioning look. I could feel his unease, but time was of the essence.
“Go,” I instructed through the internal comms system. Without hesitation, both the flight engineer and radio operator disappeared behind the door, leaving me alone with my thoughts for a fleeting moment.
As soon as the door to the passenger compartment clicked shut, I lightly nudged my co-pilot on the shoulder. I motioned for him to take off his headphones and move closer to the emergency hatch.
“Sergey,” I said, my voice low but firm, “listen to me carefully and don’t ask any questions. I’ll explain everything later.” He nodded, but I could tell the uncertainty was gnawing at him.
I continued, “As soon as we land at Chkalovsky Air Base, I’m heading straight to the dispatcher. You, meanwhile, will go to the passengers and ask them to prepare all the documentation for the cargo. If they question you, tell them it’s standard procedure at this airport. Planes traveling through Chkalovsky are subject to inspection by a special commission, and the first thing they check is the legality of the cargo transported by the Ministry of Defense. If the goods have foreign origins, customs declarations are mandatory.”
Sergey gave me a look, the kind that said he had more questions than answers. But remembering my order not to ask, he simply nodded.

Chkalovsky, a military airbase located about 30 kilometers northeast of Moscow, had a reputation. It wasn’t just a strategic hub supporting Star City, the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center, and other key components of the Soviet space program. It was more than that. For us pilots, Chkalovsky was notorious for the level of corruption festering beneath the surface, especially during the Afghan War.
While the base was famous for its size and historical significance—Yuri Gagarin himself had departed from here on his historic flight to Baikonur—it also had a darker legacy. From this very base, Gagarin had also taken his final, fatal flight on March 27, 1968.
But those weren’t the only tragic flights that left Chkalovsky. During the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, more than 15,000 soldiers and officers lost their lives. The 8th Special Purpose Aviation Division, stationed at this base, became the primary carrier of zinc coffins, returning the bodies of fallen soldiers from the battlefields of Afghanistan to their grieving families back home. It was a grim but necessary task, one that should have been handled with the utmost respect.
However, somewhere along the way, respect gave way to greed. Rumors began circulating throughout the country that coffins containing the remains of soldiers were disappearing from their graves. Families mourning their losses found themselves victims of a crime they couldn’t even comprehend. Military investigators soon uncovered the horrifying truth behind these disappearances.
In Afghanistan, a vast heroin mafia had infiltrated the war. The bodies of fallen soldiers, meant to be returned to their homeland, were mutilated. The heads were severed and placed in front of a small square of plexiglass for identification by their families. The rest of the zinc coffin—once meant to hold a soldier’s body—was instead filled with heroin.
It was a morbid, grotesque operation. Hundreds of tons of heroin were smuggled into the Soviet Union, transported by the very flight crews of the elite 8th Special Purpose Division. These weren’t nameless criminals—these were Air Force pilots, men sworn to serve their country, now turned traffickers in one of the most dangerous drugs on the planet. The military prosecutor’s investigation brought the full scope of the crime to light, and by the end of it, almost all the transport regiment’s commanders, their co-pilots, and several high-ranking officers from the division’s headquarters found themselves behind bars.
The commission I had warned Sergey about was real, born out of this dark chapter in Soviet history. It had been established at Chkalovsky to prevent the recurrence of such heinous crimes. Working alongside customs and border police, this commission ensured that Air Force transport operations adhered to strict protocols—especially when it came to inspecting the legality of the cargo. No one wanted a repeat of the Afghan coffin scandal.
But as for us Navy transport pilots? We operated under a different set of rules. The Air Force’s jurisdiction didn’t touch us. Our flights, our cargo—officially, we were exempt from these inspections.
Unofficially, however, it was always best to tread carefully.

I had learned much from my squadron commander—more than just how to fly the AN-12. He’d spent time teaching me the finer, often murkier details of transport procedure. Now, it was time to find out if the quantity of vodka we’d shared was equal to the volume of knowledge I had absorbed. In moments like these, I wondered if understanding transport logistics came with a hangover or if I’d finally learned the real cost of navigating the gray areas of military operations.
As I walked toward my plane, passing the parking lot of the 70th Experimental and Training Aviation Regiment (the cosmonauts' regiment), I couldn’t help but notice the clearance sign for a single aircraft departure to Saki. Just another detail that whispered about the influence wielded in places like this. Pavel, the businessman, was waiting under the wing, nervously biting his nails like a man with much to lose. Hearing my footsteps, he turned, took a few anxious steps forward, and asked, “Well, then, Commander, are we on our way?”
“The cargo will be checked now, and then we’ll go,” I replied, keeping my voice even, enjoying watching him squirm.
“Can’t we take off without the cargo check?” he asked, his voice a little too tight.
I paused for dramatic effect before saying, “We can. You can do anything you like—for the right price.”
The businessman didn’t hesitate. He unfastened his attach; case—the one he’d been clutching like a lifeline throughout the flight—and without even showing me its contents, asked, “How much?”
“A thousand dollars to the head of the commission,” I said, keeping my tone businesslike. “And a hundred dollars for each crew member to keep quiet about it.”
Pavel didn’t blink. He pulled out the cash and handed me two thousand dollars. “Here,” he said, almost pleading. “Settle the matter for us, please.”
I pocketed the money without a word and started walking briskly toward headquarters. Halfway there, I crossed paths with a Major who appeared to be on his own business, heading in the direction of the aircraft parking lot. His uniform tunic bore a silver badge on the right side, proudly marking his rank within the Air Force’s aviation-technical personnel. The badge’s blue enamel featured a red numeral, framed by a star, crossed wrenches, and a caliper’s jaws—silver wings completing the ensemble. He looked every bit the focused aviation engineer, deep in thought and absorbed in his tasks.
Knowing that Pavel’s eyes were fixed on my back, I decided to reinforce the illusion of an imminent cargo inspection. What better way than with a little theatrical scene?
“Comrade Major,” I called, stepping in front of him to block his path. “Could you tell me where your political officer might be found?”
The Major, clearly irritated by my interruption, barely glanced at me as he replied, “In headquarters, second floor,” and tried to brush past me.
I couldn’t let him slip away. Not yet. Switching to a more familiar tone, I leaned in and made him an offer. “Listen, Major, how about this—I'll give you two bottles of vodka if you take me to the political officer’s door.”
The Major froze, then turned to look at me, a glint of curiosity flickering in his eyes. His annoyance had shifted slightly. Vodka, after all, has a way of opening doors—and not just the metaphorical ones.
“Apparently, you really need to see him,” the Major said, raising an eyebrow, clearly catching on to my urgency. With a shrug, he turned to lead me there.
On the second floor of the headquarters, I handed the oblivious officer a tidy sum—enough to buy ten bottles of vodka, or one night of forgetting he ever met me. “Just stay put for a while,” I said, slipping the money into his hand. “A few minutes, that's all.”
Down below, Pavel was losing his mind. I imagined him pacing under the wing of the plane, gnawing on his nails as his anxiety spiraled. The full weight of his situation was sinking in—his crates filled with contraband, the shady dealings in foreign currency. He wasn’t just dealing with video recorders anymore; his imagination was painting a vivid picture of a "Bribery of a Public Official" case forming around him.
Article 291 of the Criminal Code of the USSR, he would have been thinking, a thirty-fold fine on the bribe, or worse, two years in prison. I could almost hear him repeating the legal advice from his company’s consultant. And if they find out about the foreign currency bribes back in Vladivostok or Artem... He was spiraling. I’m looking at ten years minimum. But forget the trial; I won’t even make it that far. My bosses will bury me long before that happens—house arrest, detention, doesn’t matter. I’ll be a dead man.
The Major left after taking the bribe, leaving me standing alone in the corridor of the staff quarters. I didn’t need to rush. I gave it a few minutes before heading back outside.
When I finally stepped out, the fresh air hit me like a gentle reminder that the world was still turning. The sky was as blue as ever, and Moscow’s spring was slowly unfurling its green. Despite everything—despite bribery, foreign currency, and being knee-deep in contraband—the Earth hadn’t stopped spinning.
My calm never wavered. It rarely did. As a kid, my father used to watch me during tense moments at the poker table, noting how I never flinched, never showed fear. He’d glance over at his card-playing buddies and say, “My son could walk into a burning house and come out asking for tea.” It was his way of complimenting my nerves of steel, though he didn’t always know how right he was.
But I had my own quiet pride. It wasn’t just about staying calm—it was about never showing fear to anyone. And today was no different.
As I strolled back toward the plane, I thought about how I was walking the same asphalt path Yuri Gagarin once did, the first man to soar into space. The weight of history under my feet, and here I was, strolling with a pocket full of money that equaled two years’ salary. Not bad for a day’s work, and I wasn’t even rushing.
Only when I got close enough to see the plane clearly did I motion to the passengers, signaling them to board. I caught the flight engineer’s eye and gave him the nod to start prepping the engines.
Pavel met me at the ramp, practically throwing himself at me, his voice shaking with relief. “I thought you were caught, and I was already looking around, figuring out where to run.”
I raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised. “Run? Why would you run?”
His eyes were wild, and he pushed me back just enough to speak freely. “You have no idea how much money’s worth of goods you’re carrying! There are video recorders on this plane for thousands of video salons in Crimea and Krasnodar. If you hadn’t negotiated, sure, you might have lost your job—maybe six months for brokering a deal. But me? My bosses would’ve drowned me alive in the bay of the Golden Horn. Tied a rock around my neck and dumped me at Cape Eggersheld, and no one would’ve ever mentioned the name Pavel again.”
I looked at him, absorbing the sheer panic in his voice, the way his words spilled out like a confession. He wasn’t just scared of the law—he was terrified of the people behind the deal. For him, this wasn’t just business; it was life and death.

Chapter 12: The Light in the Skies

        The co-pilot, practically bursting with curiosity after we got permission to taxi, couldn’t hold back any longer. Through the internal radio, he asked, “Well, how did everything turn out?”
I glanced at the navigator and flight engineer, both looking at me with expectant eyes. Great. Sergey hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut. Now I’d have to share the dollars with everyone.
He’s still wet behind the ears, I thought. I warned him to keep quiet. Now the whole crew is going to know about the money.
There was nothing I could do about it now. I sighed and announced over the intercom, “After unloading the cargo in Crimea, each one of you will receive a small bonus.”
The moment we landed in Simferopol, said our goodbyes to the passengers and their suspicious cargo, the crew members tried to persuade me, in the friendliest way possible, to spend the night in Ukraine. But I knew better. I wanted to put as much distance between us and the mafia as possible. I had no doubt we had just parted ways with an organized crime group, and lingering any longer than necessary seemed like asking for trouble.
It was a night flight, and our remaining flight duty time was ticking away. As soon as we reached cruising altitude and set the autopilot, exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks. The hum of the four turboprop engines became a kind of lullaby. I settled into my seat, closed my eyes, and let sleep take over.

I couldn't fathom how I ended up in this dimly lit room. Where was I? The light filtered in through a narrow window near the ceiling. This had to be a basement. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. My legs were tied to the chair’s legs, my hands bound behind my back with a leather belt.
“You’re awake, our little carrier pigeon,” one of two gangsters standing beside me sneered. “Did you take us for idiots? Well, never mind, we’re going to squeeze you until our money comes squirting out of your eye sockets.”
Their faces… where had I seen them before? I struggled to remember, but my mind was blank. Before I could even think of a reply, the second thug pulled a plastic bag over my head, tightening it around my neck. I jerked, my chest heaving for air, but it was no use. My vision blurred as I gasped, desperate for even a hint of oxygen. My life flashed before my eyes…

Suddenly, someone nudged my shoulder, jolting me awake. My torso had slumped forward, and the cord of my headset had tangled around my neck. Heart pounding, I looked around and breathed a sigh of relief—there was the familiar sight of the cockpit. The co-pilot was asleep, the navigator busy scribbling in the flight journal, and the flight engineer who’d woken me was grinning slyly.
“You looked like you were dreaming of your mother-in-law,” he said, still smirking.
“No,” I replied, shaking my head with a wry smile, “the political officer.”
My smile quickly faded, though, as I turned back to the instrument panel. Something wasn’t right. The navigation instruments were behaving… strangely. The radio compass indicator was spinning in slow circles, and the gyroscopic course indicator said we were heading east—when I knew for a fact that Leningrad was due north of Simferopol. Leningrad’s geographical position hadn’t changed, regardless of what they wanted to call it these days.
I looked over at Vasiliev, who was seated in the navigator’s spot with a puzzled expression. “Are you seeing this?” I gestured toward the erratic instruments.
He nodded, his face just as confused as mine.
“Where are we approximately?” I asked.
“Over Velikie Luki,” he said.
I turned to Sergey, who was still half-asleep, and gave him a solid nudge. “Sergey, report to Pskov control that we’ve just passed over Velikie Luki.”
He made the report, but the silence that followed was unnerving. No reply. That meant one thing: the radio was dead.
“At least the engines are running,” remarked the flight engineer, trying to lighten the mood or perhaps hinting at my past misadventures. Either way, he wasn’t wrong.
Suddenly, the clouds ahead of us were illuminated by a brilliant light. A massive pillar of light, several hundred feet wide, blazed in the distance for about thirty seconds before fading away just as mysteriously as it had appeared. The cockpit fell into a stunned silence, thick with tension. We continued flying, direction unknown.
Minutes later, our navigation instruments came back online. We heard the familiar crackle of radio interference, followed by the voice of Pskov control reprimanding us for not reporting at the mandatory checkpoint. Sergey reached for the mic to explain, but I stopped him, making an excuse instead for our “inattentiveness.”
Sergey turned to me, frustrated. “Why are you making excuses for us? We should just tell them what happened.”
“And what exactly should I have said?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “That a bright light appeared out of nowhere? That we lost all navigation and radio contact? Until we agree on what we saw, it’s best to keep quiet. Now, what do you think that was, Sergey? Really.”
He sighed, leaning back in his seat. “It looked like a rocket launch or some kind of super-powerful floodlight.”
“I agree,” I said. “That’s what it looked like. But how do we explain the temporary loss of our electromagnetic instruments? It doesn’t fit. Let’s think logically. Meteorologists didn’t report any storms in this sector, so it wasn’t lightning. There are no known magnetic anomalies here, and no space-vehicle launch sites either. And the country’s air defense command wouldn’t launch a missile in an air corridor used by civilian aviation.”
Sergey nodded, but his frown deepened. “So what’s your theory?”
I took a deep breath before responding. “I can’t explain this incident by anything other than an encounter with an unidentified flying object.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what you should’ve told the controller—that we missed our checkpoint because we were busy having a run-in with aliens,” the flight engineer quipped, trying and failing to hide his smirk.
“And right after landing, we’d be sent straight to the loony bin,” I shot back, the sarcasm evident in my tone.
To clear up any confusion, I explained, “I’ve never met a pilot who kept their wings after reporting a UFO sighting. The ones brave—or stupid—enough to try usually face serious consequences. If they keep insisting on their story, they get thrown ‘in the sack’—sent to a psychiatric hospital and kept far away from the general population.”
“The sack? What, like the ones we use for potatoes?” Sergey asked, the innocence of youth showing through. He had no idea how the Soviet Union dealt with “troubled” individuals in those psychiatric wards.
“To make sure the 'madmen' can’t resist,” the onboard technician chimed in with a didactic tone, “they’re put into a tight, sleeveless robe. Only two holes—one for the head and one for the legs. That’s why they call it ‘the sack.’”
The navigator nodded in agreement, his approval quiet but clear. “There’ve only been one or two cosmonauts who ever dared to talk about stuff like that. But then again, they’re practically gods—capital letters and all. Us? We’re just your everyday air haulers.”
“More irony, eh? Well, just let me know when we can stop hauling and land,” the radio operator interrupted, his tone sharp but playful.
“At the Pushkin Aerodrome in the glorious Leningrad region, our fearless crew will guide this mechanical Pegasus to a safe landing in exactly…” The navigator, indulging in his dramatic flair, paused to calculate. He slid his fingers expertly over his slide rule, checking the entries in the flight journal against the instrument readings. Finally, with the precision of a seasoned veteran, he declared, “In exactly eighteen minutes.”
“Hurrah,” said the co-pilot with exaggerated relief. “I thought we’d be flying forever.”
“Yes, it’s been a long day,” I said, cutting off their banter, “but the day doesn’t end until we reach the hotel. Cut the chatter and get ready to descend.”
I slowed the engines, listening to the steady hum of the propellers. There’s something reassuring about flying in a plane where you can visually check the engines. Just a slight turn to the left, and there it is—the propeller, spinning steadily outside the side window. From this moment on, I promised myself that for the rest of my life, I would always glance at those propellers during descent. There’s nothing like seeing for yourself that everything’s still turning, still working, especially after a day like today.


Chapter 13: Horseradish

     The military hotel in Pushkin, Leningrad region, stood proudly in the heart of the town, occupying the fourth floor of a weary nineteenth-century building. Its steep spiral staircase twisted upwards like a relic from another time, creaking beneath our feet as if in protest. As I climbed toward the hotel office, I rang the bell to summon the administrator. While waiting for Her Majesty to grace us with her presence, I took a moment to survey the grandeur—or rather, the dilapidation—of what was to be our temporary lodgings.
The place looked as though it hadn’t been renovated since the mid-nineteenth century, possibly even since the Crimean War when Russians defended Sevastopol against the British, French, and Turks. A long, dark blue corridor stretched before us, lined with imposing doors to rooms designed for ten-person occupancy. The iron bed frames sagged under the weight of time, their springs drooping like the backs of weary soldiers after a long march. The odor wafting from the communal toilet at the far end of the hall was unmistakable—an unsettling stench of decay, made worse by the fact that the door hung limply from a single hinge, as if surrendering to gravity.
It was a place that seemed frozen in a forgotten era, with all the charm of a Soviet museum exhibit—minus the plaques. All it lacked was a sailor in a black pea coat and a Mauser pistol strapped to his side, standing beneath a red banner. This was more than just nostalgia—it was the kind of disrepair that made you question whether anyone had remembered this hotel existed.
Then she arrived. The portly hotel administrator, with an air of indifferent authority, finally emerged past midnight. She looked us over with mild disdain, as if our very presence was an inconvenience.
“What brings you here at this hour?” she asked, without even attempting to mask her annoyance. “Let me make one thing clear: you’re not getting individual rooms. You’ll have to share with whoever’s already in there.”
I protested immediately. “We can’t share a room with strangers. We’ve got flight documentation on confidential stationery, not to mention our personal belongings.”
“Your documentation could be on top-secret stationery for all I care,” she replied, completely unfazed. “Leave someone behind to guard your things. Hotel administration takes no responsibility for clients’ property.”
“And what if we need to leave for the day? Are we supposed to set up an armed guard every time we go out?” I tried to inject some reason into the conversation.
“Young man,” she said coolly, her tone dripping with condescension, “you can do whatever you like. If you don’t like it here, feel free to find somewhere else. But if you’re staying, you’ll take what I offer.”
I knew her type well. Bureaucrats like her thrived on power, no matter how small or insignificant it was. One push too far, and she could report us to the garrison commander, accusing my crew of ‘conduct unbecoming of officers.’ That would be a disaster we couldn’t afford.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said to my crew, my decision made. “There’s got to be something better while we’ve still got the van.”
Back outside, I asked the driver, “What are the chances of finding something decent at this hour?”
“There are plenty of places, but not all of them would suit you,” he replied with a knowing shrug.
“We’re not looking for the Ritz or the Hilton, just somewhere that doesn’t smell like it was abandoned after World War II. Somewhere... quieter, far from the center,” I said, trying to keep the exasperation from creeping into my voice.
He paused for a moment, thinking. “I’ve got an idea. Just a few hundred feet from here, in the former Tsar’s Village Lyceum, there’s a newly renovated hotel. It used to house the Chinese cooks who worked in the Tsar’s kitchens. Emperor Paul I had it built at the end of the eighteenth century. Recently, the administration turned those cottages into private tourist lodgings. The only catch is they lock the doors after eleven.”
“That sounds more like a feature than a flaw,” I quipped. “With a crew like mine, a few extra locks are probably a good idea.”
The crew, too exhausted to offer any opinions, nodded in agreement. As long as there was a bed and a locked door, they didn’t care where we ended up.

Later that night, I was deep in a dream. My wife was sitting in a Jacuzzi with Svetlana Mukhina. They were laughing, embracing, their fingers teasing the edges of each other’s swimsuits. When they saw me, they smiled and waved for me to join them. I moved towards them, undressing with a grin. I was just about to step into the warm water when... brrnnng! The sharp ring of the phone shattered the fantasy. I jolted awake, cursing the interruption.
Vadim, who had the phone on his nightstand, didn’t even bother to stir. He knew that if anyone was calling, it was for me—the crew commander.
It was a call from the paper mill. Two massive rolls of paper, weighing 15,000 pounds, were ready for transport, but the driver hadn’t shown up—apparently, his son was getting married. The cargo wouldn’t make it to Pushkin until Monday.
One thought ran through my mind: What am I supposed to do with my crew for the next three days?
“Vadim,” I said, shaking him awake. “Any ideas for the weekend?”
“Leningrad’s only twenty miles from here,” he replied, still groggy. “We could spend the time there.”
“And what about the others?” I asked. “I don’t know if leaving them unsupervised for that long is the best idea.”
“They’ll be fine. They’re not kids,” Vadim reassured me. He’d known them longer than I had.
I decided to gather the crew and share the news.

Ten minutes later, the men stood around me, still rubbing the sleep from their eyes.
“I’ve got two pieces of news,” I announced. “First, the good news: we’re not flying until Monday afternoon. That means we’ve got three full days to relax.”
“And the better news?” Sergey Kovalenko asked, barely awake.
“The better news,” I said, smiling, “is that each of you gets a hundred dollars.”
I pulled out the bills, handing one to each man, enjoying the look of surprise on their faces.
“I can’t believe my eyes,” Nikolay said, staring at the crisp bill in disbelief.
With the crew satisfied, Vadim and I set off for Leningrad, the city that once rivaled Paris and Vienna in grandeur. Nevsky Avenue buzzed with life, a perfect blend of old-world elegance and modern-day vibrancy. We walked past grand buildings, street performers, and cafes, soaking in the splendor of a city that had survived war and revolution.
We found ourselves passing an art exhibition, curious about what contemporary Leningrad had to offer. The gallery was filled with bold concepts, but many of the works seemed rushed, as if the artists had forgotten about technique. We exchanged quiet critiques, neither of us overly impressed—until we stumbled upon a small wooden panel tucked away in a corner.
The piece was striking in its simplicity. It featured a double-page spread from a West German magazine, showing sausages, pork chops, wieners, sprats, and three bottles of horseradish. The caption boldly declared: “You Can Eat Whatever You Like with this Horseradish.” In the corner of the panel was a Leningrad ration card for two pounds of sugar from 1985, lacquered to the wood.
The message hit home. Where was the justice?
Here was Germany, a country ravaged by war, advertising luxury foods while Leningrad, a city that had endured unspeakable suffering during the siege, was still rationing sugar—forty years after victory. The contrast was bitter.
I knew I had to buy it.

Several weeks later, when I returned with the crew to purchase the piece, I was met with disappointment.
“It’s been sold,” the administrator told me apologetically. “It was bought by the Swedish National Gallery of Contemporary Art for forty-five thousand crowns.”
Forty-five thousand crowns. The number sounded absurd compared to the thirty rubles I had set aside. But it was a fitting price for a piece that so sharply captured the absurdities of Soviet life.

On the train back to Pushkin, Vadim fell asleep beside me, his head resting against the window. I stared at the platform door in the next car, where a young man was standing, smiling at me. He gestured for me to join him, but I hesitated, unsure of his intentions.
Just then, an elderly woman sitting next to me broke the silence. “Are you homosexual, young man?”
Her bluntness caught me off guard. I shook my head, unsure how to respond.
“Well,” she said, glancing at Vadim, “he might think you are, with your friend sleeping on your shoulder like that.”
“Thanks for the insight, ma’am,” I muttered, feeling a wave of discomfort wash over me. “I’m from the provinces. We don’t see much of that where I’m from.”
“Don’t be so sure,” she replied, her voice tinged with sadness. “It’s everywhere.


Chapter 14: Locked In and Letting Go

Saturday kicked off with a brunch that could easily rival a feast. The crew members, still riding high on yesterday’s stay in Pushkin, had decided to commemorate their first big outing with their new commander in style—though I wasn’t exactly consulted about their celebratory plans. Somehow, without a word to me, they managed to amass an impressive collection: ten bottles of vodka, two bottles of cognac, and twenty beers. The goal? To consume it all in one day. Clearly, they weren’t aiming low.
Given the monumental task ahead, we didn’t even wait for evening. By half-past ten, we were already gathered around the table in the radio operator’s hotel room, the bottles lined up like soldiers ready for duty. By eight in the evening, after hours of relentless toasts, endless food, and far too much drinking, I had reached my limit. It felt like my stomach had stretched to a new dimension.
“Vadim,” I said to our navigator, already feeling a bit wobbly, “how about we take a walk? I think my legs have forgotten they exist.”
He agreed, and soon we found ourselves outside, the cool evening air a welcome break from the suffocating warmth of the hotel room. We meandered through the Catherine Park, the stillness of the night wrapping around us like a comforting blanket.
As we passed under the arch of the Grand Caprice, Vasilyev, perhaps feeling bold—or simply drunk—suggested we climb it.
“Don’t you want to climb up to the chapel while you’re at it?” I teased, catching his arm before he stumbled on the uneven path. “I can barely keep you on your feet, and now you want to play mountain climber in the ruins. Cool your jets, brave navigator.”
My own sense of direction wasn’t exactly stellar in the twilight. I was aiming for the White Tower, but somehow we ended up at the Mirror Pond. The faint reflection of a yellowish building shimmered in the water—a distant reminder of where I thought we were heading.
“Where are we?” Vasilyev muttered, clearly as lost as I was. I plopped him down on a white bench at the foot of a statue of a naked woman, the cool stone somehow grounding in the swirling haze of the evening.
“I think we’re at the Mirror Pond, Catherine Park,” I said, squinting at the building reflected in the water. “That yellowish thing looks like the Upper Bath. At least, I hope it is.”
“Where were we going again?” Vasilyev slurred.
“To see the White Tower… in Alexander Park,” I admitted, my voice trailing off.
He chuckled drunkenly. “So you’re the new sailor Zheleznyak, eh?”
“Why Zheleznyak?” I asked, trying to hide my confusion.
“Because he set out for Odessa and ended up in Kherson. A hundred miles between those two cities, and you can’t even get us to the next park!” He burst out laughing at his own joke, his laughter echoing in the quiet night.
I couldn’t help but join in, half-singing the tune he referenced.
“You can’t imagine a worse navigator,; He went to Odessa,; But came to Kherson…”
Vasilyev, now fully invested in his drunken inquiry, perked up at my earlier mention of the Upper Bath. “You said Upper Bath. So, is there a Lower Bath too?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, indulging his curiosity.
“What’s the difference?” he asked, hiccupping between his words.
“The difference,” I said, leaning in conspiratorially, “is that in the Upper Bath, royalty bathed. And in the Lower Bath, it was just for the courtiers. They called it the Cavalier’s Soaphouse.”
“Ahh,” Vasilyev grinned, his mind drifting elsewhere as he stared at the statue. “A soaphouse for the plebs. Good to know.”
I looked at him, sitting there in the half-darkness, his mind swimming in a sea of alcohol, and couldn’t help but feel a certain kinship. Here we were, two grown men, supposedly in charge of navigating the skies, but utterly lost in the simple task of finding our way through a park. It was the kind of moment that made you realize life’s little ironies, and it was hard not to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
"Cavalry’s Soaphouse?" Vasilyev chuckled, slurring slightly. "So they bathed there with horses?"
I couldn’t help but laugh, shaking my head. “I said Cavalier’s, not Cavalry’s.”
But before I could explain further, Vasilyev raised his head and suddenly fixated on something behind us. His eyes widened in drunken awe. “Oh… tits,” he muttered, his crude appreciation directed at a marble statue standing proudly on a pedestal a few meters away.
I rolled my eyes, full of sarcasm. “Of course. You completely missed the dolphins and the detailed faces at her feet, but the tits? Naturally, those stand out.”
Vasilyev swayed a little as I gently turned his head with a playful gesture, redirecting his attention. “Maybe try focusing on the path ahead for a change.”
We hadn’t gone far—barely a hundred steps from the "Chinese houses"—when we spotted two young women walking toward us. Or at least, in our Bacchus-fueled state, they seemed young and delightful. Everything felt a little more magical after ten bottles of vodka and twenty beers.
“Hey, guys,” one of them greeted, her voice carrying that casual, friendly tone that cuts through the night. “Are you busy right now?”
“We always have time for you, ladies,” Vasilyev responded immediately, gripping my arm to steady himself, though he was clearly teetering on the edge of his balance.
“Please excuse us,” I jumped in quickly, knowing that Vadim was far from coherent at this point. “We might’ve had a bit too much to drink, but if you’re willing to give us about forty minutes, we’ll be in better shape to help out, whatever it is you need.”
The second woman gave us a skeptical once-over. “I’m not so sure about that,” she said, her voice tinged with doubt.
“Well, you’d be mistaken,” Vadim replied, summoning all the dignity he could muster, standing just a little straighter and blinking more than necessary, as if to prove his sobriety. “Just tell us the problem, and we’ll assess our… capabilities together.” He finished his sentence with a flourish, brimming with misplaced confidence.
In that moment, despite our intoxicated state, I felt surprisingly self-assured too. Maybe it was the fresh air, maybe the vodka, but I was suddenly convinced that we were more than capable of handling whatever these women threw our way.
One of the women explained, “We came from Moscow this morning on a two-day tour of Leningrad. After spending the whole day in museums, our group got dropped off at the same hotel you’re staying at. But we don’t want to just waste time sleeping, so we had this idea: why not gather a group of people to go see the bridges over the Neva get raised at night? The bus driver said if we can get twenty people, he’d take us. If not, he won’t even start the engine.”
“And how many do you have so far?” Vasilyev asked, his tipsy tone fully evident now, despite his earlier attempts at sounding sober.
"Well, if you two agree to join us, we’ll have a group of four."
"Not exactly a crowd," I said with a dry smile after a quick calculation. "Here’s the plan: we’ll take a stroll through the park and come back in an hour. It’ll give us time to sober up a little, and you can try to round up some more people. If it works, and we get a bigger crowd, we’ll join you for the bridge event. If not, we’ll find another way to make the night interesting."
The girls nodded in agreement, and Vadim and I began our walk down the wide, tree-lined avenue of Catherine Park, with ancient oaks towering over us and classical sculptures watching silently from the shadows.
As we walked, I noticed a change in Vadim. What had started as a sluggish, slightly tipsy shuffle had turned into a lively stride, as if the night air had woken something in him. But what surprised me even more was when we returned to the hotel. The girls were still waiting. Their attempts to recruit others for a night of mischief in Leningrad had clearly failed, but the fact that they hadn't left spoke volumes. And when we suggested another walk, they were all too eager to join us, their adventurous spirits undimmed by the failed mission.
The four of us set off again, this time with a deeper sense of camaraderie. I introduced Vadim and myself, then gave our companions the space to share their own stories. Marina wasted no time. She took my hand, leading me down a winding path as she spoke. Her story was captivating, but it was her patronymic—Sebastianovna—that truly intrigued me. It wasn’t every day you met a Marina Sebastianovna in central Russia, and her family's history was even more extraordinary.
Her father, Sebastian Jose Velasco, was just six years old when he, along with 300 other Spanish children, was sent away from a country at war. It was 1936, and his father had already died fighting near Madrid. His mother, driven by the fire of revenge, had left him in the care of her sister to join the battlefront herself. But fate had other plans. His aunt abandoned him in an orphanage, and soon after, he and the other children were whisked away by the Soviets.
The journey from Barcelona to the Soviet port of Odessa took four long, miserable days. The children, terrified and disoriented, were fed by strangers speaking a language that sounded as foreign to them as the food tasted. Sebastian resisted eating at first, but hunger eventually broke his resolve. By the time they reached Ivanovo, where he would spend the next ten years in a boarding school, he had grown accustomed to strange meals like pasta with fried ground beef and potatoes with pork sausages. What had once repulsed him had become his comfort. After the war, he made Moscow his home, convinced it was the finest city in the world, and he never looked back.
Listening to Marina recount her family's past, I felt an odd mixture of admiration and sadness. Here she was, the granddaughter of a Spanish commander, living an ordinary life as an engineer in Moscow—school, marriage, a son, a career. It seemed so... predictable. And yet, there was something in her eyes that hinted at a restlessness, a yearning for more than just the life she had. Holidays, festivals, dances—sure—but what she truly craved was something deeper, something thrilling.
Well, you’re quite a surprise, I thought, a mischievous grin playing on my lips. I’ll give you the adventure you’re looking for—one with more intrigue than you bargained for.
We decided to continue our little party at the girls’ apartment. It seemed like the perfect way to avoid another encounter with the drunken crew members who might stumble across Vadim and me and drag us into another round of unwanted drinks.
As the night wore on, I felt my heart begin to race—not from excitement, but from the ridiculous amount of coffee we’d all been drinking during our increasingly casual conversations. No one wanted the evening to end, but the hour was creeping toward an inevitable conclusion. It was past time for bed, yet no one dared to be the first to say it. The tension was thick, almost laughable. It’s one thing for lovers to meet in a cozy apartment, quite another when there’s an audience. Vadim and I weren’t exactly gentlemen bound by old-fashioned decorum, but in this situation, our inexperience was painfully obvious.
So, I decided to wing it.
"Vadim and I aren’t too eager to leave," I blurted out, feeling awkward the moment the words left my mouth. "We’re not asking to share your beds or anything, but... it’s already two in the morning. So, how about this..." I paused, my heart thudding in my chest as I hoped they’d understand where I was going. "We can all stay in the same room—Vadim and I in one bed, and you two in the other."
As soon as the words were out, I realized how absurd it sounded. It was, without a doubt, the most foolish idea I’d ever come up with. But for some reason, I couldn’t help but feel that this ridiculous suggestion—four grown adults awkwardly trying to navigate this strange, comical situation—might be the thing that broke the tension. And somehow, I had a feeling it would lead to a moment none of us would forget.

"Perhaps you two could still return to your room? It’s not exactly appropriate to share a bed with strangers on the first night—especially considering one of us is married," Tanya said, raising an eyebrow.
"I completely agree with you," Vadim replied earnestly. "But, unfortunately, we can’t leave. Both your room and ours were locked from the outside at eleven. So, until seven in the morning, we’re stuck here."
Marina laughed, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Oh, so you two knew this was going to happen, but they didn’t bother telling us? We got back from our walk just before eleven."
"Well, since you’re both so clever," Tanya said, with a wry smile, "why don’t you two share my bed, and I’ll sleep with Marina?"
Vadim and I exchanged wide-eyed glances, the kind that wordlessly communicated both confusion and resignation. We’d never shared a bed with another guy before, and the situation was rapidly becoming surreal. But with no other option, we kicked off our shoes and, fully dressed in jeans, shirts, and sweaters, awkwardly lay down side by side.
The women burst into laughter, clearly entertained by the sight of two grown men trying—and failing—to appear comfortable. They nonchalantly changed into their nightshirts and, like old friends, settled into the bed beside us, as if this was the most normal thing in the world.
Vadim and I tossed and turned, our bodies stiff and awkward, for what felt like an eternity. The bed seemed far too small for two uncomfortable men in layers of clothing. Every time I shifted, I could feel Vadim trying to do the same, and it was as if we were performing a poorly choreographed dance of discomfort.
On the other side of the room, the women were as quiet as church mice. If not for the occasional rustle of fabric, it would have been easy to believe they’d already fallen asleep. The tension in the air was thick, and it seemed like we might actually make it through the night in this absurd, silent stalemate.
But then, Tanya stirred. I watched her get up from the bed, her movements slow and deliberate. Without a word, she reached out, took Vadim by the hand, and gently led him over to the now-vacant spot in her bed. He followed, bewildered but compliant, and I could see him trying not to overthink it as he settled in.
Just as I began to wonder what would happen next, Marina slid beneath my blanket. The warmth of her body pressed against mine, and I could feel her arm wrapping softly around my neck. My heart pounded in my chest as she nestled closer, her breath warm against my skin.

Chapter 15: ‘A Handler’

It was one of those evenings when the world seemed to have slipped into a peaceful haze, as if the universe itself had granted us a rare respite. Vasiliev and I, seizing the moment like two opportunistic soldiers in enemy territory, had claimed the women’s beds. They were the ultimate prize—comfort and quiet, an uninterrupted sanctuary for the weary. The young ladies from Moscow, brimming with energy, had left earlier for an excursion, scribbling a hasty note that promised their return only after nine. With them gone, we felt as though we’d stumbled into a secret refuge, a blissful escape from the chaos of our usual lives.
Oh, how wrong we were.
The knock at the door shattered our tranquility like a bullet cracking glass. Standing in the doorway, grinning with unsettling enthusiasm, was Oleg Sergeyev—my old classmate from military flight school. We’d never been close, more like casual acquaintances who occasionally shared a smoke between lectures. And yet, here he was, beaming at me as if he’d just discovered a long-lost brother. His smile was far too wide for comfort, and the gleam in his eye made my stomach turn. Why the hell is he so happy to see me?
Oleg had been hunting me down for two days, he said, ever since his TU-16 landed at the nearby airbase. His search had been a winding one—through the aircraft plant, where vague shrugs from my crew failed to pinpoint my whereabouts, and eventually through every room in the "Chinese Village" hotel, until fate, or something more sinister, led him to my door.
And it led him with two bottles of cognac.
"Two bottles?" I thought, raising an eyebrow as I reluctantly invited him in. Why the sudden generosity? We hadn’t spoken in seven years. Oleg wasn’t the sentimental type—never had been. Not in flight school, and certainly not now.
By the time we were three shots deep, the truth started to slither out, as it always does when alcohol loosens tongues. It began innocently enough—small talk about family, work, the usual pleasantries that fill the gaps in a conversation between old acquaintances. But then the mood shifted. Oleg’s tone changed, his questions became more pointed. He started to probe into the details of my crew’s recent, rather spectacular accident, and my stomach clenched. The room, which had felt so open and free just moments ago, now seemed to close in on me.
Vasiliev, ever the sharp tactician, picked up on the shift immediately. He excused himself with the grace of someone who could smell trouble a mile away. I envied him for his foresight as I watched him slip out the door, leaving me alone with Oleg—and my growing suspicion.
I, on the other hand, was trapped—pinned down by my own curiosity, the weight of the cognac, and the slow-dawning realization that this was no friendly reunion. The impulse to toss Oleg out on his ear was tempting, but I knew I needed to tread carefully. Something wasn’t right.
Oleg wasn’t here out of nostalgia. His questions were too sharp, too targeted for casual conversation. There was an agenda behind his visit, and it didn’t take long for me to piece it together. The KGB. Of course. How had I not seen it sooner? Behind Oleg’s too-wide smile and the warm buzz of alcohol, I could sense their presence—the shadow that loomed behind every move, every word.
Was I being watched? The idea seemed absurd at first, but as the thought settled, it felt disturbingly plausible.
Then a chilling possibility crept into my mind like a cold draft through a cracked window. Could last night’s adventure—the laughter, the reckless joy, the company of those lively women from Moscow—have been a setup? I wanted to dismiss the thought as paranoia. Surely, it had been nothing more than a chance encounter, a brief, carefree escape from the monotony of military life. But under Oleg’s unrelenting gaze, the night began to look far more suspicious.
Coincidence was a dangerous word in our line of work, and I knew one thing for sure: the KGB didn’t believe in coincidences.
As the evening dragged on, the conversation became more insidious. Oleg leaned in, his smile still in place, but his eyes hard and calculating. Each question was like a scalpel, cutting away at the surface of our past until it laid bare the truth he was hunting for. My head buzzed—not just from the alcohol, but from the growing realization that I was being maneuvered into a trap, like a fly lured into a web. And the more I tried to dismiss it as paranoia, the more certain I became that I was being watched, scrutinized, evaluated.
The KGB? It seemed far-fetched, yet... the longer I stared into Oleg’s eyes, the more it made sense. This wasn’t just old classmates catching up over drinks. This was something far more dangerous.
My mind raced back to the women—those charming, carefree women from Moscow. What if they hadn’t just been passing through? What if every laugh, every touch, every shared drink had been orchestrated? What if this entire evening, from the moment I had blissfully sunk into that bed, had been a carefully staged performance, designed to loosen my tongue after a few too many shots of cognac?
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. I had walked straight into a trap, and I hadn’t even seen it coming.
Oleg, still smiling, poured another shot. His hand lingered over the bottle for a moment longer than necessary, as if to emphasize that we weren’t done. Not by a long shot. He looked up, meeting my eyes with a gaze that was no longer friendly—if it ever had been.
"To old friends," he said, raising his glass.
I forced a smile, my hand trembling slightly as I clinked my glass against his.
"To old friends," I echoed, though the words tasted bitter on my tongue.
As I downed the shot, I couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere, someone was watching. And whoever they were, they wouldn’t be content until they knew exactly what I was hiding.
It was a trap. I knew it. The only question left was: Would I take the bait?

Thankfully, most people have a weakness—one that serves you well when the stakes are high. They talk more than they listen. Captain Sergeyev was no exception. Convinced that I hadn’t yet drunk enough cognac to spill my darkest secrets, and with my theatrical sobs on his shoulder—lamenting the cruel hand fate had dealt me—he took the bait, hook, line, and sinker. Oleg had a lot weighing on his mind, and the cognac was loosening his tongue.
The theme of our conversation wasn’t exactly groundbreaking. Two drunk pilots, one with something to hide, the other fishing for it—what could possibly unfold? Had we been real friends, we might’ve waxed poetic about women, about life’s fleeting pleasures, the kind of talk that feels profound after enough drinks. But we weren’t friends, and Oleg wasn’t there for camaraderie. So, he stuck to familiar ground: aviation mishaps. For him, it was a safer topic; for me, it was a landmine. Especially if, along with those two bottles of cognac in his briefcase, he happened to be hiding a pocket-sized tape recorder.
He started with a story—one I had heard whispers about but never in such grim detail. A crew at the Mongokhto airbase had made a fatal miscalculation during a night flight in their Tu-22M2 ‘Backfire’ rocket carrier. Supersonic planes conducting night maneuvers, flying in pairs—it should have been routine. But it wasn’t.
Right after takeoff, they had abandoned their instruments, choosing instead to rely on their eyes, searching the clear, starry sky for visual contact with their leader, who had launched just three minutes earlier. Their gaze, locked on the faint glow of the engines ahead, failed to notice the descent of their own aircraft. By the time the ground proximity warning system screamed its automated alarm, it was too late. A fuel-laden rocket carrier doesn’t turn fast, and it certainly doesn’t defy physics.
They plummeted, nose-first. The explosion lit up the night like a second sun, wreckage scattered across the ground as flames devoured everything in sight. The smoldering remains—a gruesome mix of fireproof engine parts and scattered fuselage fragments—were strewn for miles. The rescue team arrived quickly, but all they could do was pick through the charred debris to retrieve the orange sphere, the infamous ‘black box,’ which would soon hold answers no one wanted to hear.
The cockpit recordings captured it all—panic, confusion, and then, the crushing silence that followed. The conclusion, as always, was cold and clinical: human error. A fatal misstep in piloting technique.
We raised our glasses in a solemn toast to the fallen crew. Another toast followed for the pilot from our graduating class, who had flown as co-pilot on that ill-fated flight. Each shot burned less than the last, but the bitterness lingered, settling deep in my gut like a weight I couldn’t shake.
But Oleg wasn’t done. His voice dropped to a low murmur, his face adopting the mask of someone who had seen too much. He leaned in, as if what he was about to share was a secret too dark to be spoken above a whisper. And with each word, I felt the walls of the room closing in, the air growing thicker, the presence of the KGB a shadow looming over us both. Whether Oleg was oblivious or didn’t care, I couldn’t tell. He was lost now, submerged in the swirl of memory and tragedy.
I downed another shot, bracing myself for what was coming.
His next story was even darker. It had unfolded at the 33rd Battle Preparedness and Re-training Center, far to the south in the Ukrainian city of Nikolaev. Another disaster. Another crew caught in the cruel hands of fate—or perhaps just the relentless hand of misfortune that always seemed to hover over military aviation.
The very same aircraft model, another Tu-22M2, had lost a variable geometry wing during a routine daytime takeoff. Perfect weather. No warning. One moment they were soaring into the sky, and the next, the right wing began to tilt. The pilots, feeling the increasing bank to the right, did what any sane person would do—they tried to correct it. They turned the control column to the left, desperately fighting for balance. But physics, as always, won.
The moment of impact came swiftly. The ground, like a giant fist, rose up to meet them.
The navigators, seated behind the pilots, quickly realized the nightmare they were in. The bombardier, quick on his feet, ejected a full second before the navigator. That one second saved his life. He shot out of the plane as it tilted at a 45-degree angle, his parachute opening with just enough altitude to spare him from certain death.
The navigator wasn’t so lucky. He hesitated—a single heartbeat too long—and ejected when the aircraft had banked a full hundred degrees. There was no saving him. By then, he was ejecting into the ground itself.
As Oleg told the story, I could feel it sinking into me like lead. Another toast followed, but my hands were trembling slightly now, the cognac doing little to dull the sharp edge of what I was hearing. The KGB’s shadow, still invisible but unmistakable, hung over every word. Was Oleg talking just to talk? Or was this part of something more sinister, a probe disguised as a conversation between old comrades? With each grim tale he recounted, I felt like we were digging ourselves deeper into a pit—one that I wasn’t sure we could climb out of.
The cognac was starting to blur the edges of my thoughts, but one thing remained crystal clear: This was a test. A trap. The only question was, who had set it? Oleg? The KGB? Or was it both?
"To the fallen," Oleg muttered, his voice thick with false sentiment as he poured another shot.
"To the fallen," I echoed, though the words felt hollow. The weight of everything unsaid hung between us, heavy and oppressive.
As I downed the shot, a single thought kept gnawing at the back of my mind: How much longer until it was my turn to crash?

Propelled by the jetstream in his ejection seat, the navigator shot almost parallel to the ground, hurtling toward the arid Ukrainian soil. Two hundred feet from the runway, he slammed into the earth. His parachute never deployed. To be blunt, the navigator, who was also the esteemed Head of the Navigators Department at the Training Center, left behind little more than a horrific scene. The impact was so violent that the Colonel’s remains fused with the clay, becoming nearly indistinguishable from the land itself.
The two pilots, despite the inferno raging around them, held on to the controls until the bitter end. Charred by the relentless flames, their bodies were still recognizable, even as the wreckage around them disintegrated into ash. They had fought the inevitable until the last moment, their grip on the controls a haunting testament to their resolve.
They were buried as heroes. A squadron of fighter jets from the air defense wing soared over the funeral procession, cutting through the sky like arrows. Just as the coffins passed beneath the shadow of the jets, three of the eight MiGs peeled off, climbing upward and vanishing into the blue sky. It was as though the departed were ascending, their spirits forever bound to the heavens, while their comrades on the ground paid silent tribute.
But the most striking image wasn’t the funeral or the jets, it was the sole survivor—the bombardier who had ejected mere seconds before the crash. His life spared by nothing more than a single second’s difference, an eternity in the face of death. A month later, when he returned to the airbase, determined to fly again, something remarkable happened. As he walked along the concrete taxiway toward his new aircraft, the entire base—every technician, every aviator—paused their work. They turned to him in silence, and then, in an act of reverence, began to applaud. It was a salute not just to his survival, but to his will to return to the sky after staring death in the face.
Oleg finished his story, the weight of the tragedy still heavy in the air, though he seemed unfazed. He had a way of speaking about death as though it were simply another part of the job, which, I suppose, for people like us, it was. But as he shifted gears, finally coming to the true purpose of his visit that Saturday evening, the door swung open, breaking the tension like a snapped wire.
The delightful occupants of the hotel room returned, laughing as they entered—Marina and Tanya, with Vasiliev right behind them. Their timing was impeccable, as if fate itself had intervened. I felt the corners of my mouth tug into a smile as I turned back to Oleg.
“It’s time for you to leave,” I said with a politeness I didn’t feel. “Thank you for the… intriguing conversation. And while you’re at it, be sure to inform your ‘handler’ that I’m not responsible for my crew’s demise.”
Oleg blinked, his face betraying a flicker of surprise, though he quickly masked it with a forced chuckle. “Handler? What are you talking about?” he asked, feigning ignorance, but the unease in his eyes betrayed him.
I leaned forward, meeting his gaze. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. The person who sent you here,” I said, my voice calm but unyielding. There was no need for a confrontation—just the cold, clear truth. His game was over.
Oleg didn’t argue. He stood, his exit swift and silent, leaving the room with a barely audible goodbye. As the door clicked shut behind him, I felt a sense of relief wash over me, but it was fleeting. I turned back to the girls, who were still standing by the door, bewildered by the entire exchange.
Marina was the first to recover. She crossed the room with purpose and sat down across from me, her eyes sharp and searching. There was a fire in her that I admired, and I could already see the wheels turning in her mind.
“Valery,” she began, her voice firm. “What the hell is going on? Whose death were you talking about?”
I sighed. There was no point in hiding it now. The truth was already seeping into the cracks of this fragile evening. I told them everything—the harrowing experience of navigating through ice floes with my frozen comrades, the fateful series of events that had led to the deaths of my crew. The weight of it all hung in the air like the thick smoke from Oleg’s stories, a suffocating reminder of the lives lost.
When I finished, there was silence. Both women stared at me, their faces unreadable. I could feel their questions hanging in the air, unspoken but heavy.
It was Tanya who broke the silence, her voice calm and almost unnervingly measured. “Yes, there are more questions,” she said, her gaze never leaving mine. “What exactly is a ‘handler’?”
The corners of my mouth twitched—was that humor or just exhaustion? Of all the questions they could have asked, this was the one that seemed to stick.
I leaned back, considering how best to explain it without plunging them into the murky waters of military politics and covert games. But then again, perhaps they deserved to know. We were all caught in the same web now, whether we liked it or not.
“A handler,” I began slowly, “is someone who pulls the strings behind the scenes. Someone who gives orders without ever needing to show their face. In this case, Oleg was sent here to pry information out of me. Not directly, of course—nothing so crude—but subtly, under the guise of an old friend dropping by for a drink. And his handler? Well, that’s the person truly in charge. The one who orchestrates everything, quietly, from the shadows.”
Marina’s eyes narrowed, and I could see the wheels turning in her mind again. Tanya, ever the pragmatist, simply nodded, processing the information with the same calm efficiency she approached everything with.
“Well,” Marina said, leaning forward, a slight grin playing at the corners of her lips. “Looks like we’ve been part of quite the performance, haven’t we?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. Here we were, tangled in a web of deceit and espionage, and somehow, the absurdity of it all wasn’t lost on her—or on me. There was humor in the darkest of moments if you knew where to look.
“Yes,” I replied, my voice soft but tinged with amusement. “Quite the performance indeed.”
But beneath the humor, the tension lingered. The web was still there, and we were all caught in it—whether we realized it or not.

“‘Handler’ is the term used for a counter-espionage agent in the armed forces,” my navigator, Vadim, answered before I could. He leaned back, grinning as if the explanation was all too simple. “Think of them as puppeteers, slipping their hands into the doll and pulling the strings, controlling it for their own purposes.”
I glanced at the girls, who were staring at Vadim with a mix of bewilderment and curiosity. I couldn’t let the metaphor stand alone; it painted too sinister a picture without giving the full story.
“Allow me to clarify what my eloquent friend here just said,” I interjected with a wry smile. “A ‘handler’ typically refers to someone who directly manages and controls an informant or agent in the field. They’re the ones responsible for communication, task assignments, and, well, guiding the informant’s activities. The term ‘handler’ is used because they don’t just give orders—they actively manage their agents, like pieces on a chessboard.”
Tanya, who had been listening intently, furrowed her brow, her earlier amusement giving way to confusion. “What does counter-espionage have to do with all of this?”
I sighed, feeling the weariness of the entire situation settle over me like a heavy cloak. “When they have nothing better to do, they make work for themselves. These guys need to justify their cushy lives, their perks. So, they get involved in everyone’s business—whether or not there’s the faintest trace of espionage. The fleet? Not a shred of it. But that doesn’t stop them. My case was investigated six months ago. I’ve even landed a new job, but they’re still sniffing around, trying to find a way to catch me in a lie. So, they send Olegs after me, armed with bottles of cognac, hoping alcohol will loosen my tongue. As if a few drinks could change the past or make me contradict myself.”
I paused, the bitterness creeping into my voice. “I don’t know what kind of calculations they’re making, but they won’t get away with it. Not this time.”
The two girls from Moscow had turned pale. They sat at the table, wide-eyed and quiet, pity etched across their faces. The weight of what I had said clearly hit them hard, though they couldn’t fully grasp the intricacies of this twisted game. Vadim, who had long known the whole story, was more at ease.
“Maybe we should have a little drink in honor of our commander?” he said, trying to lighten the mood, though the tension in the room hung thick like smoke.
I poured four glasses of cognac, the remnants of Oleg’s ill-fated visit, and raised mine for a toast. “To those who have flown away and will never return.”
As if on cue, the girls burst into tears. Already worn down by their long journey from Moscow, exhausted from a sleepless night tangled in our arms, and drained from wandering museums all day, they weren’t prepared for a toast like this. The emotional toll was too much. The room, once filled with laughter and shared stories, now felt like it was teetering on the edge of sorrow.
Vadim and I exchanged looks. We had no choice but to guide them to bed, hoping our embraces and soft words might soothe their pain. But little did we know, the women had the same idea in mind.
As the hours passed, the atmosphere shifted. The sadness that had lingered in the room began to dissipate, replaced by something warmer, more intimate. Laughter returned, not the loud, boisterous kind, but soft chuckles shared between close bodies. The weight of the earlier tears seemed to lift, carried away by the gentle rhythm of whispered stories and the shared comfort of touch. Slowly, the sorrow gave way to tenderness, as the exhaustion of the day melted into the night’s quiet, intimate embrace.


Chapter 16: An Unexpected Alliance

As we wandered aimlessly through the city, searching for 'worthy' adventures, I couldn’t help but reflect on our circumstances. It felt impossible to take things like the amber museum or the Schiller Monument seriously. The local girls barely gave us a second glance. Despite our flight jackets, emblazoned with 'Air Force,' and our confident invitations to dinner—which we hoped might lead to breakfast—they remained uninterested in us.

We stopped in front of the bronze sculpture of the 'Struggling Bisons,' two massive creatures, muscles taut, horns locked in combat as if each were trying to throw the other into the shattered fountain below. Without hesitation, our radio operator and mechanic clambered onto the marble base, grabbing the tails of the bronze beasts, dangling from them like oversized sausages.

"Enough with the child's play," I sighed, shaking my head. "You’ll be embarrassed if a sober police patrol comes along and picks you up."
"It's just not biting today," the navigator muttered bitterly, his mood as flat as the evening.
"You didn’t show them your rod—no wonder nothing’s biting," the radio operator replied crudely, dropping from the bison’s tail and landing on the ground with a thud.
"Head to Ivanovo," the co-pilot suggested with a grin. "Three women for every man. You’ll have all the seamstresses you could ever want."
"Let’s head back to the hotel," I said, feeling the weight of the evening settle over us. "This town isn’t for us. At least we lucked out with the accommodations—there’s hot water in the rooms. By the way, there’s a beer bar on the first floor. Whoever wants can hit it up, but make sure you’re back for lights out."
"I'm skipping the beer," the navigator said, shaking his head. "I’ll get my laundry done. Wouldn't mind some vodka with a few girls, like back in Pushkin, but there’s none around here."
"I’ll join you," I added. "Let the younger ones have their fun. Us ‘old men’ won’t spoil the party."
The decision to handle laundry turned out to be well-timed. After four days on this mission, the collars of our beige shirts were the color of coffee—without cream. And our socks? Stiff enough to be mistaken for shoe polishers if left outside the door.
Stripped down to our underwear, Vadim and I draped our laundry over the backs of chairs and settled in for some tea in front of the television. We hadn't finished the first cup when Nikolai Onoprienko, the crew’s radio operator, burst through the door without knocking, his face lit up with excitement.
"Commander, we found some fresh faces at the bar!"
"Quite the silver tongue you’ve got there, Petty Officer. You sound like a real pimp," the navigator quipped, raising an eyebrow.
"Spare me the lecture," I defended Nikolai. "First, I admire your resourcefulness. Second, why are you still standing here? Bring them in!"
Nikolai shot out of the door like a bullet, and Vadim and I scrambled to pull on our pants, struggling into still-damp uniform shirts and disguising our lack of socks with bedroom slippers. No sooner had we finished dressing than the door swung open again, and the "fresh faces" made their entrance.
The sight gave us all a bit of a shock. I was twenty-seven, the navigator twenty-nine, and the flight engineer barely thirty. Our radio operator was twenty-five, and the youngest, the co-pilot, only twenty-two. But the four women at the door were... well, easily in their forties. The age difference was obvious at first glance. Still, there was no turning back now, so I extended a welcoming gesture.
"Come in, ladies," I said, trying to maintain composure, though the situation had veered into the unexpected.
The impact of their presence was immediate and unmistakable. As they took their seats on the central sofa in our suite, I realized with a mix of amusement and disbelief who our "guests" were—delegates from the Russia's automobile production trade union. Their demeanor carried the weight of authority, and their sharp, no-nonsense expressions suggested that they were no strangers to handling difficult negotiations.
The women, delegates from all across the country, had gathered in Kaliningrad for their annual conference. But after days of exhaustive meetings, they had sought a much-needed respite at the hotel bar. That was where our crew, still buzzing from their failed attempts at local romance, had encountered them. And now here we were, hosting a delegation of trade union leaders—hardly the evening of adventure we had envisioned.
As I stood there, struggling to suppress a laugh, Vadim leaned toward me and whispered, "This… this is what we get for sending Nikolai to scout the bar."
Despite the absurdity of the situation, I managed to stifle my laughter, though it bubbled dangerously close to the surface. I could sense the tension in the room. Our crew, expecting a night of youthful fun, had instead found themselves entertaining women with decades of experience and an aura of authority.
"So," one of the women began, her voice firm but not unkind. "What exactly is the plan for this evening, gentlemen?"
I caught Vadim’s eye. The look we exchanged spoke volumes—this was not the kind of "adventure" we had anticipated.
"Well," I said, suppressing the urge to chuckle, "since we’re all here, how about we start with some more tea?"
There was a moment of silence, followed by a collective chuckle from the women. As they settled in, the tension eased, and the formal air gave way to relaxed conversation. Laughter soon replaced any lingering awkwardness, turning the bizarre meeting into a surprisingly enjoyable evening.
As the hours passed, we shared stories—surprisingly candid ones—from our respective lives. Their tales from the world of trade unions were not without humor, and as we traded anecdotes, the evening took on a strange, unexpected charm. The women, far from the stern figures they had appeared at first, were quick-witted, sharp, and had a dry sense of humor that fit perfectly with our crew’s own brand of gallows humor.
It wasn’t the adventure we had set out for, but maybe that was the beauty of it. We had stumbled into something completely different—something that would make for a story we’d be telling for years to come.
Evidently, the radio operator and the copilot had exaggerated our ages when extending the invitation, leading the women to expect men in their mid-thirties to forties. So when they found themselves standing before a group of fresh-faced young men—barely pushing thirty at best—they were taken aback. Whether it was a pleasant surprise or not, they hadn’t yet decided, but I wasn’t about to let the moment stall. I raised my glass with a smile, proposing a toast to our rather unexpected meeting.

“I’m Elena,” one of the women said, stepping forward and extending her hand. Her eyes twinkled with something between amusement and curiosity, clearly intrigued by the turn of events. “What shall we be drinking, boys?” she asked, her tone dripping with a playful sarcasm as introductions were made all around.
“As usual, pure grain alcohol, ladies,” Vadim responded with a grin that matched her tone.
I elbowed him lightly and whispered, “Don’t get too lively, or they might take offense and leave.”
But offending these women turned out to be quite the challenge. They matched us drink for drink, toasting each sip with hearty bites of smoked fish, and before long, the initial impression of them as older, more reserved women began to melt away. They were spirited, sharp-witted, and seemed every bit as keen on enjoying the night as we were.
Still, I had two goals in mind: First, I needed to minimize the age gap and restore a bit of balance by getting rid of the youngest among us—the copilot, Sergey. Second, I had to discreetly swap the alcohol in my glass with water, because someone needed to stay in control of this increasingly wild evening.
Sergey was proving difficult. He was already well into his drinks and wasn’t keen on leaving. I pulled him aside by the door and whispered, 'Sergey, you’re young enough to be their son. Maybe it’s time to go.”
“And you?” he asked, stubbornly.
“Oh, I’m like a younger brother,” I quipped, trying to lighten the mood.
With a hearty laugh, he clapped me on the shoulder and said, “Well, enjoy your time with these lovely sisters then!” With a wink, he finally stumbled out the door.
The second task—swapping my alcohol for water—was much simpler. Once Sergey was out of the picture, I quietly switched my glass, raising it now and then as we took turns proposing toasts. It all went smoothly until Gennadiy Rybnikov, our flight engineer, decided it was his turn to make a toast. Uttering the classic hussar salute, “To the Ladies,” he reached for his glass but, in his inebriated state, grabbed mine instead. Thinking it was water, he downed half the glass in one gulp—and followed it with another from his left hand.
It took him a moment to realize his mistake. Slowly, he turned his gaze towards me, eyes wide in shock. “You... son of a...” he began, the string of expletives that followed tumbling out as he collapsed between the sofa and the small table where our makeshift supper was laid out. The women erupted in laughter, their voices filling the room with mirth as Vadim, Nikolai, and I scrambled to lift Gennadiy from the floor and guide him into the bedroom.
The awkward episode proved to be a turning point for everyone. There was no need to persuade anyone to move from drinking to dancing—the mood had shifted naturally, and the alcohol had done its job. Vasiliev and Onoprienko took the initiative, offering their hands to the women they’d set their sights on, and soon, they were gracefully swaying around the center of our lavish suite.
As for me, I stayed seated on the sofa, my arms around the two remaining women, trying to decide which one deserved my attention. Their hands traced over my shoulders, deftly undoing buttons and slipping garments aside. I felt like I was in the middle of a bizarre dream where everything was moving just a little too fast, yet not fast enough.
Vadim, meanwhile, had seized his partner by the waist and led her toward the adjoining office. Only the considerable amount of alcohol they’d consumed could explain why they barely noticed the glass door separating the two rooms. Once inside, Vadim settled at the office desk, while the radio operator, Nikolai, forsook dancing altogether and positioned himself on the floor beside the sofa, keenly observing the unfolding events in the other room like a spectator at a theater.
Absorbed in the kisses from both sides, I nearly missed the pivotal moment when things began to go horribly awry for Vadim. Natasha, whom Vadim had whisked away, was now kneeling before the desk, her trembling hands resting on his thighs. At first, I didn’t get what was happening, but the look on Vadim’s face—helpless and bewildered—nearly sent me falling off the sofa in laughter.
The poor woman was on the verge of losing her dinner.
In mere seconds, everything she had consumed that evening made a grand reappearance all over Vadim’s still-damp legs and shirt. The expression on his face said it all—this was not the experience he had envisioned. The woman, meanwhile, looked mortified, and even in my state, I could feel a flicker of sympathy. But the absurdity of the situation made it impossible not to laugh.
Vadim shot me a look of utter despair as Nikolai clutched his sides, howling with laughter. I managed to stifle my own chuckles long enough to offer a weak, “Tough break, buddy.”
The room was in chaos now, with the women laughing so hard they were wiping tears from their eyes, while Vadim tried—unsuccessfully—to salvage his dignity.
And just like that, the wild, unpredictable night we had stumbled into took another sharp turn. This wasn't the adventure we'd imagined, but it had certainly become one for the history books.
Two of the women, who just moments ago had seemed more than eager to spend the rest of the night in my company, suddenly stood up from the sofa, exchanged a few whispered words, and led Natasha away to their suite. The room felt oddly empty without their presence, a strange shift from the lively chaos of just minutes earlier.
Vasiliev, cursing under his breath and threatening all women with his fist in mock frustration, took it upon himself to start tidying up the room, grumbling all the while. His outbursts were half-hearted, more out of exhaustion than genuine anger. The rest of us, too amused by the absurdity of the situation, followed him into the hallway, still chuckling and pinching our noses as we walked—our playful way of expressing disgust at the lingering smell Natasha had left behind.
"You bunch of ungrateful bastards," Vasiliev muttered, his voice muffled by the door as he stomped off into the bedroom where Rybnikov was still sound asleep, blissfully unaware of the drama that had unfolded.
I surveyed the room, sighing at the remnants of our wild night. With a flick of the wrist, I transformed the sofa I had been perched on into an expansive bed, then turned to Nikolai.
"Nikolai, get in touch with our older acquaintances. Let them know we’re eagerly awaiting their return," I said, smirking. "And ventilate the office after Vasiliev. You’ll be spending the night there."
Nikolai grinned sheepishly, knowing his place for the night had been secured in the office-turned-sauna. As for me, I stretched out on the sofa, still fully clothed, expecting our guests to return at any moment. I stared at the ceiling, trying to recall how bored I had been in Kamchatka, but soon my thoughts drifted to a more vivid memory: Mukhina, in Vladivostok. The memory was enough to distract me from the present, and before I knew it, sleep had overtaken me.
That sleep didn’t last long.
I awoke to the distinct sensation of being undressed, though this time, it was far from unwelcome. Two women—our “older acquaintances,” back from their mysterious retreat—were in the process of peeling off my clothes, their mischievous smiles indicating that sleep was no longer in the cards for me.

At six in the morning, a soft knock echoed through the suite, stirring me from a hazy, early dawn sleep. Wrapping a sheet around my body, I shuffled to the door and cracked it open, revealing a courier with a package "Good morning," I mumbled, taking the package from him. His eyes widened slightly at the sight of my half-clad state, but he said nothing, simply nodding before turning away.
I unwrapped the package and began to read the letter inside. My mind was still foggy from the night’s events, but the words slowly came into focus.
"What does it say, Valery?" Elena asked, her voice soft and curious as she lounged lazily on the bed, her head propped up on one hand. The sheets barely covered her body, and her eyes gleamed with the remnants of last night’s mischief.
"It says that all the trade union members from your Gorky Auto Plant have been on strike since yesterday," I replied, reclining back on the bed between the two women.
Elena raised an eyebrow, intrigued. Galyna, who had been trailing kisses down my neck, paused to ask, 'And the Chelyabinsk Tractor Factory? Anything on that?"
I glanced at the letter again, struggling to focus as Galyna’s lips trailed over my skin. "They did mention something," I said, my voice catching slightly from the distraction. "They mentioned you personally, actually."
Galyna pulled back just enough to give me a playful look. "What did they say?" she asked, her hands roaming over me, vying for my attention in competition with Elena.
"You," I said, grinning, "have been bestowed with the honorary title of ‘Hero of Sofa-ist Labor.’ The Golden Phallus award ceremony will take place upon your return from the conference."
Elena burst into laughter, her body shaking as she rolled over in amusement, while Galyna responded with a swift but playful pinch to my side, a mock reprimand for my cheeky comment.
"Very funny," she murmured, though her lips were still curved into a smile. But then her tone shifted, becoming more serious as she leaned in close. "But on a more pressing note, I need to leave for Moscow in two hours. If you want to make the most of our time together, you better get to work on my weary body."
I chuckled, though her words sparked a sense of urgency. The night had passed far too quickly, and now, with the sun rising, the clock was ticking on whatever time we had left. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to relax, sinking back into the warmth of the bed, between the two women, their laughter still echoing in my ears.


Chapter 17:

The first coherent thought that crossed my mind after the door closed behind my nocturnal guests was one of sheer panic: the medical examination.

How on earth was I going to pass the pre-flight medical test in my current state? I glanced at the navigator, still wearing remnants of last night’s disaster, the flight engineer who could barely stand without swaying, and the radio operator who looked as if he hadn't slept in a week. Each of them had eagerly participated in the previous night's debauchery. The co-pilot? Maybe he fared a little better, but he was far too young and inexperienced to take my place in front of the medics. He couldn't be my stand-in.
We were in serious trouble.
I called the entire crew to my suite, and they shuffled in, bleary-eyed and disheveled. I kept my voice low but firm, knowing we had to act quickly. "Listen up," I said, rubbing my temples to fend off the creeping headache. "The cargo we were supposed to transport? Too heavy for the aircraft. They’ve sent it by train instead, but we’re still scheduled to take off in an hour. Now, I don’t need to remind you that most of us wouldn’t pass a medical exam right now." My eyes scanned the room. Everyone looked like they’d been through the wringer. "So, here’s what we’re going to do."
I turned to the gunner and the cargo mechanic, who were the only ones not suffering the effects of our escapades. "You two will dress up as me and the navigator, take this," I said, pulling a two-pound can of caviar from our emergency supplies, "and use it to persuade the doctor that the entire crew is in perfect health."
The plan was insane, but it was all we had. There was no other way out of Kaliningrad without triggering questions or getting into serious trouble.
They both stared at the caviar can with wide eyes. "Captain, are you sure about this?" the gunner asked, doubt evident in his voice.
"Do you have a better idea?" I shot back, already halfway convinced this entire plan would blow up in our faces. But desperation has a way of making even the most absurd solutions seem reasonable.
With the matter settled, I rushed through the last-minute preparations. By the time I started the engines, we were minutes away from our designated take-off time. My head pounded, and I could barely focus on the pre-flight checklist. There wasn’t time to go through it thoroughly. I taxied to the runway, pushing the throttle levers forward to maximum RPM without even stopping at the threshold. The take-off roll began, and the aircraft roared to life beneath me.
No sooner had we become airborne when Gennadiy Rybnikov, our still-dazed flight engineer, leaned over and muttered, "Captain, did you set the pressurization lever to ‘closed’?"
A cold shiver ran down my spine.
I looked at the lever, and sure enough, my worst fear was confirmed—I’d forgotten to set it. Panic surged through me as I quickly corrected the mistake, sealing the aircraft. Memories of a similar incident two years ago flashed through my mind, an incident that nearly cost an entire crew their lives.
It had been the same type of aircraft—an AN-12. The crew had spent the entire night drinking and were ordered to fly from Ufa to Kiev the next morning. In their haste, the commander forgot to set the pressurization lever after picking up the gunner through the nose emergency hatch. They climbed to twenty-four thousand feet, unaware that the aircraft wasn’t properly pressurized. One by one, everyone on board—crew and passengers alike—succumbed to oxygen deprivation.
As I adjusted the route waypoints and radio contact points, my mind couldn’t help but linger on the chilling details of that incident. The aircraft, eerily dubbed the "Flying Dutchman," continued on autopilot for hours, drifting aimlessly toward Moscow. Intercepting fighter jets reported seeing the crew slumped at their stations, seemingly lifeless.
The AN-12 would have flown until it ran out of fuel—plummeting who knows where—had it not been for a miracle. A final-year trainee co-pilot from the Air Force college had been on board. He woke up from the biting cold, shaking off the fog of unconsciousness just enough to make contact with ground control. Disoriented and terrified, he managed to wrestle the controls and bring the aircraft down for a rough landing at a military airfield near the city of Gorky. Everyone else on board had been either unconscious or too disoriented to act.
The memory clung to me, refusing to let go. As we leveled off at cruising altitude, I couldn’t shake the realization of how close we had come to repeating that same fatal mistake. The navigator sat next to me, looking pale but alert, his earlier bravado replaced by a quiet tension. He didn’t need to say anything—his eyes said it all. We’d been lucky, but luck only lasts so long.
"How’s the caviar crew doing?" I asked over the intercom, trying to mask the tremor in my voice with a forced sense of normalcy.
"They’re still convincing the doctor we’re the picture of health," came the dry response from Nikolai, who was still too exhausted to sound fully invested. I chuckled despite myself. It was absurd—here we were, flying thousands of feet above the ground, held together by nothing but caviar and sheer audacity.
But underneath the humor, I knew the stakes were high. We were playing a dangerous game, and every minute in the air felt like a reminder of how fragile this life truly was. A single forgotten lever, a momentary lapse in judgment, and it could all end. We were soldiers, pilots, but above all, we were human. And humans make mistakes. The only difference was that ours could send an entire plane plummeting from the sky.
As I navigated the plane through the flight plan, the tension in my chest began to ease, but the lesson had been seared into me. There are no shortcuts when you’re flying at twenty thousand feet. You either follow procedure, or you don’t come back down.
I glanced at the exhausted faces of my crew, and despite the rough start to the day, a sense of camaraderie settled over us. We had pushed our luck, and somehow, we’d gotten away with it. But it wasn’t something we could afford to forget.
The night had been full of chaos, laughter, and recklessness, but up here, in the skies, everything was different. Everything was clear. We were alive, and for now, that was enough.

The investigation into that tragic incident had been unforgiving, laying blame on everyone involved. The entire crew—heroes and all—were dishonorably discharged, including the brave trainee co-pilot and even the doctor who had signed off on their flight readiness. No one escaped the fallout. It was a brutal reminder that in our line of work, a single mistake could erase years of service and dedication.
As we reached cruising altitude, I tried to shake off the lingering thoughts. Below us, picturesque Lithuanian villages dotted the landscape like tiny specks on a painting, while a freight train raced eastward, weaving through the countryside. Above us, a passenger jet heading toward Western Europe cut through the sky, its engines leaving behind four crisp contrails like brushstrokes across the blue expanse.
My mind wandered. I imagined the scene inside that pristine white airliner—a scene far removed from the chaos of military transport. Flight attendants in neatly pressed uniforms gliding down the aisles, serving hot coffee and breakfast to passengers who barely noticed the calm hum of the engines. The pilot-in-command, no doubt seated comfortably in his immaculate white shirt and black tie, his four gold stripes gleaming on his shoulders, sipping his morning coffee and mentally calculating his earnings for the month.
Meanwhile, the first officer, outwardly focused on the instruments, secretly daydreamed about the sixteenth-century icon he had smuggled into his briefcase, waiting to make its way into the lucrative Western art market. And yet, despite these small rebellions of the mind, their lives were enviably serene—coffee and quiet flights, free from the looming specter of life-threatening mishaps.
I wondered if those pilots, flying to glamorous Western destinations, ever flirted with their tall, elegant flight attendants. But no, that was unlikely. Such reckless behavior could risk their cushy positions on elite crews. A single misstep, and they’d find themselves banished to Siberian routes—endless flights to places like Surgut or Urengoy, where they'd spend their days ferrying drunken oil drillers instead of wealthy businessmen.
Such is life.
Just a year ago, I’d envied those transport pilots for the simple freedoms they had: the luxury of moving around during flight, playing cards with passengers, or even sharing a quiet game of chess with the radio operator. Now, as I stared at that spotless white jet above us, my envy welled up once again. It was an entirely different world up there.
I couldn’t help but laugh at myself. "I wish someone would bring me a cup of coffee," I thought. "Just once." That simple luxury would probably be etched in my memory forever, like a rare indulgence from a different life. Instead, I was fighting off a crushing wave of exhaustion, all thanks to the night I’d wasted with two shameless trade union chairwomen. Now, here I was, barely able to keep my eyes open.
I tried every trick I knew to fend off sleep. First, I rubbed my ears vigorously. When that didn’t work, I licked the roof of my mouth—a trick I’d learned from a veteran pilot. Nothing. The fatigue was relentless. Finally, I reached behind the seat and grabbed my oxygen mask. I strapped it on and inhaled deeply, breathing in pure oxygen, hoping it would shock me awake.
But even that wasn’t enough. I felt the heaviness creeping back, my eyelids drooping.
I turned to the flight engineer, Gennadiy Rybnikov, who had long since surrendered to sleep. He was slumped in his seat, blissfully unaware of my struggle.
“Gennadiy,” I called, nudging him awake. He stirred slowly, blinking at me in confusion.
“What is it, Captain?” he mumbled, still half-asleep.
“Pass me some matches,” I said, trying to sound casual, though my voice was edged with frustration.
He fumbled in his pocket, still groggy, and handed me a box of matches, raising an eyebrow as he did. “Why do you need these? You don’t smoke.”
In response, I held up the oxygen mask and smirked. “I want to light them in pure oxygen.”
Gennadiy looked at me for a moment, his face blank with exhaustion. Then, with a shrug, he muttered, “Go ahead. At least we’ll have something to do until we reach Moscow.”
I laughed at the absurdity of it all. Here we were, in the middle of the sky, miles from any sense of normalcy, and yet the idea of creating a fireball in pure oxygen seemed almost… tempting. What else could we do but joke about it?
The ridiculousness of the situation wasn’t lost on me. We were exhausted, drained from a night of indulgence and recklessness, now responsible for the lives of everyone onboard. And yet, humor was the only shield we had against the creeping dread. In another world, a pilot was sipping his coffee, enjoying his calm, uneventful flight. Here, we were tempting fate with boxes of matches and oxygen masks.
But beneath the humor, I couldn’t shake the feeling of how fragile this all was. How one mistake, one moment of carelessness, could spiral into something far worse. I glanced back at Gennadiy, who was already drifting off again. He trusted me, and for the sake of the crew, I couldn’t afford to let that trust falter.
The fatigue was still there, but the joke had shaken me awake just enough. I tightened my grip on the controls, glancing once more at the contrails of the passenger jet disappearing above us. My mind was back in the game.
There would be no fires today, at least not in the cockpit.

Overhearing our conversation, the radio operator chimed in, “What's the plan until we reach Moscow? Play cards or something? I'm in too.”

“No,” Gennadiy replied. "The Captain wants to ignite pure oxygen. I told him that we'll likely be busy battling the cockpit fire until we land."
“Well, that sounds like a brilliant idea,” the navigator remarked.
"Especially if the squadron commander decides to listen to the cockpit voice recording when we arrive at the home base."

I took out two matches from the box and placed them between my eyelids. My eyes welled up, but they didn't close. I accidentally hit my forehead on the control column, which was painful. That indicated I had fallen asleep with my eyes open.

I removed the matches and looked at my co-pilot. Sergey was sound asleep and snoring loudly. Gennadiy Rybnikov had dozed off again as soon as he handed me the matches. The navigator was holding his slide ruler vertically, presumably hoping that if he nodded off, dropping it would wake him up, or his forehead would hit against the ruler if it remained standing.

In an attempt to shake off the overwhelming drowsiness, I stood up on the emergency hatch between the pilot seats.

"Kovalenko!" I shouted directly into my copilot's ear. "Wake up! Crawl over to the navigator and make sure he doesn't fall asleep before we start descending. "If he nods off, we won't be landing in Moscow. Instead, we'll end up in some Northern city, behind bars, wearing prison uniforms."

The young man jerked from the suddenness of it, wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, and reluctantly left his seat. He got down on all fours and crawled into the front section of the aircraft.

"What's got you moving?" Vasiliev asked.

"The Captain sent me to keep you entertained."

"What an astute commander we have," Vadim said with a sly smile, looking at me from below. "Since he sent you, get to entertaining."

The copilot shared a joke about a passenger plane's crew that involved a new stewardess,

"The Captain of the passengers plane, after reaching cruising altitude, unfastens his seatbelt, reclines the pilot's seat, and getting up from it, says to the first officer through the intercom - 'We have a new flight attendant, I'll go give her a try.'

The first officer shrugs, implying 'do as you wish - you're in charge here.'

A  few minutes later, the pilot returns and takes his seat, while the first officer, still looking at the clouds passing below, asks his boss, 'So, how was she?'

'Nothing special,' the pilot replies curtly, and then adds with a pause, 'My wife is better.'"

With that, the First Officer stands up and declares,

"Alright, it's my turn to assess her worthiness.”

The First Officer returned to his seat after a similar stretch of time, buckled his seatbelt, and adjusted his headset. His gaze drifted to the endless expanse of clouds outside the cockpit window, but I could see a glint of satisfaction in his eyes.

The Captain’s curiosity got the better of him, and he asked, "So, young man, what's your verdict on our new addition to the crew?"
Without missing a beat, young pilot replied, "You were right, Captain. Your wife is definitely better."
The navigator winced as if he had bitten down on something sharp, shaking his head in disbelief. "Give me a break."
"Huh?" Sergey looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"I want to call your grandmother and tell her you’ve been stealing her jokes," Vadim retorted with a smirk, clearly unimpressed. He shot a look at me, then added, "Sergey, you know any jokes that don’t belong in a nursing home?"
Sergey frowned, clearly not used to his jokes falling flat. "What’s wrong with it?" he muttered defensively.
Vadim ignored him and turned to me, his voice crackling over the intercom. "Valery, do you know any good ones? Your jokes are way better than our comedian-in-training over here."
I could tell Sergey’s innocent remark had hit a nerve, but I wasn’t about to let it slide without throwing in a little heat of my own.
"Alright, here’s one for you," I said, leaning back in my seat. "A doctor walks into the waiting room of the hospital delivery department and hands the new father his baby. The father reaches out to hold the baby, but just as he’s about to take him, the doctor grabs the baby by the feet and smashes him against the wall. Brains everywhere, blood splattering across the room. The father faints on the spot, horrified."
I paused, giving the room a moment to absorb the shock before delivering the punchline.
"So the doctor revives him with smelling salts and says, 'Don't be so upset. I was just kidding. Your child was stillborn.'"
There was a beat of silence before Sergey, clearly confused, asked, "Was that some kind of warning?"
I leaned forward, my voice deadly calm. "No, Sergey. That was a direct threat. If you keep making jokes about Captains' wives, I’ll do to you what that doctor did to the baby. And I’ll tell the wing commander you were born that way."
The cockpit fell into an awkward silence. Even Vadim, who usually had a quick comeback for everything, stayed quiet. Sergey’s innocent joke had struck a raw nerve, one I wasn’t willing to joke about. The banter had taken a darker turn, and I could tell the mood had shifted.
It wasn’t just the joke. My young wife lived fifty miles away, in bustling Vladivostok, while I spent most of my time in the small, isolated town of Artem. I saw her only on weekends, when she could make the trip. The rest of the week? Well, I had no idea what she was doing—and I didn’t want to know. I forced myself to believe that her life was as clean as I wanted mine to seem, but the doubt was always there, gnawing at the edges of my mind.
The truth was, it wasn’t so much about trust—it was about the choices we made. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know the risks of a long-distance marriage, especially when I was off on missions, doing things she would never know about. The thought of her, alone in the city, and me, out here… it weighed heavier than I liked to admit. Sergey's little joke had just struck that chord, stirring up doubts I kept buried most of the time.
I shook the thoughts away, pushing them deep down where they belonged. Now wasn’t the time to lose focus.
"We’re starting our descent," I said, my voice firm and steady again. I switched my attention back to the task at hand, adjusting the instruments. As we began the slow approach to Moscow, I silently mulled over an idea—finding a way to extend our stay for a few days. The official reason could be anything: engine trouble, faulty equipment. Whatever it took.
Truthfully, I wasn’t thinking about the logistics. I was thinking about the young women we’d met in Pushkin a month ago. We’d had a hell of a time with them, and the thought of reconnecting while in Moscow was tempting, to say the least.
But first, I had to make sure we landed this plane without any more bad jokes—or worse, a crash.
I leaned in close to the flight engineer, Gennadiy, and whispered softly, making sure the rest of the crew couldn’t hear, "Gennadiy, we need to sabotage something on the plane. Vadim and I really need a couple of days in Moscow."

Gennadiy furrowed his brow, considering the request in silence. After a few moments, he whispered back, just as discreetly, "It’s time to change the tires anyway. We were going to do it back at base, but we can do it here just as easily. No one will know the difference. Brake hard during landing. By the time they find us some replacements from the warehouse, we’ll have swapped them out. You’ll get your three days. Just make sure the crew stays with me."
I nodded, a silent agreement passing between us. It wasn’t the most honest strategy, but we were men used to bending the rules. Moscow was worth the risk.
With a subtle adjustment, I took the plane into a slightly higher trajectory, setting up for the landing. As the wheels touched down, I engaged the propeller brakes and simultaneously slammed on the wheel brakes. The friction was immediate and harsh. The rear gunner's voice crackled over the intercom, "Captain, the tires are smoking—leaving black streaks on the runway."
I eased off the brakes, my heart racing. One blown tire, and this little plan would spiral into something much harder to explain. I couldn’t afford for this to turn into a landing accident. If that happened, a simple tire replacement wouldn’t be enough—there’d be investigations, paperwork, and worst of all, political officers breathing down my neck.
The plane finally came to a stop on the apron, and I exhaled slowly, trying to keep my cool. We’d pulled it off, but the tension hadn’t fully dissipated. As we exited the cockpit, I casually informed the engineer who came to meet us about the "necessary maintenance work."
Walking away from the aircraft, I tried to push the consequences out of my mind. But the thought of explaining it all back in Artem crept in, like a shadow I couldn’t shake. The confrontation with Lieutenant Colonel Skvortsov—the political officer who’d disliked me from day one—felt inevitable.
His disdain had a simple cause: I was the only commanding pilot who refused to submit detailed reports about my crew's behavior during missions. Most commanders, even those who didn’t want to incriminate their crews, filed token reports, keeping things light. Skvortsov? He thrived on details—on dirt.
Officers eager for promotions or the rare chance to fly abroad fed him embellished reports full of the juicy tidbits he craved. The officers who wanted promotions or the rare chance to fly abroad would play along, embellishing their reports with all the juicy tidbits Skvortsov craved. And like a modern-day Cardinal Richelieu, Skvortsov ruled the transport wing with subtlety and cunning. He understood the most fundamental truth of power: control the information, and you control everything.
But I wasn’t interested in playing his game.
It wasn’t out of any moral integrity, mind you—I was far from a moralist. For me, it was a simple calculation: I had nothing to gain from cozying up to Skvortsov. No one was sending me abroad with my tarnished reputation. It wasn’t like I was next in line for a promotion either. At my age, it was still too early to think about that. And demotion? Unlikely, unless I did something truly catastrophic. So, in my temporary stability, I saw no reason to grovel before the political officer. I spoke to him plainly, without any hint of deference, which I knew irritated him to no end.
Skvortsov had tried, on more than one occasion, to break through my indifference. One day, under the guise of a "friendly chat," he invited me into his office. I knew better than to think there was anything friendly about it. The walls of his office were suffocating, cluttered with paperwork, maps, and the distinct smell of stale tobacco. He sat behind his desk, eyes glinting with that manipulative charm he used so effectively.
"I’ve heard some interesting rumors about you, Valery," he began, pausing deliberately, waiting for me to respond. "Seems you never miss an opportunity to seduce any pretty woman you come across during your missions."
He leaned back in his chair, smirking, like a predator watching its prey. He was baiting me, waiting for a reaction, hoping to catch me off-guard.
There were two ways I could play this. The first option? Laugh it off—turn it into a joke and diffuse the tension. The second? Counterattack.
My mind raced for a moment, weighing my options. The air in his office was thick with unspoken tension, but I wasn’t about to let him trap me with some petty insinuation about my personal life.
I glanced around the room, eyeing the framed photographs on his walls, then turned back to him, deciding on my course of action.
With his next words, Skvortsov effectively slammed the door on any hope for a peaceful resolution.
"I could call your father-in-law and tell him about your behavior on missions," he said, his tone shifting from official to personal, a subtle threat laced with the promise of trouble.
I felt the blood drain from my face for a split second, but I recovered quickly. Two could play this game. I leaned forward, locking eyes with him, and retorted calmly, "Well, when you do, make sure to also inform him about how you organized the transportation of red caviar from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to Voronezh. And don’t forget to let the counter-espionage agents know how much profit you made from reselling it."
His eyes widened. I could see the flicker of panic as my words landed like a punch to the gut. Skvortsov had been expecting me to fold, not to fight back, and certainly not to come out swinging. His composure cracked.
"How dare you speak to me like that, Captain?" he demanded, his voice trembling with barely restrained fury.
I kept my voice steady, every word deliberate. "I'm not worried, Comrade Political Officer. You’ll just have to endure it, the same way Svetlana Mukhina had to endure you when you got her drunk and threw her across the passenger seats while flying over the Sea of Okhotsk. Or Olga Morozova—who had to sleep with you in the backseat of your car just to jump the line for an apartment. That’s what you should do, Lieutenant Colonel. Before you dial my father-in-law’s number, call your wife and confess all of it. And after that, call your superior—the Head of the Political Department of the Pacific Fleet—and come clean about your ‘extracurricular activities.’ I’m sure they’d love to hear about your loyalty to the Party."
His face turned an alarming shade of red, veins bulging at his temples. I could tell he wanted to explode, to throw something at me, to scream. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Instead, his voice dropped to a low hiss, dripping with venom like a snake cornered but still dangerous.
"Get out, Grigoriev," he spat. "But remember this—I won’t forget about you."
I almost replied, "Me neither," but something in the room told me not to push any further. Pouring more oil on this already blazing fire might send things spiraling out of control. Skvortsov was powerful, but now he knew I had leverage. It wasn’t worth provoking him into desperate action.
Besides, I had more dirt on him than just his personal scandals. I could’ve reminded him that I knew all about the wing administration's embezzlement of anti-icing alcohol, or how bribery ran rampant among the crews assigned to financially lucrative missions. But I chose to keep that knowledge close to my chest, saving it for a more opportune moment.

An awkward silence lingered as I stood, leaving him to stew in his frustration. As I walked out of the room, the door clicked shut behind me, but I knew this wasn’t over. Skvortsov wasn’t the kind of man to forget a slight. He would bide his time, waiting for his moment to strike. I just had to be ready for when he did.
But for now, I had the upper hand.



Chapter 18: ‘Submarine’

My call to the Tushino Machine-Building Plant where Tanya and Marina worked took both women by surprise. It was a pleasant surprise, especially when Marina, with her soft, hesitant voice, expressed how they remembered us fondly and were eager to see us again. There was a warmth in her tone, a subtle excitement that hinted at possibilities. We arranged to meet in the heart of Moscow by the fountain at the Bolshoi Theatre. When we arrived, they were already there, waiting—smiling and radiant, with four ballet tickets in hand.
That evening’s performance was Spartacus, a dramatic display of rebellion and defiance. As the gladiator fought against the Roman commander Marcus Crassus on stage, I found myself distracted. My hand moved discreetly, resting on Marina’s leg, my mind wandering not toward the battle on stage but to the one I imagined later, in the privacy of her apartment. We had agreed on dinner after the show—a casual plan, but the undercurrent of anticipation ran strong.
Marina's husband, Peter, was a curious character, or so she told me. Every Friday, without fail, he’d disappear into the forests outside Moscow, where he claimed to spend two days roughing it in the wilderness. He enjoyed sleeping in a tent, strumming his guitar by a bonfire, sipping tea from an iron mug, all while using snow to fill the teapot. The image was so quaint it almost sounded rehearsed. Marina shared these details with me during the intermission, as we sat perched on tall stools at the theater's buffet, our conversation lubricated by coffee laced with cognac.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all, shaking my head in disbelief. "Your Peter is probably lounging in some cozy apartment right now, enjoying a warm Jacuzzi," I suggested, leaning in with a grin. "Most likely being pampered by some sweetheart under the bubbles. And tonight, he'll be tucked under a soft blanket with her, not in some cold, damp sleeping bag on the snow."
Marina tilted her head, intrigued by the suggestion but not quite surprised. "Oh?" she responded, raising an eyebrow, inviting me to continue.
"Then Sunday evening, he'll stroll back home after this so-called 'expedition.' He’ll spin stories about how hard it was to light a bonfire with wet wood, how wolves howled in the distance, and how he shivered in his sleeping bag all night. And you'll be there, smiling and nodding as he says he’s exhausted and just needs a hot shower and a warm bed."
Marina’s reaction wasn’t what I expected. Instead of shock or amusement, she offered an indifferent shrug. "I couldn’t care less," she said, her voice calm but revealing a hint of frustration. "Whether he’s in the woods with his buddies or in a Jacuzzi with a mistress, it doesn’t matter to me. As long as I get a break from him. At least for two days a week."
Her words hung in the air for a moment. There was something cold and resigned in the way she said it. A wife who had long stopped caring about where her husband went, as long as he wasn’t with her. The indifference in her voice left me wondering how deep her disillusionment ran, and yet, the fact that she was here, with me, said more than words ever could.
The third bell rang, signaling the end of the intermission. We returned to our seats, but my mind was elsewhere, spinning with the possibilities of what the night might bring. Spartacus resumed, the battle on stage intensifying, but all I could think about was the quiet rebellion brewing between Marina and me, one far more personal than anything unfolding before the audience.

Peter’s presence wasn’t mentioned again that night, and frankly, I couldn’t care less whether he was freezing in his sleeping bag under the stars or luxuriating in a Jacuzzi with someone else. What mattered was that soon his wife would be warming me with her alluring body, a thought far more compelling than anything happening in the wilderness. We just had to wait for Spartacus to finish his dance.
As the final notes of the ballet drifted away, the tragic figure of Spartacus was carried offstage on the tips of Roman spears, defeated yet defiant. The curtain fell, but the anticipated miracle didn’t come—once again, Evil triumphed over Good. The audience, perhaps long resigned to such outcomes, burst into applause, showering the dancers with an extended standing ovation. Yet, my mind was elsewhere. Our shared lust had overtaken any appreciation for art. We rushed through the rows, barely acknowledging the applause, intent on retrieving our coats and heading for Marina’s small one-bedroom apartment in the northwestern outskirts of the city.
Supper was more of a pit stop than a meal. We devoured it so quickly that an awkward silence settled over the room, the kind that comes when hunger for something more than food lingers between bites.
Tanya, ever the sharp-tongued observer, broke the silence first. Her voice dripped with playful sarcasm, "What’s the rush? Are you two from a famine-stricken region or something? There was quite the spread at the theater buffet."
Vadim, quick on his feet as always, flashed a grin and shot back, "Tanya, we’re not starving for food. We’re starving to meet you two again. The faster we eat, the more time we’ll have alone with you." His words hung in the air, teasing, but the subtext was anything but.
Marina, pretending to be offended, pouted slightly. "Well, look at this. I cook a nice dinner, try to impress you with my culinary talents, and all you can think about is the bed." Her tone was playful, but there was a hint of mischief in her eyes.
But Vasiliev was already done with the formalities. Without a word, he swept the petite Tanya into his arms, her laughter ringing through the apartment as he carried her off into Marina’s son’s room. The apartment’s hostess, perhaps trying to maintain some semblance of propriety, started gathering up the dishes, but I stopped her, taking her hand and pulling her toward me.
"Leave it for the morning," I said softly. "You’ll have time to clean up after the nomads then."
She hesitated for a moment before giving in, sitting down on my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck. Her voice softened, "I never thought I’d see you again after Pushkin."
"Meanwhile, I knew we’d meet again," I said, brushing my fingers against her cheek. "But I was worried the reunion might be a little... chilly."
She kissed me, silencing any further thought of doubt. Afterward, she slipped off to prepare the bed. When I emerged from my shower, draped in Peter’s bath towel, Marina was already lying under the terrycloth sheets, watching TV. She looked up, and when she saw me, she burst into laughter, her voice light and full of humor. She lowered the volume and lifted the edge of the sheet, inviting me in.
Half an hour later, I slipped out of bed and made my way back to the bathroom, intending to relax in the hot water and let the night’s events wash over me.
"Will you be back soon?" Marina asked, stretching languidly beneath the sheets, her voice tinged with satisfaction.
"Go ahead and fall asleep," I replied. "When I get back, I’ll wake you up, and we can continue."
She smiled lazily, "If I doze off, don’t bother waking me. If I like it, I’ll join you; if not, you can tell me all about it in the morning."
I couldn’t help but grin at her teasing. "You little temptress," I said, shaking my head. "Here I am, putting in all this effort, and you’re just toying with me."
She winked. "Then put in more effort. This is one place where there are no limits."
I slipped into the bathroom, filling the tub with hot water and a generous amount of bath foam. Turning off the lights, I let the steam rise around me, pulling the shower curtain closed as I sank into the tub. Only my nose remained above the water, like a submarine lurking at periscope depth, hidden in enemy waters. Following this absurd analogy, I imagined myself as a submarine falling for a destroyer, wondering how I could possibly avoid getting entangled in the anti-submarine net of emotions.
The quiet darkness of the bathroom provided space for my mind to wander. I wondered what Tanya and Vadim might be up to in the other room. Perhaps I should pay them a visit, break the monotony of my solitary relaxation. The thought lingered as I drifted between thoughts of Marina, Peter, and the night’s unexpected twists.
But before I could make a decision, the door to the bathroom swung open, flooding the room with harsh light. The shower curtain rustled as Tatiana stepped in, her silhouette framed by the bright glow from the hallway.

Without noticing the translucent curtain separating us, Tatiana stood in front of the bathroom mirror, meticulously wiping away traces of lipstick from her neck and breasts. I couldn’t help but smile, noting how her sticky lipstick had transferred from her lips to Vadim’s, and from there to her own body. The navigator was certainly giving it his best effort. Tanya’s lipstick, I mused, certainly leaves its mark. I wondered just how far Vasily's kisses had traveled.
Watching this young, beautiful woman—completely unaware of my presence—brought a twisted sense of pleasure. The steam from the hot water swirled lazily in the air, and I remained submerged in the bath, motionless, my gaze fixed on her as she continued her self-examination. I forgot, for the moment, about my earlier feelings for Marina. Here was something far more immediate and tantalizing. I waited, anticipating the moment Tatiana would decide to shower, unaware she wasn’t alone.
At last, she turned, her face toward me, her expression shifting as she spotted the silhouette behind the curtain. With a quick, startled motion, she yanked the curtain aside. Her reaction was a mix of shock and confusion, her body instinctively curling as she covered her breasts and lower abdomen with her hands.
Like a creature from a dark fairy tale, I rose slowly from the water. It cascaded down from my head, bubbles sliding away, leaving my body bare and imposing in the dim light. Tatiana's eyes widened, her breaths shallow. She tried to open the door, fumbling with the handle, but I remembered that she had locked it when she first entered the bathroom. There was no easy escape.
"So, you're trapped," I whispered, a sly smile creeping across my face as I stepped closer.
She pressed her back against the door, panic flashing across her features. With hesitation, she removed her hands from her body, placing them on my chest in a weak attempt to stop me.
"Don't, Valery," she said, her voice trembling. "Let's just remain friends."
"Of course," I replied smoothly, still closing the distance between us. "We’ll be friends... but on a deeper level. ‘Just friends’ is fine, but ‘close friends’—that’s even better, don’t you think?"
Before she could say another word, I gently placed my index finger on her lips, silencing her. Then, I guided her hands to my shoulders.
"We’re wasting time," I said softly, lifting her by the waist and placing her atop the washing machine opposite the mirror. Her breath hitched as our reflections faced each other. Her eyes, wide with uncertainty and something else—fear, perhaps—searched mine. There was a tremble in her gaze, a silent plea. Tears threatened to spill, glistening at the edges of her lashes.
For a brief moment, guilt clawed at me. But I pushed it away. I reached for the light switch and, with a single motion, plunged the room into darkness, pressing my body against hers, erasing the space between us.

Later, before returning to Marina’s bed, I gently picked up Tatiana, who was still trembling, and placed her in the warm bathwater. She seemed so small, so fragile in that moment, her eyes avoiding mine, the earlier confidence drained from her.
"You won’t tell Vadim about this, will you?" she asked quietly, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"Of course not," I reassured her, though I could hear the hollowness in my own words. "Take a quick soak, calm down. Nothing terrible has happened."
But even as I said it, I wasn’t sure I believed it.
Marina was sprawled diagonally across the bed, leaving no room for me to lie down without waking her. The granddaughter of a Spanish war hero, sleeping so peacefully. I couldn’t help but smile at the irony of her lineage and the situation we were in.
"Why did you take so long?" she murmured, half-awake as she reached out to pull me closer. "I’ve already had my beauty sleep. Now I won’t let you get yours."
I sighed inwardly, bracing myself for the sleepless night ahead. Submarine, why did you dive so deep? Surface and show her the real fighting spirit of the USSR Navy, I thought, trying to muster the energy for another round.
But before the battle could even begin, the sound of the elevator clunked through the walls, stopping on our floor. I froze. There was a brief pause, followed by a cautious, almost hesitant, ring of the doorbell.
Marina shot up, her eyes wide with panic, scrambling to put on her underwear and robe. I stood by the window, looking down at the flowerbed from the eleventh floor. It was a long drop. Even if I jump and land on soft ground, I won’t survive, I thought, my heart racing.
"It’s my husband," Marina whispered, her voice trembling with suppressed fear. "Hurry, grab your stuff—and Vadim’s—and get to their room."
The sound of a toilet flushing echoed from the bathroom, and Tatiana, still naked, tiptoed across the hallway into Marina’s son’s room like a ghost trying not to disturb the living.
I moved quickly, clothes hanging from every conceivable spot on my body, like some deranged coat rack. I grabbed my jacket and Vadim’s from the hallway, frantically stuffing our things together. Marina was buying us time, buttoning her robe as she spoke to her husband through the door, trying to sound casual, though I could hear the strain in her voice.
"Peter, is that you?" she asked, her voice laced with false sleepiness.
"Who else would it be?" came Peter’s irritated reply from the other side of the door.
"Just a second," she stalled. "I can’t find the key for the bottom lock. I’m still so sleepy."
Peter’s frustration seeped through. "It’s in the right pocket of my work pants. The pants are on the hanger. Get that one if you're being clumsy."
Clumsy? I thought, shaking my head. If only he knew... I leaned closer to the door, murmuring under my breath, "She’s not clumsy, quite the opposite."
I gave Marina a quick, quiet kiss on the cheek as a thank-you, then, with our clothes draped over me like a makeshift shield, I slipped into the boys' room on bare feet.
Inside, Vadim and Tatiana were huddled under the covers, their eyes wide with fear. Vadim’s voice was barely a whisper. "Who’s at the door?"
I crouched next to them, my voice low and steady. "Our cuckold has returned from his ‘camping trip.’" I covered my mouth with my hand, gesturing for them to keep quiet. One wrong move, and we’d be facing a disaster.
I pressed my ear against the door, straining to catch every word exchanged between Peter and Marina. My heart pounded in my chest, and the absurdity of the situation hit me in waves. Here I was, a grown man crouching in a bedroom, half-naked, covered in clothes, with my untanned buttocks exposed, reflecting the soft moonlight that streamed through the semi-transparent blinds.
Marina’s voice floated through the apartment, still working to buy us time. "I found the key," she said. Her tone was light, but I could hear the edge of tension underneath.
Meanwhile, Peter’s irritation simmered, each second he stood outside building his impatience. I could only imagine the look on his face as he waited, oblivious to the chaos happening just a few feet away.
I shifted slightly, still listening, but a slight draft brushed against my exposed skin, reminding me how ridiculous I looked in that moment. My naked backside illuminated by the moon, eavesdropping on a conversation that could blow everything apart. If only Peter knew how close he was to discovering the truth.
A sudden crash from outside the door—the sound of keys dropping—sent a jolt of adrenaline through me. I turned to Vadim and Tatiana, who were now sitting upright, holding their breath.
"Quiet," I mouthed, pressing my ear harder against the door. The tension was unbearable. Would Marina be able to hold him off? Could we slip out unnoticed?
And then, as if the universe had a cruel sense of humor, my foot slipped, hitting the doorframe with a soft but unmistakable thud. Everyone froze. Vadim, Tatiana, and I exchanged panicked looks, eyes wide as saucers.
Through the door, I heard Peter’s voice again, closer this time, "What was that noise?"
I swallowed hard, my pulse hammering in my ears. This is it, I thought. The game’s up.

“What’s happened, Peter? Why have you come back in the middle of the night?” Marina’s voice drifted from the kitchen, laced with a forced calmness.
Peter, still shedding the weight of his worn backpack, began his tired tale. “Yesterday, Ivan Koval was chopping firewood and ended up cutting his leg with the axe. We had to carry him—eight miles through the forest to the train station. We managed to get him to a village hospital, but after that, I had to hitchhike to the Ring Road. And then walk the rest of the way home. It’s too late for the subway, and none of us had enough money for a taxi, so I spent two hours trekking through the city in the dead of night.”
Would’ve been better if you’d gotten lost, I thought, mischievously. Or maybe stayed behind to gather more firewood with Koval.
Peter sighed, dropping his backpack heavily onto the floor. “I’m starving. Leonid was cooking up dinner, but then with all the chaos, none of us had time to eat.”
“I’ll whip something up quickly,” Marina said, moving swiftly, not giving Peter a chance to question the dirty dishes already sitting on the table. “The girls and I were celebrating the tenth anniversary of our department. Elena Kuzmina and Olya Rasputina left earlier, but Tanya’s here, sleeping on Dmitriy’s sofa. She had too much to drink and decided to stay. You know how dangerous it is for a woman in Moscow late at night. Even sober, let alone drunk.”
“And where’s our son?” Peter asked, irritation creeping into his voice.
“He’s staying with Tatiana’s mother, along with her son.”
Peter scoffed. “I’ve never been fond of your friendship with her. What could you possibly have in common with a single mother?”
“Peter, don’t start,” Marina said, her voice tightening with a weariness that suggested this was a well-worn argument. “I don’t give you grief about your nocturnal adventures in the forest, do I? Your time with your friends is your business, just like mine with my friends is mine. And speaking of cultural differences…” She gestured toward the refrigerator, where four tickets to the Bolshoi Ballet were pinned. “We went to see Spartacus tonight. Would any of your wilderness buddies join you for something like that? Of course not. They’d sooner jump into a campfire than step foot in a theater. They think singing around a campfire is the height of culture. But the girls and I had a fantastic time at the ballet.”
Especially after the ballet ended, I thought to myself, suppressing a grin.
While Marina tiptoed between maintaining peace and sparking a full-blown argument, Peter devoured everything within reach on the table. His hunger took priority over whatever simmering tensions lay between him and his wife. His plate now empty, Peter yawned deeply, stretched his arms, and leaned back in his chair with a contented sigh. He seemed to realize that at four in the morning, a warm bed and his beautiful wife were more appealing than a kitchen quarrel.
“Alright,” Peter conceded, his voice softening. “No need to get all worked up. We might be different people, but we’ll have to find a way to make peace with each other’s interests.”
Marina, still a bit raw from the confrontation, continued washing dishes, her back to him. “That’s more your responsibility than mine,” she muttered, the sting in her voice lingering.
But Peter was too tired to pick up on it. He stretched once more, content with the idea of ending the night on a note of weary compromise, oblivious to the layers of tension still hanging in the air like smoke from a dying fire.

“Come here,” Marina whispered, her voice a soft command. “I want to ask for your forgiveness.”
I glanced at her, bemused. “You can apologize in the morning, when you’ve had some rest. You’re too tired to make a proper apology anyway.”
Peter, oblivious to the tension lingering in the apartment, finally went to bed, and Marina continued washing the dishes. Her eyes flickered toward the room where I stood, hidden behind the door. In a low voice, she gave clear instructions.
“You’ll leave at six o’clock. I won’t get up to avoid waking him. Let Tatiana sleep until I wake her. We’ll meet tonight at the Prague Restaurant and celebrate your departure.” She paused, a faint smile playing on her lips as she reached into her pocket. “Here’s your underwear, Mr. Spy. You dropped them in the corridor during your mad dash. I noticed them just in time while Peter was taking off his boots. Managed to scoop them up without him noticing.”
She handed me my wayward underwear with a look of bemused satisfaction. I tried to hold her back, my fingers tracing the edge of her unbuttoned robe, but she slipped away, elusive as always. And then, for the first time, she said the word we’d both carefully avoided until now.
“I couldn’t figure out why I fell in love with you at first sight,” she murmured, her voice carrying a hint of vulnerability. “And then it hit me. It’s your irrepressible sense of adventure, your love for risks, your constant craving for trouble. I doubt I could ever live with you—we’re too alike—but having you as a lover feels like a gift from fate.”
With those words, she was gone, leaving me to set the alarm on my wristwatch for six in the morning. I slid under the covers of Tatiana and Vadim’s bed, exhaustion pulling at me.
Those two hours of sleep passed in a blink. It felt like I’d barely closed my eyes when the alarm buzzed insistently in my ear, its metallic chime heralding, “Get up, commander—it seems the homeland expects new acts of heroism from you.” I was fortunate my wrist hadn’t been tucked under the pillow, or I might not have heard it. And if I’d slept until nine, I could’ve had the pleasure of an awkward encounter with Peter on his way to the bathroom for a shave.
“Hey, bro,” I’d greet him casually, slapping his shoulder.
“I’m not your bro,” Peter would growl.
“Sure we are,” I’d retort. “If we’re both nursing from the same teat, we’re practically family.”
But there was no time for such nonsense now. I had other concerns. I gingerly reached over to wake Tatiana, who lay nestled between Vadim and me. My hand brushed her thigh, and she instinctively turned toward me, finding herself wrapped in my arms. We tried to be discreet, but our efforts to keep the old sofa from creaking were in vain. Eventually, I slipped off the bed and onto the floor, tugging her along with me.
She climbed onto me like an expert equestrian, her eyes closed, head thrown back. Of course, she couldn’t see Vadim, who was watching us from beneath the blanket, his fist clenched in a brief but playful threat before he turned away, resigned, facing the wall.
We vacated the apartment without incident, leaving the tension of the night behind. Back at the airbase, we grabbed a few hours of much-needed rest at the hotel. That evening, we all gathered at the Prague Restaurant to recount the previous night’s escapades. Drinks flowed, there was a bit of dancing, and we laughed about the absurdity of it all. Then came the goodbyes, promises to meet again during our next Moscow trip.
But they’d be waiting a lifetime for that return flight.
Our companions in the capital would never know the truth behind why we stopped visiting. No one would call them to deliver the grim news of what befell us. My wife and family would receive notification before anyone else; Mukhina herself would learn of my fate. Even the waitress Lyudmila Salnikova in distant Kamchatka might shed a tear. But in Moscow, among our closest acquaintances, no one would be there to bring the tragic news.

Chapter 19: The Snake in the Party

Taking full advantage of our educational disparity, I crafted a detailed three-page explanation of the landing incident, brimming with aviation jargon—weather conditions, glide path angles, runway length, and an entire page dedicated to the braking coefficient in drizzle. The KGB officer barely skimmed through my report, his eyes glazing over as he flipped the pages. He muttered about consulting an aviation specialist, but it was clear he had no grasp of the technical details. He didn’t bring up the matter again—soon distracted by other concerns more within his realm of expertise, like keeping track of who was spreading anti-Soviet jokes in the mess hall.
But the second wave of unpleasantness hit in a more personal arena—a communist party meeting. That’s when things took a darker turn. I could feel the eyes of my comrades on me as the room filled, everyone taking their seats.The party secretary, a man who relished these moments of power far too much, took his place at the podium, his voice thick with self-righteous authority.
“Comrade communists,” he began, eyes scanning the room with mock severity. “There is one issue on today’s agenda. It pertains to Comrade Grigoriev’s political immaturity.”
I paused in the middle of my crossword puzzle, setting it aside. This should be interesting. The secretary, with a ceremonious flourish, opened my file, the title ominous. He cleared his throat before launching into the damning accusations.
“After returning from a routine mission, Comrade Grigoriev, while intoxicated, made the following statement to his colleagues—and I quote: ‘You must truly hold disdain for your own people to subject your flyers to—forgive the explicit language, comrades—shitting outdoors when it’s minus twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit.’”
A ripple of barely suppressed laughter swept through the room like a sudden gust of wind. Nearly a hundred communists put down their newspapers and magazines, suddenly far more interested in this brewing scandal than any propaganda report.
The communications officer behind me leaned over to his neighbor, whispering just loud enough for me to hear, “Valery’s stepped into it again.”
The man next to him snickered. “Let’s see how he wriggles out of this one.”
I shot them both a scornful glance, then muttered under my breath, “Don’t be so quick to laugh, boys.”
Without even standing up, I raised my voice over the murmur of the room. “That’s a lie.”
The party organizer blinked, clearly caught off guard by my boldness. “What exactly is a lie, Comrade Grigoriev?” he said, regaining his composure. “You don’t deny saying those words, do you? Stand up and explain yourself to the meeting.”
I rose slowly, the weight of every gaze fixed on me. “The lie,” I began, “is that I was intoxicated when I said it.” My voice steadied, gaining momentum. “It was three weeks ago, after we returned from the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Weapon Test Site. Have you ever been there, Comrade Party Organizer?”
He shifted uncomfortably behind the podium. “You know full well I haven’t, Comrade Grigoriev. I’m a dedicated party worker, not part of a crew.”
“Well then,” I continued, with a touch of sarcasm creeping into my voice, “you’re used to the comforts of home—sleeping in your own bed, beside your wife, with convenient access to a warm bathroom, complete with a pristine white toilet?”
He didn’t answer, and I didn’t wait for him to. I pressed on, my sarcasm now in full force. “But for me and my comrades, we were confined to a military hotel built in 1947, with no indoor plumbing. The nearest toilet? A wooden outhouse about 150 feet from our barracks, across a path trampled through two feet of snow by countless pilots before me. And naturally, there were no lights—who’d bother running electricity to a wooden shack in the middle of nowhere? So there I was, standing by the moonlight, staring at a pyramid of frozen excrement sticking up from the hole in the floor.”
A few communists coughed, stifling their laughter. I smirked and carried on.

The wing doctor, who had been silent until now, chimed in with a mischievous grin. “Wiping with snow? That’s actually quite healthy. Keeps the hemorrhoids away.”
The room erupted. Laughter swept through the communists who had been silent until now, shaking their heads and grinning at the absurdity of it all. Even the party organizer, standing at the podium, struggled to maintain control.
I seized the moment, raising my voice over the laughter. “When we got back, I shared this story with my comrades, one of whom apparently couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”
The organizer, clearly flustered, tried to regain some authority. “Your attitude, Comrade Grigoriev, is entirely inappropriate,” he sputtered, waving his hands to calm the room.
“Inappropriate?” I shot back, unbothered by the laughter around me. “If you’d been to Semipalatinsk, maybe you’d understand. We’re risking our lives out there, and all I’m asking for is a proper place to sit.”
“Of course, my attitude is wrong! What else would you expect from someone as brainless as me?” I shot back, still seated, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

The party organizer, unfazed, didn’t even blink. “I’m not questioning your intelligence, Valery. But if you take a look at the world map, you’ll understand the predicament our country is in.”
With the grace of a seasoned lecturer, he turned to the oversized political map of the world hanging behind him, grabbed a wooden pointer, and strode purposefully toward it. The room quieted, but I could see the familiar dread creeping into the eyes of my comrades. We’d all seen this routine before.
“Our homeland,” he began, the pointer tapping the map for emphasis, “is currently facing challenging times. We are surrounded by enemies on all sides. In the west…” He gestured toward Western Europe, his pointer lingering ominously over Turkey. “We have the formidable alliance of NATO. To the south, we contend with a hostile Afghanistan and a rapidly expanding China. In the east…” His pointer swung dramatically across the Pacific. “The US Seventh Fleet and Japan, which still hasn’t signed a peace treaty with us. And underneath the polar ice…” Here, his voice dropped for effect. “American nuclear submarines lurk, ready for battle. The shortest route for US strategic bombers? Right across the polar region.”
He paused, turning to face me, his expression as serious as death. “We’re encircled, Comrade Grigoriev. The party and the government are working tirelessly to ensure the safety of the Soviet people, not to cater to the delicate needs of your tender behind.”
There it was—the grand, sweeping rhetoric of a professional political officer. The kind of speech designed to stir you, make you want to shed a tear, shout “Hurrah!” and cringe in embarrassment all at once. I could feel the tension in the room, the quiet awe of my comrades, who had seen the same map a hundred times but still watched in reverence as if the pointer could somehow make those distant enemies seem closer.
But I wasn’t in the mood for theatrics.
“So,” I asked, my tone deliberately flat, “how long will these 'temporary' difficulties last? When will the valiant Soviet people finally get to live like human beings?”
A few of my comrades shifted in their seats. You could almost hear the collective intake of breath in the room. The organizer gave me a sharp look, clearly irked that I dared to interrupt his performance.
“The party’s approach is aimed at detente,” he began again, his voice thick with rehearsed authority. “And it will undoubtedly yield positive results. Eventually, when the threat diminishes, the government will have the opportunity to reduce military spending and redirect funds toward improving the lives of the population.”
It was the kind of answer I’d heard a thousand times before, the same vague promise wrapped in party-approved optimism. I could’ve let it go—should’ve let it go. But something in me refused to sit back and nod along with the rest.
I leaned forward, feeling a reckless smile tug at my lips. “We can only dream of such times…”
The room went still. The party organizer’s face hardened as he realized I wasn’t going to fall in line so easily.
“Comrade Grigoriev,” he said, his voice growing icier by the second, “I see you are determined to persist in your misguided stance. This is doubly unacceptable for a commander—someone who should be setting an example for his subordinates, not spreading dissent.”
He took a step closer, his eyes narrowing. “Today, you criticize the government. Tomorrow, you’ll be speaking against the party itself. And the day after that?” He let the question hang in the air before delivering his final blow. “The day after that, you might be running to the American Embassy with classified documents or flying an aircraft to Japan in an attempt to escape.”
I blinked, stunned by the sudden escalation. The idea that I’d defect to Japan with an aircraft seemed so absurd that, for a second, I almost laughed.
But the party organizer wasn’t joking. He straightened up, turning to the room with a flourish, his voice ringing with righteous indignation. “We cannot allow that. Comrade communists, is there anyone here willing to condemn the politically immature remarks made by Comrade Grigoriev?”
The room fell silent, all eyes on me. A few of my comrades shifted uncomfortably in their seats, clearly reluctant to jump into this mess. I could feel the weight of the moment pressing down, the precarious balance between political loyalty and personal survival hanging by a thread.
No one volunteered to throw condemnation my way. Not a single hand was raised, no voices eager to publicly crucify me. For a moment, I almost felt victorious—until the party organizer, ever the professional, unleashed his prepped attack dogs. Two technicians, both from rural backgrounds, shuffled forward to speak, eyes gleaming with the self-righteousness that only comes from following a script.
They didn’t address my concerns. Instead, they went on about toilets, of all things. They painted a bleak picture of the "glorious" Soviet reality, one that everyone in the room already knew but pretended was some badge of honor. They spoke of communal bathhouses where people bathed once a week, if they were lucky. Of how hot water was a luxury not just in villages but in most cities across the USSR. Of women forced to wash their clothes in holes cut through frozen lakes and rivers. And they were proud of it. They spoke like martyrs, like survivors of some epic tale, drawing comparisons between the outhouses I dared to complain about and the rest of the country's backward living conditions.
What fools they are, I thought. They’re missing the point entirely. I know the majority of people are still living in the 19th century. Hell, they thank their lucky stars just for having electric lights. People who've grown up cuddling with farm animals as children think anything slightly better than a pigsty is paradise. And then there's the endless wait—years of waiting to transition from barracks to real apartments, a gap that’s so normal it’s almost romanticized. In that in-between, children grow up playing war games in the grim, gray corridors of communal dormitories. And don't get me started on the families shattered by housing shortages. It's a national tragedy, not just a fact of life.
I know all this. I’m not naive. I didn’t need a lecture on Soviet suffering. What I wanted to know—what I dared to ask—was who's accountable for this endless state of deprivation. But before I could even open my mouth, they'd hurled a metaphorical brick at my head.
I could have told them the truth. I could have pointed to the party organizer, the very man they were so quick to defend. You’re so eager to protect him, but you’ve never once questioned why. Why he’s so fiercely guarding our party’s interests. Why you, with your worn-out shoes and frostbitten fingers from years of battling aircraft engines in all weather, still rent apartments on a fraction of your meager salaries. And yet here he is—a man who hasn’t even been with the wing a full year—already settled into a cozy three-bedroom apartment. Off he goes every year to some special spa resort, a luxury none of you can dream of. And why? Because his real battle isn’t against enemies of the state. His fight is against the 'politically immature Grigorievs' like me, and he’s winning. The rest of us? We’re just trying to survive. Meanwhile, he's plotting his next move, dreaming of escape—from the little outpost of Artem to the big leagues in Vladivostok, or even better, Moscow, where he can sit behind a desk in some cushy political department, far away from any Grigorievs who might rub him the wrong way.
But I kept all that to myself.
After the technicians had finished their pathetic speeches, the room shifted into a vote on disciplinary measures. There was no question about my guilt—of course I was guilty. The only matter left to decide was the punishment: a reprimand, a formal censure, or a severe censure to be marked permanently in my party record.
The decision was unanimous—a formal censure. To hell with it, I thought. A censure isn’t a stomach ulcer, and it won’t put a dent in my paycheck.
The meeting adjourned, and I could finally breathe again. But as I made my way to the door, my crew approached me, their faces tense, avoiding my eyes. I could tell they'd been sweating through the whole ordeal.
"Commander," one of them mumbled, "there’s no informer among us. We’d never—"
I waved them off before he could finish. "I know it wasn’t you. It’s not your job to worry about that. Just find out who did it."
The navigator, ever the philosopher, spoke up. "You know, Commander, a wise man once said, 'Don’t look for the snake that bit you. Look for the antidote.'"
I raised an eyebrow. "Who said that? Omar Khayyam?"
"Maybe Khayyam. Maybe someone else," Vasilyev shrugged.
I gave him a half-smile. "Vadim, let me give you some wisdom of my own: the best remedy for a soul wound is the death of the snake. You can quote me later."
He chuckled, but we both knew the gravity of the situation hadn’t really lifted. Somewhere out there, the snake was still hiding, and I wouldn’t rest until I found it.


Chapter 20:

A few days after that ill-fated communist party meeting, when the memory of it had mostly faded from my mind, I found myself alone in a classroom, hunched over a magnetic chessboard. Playing both sides, I was lost in strategy, trying to solve a chess problem by countering the Queen's Gambit. It was a welcome distraction, a quiet escape from the constant buzz of military life.
That is, until Nikolai Onoprienko, my radio operator, strolled in. His eyes swept the room before he took a seat across from me, leaning over the chessboard. Feigning interest in the pieces, he lowered his voice.
“Commander, you were ratted out by Semyon Zorin, the radio operator from Major Borisenko's crew.”
I didn’t react immediately. I continued moving chess pieces, though my attention was no longer on the board. “What are you talking about, Nikolai?”
“About the party meeting,” he said softly, eyes darting around, as if someone might overhear.
My interest in the game evaporated. I kept my hands on the chess pieces, but my mind was already elsewhere. “Give me the details. How did you find out?”
Nikolai leaned in closer, his voice barely above a whisper. “His wife told me the night before. Zorin flew to Kamchatka yesterday morning, and once I was sure his plane had taken off, I went to his house. Veronika—his wife—was home with their baby. We have… a close relationship.” His eyes flickered, half guilty, half smug. “We spent a couple of hours together. Before I left, she asked if you really got chewed out at the meeting. I downplayed it, naturally, but asked her what she knew. She’s young, trusting like a child. She let it slip that she knew about the meeting well in advance.” He paused, letting the weight of it sink in. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Semyon is the snitch. I distinctly remember him standing with the group when you made that colorful remark about the outhouse after we returned from Semipalatinsk.”
I mulled over the information. Semyon Zorin. Of course. He’d been there. Quiet, unremarkable—exactly the kind of man who’d fade into the background while memorizing every word, eager to trade information for favor.
“But have you considered,” I asked, still thinking it through, “that she might be involved with someone else besides you and her husband?”
Nikolai gave a sly grin, shaking his head. “She’s been married for just two years, and she’s not even twenty yet. Plus, she doesn’t have a phone in her apartment. Hard to juggle multiple lovers without one. In the year we’ve been together, I haven’t seen anything suspicious.”
I smirked. “Quite the detective, aren’t you? And I assume the baby isn’t yours?”
He met my gaze with a mix of pride and relief. “No, Commander, I can’t say for certain if it’s Semyon’s, but it’s definitely not mine.”
“Why are you so sure?” I asked, teasing him a bit.
“I had my first… encounter with her when she was already two or three months pregnant.”
“Fair enough. Where is Zorin now?” I asked, already planning my next move.
“Most likely at the gym. Our squad’s playing basketball against the second and third squadrons.”
I glanced up, locking eyes with Nikolai. “Perfect. Let’s pay them a visit.”
Nikolai stood up, already sensing the tension in my tone. “I think I’ll stay behind, Commander. You’ve got that look in your eyes. It’s better if I keep an eye on things back at the staff building.”
“Suit yourself,” I said, packing up the chess pieces into my briefcase. My mind was no longer on the game. I headed toward the sports arena, the wheels turning in my head.

In the locker room, I changed into my gym clothes, slipping into my sneakers with “Made in China” scrawled across the soles. When I entered the gym, there were about ten minutes left to play. The game was fast-paced, and our team was down by six points. The guys on our bench motioned for me to join them. I walked casually around the court, stretching out as I watched the game unfold, my focus less on the score and more on keeping an eye on Semyon Zorin.
Semyon was in good form on the court. His athletic build made him a natural, grabbing rebounds, making quick passes, and darting past defenders with ease. If we had another player or two like him, we’d have easily trounced the combined teams of the second and third squadrons.
As the minutes ticked down, I stepped onto the court to replace the exhausted chief of staff. The energy shifted. At twenty-eight, I still had plenty of stamina, far more than Major Gryzlov, who was pushing forty-two. Slowly but surely, our team started closing the gap.
With less than two minutes left on the clock, Semyon charged forward with the ball. He had just caught a pass and was gearing up for another run toward the opponent’s basket. I was right behind him. As he propelled forward, I made my move. Deliberate? Maybe.
I stepped on the heel of his supporting foot just as he surged forward. Semyon stumbled, his right hand desperately dribbling the ball against the floor. His left foot, however, was pinned under my size nine sneaker. He tried to recover, looking around for a teammate to pass to, but the pressure from my foot was enough to throw him off balance.
His body lunged forward, and the ball slipped out of his grasp. For a brief second, the gym went silent, save for the squeak of shoes against the polished floor. He hit the ground hard, skidding on his side.
The whistle blew. Semyon clutched his ankle, wincing in pain. The rest of the team gathered around, concern plastered on their faces. But I barely glanced at him.
Accidents happen, after all.


Chapter 21:

The past two weeks had shredded my nerves like brittle paper, and I desperately needed a break from it all. The never-ending scrutiny, the constant tension at work—it had become too much. So I made the decision to visit my wife and her wonderfully tedious family in Vladivostok. I informed them I’d arrive on Saturday morning and, with that weight lifted, set off on Friday evening, eager to escape.
But there was another complication—Svetlana Mukhina. She had been calling me every evening at the officers' dormitory, checking in with a frequency and warmth that bordered on maternal. Her concern reached absurd levels at times, asking me about trivial things like what I’d had for supper or whether my room was warm enough. It wasn’t hard to see where she was going with this. She wanted me to invite her over, to share my little bachelor haven.
But I wasn’t about to let that happen. No, Svetlana, that's not going to work, I thought every time she called. The dormitory staff should only know about one wife—my legal one. I'm not going to add fuel to the fire by bringing you here. I imagined how awkward that would be, with everyone in the building knowing about my double life.
But in my thoughts, I entertained her fantasy a bit. If you'd like me to visit you, I mused, then invite me over. I’ll come with champagne, cognac, sweets, flowers—whatever you want. You could make unlimited use of my presence, but only for a limited time. I'm a fleeting opportunity, after all.
Of course, I never said any of this out loud. And she never asked, either.
Then, late that Friday evening, as planned, I arrived at her place, having taken the last bus from Artem. As soon as I rang the bell, the door swung open. Svetlana stood there, backlit by the dim light of the entryway. I handed her the obligatory gifts of a gentleman: a bouquet of crimson roses and a bottle of champagne. She smiled, her chestnut hair framing that familiar face—one I had seen more in my dreams than in reality.
Her mischievous green eyes sparkled as they met mine, and her lips, ever so slightly parted, seemed to beckon me closer. For a moment, I almost forgot the weeks of tension that had been building.
“Here I am,” I said, my voice calm, as if we hadn’t spent the last few weeks waiting for this.
“Finally,” she murmured, her voice soft, “I see you again…”
The night began with the usual romantic pretenses. We retreated to her small kitchen, where a meal awaited, candles casting a warm glow over the scene. But what started as a delicate reunion quickly devolved into something more mundane. The champagne flowed, followed by cognac, and soon we were airing grievances, sharing our complaints about life and fate.
By the time we stumbled into bed, it was more from exhaustion than passion. When morning came, we realized we hadn’t even bothered to undress. Our connection had shifted—from lovers to confidants, where sometimes having someone to talk to mattered more than anything physical.
“Take off your clothes, I’ll iron them,” Svetlana said as I stirred awake, her voice warm but playful. “You can’t visit an Admiral’s daughter looking like that.”
I groaned, half awake. “Press me instead. I’m in worse shape than my clothes.”
“You shouldn’t have mixed champagne with cognac,” she teased, tugging at my socks. “What an evening you’ve spoiled.”
After forcing myself out of bed, I stumbled into the bathroom for a shower. While I was busy scrubbing off the remnants of the previous night, Svetlana pressed my shirt and trousers. I had just started lathering my stubble with shaving cream when she entered the bathroom, wearing nothing but a sly smile.
“Have you washed up already?” she asked, her tone laced with mischief.
“Yep,” I replied, dragging the razor over my cheek, focusing on getting a close shave.
She leaned against the doorframe, her smile deepening. “Would you like to do it again?” she asked coquettishly, letting her robe slide to the floor.
“Nope,” I said, moving on to my neck, trying to ignore the distraction.
But she didn’t leave. Instead, she waited until I rinsed the razor under the water, then, with a playful leap, she jumped onto my back, her bare skin pressing against me. Her arms wrapped around my neck, her legs tightening around my waist.
“Well, you’ll have to anyway,” she whispered into my ear, her breath warm against my skin.
Caught off guard, I realized that in my focus on shaving, I hadn’t noticed she had discarded her negligee. Her large breasts pressed against my shoulder blades, and I couldn’t help but smile at her playful persistence.
“Captain Grigoriev,” she purred, tightening her grip, “you must take this love-struck telephone operator directly into the bath. And only release her when she’s thoroughly soaked under the shower.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. It was hard not to be charmed by her carefree spirit. There was something intoxicating about her ability to turn even a mundane morning routine into a flirtatious game.
And so, I submitted to her whim, carrying her to the shower as she giggled like a schoolgirl. There, under the steaming water, I treated her broken heart with all the tenderness I could muster, knowing full well it wouldn’t be the last time we’d find ourselves tangled in this strange, intoxicating dance.


arrive. Not a minute too early or too late. The door swung open, and before I could say a word, Olga, my wife, flung herself at me, her arms wrapping around my neck, her lips landing on my cheeks and mouth in a cascade of kisses. Her happiness was almost disarming, a bright, unapologetic display of affection that filled the narrow hallway.
At least there’s someone who can express their feelings without hesitation, I thought, as she pressed herself against me. Lucky girl—she doesn’t have to lie or pretend. She just lives her life and enjoys it. Maybe she worries a bit about her husband, sure—being a pilot is a dangerous job. But those thoughts probably only surface when her fellow students remind her of it.
I set my briefcase down, the weight of it feeling suddenly irrelevant, and wrapped my arms around her slender waist. With one swift motion, I lifted her off the floor and kissed her back. She wasn’t heavy—at least, not compared to Svetlana. Your wife’s barely a hundred and ten pounds, Valery, I mused, as my mind drifted to the memory of Svetlana's voluptuous body pressing down on me in her bathroom less than two hours ago.
The thought of it lingered, unbidden but persistent.
“That’s enough kissing, you two!” My mother-in-law’s voice cut through the moment as she bustled out of the kitchen. “Breakfast is ready. Valery must be sick of that mess food. No matter how much they try in the officers' mess, they can’t hold a candle to a home-cooked meal.”
“Especially yours, Mum,” I replied, grateful for the interruption, though part of me felt guilty for needing it.
I peeled off my coat, washed my hands, and made my way into the dining hall. The familiar scent of the apartment—a mix of freshly cooked food, old books, and the sea breeze that filtered in from the bay—instantly felt like home.
My father-in-law, Rear Admiral Kapustin, was arranging forks on the table, his movements precise, like a man still on duty even in his own home. As he saw me, his face softened, and he extended a hand. His handshake was firm, a reminder of the strength he still possessed.
“Happy to see such a rare guest,” he said with a mock sternness. “Are you trying to keep your distance from your in-laws?”
“I’d love to visit more often, but the cargo traffic for the Pacific Fleet keeps me on the move,” I replied, trying to sound dutiful, though we both knew it was only half true.
“Cargo traffic?” he scoffed. “Come on, Valery. You’d be better off visiting us more often than inviting Olga to Artem every weekend. I understand—you’re still newlyweds, and you enjoy your alone time. But let us old folks have the pleasure of seeing you once in a while.”
Old folks? I almost laughed. “Life begins at fifty, isn’t that what they say? It’s the best time of your life. The passions die down, and at last, you get to reflect on a life well-examined…”
My father-in-law chuckled, shaking his head. “I had no idea my son-in-law was a philosopher,” he teased. He ruffled my hair in that affectionate, paternal way and turned to the women. “Girls, forward march into the kitchen! Bring out the entr;e!”
I glanced at the table already brimming with appetizers—herring p;t;, crabs, flounder, red caviar, Olivier salad, shredded carrots with garlic and mayonnaise, pickled mushrooms, rolled meat rissoles, and a vegetable salad. And there was something else on a plate I couldn’t even identify. What could the entr;e possibly be after this feast? I wondered, feeling both awe and dread at the thought of what more was to come.

We settled into the soft cushions of the Romanian dining room set, which had probably been fashionable two decades ago but now felt charmingly outdated, much like the rest of the apartment. The vodka was smooth, and the atmosphere even smoother, with the familiar hum of family life wrapping around me like a comforting blanket.
Soon enough, my mother-in-law and Olga reappeared, balancing a tureen of stuffed dumplings and a large platter of honey-garlic pork chops. The meal stretched from brunch into dinner, the conversation flowing as freely as the vodka. I felt pleasantly stuffed from the endless courses, the taste of home-cooked food clinging to my palate with each bite. Between stories of the crew’s trip to see Spartacus—I may have embellished a little, recounting how our radio operator fell asleep during the third act—we laughed. The Kapustins didn’t seem surprised. They knew my crew was more interested in the buffet than the ballet.
As the conversation drifted toward loftier topics, we found ourselves lamenting the decline of culture in society. It wasn’t long before we were quoting Marxist tenets, agreeing that the environment shapes the consciousness of society and not the other way around. It felt like the right thing to say, though none of us believed it entirely.
After the plates were cleared and the women began tidying up, my father-in-law motioned for me to follow him into his study. We stood by the open window, gazing out at the sweeping view of the Bay of Golden Horn, the lights from the harbor glinting against the darkening water. The air was cool, fresh, and carried the faint scent of the sea.
“This,” he said quietly, his voice thoughtful, “this is the one thing that never changes. No matter how chaotic life gets, the bay remains the same.”
I nodded, staring out at the expanse, feeling the weight of his words. There was a certain irony in the idea that while everything else in life—work, relationships, even ourselves—was in constant flux, the world outside our window stayed perfectly still.
Yet beneath that calm surface, I felt the current of my own life shifting in ways that couldn’t be seen. I thought of Svetlana again, her laughter in the bathroom, the way she had wrapped herself around me just that morning. My life was a far cry from the stability of this bay. I was caught between two worlds—one of duty and appearances, the other of reckless, dangerous desire.
And as I stood there with the Admiral, his words drifting into the quiet evening, I couldn’t shake the feeling that no matter how hard I tried to maintain the balance, something was bound to give.

Motorboats sliced through the tranquil waters, ferrying supplies and personnel between the warships and shore services. At the center of the harbor, like a stoic sentinel, was the pride of the Russian Pacific Fleet—the destroyer Admiral Zakharov. Its sleek hull and imposing presence spoke of power and readiness, but for those who knew the truth, it was a reminder of a recent tragedy that stained its legacy.
The ship had been prepared for a long and arduous Pacific campaign. Fully loaded with rockets, torpedoes, and artillery shells, its cargo holds were packed with canned food, sacks of flour, and refrigerators stocked with frozen meat. The tanks brimmed with diesel fuel. Everything was set. The Admiral Zakharov and her crew were just waiting for the final order to set sail.
But at half past midnight, disaster struck. The main engine, idling to power the ship’s internal systems, betrayed them. The turbine blades, breaking away from the rotor, tore through the sturdy plating like shrapnel from a bomb. One of the heatproof blades ripped a fuel line, and diesel began flooding the engine room. By four in the morning, the fire alarm blared through the corridors. The inferno that followed wasn’t just any fire—it was the kind of blaze that made seasoned sailors pale with fear.
The ship’s commander, along with fireboats, fought valiantly to control it. But the flames raged relentlessly, and soon even Vladivostok’s fire brigades were summoned. Fire trucks lined the shore, their water cannons shooting arcs of water onto the burning vessel, a waterfall that did little to quell the chaos inside. The threat of an ammunition explosion was so severe that city authorities evacuated nearby apartment blocks. For twelve harrowing hours, the fear of hundreds perishing hung over the city like the thick smoke billowing from the destroyer. It took another eight hours to fully extinguish the fires, and by the end of it, the mighty Admiral Zakharov was reduced to a damaged, smoldering shell of its former self.
I turned to my father-in-law, Rear Admiral Kapustin, and asked, “What’s going to happen to the destroyer?”
He sighed, a mix of frustration and resignation crossing his face. “They’ve been repairing it bit by bit for years. They promise to put her back into service, but God knows when. In my opinion, they’d be better off scrapping her at the Chazhminsky shipyard. The mention of Admiral Zakharov is like a nagging toothache. It never really goes away.”
He looked out the window at the harbor, shaking his head. “But enough about that. Let’s talk about something less depressing. How are things going with your wing?”
“Status quo remains unchanged,” I said, setting the tone for what came next. “The crews piloting AN-12s to the European part of the Soviet Union have become quite entrepreneurial, swapping cargo like fish and caviar for personal gain. And those flying AN-26s through the Maritimes? Well, let’s just say they’ve developed an interesting habit of pilfering anti-icing alcohol. It either gets traded to the local alcoholics or… enjoyed personally.”
I half-expected my father-in-law to chuckle at the irony of it, but instead, he furrowed his brow, clearly puzzled.
“You’re telling me the crew members are stealing anti-icing alcohol? But how?” His eyebrows shot up, betraying genuine surprise.
“It’s simpler than you think,” I said, leaning in a little as though sharing a well-kept secret. “On AN-26s, there are plexiglass blisters on the left fuselage. Navigators use them for precise aiming when they drop parachutists or cargo. But during icy conditions, these blisters accumulate frost like crazy, which increases drag. To stop them from tearing off mid-flight, the blisters are sprayed with pure grain alcohol through a metal pipe. Since only the navigator controls the flow, it’s easy to pocket some of it for… personal use.”
He shook his head slowly, still processing. “But how much can they possibly steal? A pound or two at most?”
I grinned. “You’re underestimating them. Officially, it consumes about twenty ounces per minute. Every hour we fly below freezing, ten gallons of alcohol are unaccounted for. Multiply that by the hundred hours a year we spend in subzero temperatures, and you’ve got about three tons of missing alcohol annually.”
His eyes widened in disbelief. “Three tons? That’s astronomical!”
“Not really, if you think about it,” I continued, amused by his shock. “The crews are subtle. During the summer months, the theft is minimal. They save it for the winter.”
He narrowed his eyes, sensing something more. “What do you mean? They’re more careful in the summer?”
“Exactly. It’s an unspoken rule. Theft is reserved for the months with an ‘R’ in them.”
He paused, processing that for a moment. “No ‘R’ in May, June, July, or August…” He trailed off, realization dawning. “But September to April… I see.”
I nodded, leaning back with a smirk. “In the summer, they keep a low profile. No one wants to report alcohol use when there’s no need for it. But come September, they log every drop, even if they aren’t using it.”
He exhaled, shaking his head in disbelief. “This is happening across the fleet?”
“From one end of the Soviet Union to the other,” I confirmed. “Everyone’s in on it. It's practically a tradition.”
My father-in-law stared out at the bay, the weight of what I’d said hanging in the air between us. There was something almost comical about the idea—a fleet of disciplined, uniformed men skimming alcohol off the top like mischievous schoolboys. But at the same time, it was emblematic of the deeper rot beneath the surface, a system that encouraged this kind of behavior because it had long since lost the moral high ground.
“It's hard to believe,” he muttered.
“Believe it,” I replied, my tone dry. “The anti-icing alcohol is just one small piece of the puzzle.”
He turned to me, his expression a mix of resignation and frustration. “And no one does anything about it?”
“Who would? It’s not like anyone’s reporting themselves. It’s a well-oiled machine—no pun intended.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. We both stared out at the harbor, at the flickering lights on the water, the distant hum of motorboats slicing through the night. Somewhere out there, the Admiral Zakharov sat, a symbol of both strength and fragility, its future as uncertain as everything else in our lives.

“And how do they distribute it among the crew?” my father-in-law asked, his voice taking on that familiar mix of curiosity and authority, a tone that never failed to unnerve me just a little.
“The pilot-in-command, navigator, and flight engineer each get a gallon,” I explained, keeping my tone casual, “while the co-pilot, radio operator, and cargo mechanic get half a gallon each from every ten-gallon canister.”
He raised an eyebrow, doing the math quickly in his head. “That adds up to four and a half gallons. What happens to the remaining one and a half?”
I smirked. “Headquarters. It always ends up at headquarters. They have a long reach. From each of the eighteen aircraft, from every flight, from every hour spent in the clouds. The top brass always gets their cut.”
“Transport pilots have a rather interesting side business,” the Rear Admiral remarked wryly, a hint of amusement in his voice.
“They can’t really complain,” I replied with a smile that mirrored his.
He shifted slightly, his tone suddenly becoming more pointed. “So, flying an AN-12, are you dabbling in the fish trade?”
The shift in his tone made me uneasy. I had learned long ago that even innocent questions from Rear Admiral Kapustin often had deeper implications. His gaze drifted out toward the harbor, as if giving me space to answer without the weight of his full attention.
“No,” I said, keeping my voice steady, though the tension had crept up my spine.
He didn’t look at me as he asked, “Then where did the fourteen hundred American dollars come from that you gave my daughter a few months ago?” His voice remained casual, but I knew better. He wasn’t just curious. He was probing, testing the waters. It was the same tactic he used with subordinates on the deck of a ship—cool, measured, and deliberate.
“The money came unexpectedly, from a different source,” I said, deciding to keep it simple. I gave him a brief account of the flight with the businessmen and their cargo, keeping it vague but honest enough to satisfy his curiosity.
He nodded, absorbing the explanation, but the concern in his voice remained. “Be cautious with those fellows. They’ve bribed everyone at aviation headquarters. If they think you’re not playing by their rules, they won’t harm you physically. But they’ll set you up. And once you’re out of uniform, no one will be able to save you. Friends are friends, but money—big money—has more power than you can imagine.”
We fell into a heavy silence, each of us turning those words over in our minds. He was right, of course. I’d heard the stories, seen the consequences when someone underestimated the wrong people. It wasn’t just about survival; it was about knowing when to play the game and when to walk away.
After a few moments, the Rear Admiral broke the silence, his voice lighter but still thoughtful. “You should consider getting into international flights. The pay’s the same, but the risk is lower. And you’ll be on better moral ground. Right now, you’re taking from thieves. But if you flew internationally, you’d be paid directly by the government.”
“But you know I’m not allowed to travel abroad,” I said, the faint hope of his influence sparking within me. “It’s been my dream for years, but there’s always a reason I can’t go.”
“Is that because you’ve made too many enemies?” he asked, the ghost of a grin playing on his lips.
“Not too many,” I replied with a smirk of my own, “but the ones I have are… influential.”
The grin spread into a good-natured smile. “And who in your unit has taken a dislike to a high-flyer like you?”
I chuckled at the irony of the phrase. High-flyer indeed. It was time to air some grievances, to expose the enemies standing in the way of my ambitions. I aimed my metaphorical rocket at the first of them.
“Primarily, the political officer—Lieutenant Colonel Leonid Skvortsov.”
Kapustin’s interest piqued. “What does he fly?”
“AN-12. He’s a navigator.”
“And where does his crew typically get its caviar?” The Rear Admiral’s tone had shifted, becoming sharper, more strategic.
“Yelizovo and Lenino on the Kamchatka Peninsula, and Leonidovo on Sakhalin Island.”
The Rear Admiral’s eyes glinted with a knowing look. “Both Kamchatka aerodromes are inland, but Sakhalin’s is practically on the coast. That puts it within range of a shore defense brigade under my command. I’ve got some connections there, both in fish inspection and the prosecutor’s office. Let me know when your political officer plans to fly through Sakhalin to the European part of the USSR.”
He said it casually, as though he were suggesting a quiet dinner, but I knew the weight behind those words. He was offering me a potential ally in my battle against Skvortsov. A lifeline.
With that, he fell silent, leaving the offer hanging in the air. I knew him well enough to understand that the business part of our conversation had ended. Just then, a knock sounded at the door, and my wife and mother-in-law entered the study.
“Mikhail,” my mother-in-law said, addressing my father-in-law in that gentle yet firm way only she could, “why don’t we all take a walk along the embankment? It’s a perfect evening for a stroll to the port and back.”
Kapustin turned to us with a sly smile. “What do you say, youngsters? Care to join us?”
Before I could answer, my mother-in-law stepped in. “Leave them be! Can’t you see your daughter’s blushing? Let’s give them a bit of privacy.”
“If we leave them alone,” he joked, “they’ll be more exhausted than refreshed by the time we get back.”
“Oh, save your sailor’s humor for the officers,” she scolded playfully, waving him toward the closet.
After a few more good-natured exchanges, they eventually left the apartment, leaving the air suddenly still in their absence. I turned to Olga, my hands finding their way to her delicate shoulders. Her eyes softened as I leaned in close, whispering in her ear.
“I’ve missed you.”
Without hesitation, I scooped her up into my arms. She gasped in surprise, a playful smile lighting up her face as I carried her toward the room that served as both her study and our bedroom.
The door clicked shut behind us, and for a moment, the world outside—the politics, the money, the undercurrents of power—faded away. There, in the quiet warmth of the room, it was just the two of us.
And for now, that was enough.


Chapter 22:

I had to bide my time, waiting almost a month for the perfect moment to strike back at Lieutenant-Colonel Skvortsov. The opportunity came with a routine assignment given to Lieutenant-Colonel Malyshev, the Deputy Air Wing Commander for Flight Training. It was exactly the kind of mission that lent itself to a "side hustle"—one that involved the procurement and discreet distribution of a hefty load of fish. The task? Collect twenty crates of defective parts for anti-ship missiles from Leonidovo Aerodrome on Sakhalin and transport them to various factories in Russia’s industrial heartlands—Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, and Perm. The mission was supposed to last seven days, plenty of time for some extracurricular dealings.
The crew, with our ever-watchful political officer, Skvortsov, serving as navigator, had already flown the two-and-a-half-hour journey from Artem to Sakhalin. Now, as they prepared for the next leg of the trip to Sverdlovsk, things were about to get more interesting.
Nestled between the military crates, the flight engineer had stashed two hundred kilograms of sturgeon caviar and one and a half tons of pink salmon. The real cargo. Skvortsov, ever meticulous, had double-checked the barrels, sealed the deal with the local fishermen, and stepped outside to smoke by the ramp. The man had an eye for detail, but greed has a way of clouding even the sharpest judgment.
The pilot-in-command, Malyshev, arrived from the command-dispatch point in a Jeep, a freshly stamped flight plan in hand. The "TAKEOFF APPROVED" stamp was still wet, and the signature of the duty officer looked like it had been scribbled in a hurry.
Fifteen minutes to engine start. Malyshev, visibly jittery, stopped by Skvortsov. His hands were trembling slightly as he fumbled with a cigarette, breaking two matches before Skvortsov wordlessly handed him a lighter.
“What’s going on?” Skvortsov asked, his tone cool as ever.
“Heartache,” Malyshev muttered, lighting the cigarette and taking a long drag.
“You should drink less,” Skvortsov said with a smirk.
“It’s not the vodka. No amount of alcohol has ever done this to me. It’s something deeper. Tightness in my chest, pulse racing—twenty-eight beats in fifteen seconds. I’ve got a bad feeling.” Malyshev’s eyes scanned the airfield. “Did the fishermen tell you anything?”
“Like what?”
“Strangers on the airfield, maybe? Anything suspicious?”
Skvortsov shrugged. “Nope. Just the usual. They said the Leontievka River’s full of pink salmon and promised to bring more next time. Enough to fill the whole plane.”
Malyshev was about to press further, but his attention shifted to a black truck speeding down the main taxiway, kicking up dust as it approached their aircraft. The truck came to a sudden halt, and four men climbed out with an unsettling air of authority. Two fish inspectors and two officers from the prosecutor’s office made a beeline for the plane, climbing the metal ladder into the cargo hold with the determination of men who knew exactly what they were looking for.
The next two hours were a disaster. The crew watched in silence as the illegally transported fish was unloaded onto the concrete. Barrels of caviar and salmon, painstakingly arranged to blend in with the legitimate cargo, now sat exposed in the harsh daylight. A confiscation order was filled out, and the grim-faced leader of the inspection team made it clear—this wasn’t just a slap on the wrist. There would be consequences, and they wouldn’t be pretty.
Back in Artem, the paperwork had already started circulating. Documents from the Sakhalin Island Prosecutor’s Office arrived at the military prosecutor’s office in the Artem garrison, and Colonel Vorobiev, head of the prosecution department, wasted no time summoning the crew for an initial inquiry.
The air was thick with tension as the officers and non-commissioned officers from the flight filed into Vorobiev’s office. The colonel wasted no time, outlining the case against them with a level of detail that suggested the file had been padded with a few "extra" allegations for good measure. He wasn’t just looking for the truth; he was building a case.
“I suggest,” Vorobiev said, his voice deceptively calm, “that each of you write a confession. Detail the roles of all participants. The sooner we resolve this, the better for everyone involved.”
It was then that Skvortsov, ever the opportunist, tried to salvage the situation. His voice, usually sharp, now carried an uncharacteristic note of diplomacy.
“Perhaps,” he began carefully, “we can settle this among ourselves. Surely, in a case like this, the military prosecutor’s role is to protect the interests of military personnel, especially when the complaint comes from a civilian organization.”
The room fell silent. Colonel Vorobiev’s face began to flush, his eyes narrowing as Skvortsov continued. By the time the political officer had finished speaking, Vorobiev’s entire head was a deep shade of purple. When he finally spoke, it was a roar that shook the walls.
“Military prosecutors,” Vorobiev bellowed, “stand for the law, not for military personnel who engage in petty theft! Let me make this crystal clear—DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”
Skvortsov, visibly shrinking under the weight of Vorobiev’s fury, muttered in a low, defeated voice, “Understood, sir.”
The damage was done. There would be no "quiet settlement." The legal machinery had been set in motion, and there was no turning back.

The crew members, desperate to save their own skins, did what most would in their shoes—they pointed the finger at the mastermind behind the fish operation. Elaborate stories emerged, filled with colorful details about how they had interacted with the Sakhalin fishermen and how deals were made with wholesalers in Sverdlovsk. Each one of them distanced themselves from any responsibility, eager to show they were merely pawns in a larger game.
Yet despite the avalanche of accusations and finger-pointing, Colonel Vorobiev knew better. The entire operation reeked of something bigger, something beyond his reach. The Pacific Fleet Military Prosecutor, who might have had their own reasons for staying silent—perhaps even benefiting from the operation—had given no directive to fully dismantle the illicit fish trade. So, after reviewing the statements and weighing the evidence, Vorobiev did what any savvy bureaucrat would do: he signed an “order to terminate the preliminary investigation.” The paperwork might have officially closed the case, but the truth hovered like a bad smell, one that wouldn't easily fade.
Vorobiev had been aware from the start that this was never really about the crew—it was about Skvortsov. The political affairs officer was the true target, but his rank and position made the situation tricky. Someone higher up would have to make the final decision. And Vorobiev knew where to send his carefully prepared documents.
The files, along with Vorobiev’s pointed comments, landed on the desks at Pacific Fleet Headquarters. They didn’t bother with further investigation; the writing was already on the wall. The verdict came swiftly and ruthlessly. Lieutenant-Colonel Malyshev, once Deputy Air Wing Commander for Flight Training, found himself demoted to squadron commander, a humiliating drop down the ranks. As for Skvortsov, his fate was sealed in an even more brutal fashion. He was reassigned to Romanovka air base, where he would serve as a navigator on a TU-16R reconnaissance aircraft.
In the rigid world of military politics, this was exile.


Chapter 23:

The Romanovka air base was a place known for its cold winds and even colder receptions. Perched on the shores of Ussuri Bay, it housed the reconnaissance wing outfitted with TU-16R Badger aircraft, their primary mission being to patrol the western shore of Japan and the eastern shore of the Korean Peninsula. These planes monitored the Sea of Japan and the Korean Strait, quietly observing, always lurking in the shadows of international airspace.
Romanovka wasn’t just home to the reconnaissance wing, though. It also boasted a squadron of Yak-38 Forger aircraft—fighters with the unique ability to take off and land vertically. They were supposed to represent the cutting edge of Soviet aviation. But like most things paraded as “state-of-the-art,” the reality often fell short of the propaganda.
For our transport wing, Romanovka became a pit stop. We were occasionally called in to provide radar support to the low-flying reconnaissance aircraft, positioning our re-transmission planes at the farthest corner of the airfield, where they were always guarded by armed personnel.
The plane itself was a marvel of clandestine engineering. The cargo hold was equipped with sophisticated equipment designed to intercept enemy in-flight radio communications. Yet, despite the high-tech gear humming away in the back, we—the pilots—had access only to the cockpit. Everything else was controlled by the shadowy operatives from the Main Military Espionage Department of the Ministry of Defense. These men were like ghosts, appearing out of nowhere two hours before takeoff and disappearing just as quietly after landing. Always under armed escort, they never lingered, never said more than they needed to. To us, they were a mystery wrapped in secrecy.
One particular mission still haunts me. We had been flying our re-transmission plane at its maximum ceiling, skirting along the Japanese coast in endless elliptical patterns. The routine had already worn thin, and the discomfort of the oxygen mask strapped to my helmet only made matters worse. Fatigue weighed heavily on my body, every breath a reminder of the monotonous hours we had spent tracing the same path over and over again.
Forty minutes remained until our mission was complete, and all I could think about was returning to base. But then, without warning, a coded message came through: “Return immediately to your base.”
The order was terse, cold, and carried the unmistakable gravity of something urgent. I exchanged glances with my co-pilot, who seemed equally puzzled but kept his mouth shut. In our line of work, you didn’t ask why—you just obeyed.

One occasion remains etched in my memory, a day when routine gave way to something far more sinister. We had been flying at maximum altitude, tracing endless elliptical patterns along the Japanese coast, my body numb from the discomfort of the oxygen mask clamped to my face. With forty minutes still left on the mission clock, exhaustion weighed heavily on my every breath. But then, the silence in my headset was broken by a coded message: "Return immediately to your base."
It was highly unusual—too unusual. As the words echoed in my ears, a knot formed in my stomach. This wasn’t standard procedure. Something was wrong. My mind raced through possibilities as we descended, but nothing I’d done seemed worthy of such an abrupt order.
When we finally touched down, the surprise only deepened. Instead of the usual reception by the espionage officers, a small crowd of higher-ups had gathered on the tarmac. The wing commander and chief of staff stood waiting, their presence like a dark cloud looming over the landing strip. My pulse quickened.
What have I done wrong this time? I thought, replaying every second of the flight in my mind, searching for some misstep. Had the espionage officers been displeased with something I didn’t even know I’d done? The fear gnawed at me. My mind flashed back to GRU Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, burned alive by his captors in 1963. Would that be my fate too?
Before the engines had fully powered down and the propellers had stopped spinning, I unbuckled my parachute, tumbled out of the emergency hatch, and made my way toward the commander. The weight of the unknown hung heavy over me. I needed answers—and fast.
But before I could even launch into my report about the unexpected order to abort the mission, the commander waved me off, a flick of the hand that said, Forget it, Grigoriev, not now. His voice, however, remained sharp.
"Grigoriev, did you hear anything unusual on the radio during your flight?" His words held an edge, something lurking beneath them.
Sensing that whatever had happened, it didn’t directly involve me—yet—I responded in a clipped, formal tone, grateful for the reprieve. “Nothing to report, Comrade Colonel.”
His eyes narrowed, still searching for something that hadn’t yet been said. “If you recall anything, report it immediately.”
That made me pause. What’s really going on here? It was clear something extraordinary had occurred, but since I wasn’t in trouble—at least, not yet—my curiosity got the better of me. I dropped the formalities.
“Commander, what’s happened?” I asked, trying to keep my tone neutral but hoping for some scrap of information.
The colonel’s eyes flickered for a moment, and then he relented, dropping the guarded pretense. “Two of our reconnaissance aircraft from Romanovka were sent to photograph a new Japanese tank transport ship. You know the deal—Japan’s post-World War II defense policy doesn’t allow them to build offensive weapons like this ship. For our government to file a formal protest, they need detailed photographs. The planes located the ship in neutral waters, about seventy miles off Sado Island. They flew in at low altitude to get the shots.”
He paused, gauging my reaction, but I kept my expression unreadable. He continued.
"Your aircraft was providing radio support, maintaining continuous contact between them and fleet headquarters. Meanwhile, our radio espionage team intercepted chatter from the Japanese fighter pilots shadowing our planes.”
A chill crept down my spine. I could see where this was headed.
“Four Japanese F-18s tailed them after their first pass over the ship. Two hovered over the lead plane, which was flying at just two hundred feet, while the other pair shadowed the trailing plane. The cloud base was low—two, maybe three hundred feet at most. The trailing aircraft occasionally flew through clouds, losing sight of the leader.”
The colonel’s voice darkened, and I braced myself for what was coming next.
“When the trailing plane came out of the cloud cover, they saw a bright flash where the lead plane should have been. The lead aircraft was spinning, one wing missing, flames consuming its fuselage. The Japanese planes immediately broke off and returned to shore. The trailing aircraft circled the crash site a few times, low to the water, but all they saw was a dark oil slick, burning wreckage, and a Japanese frigate rushing toward the scene.”
As the colonel spoke, hoping to trigger some revelation in my memory, the espionage officers—now under armed guard—filed out of my aircraft. Their faces were as unreadable as ever, but their hurried steps told me all I needed to know: this wasn’t just some routine incident.
The colonel’s voice grew stern. “Grigoriev, until we receive the official communiqu; about this disaster, you are not to speak to anyone about it. Is that clear?”
I snapped to attention, my body reacting instinctively to the command. “Yes, sir, Comrade Colonel.”
“Good. Now go and take care of your post-flight duties.”
“Yes, sir.” I turned, but the weight of what had just been revealed pressed heavily on my shoulders.

A week later, the promised communiqu; arrived. The wing commander summoned all the pilots to the flight assignment classroom and began to brief us on its contents. I knew most of the details already, thanks to the commander’s earlier explanations, but what followed would deepen the mystery and unease surrounding the fateful mission.
Besides the usual technical jargon about our spy flights, the communiqu; contained a chilling revelation: a decoding of the intercepted radio communications between the Japanese fighter pilot and the Niigata airbase, call sign “Sakura.” The transcript played out like a grim narrative leading to disaster:
Base: “243, locate your target.” (Pause)
Pilot: “‘Sakura,’ the target is located.” (Pause)
Base: “243, intercept your target.” (Pause)
Pilot: “‘Sakura,’ the target has been intercepted.” (Pause)
Base: “243, lock your missile on the lead aircraft.” (Pause)
Pilot: “‘Sakura,’ locked on target.”
The tension in the room was palpable as the commander lowered the communiqu; and addressed us. His voice was steady, but there was an undertone of something darker—something that lingered in the air like a quiet threat.
"The Japanese have recovered three of the deceased crew members' bodies," he began. "They’ve handed them over to our representatives. The fate of the remaining three men from the flight is unknown."
A silence fell over the room. Every pilot understood the weight of those words—the uncertainty, the loss, the way men could vanish in the unforgiving expanse of the ocean.
The colonel continued, "As you’ve read, there was no command to destroy the target recorded on the magnetic tapes recovered from Captain Grigoriev’s aircraft. Nor did the pilot report the target’s destruction. This leaves us with three possible explanations."
He counted off the options like ticking bombs:
"First, the missile, after being locked onto the target, may have launched itself due to a malfunction. It detached from the underwing pylon and hit its mark without direct human intervention.
Second, the pilot, for reasons of personal animosity, lost control and took matters into his own hands—deliberately annihilating the Russian crew.
Third, the Japanese could have used a covert communication channel that wasn’t intercepted by our radio specialists, guiding their fighter pilots to execute the strike."
He paused, letting those possibilities hang in the air like storm clouds. "Given the discipline of the Japanese forces and the quality of their technology, I believe the first two hypotheses are highly unlikely. However, Japanese diplomats will almost certainly push for one of these explanations when they justify their actions to our Foreign Ministry."
He closed the briefing with a flat, emotionless "That’s all. You’re dismissed."

As we filed out of the classroom, the usual whispers began. The pilots, still shaken by the communiqu;, gathered around me in the corridor, clearly expecting more details. They huddled close, pressing for information, hoping I knew more than what had been officially shared.
"Grigoriev, tell us—did you hear anything on the radio?"
"Come on, you must’ve picked up something. What really happened out there?"
I shook my head, offering nothing beyond the report. There was nothing more to tell—or nothing I was willing to tell. The officers eventually dispersed, realizing I had no hidden knowledge. They went about their business, trying to shake off the grim atmosphere by light-heartedly joking.
"Hey, maybe the Soviet government should award Grigoriev for ‘bravely sleeping’ through the whole flight!" someone quipped, his tone masking the tension beneath the humor.
I smirked, playing along. "I’m as indifferent to commendations as I am to condemnations."
But as the laughter faded and the group scattered, the heaviness settled back in. It was impossible to escape the gravity of what had happened. As the adrenaline of the moment ebbed, I couldn't help but reflect on how much these final moments as a pilot had been tainted by reprimands, missed opportunities, and the long shadow of responsibility.
I couldn’t even recall the last commendation I’d received. But the memory of my most recent reprimand lingered, like a thorn just beneath the surface of my thoughts.
Now, as I sit here in my final moments in the pilot’s seat, surrounded by the humid, oppressive heat of the jungle, I wonder if these grim thoughts were always meant to haunt me, trailing me like a shadow into my last mission.
It was one of those absurdly contradictory situations. In a normal society, I might have been lauded for the task I was about to complete—maybe even celebrated. But in our twisted system, the tables were naturally turned. Instead of being met with gratitude, I would soon find myself facing consequences for something that, anywhere else, would have earned me praise.
The assignment seemed straightforward enough: my crew and I were tasked with delivering roughly a ton of assorted cargo, plus one female passenger, to Iturup Island—a remote outpost among the Kurile Islands. I was briefed at headquarters that we'd be spending the night on the island, only to return the next morning with some dismissed sailors and, again, the same woman.
For context, Iturup had a complicated history. Up until August 1945, it had been under Japanese control. The island had been wrested from them in the final days of the war, and the remnants of their occupation remained scattered across the island like eerie relics of a forgotten time. One such relic was the airbase we were flying into—a base that was as unique as it was grim. The Japanese had carved it out of the mountain range, using nothing but picks, crowbars, and shovels wielded by thousands of Korean and Chinese prisoners of war. Many of them had never left the island alive.
But despite its brutal origins, the airbase was something of a pilot’s dream. The winds always blew perfectly parallel to the runway, either coming in from the vast Pacific Ocean or sweeping across from the Sea of Okhotsk. Natural cliffs, towering up to three hundred feet high, shielded the runways from crosswinds. It was as close to perfect as an airbase could be—at least on paper.
The base had a skeleton staff of just twenty-eight, led by a Major, and it had been designated by the Joint Staff as a "jump-off" base. This meant that aircraft heading out for oceanic military operations and returning from missions could refuel there. The runway, solidly cut into the rock, could handle planes of virtually any weight—a fact that would come in handy during larger operations.
The flight itself was uneventful. The weather, for once, was on our side, and from about thirty miles out, we could already see the aerodrome. Approaching from the Sea of Okhotsk, we were greeted by a breathtaking panorama: the massive Bohdan Khmelnitsky Volcano loomed in the distance, its crater wrapped in a soft veil of mist. Below it lay Kurilsk, the island’s largest settlement, tucked at the base of the volcano like a forgotten town in a child's geography book. To the east, the Catherine Strait stretched out before us, with Kunashir Island visible on the horizon.
My copilot scanned the horizon with quiet awe, his eyes fixed on the distant island. Vasiliev, our ever-meticulous navigator, was focused on his calculations, mentally ticking off every mile, every second. As for me, I was locked in on the task at hand. We decided to opt for a straight landing approach, letting Vasiliev's precise coordinates guide us in smoothly.
But as we drew closer to the aerodrome, something unusual caught my eye. About five miles from the runway, I spotted a group of people gathered at the threshold of the airstrip. They were waving their hats—no, they were tossing them into the air, cheering like schoolchildren at a parade.
It was such an uncharacteristically warm reception, so out of place on this harsh, isolated island, that it made me uneasy. Since when does a cargo flight get such a welcome?
The elation of the crowd was palpable even from the air. I couldn’t recall ever seeing such a heartfelt greeting at any base, let alone one on an island as remote and forgotten as Iturup. It was clear they were excited about our arrival—too excited. It was as if they were starved for any sign of life, any excuse to celebrate.
“I don’t know about you guys, but this feels a little over the top for a delivery run,” I muttered, half-joking to my crew.
Vasiliev didn’t even look up from his calculations, deadpan as always. “Maybe they think you’re bringing vodka,” he replied dryly.
The copilot chuckled, but there was an edge of unease in the laughter. Something about this felt off. It wasn’t the danger you could see, but the kind you felt—the kind that crept in slowly, nagging at the back of your mind.
As we approached within half a mile of the threshold, the crowd erupted into action, rushing toward us as if we were heroes returning from some victorious conquest. Their faces were lit with unbridled excitement, eyes wide with anticipation, waving and cheering like they'd been waiting for this moment all their lives. I couldn’t help but be struck by the sheer intensity of their reaction—it felt far too enthusiastic for a simple cargo drop.
What in the world are they so happy about? I thought, glancing at Vasiliev, who raised an eyebrow but said nothing. His eyes flickered with the same unease that I was feeling, though he kept his focus on the navigation instruments, like any good navigator should. Still, the tension in the cockpit was unmistakable. We all felt it.
"Are they expecting a parade?" the copilot quipped, his voice tinged with nervous laughter. "Or maybe they think we’re bringing home some kind of miracle?"
"Maybe they think we’re cosmonauts," I muttered, half-joking, but the knot in my stomach was tightening.
It wasn’t just the eagerness that felt wrong; it was the sheer volume of people. Too many. For a remote airbase like this, you'd expect a handful of personnel and a few locals at most. Instead, there was several dozens of them, swarming toward us, practically vibrating with energy.
"Maybe they think we're delivering something more valuable than cargo," Vasiliev finally chimed in, his voice as steady as ever, though I could see the faint shadow of doubt crossing his face.
But as we got closer, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn't just about cargo or supplies. Their faces were filled with such expectation, like they knew something we didn’t—like they were in on a secret and we were the ones being kept in the dark.
The copilot adjusted in his seat, eyes narrowed at the scene unfolding below us. "You ever get the feeling you’ve been cast in a play, and nobody gave you the script?" he said, trying to make light of the situation, but the humor fell flat.
Yeah, I thought, a play where we’re about to be the punchline.
The closer we got, the more my instincts screamed at me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever awaited us on this desolate island wasn’t what we had signed up for. This was supposed to be routine—a simple delivery. But the way the crowd surged toward us, eyes gleaming like they were witnessing something miraculous, told me one thing: this wasn’t routine.
Not at all.


We skimmed over the heads of the crowd, flying at a heart-pounding forty feet, before touching down and starting the braking procedure. As the wheels screeched against the rugged runway, the tail gunner's voice crackled over the intercom, reporting something strange: the group of people we had seen earlier wasn’t just standing by—they were running alongside the runway, bursting with a kind of excitement that was almost unsettling. It wasn’t mere curiosity or anticipation; it was something much more intense—almost euphoric. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why.
Later, when I learned what we had actually brought with us, everything started to make sense. Packed into thirty medium-sized wooden crates were 180 reels of film for their theater. Out here, in this remote outpost where the monotony of isolation pressed in like the cliffs surrounding the base, a shipment of films wasn’t just cargo—it was a lifeline to another world. It was escape, entertainment, and, in a way, salvation.
The aerodrome's commander greeted me with an unexpected warmth, shaking my hand with a fervor that suggested I’d brought more than just supplies—I had delivered hope. But after only a few words, he quickly passed me off to his deputy and directed his full attention to our lone female passenger.
Things started falling into place then. The wing had mentioned that this woman wasn’t just any passenger; she was a cashier, carrying six months' worth of payroll for the entire aerodrome staff. What they conveniently failed to mention was that she also happened to be the commander’s wife. It was only after the Petty Officer, who had been assigned to show me around, shared this juicy detail that everything really clicked. The special treatment she received, and the commander’s immediate focus on her over everything else, suddenly made perfect sense. Unspoken rules governed places like this, and I could almost feel their weight.
While the sailors unloaded the crates of films and the flight engineer refueled our tanks, the Petty Officer led me on a tour of the base.
“Not even a dog to guard the sheep, huh?” I remarked, noticing how unnervingly quiet the place felt for a military base.
“Where would they go?” he said, gesturing to the towering cliffs that hemmed in the base like prison walls. “Even rock climbers would have a tough time getting out of here.”
He was right. The cliffs loomed over us like silent sentinels, their sheer faces offering no chance of escape. The isolation was oppressive, and it wasn’t hard to imagine how the men stationed here might feel trapped, prisoners of the landscape itself.
“Tell me, Comrade Petty Officer,” I asked, nodding toward a curious sight just outside the barracks, “what’s with the cistern in front of the building?”
A mischievous smile crept across his face. “Ah, that’s the Major’s invention. He calls it the ‘military prison.’ When a sailor gets drunk or decides to go AWOL to the nearest settlement, we stick him in there.”
“In a barrel?” I raised an eyebrow.
He nodded, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Yep. There are holes drilled into the lid so he doesn’t suffocate. We bolt the lid on, and voil;—no need for guards. Just like the sheep. He stays in there for a couple of days, gets fed once daily, and either howls in despair or begs for forgiveness.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity. “And the higher-ups? They’re okay with this ‘invention’? It doesn’t exactly sound... legal.”
"For them, the only concern is that no one dies on the commander’s watch," the Petty Officer replied with a shrug. "As long as that doesn’t happen, they turn a blind eye to his little... innovations."
"Right," I muttered, still shaking my head at the thought of sailors locked up in barrels like pickles. "You mentioned a settlement nearby. How far is it?"
"Seven miles along the shore," he said. "But trust me, Commander, there’s nothing worth seeing."
"Then why do the sailors keep running off to it?" I asked. "Seven miles there, seven miles back—that’s hardly a stroll."
He smirked. "Some go for the girls, but mostly, they go for the vodka. There's a village shop that sells it. When you're stuck here eating mutton every day, vodka starts to feel like the only thing worth walking for."
That piqued my interest. "Well, I suppose that gives us a reason to visit," I said, glancing at the sheep grazing near the cliffs. "And with all the mutton around, I’m guessing that's what’s for dinner tonight. As they say in the Caucasus, ‘Only dogs eat mutton without vodka.’"
The Petty Officer chuckled. "Unfortunately, we don’t get much of a say. Mutton’s a daily occurrence here. You’ll get used to it."
"I’m sure," I replied, though I was already scheming for an excuse to visit the village shop. If I was going to be stuck on this godforsaken rock, I might as well enjoy a decent drink.
"That's exactly right about our menu," the Petty Officer continued, still chuckling. "Mutton, red caviar, and salmon. Back on the mainland, people treat salmon like some rare delicacy, but I’ve had enough to last a lifetime."
Two hours later, with the now somewhat worn-out Major in tow, we bounced down a sandy path toward the settlement, modestly named Fisherman’s Village. The truck lurched over the wet sand, the sea breeze heavy with salt and the faint smell of fish. I glanced at the Major—he looked more exhausted than I felt, as though the weight of command was bearing down on him.
"You look tired, Commander," he said, a knowing smirk tugging at his lips. "Had to recount the payroll with the cashier, did you?"
"Three times," I replied, grinning back. "You’ve got sharp eyes, Major. But I hope they don’t get you into trouble."
"There have been... occasions," he admitted with a weary smile. "And how do you get out of it?"
"Black magic," I said, eager to steer the conversation away from my personal affairs.
The Major raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Does it work?"
"Not always," I replied, squinting at the endless stretch of sand. "But I’m still here, so it must be doing something right." I paused for a moment, then asked, "Why are we driving so close to the water? We’re already fifteen hundred feet from the shore—seems risky."
"You scared, Captain?" the Major teased, his voice laced with amusement.
"Not scared," I said, shrugging, "just curious."
"The sand here is like fine powder. When it dries, it turns into a mess of impenetrable dust. There aren’t any proper roads on the island, so the only reliable paths for vehicles are these narrow strips of wet sand. We’re far from the shore now because the tide’s out," he explained, pointing out the window.
I cut him off, smirking. "And on the other side of the island, the tide’s in, right?"
The Major shot me a side glance, catching my sarcasm. "That’s right, smartass." Shaking his head, he pointed toward the distant shore where I could just make out the skeletal remains of a rusted truck frame half-buried in the sand. "See that? A couple of years ago, some of my sailors thought they’d take a joyride to visit the girls in the village. Tide came in fast, caught them off guard. They barely made it out, sinking up to their knees in the sand while the ocean tossed their truck like a toy."
I glanced again at the rusted remains, imagining the panic that must have gripped them as the waves crashed in, trapping them against the cliffs. "What happened to the sailors?"
"I let them off easy. They only had a month left to serve, and I wasn’t about to drag them in front of a military tribunal. Wrote the truck off as obsolete and requisitioned a new one. Saved everyone a headache."
By the time our conversation petered out, we had arrived at Fisherman’s Village. The place was a small, wind-beaten cluster of wooden houses that looked as tired as the Major. The village seemed frozen in time—men hauled in the day’s catch from their battered boats, while their wives worked in a nearby fish-processing plant. Life here was hard, no doubt, but there was a quiet resilience to the place.
We bought a few bottles of vodka at the village’s only shop—a dim, sparse little place that looked more like a storage closet than a store. I felt the weight of the day sinking into my bones, but something stirred in me, urging me to explore.
"I think I’ll take a walk, maybe check out a club or some shops," I said, eager to stretch my legs and see what kind of entertainment this village offered.
The Major stopped me with a laugh, the kind that made it clear I was missing the point. "What club? What shops?" he asked, laughing outright now. "There’s nothing here."
"But... where do they watch movies?" I asked, genuinely puzzled.
The Major shook his head, clearly amused by my naivety. "You really are like a little boy, Captain. The settlement’s powered by a diesel generator. That gives them just enough electricity for the lights in their homes," he said, nodding toward the low wooden huts. "No televisions, no irons—none of that modern stuff."
I blinked, taken aback. "So what do they do in the evenings?"
The Major’s grin widened, his tone dripping with irony. "They count their money. Three times a night."
I couldn’t help but laugh, though beneath it lay a bitter truth. Life here was stripped down to the bare essentials. They didn’t need movies or entertainment—survival was entertainment enough. They lived for their catch, their vodka, and their money. Anything beyond that was a luxury they didn’t have the time or energy to care about.
As we clambered back into the truck, the vodka bottles rattling at our feet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this place, barren and isolated as it seemed, had a strange charm of its own. But it was a charm I wouldn’t want to experience for more than a day.
And as we drove back along the water’s edge, skirting the encroaching tide, I found myself wondering how anyone managed to survive here, where even the ocean seemed to be lying in wait, ready to swallow you whole.
"How do they even manage to have kids? There aren’t any hospitals out here," I asked, my voice tinged with disbelief.
The Major, ever practical, didn’t miss a beat. "When someone’s sick or a woman’s about to give birth, we take them to Kurilsk along the tide by car. If it’s an emergency, we call in a border guard helicopter and fly them out." He said it as if it were the most routine thing in the world.
Depressed by the bleakness of it all, I stayed silent for half the ride back. The wind howled against the truck as it rolled over the wet sand, the ocean always present at our side—a constant reminder of the isolation of this godforsaken island.
Then, something caught my eye: massive tank turrets perched atop concrete bunkers every six hundred feet, their large-caliber cannons staring us down like silent predators, tracking our every move.
"What’s with those?" I asked, nodding toward the artillery installations.
"Shore defenses," the Major replied, a hint of pride creeping into his voice. "Underneath those tank turrets, you’ve got machine guns set up in the narrow windows of the bunkers. It’s like a mini-fortress down there—three floors underground. Barracks, mess hall, toilet, provisions. Enough to hold out for a long time if it ever came to that. Ten sailors and a sergeant run each one, but during peace, we usually only keep two or three on rotation."
I raised an eyebrow. "All this firepower... for this little island?"
"You’re missing the big picture. There are setups like this all over the Kuril Islands. Before World War II, this place was Japanese territory. They never fully accepted losing it. Even now, they act like they’re just waiting for the chance to take it back. So we’re not taking any chances. Coastal defense is what keeps everyone sane out here."
He paused, as if for dramatic effect, then added, "You know who’s running the show? Rear-Admiral Mikhail Kapustin. Hell of a guy."
I gave a small nod, already familiar with the name, but the Major, sensing an opportunity to impress, pushed on.
"He’s a regular at my place when he’s on the island. Always crashes here after inspections."
I smiled. "I know him too."
The Major raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "You’ve ferried him before?"
"Nah, haven’t flown him. But he’s my father-in-law."
The Major’s eyes widened, the revelation sinking in. A pause lingered before he let out a hearty laugh. "Well, that explains your 'black magic' touch, doesn’t it?"
"Haven’t hurt," I replied, matching his grin.

Back at the airstrip, we found the sailors crammed into the barracks, their eyes glued to a movie playing on a gray sheet that had long since lost its original color. Judging by their laughter, it was clear this wasn’t their first film of the day. The sheet swayed gently in the breeze, washed out and worn beyond recognition, but still serving its purpose.
“They’re like kids,” I remarked, watching them with a faint smile.
The Major shrugged. “First two months after a mainland plane lands, they gorge on films—three a day, every day. After that, they get bored and start watching them backwards, laughing like it’s the greatest comedy ever made. Especially when there’s a little vodka involved. It’s a tradition. They pass it down like some initiation, and no matter how many rules I set, nothing changes.”
The day wore on, and after a quick meal, I asked the commander to prep the sailors for tomorrow’s flight back to the mainland.
“It’s already done,” he replied with a nod. “When are you planning to head out?”
“Ten hundred hours.”
“Good. We’ve got bunks for you and your crew at HQ. I’ll make sure you’re comfortable.”
“At least it’s not a hole in the ground,” I muttered, casting a sideways glance at him, hoping he’d have a restless night dealing with his wife—the cashier.
The Major smirked. “Always the clever one, Grigoriev. Good luck with your beauty sleep.”

Morning arrived with a bitter chill in the air. After breakfast, the crew headed to the plane to prep for takeoff. Meanwhile, I radioed the command post for clearance. As I waited for a response, a commotion outside caught my eye.
Sergey, my co-pilot, was being hoisted onto the back of a large, wild horse—no saddle, no reins, no stirrups. Just a thick, unruly mane for him to cling to. The sailors, laughing their heads off, watched as Sergey wrapped his arms around the horse’s neck, desperately trying to stay on while the animal bucked and snorted, unimpressed with the impromptu rodeo.
Sergey’s legs flailed in the air as he clung to the horse, his face a mix of terror and sheer determination. He hugged that beast as if his life depended on it.
“What the hell is he doing?” I asked the Major, half-amused, half-horrified.
The Major crossed his arms, watching the spectacle with a grin. “Looks like your co-pilot’s found a new calling.”
“Or he’s about to find himself with a broken leg,” I muttered.
The horse reared slightly, and Sergey let out a panicked yelp, holding on for dear life as the sailors egged him on. I sighed, shaking my head. We were supposed to be professionals, but out here, on this wind-swept, isolated rock, even the best of us seemed bound to lose our grip on sanity.
“Should I stop him before he gets himself killed?” I asked, only half-serious.
The Major chuckled. “Nah, let him have his fun. Better he gets thrown off a horse than a plane, right?”
“Fair point,” I admitted, watching as the horse bucked again, nearly sending Sergey flying. Despite the danger, I couldn’t help but laugh. The Major was right—out here, you took what fun you could get, even if it meant risking a few bruises.
But when the horse started getting more agitated, I realized things were spiraling out of control. I stepped out onto the HQ porch and bellowed, “Cut the circus and get him off that horse!”
The commanding tone snapped the sailors to attention. Seeing an AN-12 pilot barking orders was enough to get them moving. Within moments, they swarmed the skittish horse, trying to corral it. But the sudden rush of bodies only panicked the poor animal further. It reared up violently, and Sergey, wide-eyed and out of his depth, lost his grip. He tumbled to the ground, and in one final cruel twist, the horse trampled his leg with a sickening crunch.
Later, Sergey would tell me he heard the sound of his bones breaking. I hadn’t heard it myself, but the look on his face—the pain, the instant realization that things had gone horribly wrong—said it all. The laughter that had filled the air moments before evaporated, replaced by a stunned silence.
The medic rushed over, his expression grim. After a quick examination, he gave a firm nod. “Tibia and fibula. Both broken.”
Even without the medic’s expert diagnosis, it was obvious: Sergey’s leg was badly broken. We carried him into the barracks and laid him out on the pool table, as if he were the tragic centerpiece of some game gone horribly wrong. The medic and I scrambled to put together a makeshift cast. Sergey, trying to maintain a brave face, winced with every touch, the pain etched across his face.
Just then, the commander strolled in, holding the roster I’d left on his desk. "You left this behind," he said, handing it to me. His tone shifted, showing a hint of concern. "Headquarters has granted clearance for your departure, but... shouldn’t we inform them about the accident?"
"Absolutely not," I shot back, my voice firm.
He raised an eyebrow. "Why not, Valery?"
"Because the moment they hear about this, they’ll ground me," I explained. "No way I’m getting clearance to take off. Meanwhile, Sergey’s lying here with a busted leg, and time is of the essence. If we wait for them to prep another aircraft in Artem and get it over here, it’ll take at least ten hours. By then, who knows what condition his leg will be in."
The commander looked puzzled. "Why would they send another plane?"
I shot him a knowing glance. "Because without a co-pilot, I could set course for Japan instead of Vladivostok. Hokkaido’s only twenty minutes away, while Artem’s a two-hour flight. If I wanted to defect, this would be the perfect opportunity."
He snorted, half-amused. "What’s stopping you from doing that on any other flight?"
I couldn’t help but grin, despite the situation. "The brass assumes the crew would stop me. If a captain decided to betray the homeland, they think the co-pilot or crew would intervene. But today? No co-pilot. No one to stop me. I’d have a plane full of captives, all at my mercy, heading straight for Japan—or the moon, if I felt like it."
The commander chuckled darkly. "Seems like headquarters has spent too much time worrying about rogue pilots."
"They have," I replied. "If I report this accident, they’ll lose their minds. They won’t care if Sergey keeps his leg intact—they’ll be too focused on covering their own backs. Because if I defect, half the rats at headquarters will be out of a job."
We walked toward the aircraft where the sailors were already loading Sergey onto a makeshift stretcher. The Major, his wife, and I trailed behind. Sergey, despite the pain, managed a weak smile as they lifted him toward the ramp.
“You’ll get my wife to Artem, yes?" the commander said, shaking my hand before giving her a tender kiss. As she climbed into the fuselage, he added, almost as an afterthought, "After that, you can fly to Sapporo or Singapore for all I care."
I nodded. "It'll be done, Commander. No worries."

II grinned, but beneath the humor, the tension was unmistakable. We both understood the risks. I was about to break protocol, gamble on a smooth flight, and trust that no one at headquarters would question my decision to take off. It was a calculated risk, one I had to take.
As I climbed into the cockpit, I glanced over at Sergey, who was still gritting his teeth through the pain. "Hang in there, Kovalenko. We’ll have you home in no time."
Sergey, pale and sweating, managed a weak chuckle. "And here I thought I signed up for a routine flight."
"You know how it is," I replied, adjusting the throttle as we prepared for takeoff. "It’s never just routine."

As we neared our airbase, I radioed ahead, requesting an ambulance to be ready on the tarmac. To avoid raising suspicions among the wing's commanders, I bent the truth: I told them one of our passengers had fallen ill. Little did I know this would trigger a reception fit for a state visit—complete with the Air Wing commander, the chief of staff, and, for good measure, a KGB representative. All that was missing was a brass band.
When the stretcher was lowered from the aircraft and they saw Sergey, my co-pilot, with his leg in a makeshift cast, the commander’s concerned expression instantly twisted into fury. The storm he unleashed was nothing short of brutal, a torrent of anger aimed directly at me. I won’t repeat every colorful word hurled in my direction, but the message was clear:
"Give me the quick version now, and a full report by tomorrow."

In the days that followed, the senior officers were summoned to a formal briefing. The commander stood, solemnly reading the decree issued by the aviation fleet commander:
"Commander Grigoriev is officially reprimanded for disregarding flight safety protocols."
As we filed out of the room, the murmurs started—just as they always did. My comrades, never missing an opportunity for sarcasm, chimed in:
"Now all you need is a reprimand from the Minister of Defense to complete the set."
"Another slap on the wrist instead of a medal. Lucky devil."
No one dared say what we all knew: in the same situation, any reasonable person would have done exactly what I did.

Chapter 24
For six months, I was grounded, relegated to short-range flights crisscrossing the aerodromes of the Far East. Each flight, I was paired with a new co-pilot, none of whom I had time to build any real rapport with. Without a cohesive crew, I wasn’t considered for long-distance missions. But by autumn, Sergey returned from his leave, his leg healed as though nothing had ever happened. He passed his physical, and at last, we were a battle-ready team once more.
Around the same time, the antisubmarine aviation unit began receiving shiny new Ka-27 Helix helicopters, straight from the factory. Our wing’s job was to ferry supplies for these brand-new ships.
Our destination? The sleepy Bashkir town of Kumertau. These missions were as dull as watching paint dry—tedious flights with no reward but fatigue. If it weren’t for our uncanny knack for stirring up trouble in even the dullest of places, we might have written off those months as little more than logistical drudgery.
One typically uneventful evening, we found ourselves in the hotel restaurant, hiding a gallon of pure grain alcohol under the tablecloth. Our radio operator, ever the discreet one, would refill the vodka carafe from the bottle at our feet, and we took shots of the clear liquid as if it were the finest cognac. Our meal? Roasted mutton ribs—a Bashkir specialty.
The restaurant was filled with a curious mix of patrons: about twenty men in padded jackets and worn boots, and one striking woman dressed in a stylish gown and Italian heels. She sat with three grim-faced Bashkir men who seemed indifferent to her presence. They ate in silence, their eyes occasionally darting toward the entrance, as if expecting someone—or something.
Sure enough, a young man eventually swaggered into the room. He scanned the scene, then strode directly to the woman’s table. Without a word, he kicked the chair out from under one of her companions.
The man shot up from the floor, delivering a punch so swift and powerful that the crack of bone echoed through the room. Chaos erupted.
The other two Bashkirs dropped their cutlery and leapt at the young aggressor. Chairs toppled, tables were shoved aside, and in seconds, the restaurant had turned into a brawling battlefield.
Three policemen rushed in, wielding rubber batons like medieval swords. They swung wildly, cracking down on anyone within reach before dragging the combatants outside. The rest of the patrons followed, more interested in watching the fight than finishing their meals.
Drawn by the commotion, we moved toward the restaurant’s glass wall, pulling the curtain aside to watch the scene unfolding on the street below.
At first, the trio with the woman held their ground. They were seasoned fighters, tough, and unwilling to back down. But as more young men emerged from the shadows, it became clear that the Bashkirs had walked into a trap.
“They’ve been set up,” Sergey muttered, shaking his head as we watched the outnumbered Bashkirs take blow after blow.
Outside, the young men swarmed like wolves, taking turns landing kicks and punches. The Bashkirs fought back with everything they had, but they were surrounded. You could feel the tension crackling in the air as more bystanders gathered—yet no one stepped in to stop it.


It wasn’t long before the woman—apparently the cause of the entire mess—was spirited away into a waiting car that sped off into the night. The fight had been nothing but a diversion, a distraction to whisk her out of sight.
“What do you think her deal was?” the navigator asked in a low voice.
“Money,” I replied, my eyes still on the brawl. “It’s always about money.”
Sergey, still sore from his earlier tumble with the horse, gave a hollow laugh. “Either that or revenge.”
As the police finally began to break up the fight, we returned to our table. The commotion had provided just enough excitement to shake us from our evening’s monotony, but it left a sour taste behind.
“Well,” I said, raising my shot glass, “here’s to another dull, uneventful day in paradise.”
The others lifted their glasses in mock solemnity.
“To paradise,” they echoed, clinking glasses.
And with that, we went back to our quiet rebellion—sipping from our hidden stash, pretending for just a moment that this wasn’t the life we were stuck living.

The chair-kicking stunt had been crude, nothing more than a provocation. But as the companions of the assaulted men streamed out of the restaurant, the skirmish escalated into an all-out brawl. It wasn’t just a scuffle; it was a full-blown clash. Forty men, driven by raw determination, hurled themselves at each other with savage intensity. What struck me most was the eerie silence that hung over the chaos—no roars, no curses—just fists, feet, and the sickening thud of bodies hitting the ground.
“Must be because they’re Bashkirs,” I mused. “Muslims. They probably have a different sense of honor.”
Perhaps their stoicism kept the violence quiet, like an ancient duel fought under some unspoken code.
The three policemen, standing beside a woman wrapped in an elegant angora jacket, looked on with little concern. They had already played their part, stepping in just long enough to keep the hotel intact, and now they watched the scene unfold with detached interest. The woman, on the other hand, shivered visibly, her jacket offering little protection from the cold or her nerves—it was hard to tell which.
The policemen lit cigarettes, chatting among themselves, smug in the belief they’d done their job. The hotel, at least, had been spared the worst of the violence.
The radio operator, Onoprienko, stood next to me by the window, watching the fight with keen interest. Without taking his eyes off the scene, he turned to me and said, “Commander, mind if I take the night off?”
I glanced at him. He’d been itching to slip away ever since the fight began. “Go ahead,” I nodded, “just stay out of the fight.”
We both turned back to the brawl, which showed no signs of slowing down. A moment later, I saw Onoprienko casually strolling toward the woman. He leaned in close and whispered something in her ear, then slipped away into the dim streets of Kumertau, his exit so smooth it seemed rehearsed. Five minutes later, the woman herself followed, her jacket buttoned tightly against the cold. I watched as she disappeared into the same dark alley.
Satisfied that neither Onoprienko nor the woman had been followed, I shrugged and returned to the table. We resumed our quiet rebellion, the smell of roasted mutton filling the air, along with the unspoken understanding that we had just witnessed something far more intriguing than a simple bar fight.

The next morning, Onoprienko returned to the hotel, looking like the proverbial cat who’d gotten the cream. His eyes were bright, and though he hadn’t slept, his face wore a smug grin.
“Spill it,” I demanded, eager to hear the story.
He didn’t need much convincing.
The woman from the night before wasn’t just a bystander—she was the wife of a man who had been sentenced to eight years for armed robbery. Her husband had been the only one in his gang to get caught. The prosecutor had tried everything to squeeze the names of his accomplices out of him, hoping to upgrade the charge from “Armed Robbery” to “Conspiracy,” which would have tacked on an extra five years. But the man didn’t crack. It wasn’t loyalty or honor that kept him silent; he simply knew how to play the game.

         From behind bars, he sent word to the rest of his gang, ensuring they’d take care of business while he served time. His one demand? That they make sure his wife stayed faithful. Not an easy task in a small Ural town, divided among rival gangs, where every move was watched, and every territory fiercely defended.

        The gang took his order to heart. For eight years, they kept a close watch on her, intimidating or beating up anyone who dared to get too close. It wasn’t out of any real sense of duty—it was loyalty to their leader. They guarded her from any man who showed even the slightest interest.

         That didn’t stop the bold ones, though. Rival gangs, seeing her as a prize, occasionally tried to court her. But these attempts almost always ended in violence. The fight outside the hotel? It was one of those encounters. The young man who kicked the chair out from under her companion? Just another criminal trying to make a statement.

         While the men fought over turf and pride, she was left alone, unsatisfied and yearning for something different. So, when Onoprienko whispered, “Follow me,” she didn’t hesitate. She left the brawl and the life of constant supervision behind—if only for one night.

         I didn’t press Onoprienko for details about how they spent the night. His smug expression and the way he sauntered into the hotel told me enough. He hadn’t slept, but he wasn’t tired—he was triumphant. A man who had outmaneuvered both fate and rival gangs, if only for one night.
“Some story,” I remarked, raising an eyebrow.

         Onoprienko just grinned and sat down, his mind already drifting back to the night before, savoring a victory only he could truly understand.


Chapter 25: Grounded, But Not for Long


It’s strange how, in the face of death, the mind doesn’t search for profound moments of clarity or some elusive sense of peace. Instead, what rises to the surface are chaotic memories—air accidents, drunken misadventures, and romantic entanglements—all playing out like a broken reel. Was that truly the sum of my life? Flights, regrets, and a string of questionable decisions that often felt more like accidents than choices.

       Each month, every pilot and engineer in the wing had to take their turn as the officer on watch. Given my tendency to stray from military discipline—and my, let’s call it, flexible moral compass—it was rare for me to complete a shift without some form of complication. Sometimes, it was squads of marines or frogmen parachuting onto the base, casually planting practice mines on our aircraft. Other times, it was sailors sneaking women into the barracks. By morning, I’d be frantically searching under beds, trying to avoid a scandal.

       But this time, as my watch neared its end, things seemed... calm. Too calm. That should’ve been my first warning.

       I was going over the inventory of the officers’ personal firearms when I noticed something off. One 9mm Makarov pistol and sixteen cartridges were missing. Fantastic. I double-checked the records and quickly saw that Petty Officer Kuleshov, stationed at remote control gate number three, hadn’t returned his weapon.

       I approached the engineer who was supposed to relieve me. Calmly, I explained the situation, showed him Kuleshov’s signature on the firearm receipt, and suggested that he take over so I could head home. After all, the missing pistol wasn’t his problem. Petty Officer Kuleshov would be held accountable—whether he lost it, sold it, or traded it for vodka.

       He refused.

       I tried again, my patience fraying. "Just sign the watch journal. You're not responsible for the missing gun. I’ve been on duty for 24 hours, and if you don’t take over, I’ll miss the bus and be stuck here for another four hours.”

       His response? A flat "No."

       This man was determined to make my life harder.

       Frustration boiled over. "Listen, you, idiot." I snapped, my voice sharp. "You’ll regret this."

       Without waiting for his response, I drew my own pistol—serial number MN-4683965—from its holster, marched into the armory, and chambered a round without bothering to remove the magazine. I disengaged the safety and aimed at the wall between the pistol and cartridge safes.
Bang.

       The shot echoed like thunder in the small armory. The engineer bolted from the room, his footsteps pounding down the hallway. I could only guess where he was going—to report my supposed breakdown to the commander, no doubt.
Ground rat, I fumed.

       I stood there, momentarily stunned by the deafening blast, the gun still in my hand. That’s when the wing’s chief of staff appeared, cautiously stepping into the room. He looked me over, likely checking to make sure I hadn’t completely lost it.

       “Valery, are you alright?”

       “More or less, but my ears are ringing.”

       He nodded, eyeing the gun. "Place the pistol down carefully and step out of the armory."
 
       I did as instructed, and once I was outside, he locked the door and pocketed my keys. His voice left no room for debate. “Let’s go see the commander.”
As we were heading out, the missing Petty Officer finally showed up, strolling in as if he had no idea of the chaos his absence had caused.

       When we reached the commander’s office, I was still trying to figure out how to explain the situation. I launched into an explanation, recounting how my patience had been worn thin by an unyielding fool on the watch roster, and how, in my exhaustion, I’d forgotten to unload the magazine before firing a "test" shot.
The engineer stood silently.

        The commander listened, then looked me up and down before asking, “Grigoriev, are you a fool, or just playing at it?”
He didn’t wait for my response. Turning to the chief of staff, he issued his decision.
       
        “From now on, don’t issue him any firearms. Send him home in my car immediately.”

        The chief of staff hesitated. “We can’t have an officer on watch without a weapon, sir. What should we do with him?”

        The commander let out an exasperated sigh. “Then don’t put him on watch. Give him more flight missions—keep him in the air, far away from the base. Fewer complications that way.”

         With a dismissive wave, he made it clear we were done. The incident of firing a pistol inside headquarters wasn’t worth his attention. Maybe something bigger was brewing elsewhere in the wing—something that demanded more of his focus than my latest misstep.


Chapter 26: Unraveling the Ties That Bind

        The Communist Party and the KGB stood as a seamless monolith, impenetrable and unwavering. Together, they were a fortress built on mutual back-patting and personal favors. They didn't just share ideology—they shared birthday parties, fishing trips, and family holidays. It was a brotherhood in which dissent wasn’t just frowned upon; it was unthinkable.

        So it came as no shock to anyone that the secretary of our party organization was best friends with the KGB officer stationed in our wing. The two were inseparable, practically living inside each other’s pockets. They celebrated together, hunted together, even foraged for mushrooms together. It was the kind of friendship that blurred the lines between professional loyalty and personal intimacy.

        But, as it so often happens when the air smells too much of camaraderie and vodka, something else began to blossom. Quietly at first, and then with the intensity of a forbidden romance set to ruin. The party leader and the wife of the KGB counter-espionage officer had crossed the invisible line between friendly affection and illicit passion. They started meeting in a dingy rented apartment on the outskirts of town, an affair cloaked in whispers and lies. At first, their deception was seamless, hidden behind tight smiles and casual handshakes.

        However, love—or whatever reckless emotion had seized them—rarely remains hidden for long. Before they knew it, their glances held for just a moment too long, their touches carried the weight of something unspoken. The intimacy they had nurtured in secret was becoming increasingly apparent, and their facade began to crack in full view. Eventually, like pressure building behind a fragile wall, the truth spilled out one morning, in the unlikeliest of places—over breakfast.

        "I’m leaving you for Dmitry," the KGB officer’s wife declared, her voice disturbingly calm as she passed the sugar. "We’ve been in love for quite some time."

        The KGB Major, spoon halfway to his lips, froze. The world seemed to tilt. Of all the dangers he’d been trained to face, of all the threats he could neutralize with a phone call, he hadn’t prepared for this. Infidelity? From his wife? His wife, who knew the risks of playing with fire when your husband was the fire. His mind spun, seeking an exit strategy.

        He did what any good Soviet officer would do: He reported the affair, hoping to leverage the power of bureaucracy to save his crumbling life. Marching to the air wing commander, the Major poured out his tale of betrayal, hoping the Colonel would take his side, that the iron grip of the Party would force Dmitry to account for his sins, restoring order.

        The Wing Commander, seasoned and cynical man of about fifty, had no interest in referee duties between a KGB officer and a Party leader locked in a domestic brawl. Instead, he passed the buck upward, as any good bureaucrat would. Without so much as a sigh, he forwarded the scandal to both the head of counter-espionage for the Pacific Fleet and the chairman of the Fleet’s Communist Party Committee. What better way to handle a scandal than to let two of the most powerful organizations in the Soviet Union duke it out?

        The result? A war council meeting that could have doubled as a soap opera plot twist.

        It was a gathering of the entire Pacific Fleet command, ostensibly to assess the state of military readiness. But everyone knew what the real agenda was: the seething personal drama threatening to tear apart two families and potentially tarnish the Party's image. The question was whether anyone had the stomach to deal with it head-on.

        Admiral Krasnov, the fleet commander, wasn’t pleased. The affair had slipped into the gossip channels, and Krasnov, as humorless as a Soviet winter, wanted it nipped in the bud. The readiness of the fleet was paramount, and personal scandals—especially between his senior officers—were an unnecessary distraction. He voiced his frustration, cutting through the room’s tense silence with a demand for answers.

        But just as counter-espionage prepared to launch its moral crusade, the chief of political affairs for the fleet stood. With the kind of bureaucratic grace honed over years of Party meetings, he smoothed his jacket, cleared his throat, and uttered a single, devastating sentence:
"People have the right to fall in love, regardless of their positions."
The words, delivered with all the charm of a man accustomed to defusing political landmines, sent shockwaves through the room. The counter-espionage team’s accusations about moral indecency and betrayal suddenly lost their teeth. How could they argue against love, especially when the Party itself preached the unity of human spirit?

        Defeated for the moment, the chief of counter-espionage remained silent. But he was no fool. He left the council that day, still holding the file on marital infidelity, knowing full well that this game wasn’t over. He bided his time, quietly setting the pieces in motion for his next move. After all, in the shadowy world of espionage and politics, revenge wasn’t just personal—it was strategic.

The scandal seemed to be fading, retreating into the murky corners of the garrison’s memory. The local gossipmongers, who had eagerly feasted on the drama surrounding the KGB officer and the party organizer, gradually shifted their attention to fresher topics. For those involved, it felt like the storm had passed, and there was a collective exhale of relief.

But that was before the night of January ninth.

That evening, the secretaries of party organizations and political officers from every wing and squadron stationed at Artem Airport gathered at the garrison sauna. The occasion? A commemoration of the "Day of the Massacre of Workers on Senate Square by the Tsar's Troops"—a day the Party viewed not as a tragedy, but as a pivotal spark in the fire of the Revolution. "Bloody Sunday," as it was grimly known, was marked not with solemnity but with a feast. Georgian delights such as chicken in walnut sauce, shish kebabs, and endless supplies of red wine adorned the table, courtesy of Sergeant Givi, the personal driver of our new political officer.

        Now, Givi was something of a mystery. How a son of the Caucasus like him ended up serving his draft term on the distant fringes of the Pacific was a puzzle few could solve. He was an enigma—silent, observant, and fiercely loyal to his superior, a quality that made people uneasy. Most drivers served their time and moved on, but Givi? He had followed the political officer all the way from the anti-submarine air wing in Nikolaevka to Artem. I couldn’t help but wonder what secrets he carried with him, what unseen leash bound him to this post so far from home. Surely, there was more to this arrangement than met the eye.

        The commissars, having thoroughly steamed themselves, gathered around a long table. The room was filled with a warm mist, and a soft glow lit their flushed faces. Each man wore a white sheet tied clumsily around his waist, creating a scene that was more absurd than dignified. Before the food was touched, they poured out glasses of Georgian moonshine. It was Givi’s contribution to the night—a gesture of camaraderie.

        “To our meeting,” the political officer toasted. They downed their drinks in one go, grimacing as the harsh alcohol hit their throats.

        As the night wore on, and after a few rounds of that moonshine—which everyone agreed was too much like Russian vodka for comfort—they switched to the wine. The toasts became more elaborate, each man trying to outshine the last, building up the camaraderie until it bordered on intoxicated absurdity.

        When it came time for our party organizer to speak, he rose from his seat, clutching the sheet around his waist with one hand while lifting a goblet of wine with the other. The red liquid glistened in the steam-filled air, as dark as the blood they claimed to honor.

        “To the strength of our Party!” he declared, his voice filled with drunken reverence.

        The room fell silent. His lofty words caught everyone off guard. A few of the commissars exchanged uneasy glances, but they couldn’t refuse a toast like that. So, they drank, though it was clear their hearts weren’t in it. The organizer, more plastered than anyone else, plopped back down into his chair and added, with a sloppy grin, “Our boss is a wonder, you know. Didn’t rat me out to the KGB. I’m giving him two bottles of wine for it. That’ll teach the KGB who’s really in charge. We’ll screw them over like we always do—hell, we’ll screw their wives too.”

        An hour after the feast had concluded, a tape recording of the party organizer’s slurred words found its way to the desk of both the head of counter-espionage and the chief political officer of the Pacific Fleet.
The fates of both the organizer and the KGB officer were sealed.

        By mutual agreement—though likely through clenched teeth—both officers were transferred to remote garrisons, their ranks stripped down as punishment for their respective transgressions. The party organizer, for his reckless arrogance and loose tongue. The counterintelligence officer, for failing to detect a traitor right under his nose.

        As my father-in-law later recounted with a sly grin, the chief political officer’s biggest gripe wasn’t even about the insult—it was the fact that the party organizer’s loyalty had been priced at a mere two bottles of wine.
“He could’ve at least said, ‘I’ll give him two boxes of Armenian cognac,’” my father-in-law joked in his usual circle of Admiral friends. “I might’ve forgiven him for his drunken boasting if the bribe was worth something. But no one ever put my price that low. I’ll grind that little worm into dust.”

        And grind him into dust he did.

        By the time a year had passed, the entire political organization at the transport wing and the counter-espionage department had been turned over like soil before planting season. I had no more visible enemies left to deal with, which was a rare blessing in the military. It seemed, at last, that things were starting to look up.

        But I had forgotten something crucial.

        My greatest enemy was still alive. And that enemy was myself.

        Even when fortune smiled on me, when Lady Luck herself turned her fickle face in my direction and cleared the obstacles from my path, I would scowl back at her, daring her to turn away. And, startled, she often did.
No matter, I thought. Turn away if you must. I’ll catch up to you from behind, bend you over, and take what’s mine anyway.

        But for now, it was time to move forward. On to new adventures. Not far this time—just Romanovka. The new vertical landing craft, the Yak-38, had just been stationed there. I couldn’t wait to see how those things took off and landed without a runway.

        Because if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that, like me, they’d find a way to defy the rules.



Chapter 27: The Cycles of Fate

We taxied to the apron designated for arriving crews, parking ourselves beneath the massive wing of the aircraft, watching the cargo loaders approach with the freight bound for Mongokhto. It was business as usual—a routine task in the life of transport pilots. At least, it was until the fighter jet came into view.
A sleek Yak-38 fighter roared past us, heading toward a square launch pad covered in metal sheets about a hundred yards away. It was a marvel to watch—pure Soviet engineering. The plane halted, its nose facing the wind. From where we stood, we saw the pilot open the ascent shutters, the nozzles of the vector-thrust engine angling down into vertical mode. Slowly, methodically, he revved up the four turbines to their maximum RPMs, the engine's growl steadily building as the aircraft began to hover, lifting cleanly off the ground to a height of fifteen feet.
The noise was deafening. No conversation could survive the sound, only gestures and nods as we stared at the hovering craft, our eyes wide with awe. Then, the nozzles adjusted, shifting forward, and the plane tilted slightly, preparing for motion.
And that’s when it happened.
Suddenly, the nose dipped—too fast, too steep. The ejection seat fired, sending the pilot soaring into the sky, but the aircraft smashed into the iron pad below. The impact tore the plane in half, the metal shrieking in protest before erupting into a violent fireball. Flames leapt into the sky as two fire trucks, already stationed nearby, unleashed torrents of foam on the wreckage.
The pilot, now descending by parachute, drifted dangerously close to the inferno. At first, it seemed he might land clear of the wreckage, but the wind had other plans. It pulled him back, dragging him towards the blaze, the bright silk of his chute billowing like a cruel sail. Desperately, the pilot yanked at the lines, pulling them toward him in a last-ditch effort to reduce the drag. But it was no use.
A team of three firefighters rushed forward, advancing with a hose that sprayed a thick wall of water. As they reached the pilot, one of them bent low, grabbed him by the leg, and hauled him away from the flames with a firm, determined tug. The pilot’s helmeted head bounced softly against the concrete, arms flopping uselessly at his sides. I noticed, strangely, that his black leather-gloved hand was missing its watch. Just then, one of the firefighters dropped the hose, stooped to pick up the watch, and pocketed it without a second thought. Even in the chaos, there’s always time for a bit of scavenging.
They dragged the pilot to safety, and after a quick examination, signaled for medical assistance. I felt a wave of relief wash over me. He was alive.
The entire accident had unfolded in less than two minutes, but those minutes hung heavy in the air, like smoke from the burning wreckage. For me, it stirred something deep—a memory I’d tried to bury. My own crash. The ghosts of my past, of my father’s past, all seemed to converge in that moment.
The crash didn’t change our mission, though. Once the cargo was loaded, we took off, bound for Mongokhto. We were back home by evening, our flight as uneventful as the catastrophe we’d witnessed was extraordinary. But the weight of what I’d seen lingered, tugging at old wounds, pulling me back to my father’s story, to his own career that had come crashing down over these same waters decades ago.

At the northern end of the runway, where the planes parked, a breathtaking view of Peter the Great Gulf stretched out. Just four hundred meters west of the airfield, the endless waters of the gulf shimmered under the sun. It was here, in these skies, that my father’s promising career had met its end in the late fifties.
First Lieutenant Grigoriev—my father—had been a navigator on an Il-28 Beagle bomber, stationed at Maykhe Air Base. Although the Korean War had ended, the tension still lingered. The fleet kept its bombers sharp, combat-ready, conducting frequent training exercises that blurred the line between practice and reality.
During one such exercise, his crew, led by Captain Zvyagintsev, was tasked with simulating a torpedo attack. Their mission was to aim a dummy torpedo at a foamy wake, a buoy-towed target in the waters between Bolshoy Kamenny Bay and the Muravyev-Amursky Peninsula. It was supposed to be routine—calculated, predictable.
Except nothing ever goes according to plan.
As the bomber formation approached the range, my father’s pilot, Lieutenant Andreyev, ordered him to open the bomb bay. My father objected, "Too early. We’re still four minutes out."
But the commander insisted, "The squad leader spotted a wake. Open the bomb bay!"
Reluctantly, my father complied, but he knew something was off. Moments later, the pilot shouted, "Drop it!"
Again, my father hesitated. "Too early," he pleaded.
"Release it!" came the final order.
And so, the torpedo fell into the water, sealing my father’s fate. As the bomb bay doors closed, he asked, almost hopefully, “Did Vlasenko and Fomin drop theirs?”
The answer was cold. “I didn’t see. We turned around too quickly.”
Back at the airfield, all three crews were arrested. Within a week, the squadron commander was discharged without a pension. The wing’s navigator vanished into the abyss of a military tribunal. And as for my father? He received a stern reprimand, a mark on his record that would follow him for the rest of his career.
The truth of the incident? They had mistaken the wake of Admiral Fokin’s boat, cutting through the gulf, for their target. They’d launched a training torpedo at the Admiral himself.
For years, my father carried the weight of that mistake, a career stalled by the misguided actions of a superior. He never tried to shift the blame, knowing full well it could have made things worse. Instead, he served out the remainder of his time, enduring reprimand after reprimand, never rising beyond flight navigator in the anti-submarine squadron.

"Herodotus was right about the cyclical nature of history," I mused, watching the Romanovka airstrip fade beneath us. "History doesn’t just repeat—it spirals. And if you add in a correction for the wind, it’s clear that the spiral doesn’t only ascend. There’s always a linear progression, too. A third of a century after my father’s fall, here I am, facing my own set of challenges."
As we turned over Ussuri Bay, heading for Mongokhto, I dipped the plane’s wing, offering a silent salute to the memories—to my father, and to the long line of men who served and suffered in these waters.
The Yak-38 crash may not have altered our flight plan, but it certainly left its mark on my soul.



Chapter 28: The Game of Survival

Upon returning home, we were greeted with news that set the gears of ambition in motion.
A direct order from Pacific Fleet Headquarters had arrived: two flight crews were to be prepped for a mission to Vietnam. One crew would be sent on a month-long deployment, while the second would act as a backup in case the first encountered any issues. Naturally, I thought our crew might finally get its shot. But once again, we were bypassed.
After the morning briefing at the air wing commander's office, I couldn't help but ask the Chief of Staff why we hadn’t been selected. His response came with a sly grin,
“You’ve just returned from Mongokhto. Can’t send you out on another long-distance flight so soon.”
Long-distance flight? I nearly laughed in his face. Our mission to Mongokhto had been a one-day stint with two routine stopovers—hardly something that warranted weeks of rest and recovery. And let’s not even talk about the measly two rubles and sixty kopecks we were paid for the trouble, an amount that wouldn’t even cover a decent pack of cigarettes.
But it was clear what this was really about. No matter how well I performed, no matter how many flights I completed without a scratch, I was never in the running for these prestigious foreign missions. Why? Because I didn’t play the game. I didn’t join the boys’ club of hunting, fishing, and sauna bonding sessions. I didn’t trade in gossip about secretaries or share jokes about the female telephone operator. I wasn’t part of the tight-knit circle of "trusted men."
And even if I had played the game, it wouldn’t have made a difference. My competition was Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Popov, the deputy wing commander for combat readiness—a man pushing forty, with a reputation forged over decades. Then there was Major Sologub, a squadron commander who had been flying the An-12 for over fifteen years. These weren’t just pilots; they were deeply embedded in the command structure. Their roots were tangled in the soil of military hierarchy. Mine barely scratched the surface.
I arrived at the squadron’s aircraft parking area with the news fresh in my mind. My crew was already waiting, anticipating the next mission, but the glimmer of hope for Vietnam had dimmed. We gathered inside the pressurized cabin for a strategy meeting, the weight of disappointment pressing down on the air. But there was still a glint of opportunity in the situation, and I wasn’t about to let it slip away without a fight.
First, I laid out the facts.
"Vietnam. One-month deployment. They’ll cover all our expenses—food, lodging, travel. Plus, each crew member gets fifty U.S. dollars for every day spent abroad. That’s one thousand six hundred dollars in total, counting the days to and from. In case you haven’t been keeping up, that’s sixteen months’ pay. One mission, and we’re walking away with enough to live easy for a while."
The room was silent, each man processing the enormity of the payday. Then, I delivered the challenge.
“So, gentlemen, how do we get our share of this pie without selling our souls or regretting it later?”
In naval tradition, I turned to the youngest first. Sergey Kovalenko, my copilot, shifted in his seat, clearing his throat before speaking.
“We could give presents to the decision-makers,” he suggested cautiously, listing off a few familiar names as if they were royalty.
I nodded, already anticipating the absurdity of the plan. “The wing commander, the chief of staff, the political officer, the communications supervisor, the chief engineer, and the KGB officer, huh? That’s a nice list. And who’s going to handle the delivery of these fine gifts? You volunteering, Sergey?”
He looked away, sheepishly shaking his head.
“Didn’t think so. Onoprienko, your plan?”
Our radio operator, ever the devil’s advocate, leaned in with a grin. “I say we sabotage their aircraft. When their plane’s grounded, they’ll have no choice but to send us.”
Before I could respond, Gennadiy, our flight engineer, snorted in disbelief. “Brilliant idea—if you want to end up in a military prison. First, we get caught, and we’re arrested. If we don’t get caught, they’ll just take our working aircraft and give us the busted one. We’ll be fixing planes while the others are cashing in on their American dollars.”
Onoprienko shrugged, clearly enjoying the banter more than he cared for practical solutions.
“Gennadiy’s right. That plan’s a bust,” I conceded. “So, let me lay out a better one.”
I leaned back in my chair, adopting the posture of a chess master before his final move.
“In chess, there are three pillars of success in the opening game. The first is the rapid mobilization of forces. That’s what we’re doing right now—assessing our options. The second is the distribution of pawns. Now, I don’t consider any of you pawns, but it’s my job to put you in the right positions. And the third is control of the center—striking at the heart of the game.”
They were listening now, every word sinking in.
“The mission to Vietnam is set for next Thursday. The wing command will make their decision on who’s going and who’s the backup by Friday. That gives us just over four days to prepare. The real fun starts on Monday. That’s when we strike.”
Their eyes widened with anticipation.
“On Monday, we throw a wrench into the flight crew’s plans. On Tuesday, we do the same to the backup. By Wednesday, when the inspection board arrives from Vladivostok, the only crew left in fighting form will be us.”
“What’s the plan?” Vasiliev, our navigator, asked, his usual quietness replaced with genuine curiosity.
“Simple. We hit them where they least expect it. Subtle, quiet sabotage. We exploit the smallest mistakes and make sure they snowball into disasters. And when the dust settles, we’ll be the only ones ready to fly.”
A smile spread across my face, a wicked gleam in my eye.
“This isn’t just about luck, gentlemen. This is about strategy. And we’re about to play one hell of a game.”

Chapter 29: The Quiet War âîçìîæíîå íàçâàíèå

The morning after our return brought news that set my crew on edge.
An order from Pacific Fleet Headquarters had come in: two flight crews were to be prepped for deployment to Vietnam. One would head out for a month-long mission, while the second would be held in reserve for any unforeseen circumstances. Once again, we were left out in the cold.
At the morning briefing, I asked the Chief of Staff, half-expecting the usual runaround. His response came with a sly grin, as if he'd been waiting for my question.
"You’ve just come back from Mongokhto," he said casually, as if a one-day hop with two stopovers constituted a grand international affair. "We can’t send you out again so soon."
I could almost laugh at the absurdity of it. To call that trip a "long-distance flight" was a joke. Hell, we didn’t even bother filing for the pitiful two rubles and sixty kopecks they owed us for the trip. But arguing was pointless. I knew the real reason we’d been passed over.
I didn’t play the game.
I didn’t sit in the sauna with the command, swapping stories about women and raising glasses in honor of our "great fraternity of pilots." I didn’t bring offerings—expensive bottles of cognac or fresh game from a hunting trip—to the officers in charge of international assignments. I wasn’t one of the “trusted men,” and that was enough to keep me grounded.
Not that it mattered. Even if I had played by their rules, the real contenders for the Vietnam mission were Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Popov, the forty-year-old deputy wing commander for combat readiness, and Major Sologub, my squadron commander. These weren’t just flyers; they were seasoned veterans, embedded in the chain of command, with deep connections. My chances were as slim as ever.
By the time I arrived at the squadron’s parking area, my crew was already gathered around the aircraft, waiting. They knew the drill. I laid out the news for them, and we gathered in the pressurized cabin for a strategy session.
"Vietnam," I began. "One month. All expenses covered—food, accommodations, transportation. Plus, fifty U.S. dollars for every day spent abroad. That’s sixteen hundred bucks by the end of the trip. To make that kind of money here, you’d have to work for a year and a half."
They stared back at me, processing the numbers. I could see their minds calculating the possibilities.
"So," I continued, "how do we get a slice of that pie without regretting it later?"
As tradition dictated, I turned to the youngest member of the crew first. Sergey Kovalenko, my copilot, shifted uncomfortably in his seat before offering his suggestion.
“We could give presents to the higher-ups,” he suggested cautiously, listing off a few names like they were gods we needed to appease.
I nodded, amused. “So you think we should bribe the wing commander, the chief of staff, the political officer, the KGB guy, and anyone else with a say in the matter? And who’s going to make these generous deliveries? You volunteering, Sergey?”
He averted his eyes, shaking his head. The silence hung heavy.
“Didn’t think so. Onoprienko?” I asked, turning to the radio operator, ever the mischievous schemer.
He grinned, leaning forward. “We could sabotage their aircraft. If they can’t fly, they’ll have to send us.”
Gennadiy, our flight engineer, snorted in disbelief. “Brilliant idea. If we get caught, we’ll be in prison. If we don’t, they’ll just take our working aircraft and give us the broken one. We’ll spend the next month fixing planes while they’re swimming in American dollars.”
Onoprienko shrugged, clearly more entertained by the process than the solution.
“Good point,” I conceded. “So that’s off the table.”
I leaned back, preparing to lay out my plan. It was time to stop playing around.
"Listen carefully. This mission is set to leave on Thursday. By Friday, they’ll have decided who’s going and who’s the backup. We’ve got four days to make our move. The trick is to strike at the last possible moment, where they least expect it."
They were hooked now, the tension in the room rising.
“The first crew’s departure is our target. We hit them Monday. If we can’t knock them out, we take down the backup crew on Tuesday. By the time Wednesday rolls around, and the inspectors from Vladivostok show up to evaluate the readiness, there’ll be only one crew left standing—us.”
Their eyes widened with understanding, the audacity of the plan sinking in. I smiled, savoring the moment.
"We don’t need to take down everyone," I continued. "Just enough to tilt the balance. This is chess, not checkers. Timing, precision, and a little bit of luck. Are we clear?"
They nodded in unison.
"Good. Now, tomorrow morning, I expect your ideas. Let’s find where they’re weak and hit them hard. Fortune favors the bold, not the idle."

The next morning, nothing remarkable happened. My men kept their heads down, focusing on the routine tasks. No one made eye contact with me, which meant they hadn’t come up with anything solid yet.
I sent the engineer to check on the aircraft, making sure everything was in perfect working order. Meanwhile, I pulled Sergey aside and tasked him with observing the crews preparing for the Vietnam mission. His job was to watch for any signs of carelessness, anything we could use to our advantage.
By midday, the rumors started flying. One of the copilots preparing for the international mission had misplaced his pilot logbook—a crucial document without which no pilot could be cleared for a flight abroad.
I smiled inwardly. A missing logbook was a death sentence for a mission like this.
As the sun began to set, and the officers lined up for the evening formation, our wing commander delivered one of his classic speeches, full of grand talk about "brotherhood," "sacrifice," and the "moral code of communism." It was hard to keep a straight face, knowing what was really happening behind the scenes.
Then he dropped the bombshell.
“We have a duty to find this missing logbook,” he declared, assigning the task to the remaining officers and non-commissioned personnel. We were to comb through the grounds inch by inch, leaving no stone unturned.
Two hours later, as the last rays of light faded from the sky, one of the engineers found the logbook—or what was left of it—floating in a puddle of muddy water near a rusted, long-abandoned bomb shelter.
That was the end of the search. The logbook was beyond saving, and with two days left before the flight, there was no time to recreate it.
The wing commander, sensing the inevitable, approached his deputy, Vladimir.
“I’m sorry,” he said, barely concealing his indifference. “But your copilot’s negligence means your crew won’t be able to fly. I’m removing you from the mission.”
“Can’t we get a replacement copilot?” Vladimir protested, grasping at straws.
“You know the rules,” the commander replied with a shrug. “Crews flying abroad must be fully intact. No substitutions.”
Vladimir’s face fell. “Who’s taking our place?”
The answer was as predictable as it was infuriating.
“Major Sologub’s crew,” the commander said.

As the commander wrapped up his business with Vladimir, he caught my eye and beckoned me over. His voice dropped to a low tone.
“I’ve got good news for you. Tomorrow morning, your crew will begin preparing as the backup for the Vietnam mission. Be ready for the inspectors from Vladivostok. Any questions?”
“None, sir,” I replied, hiding my grin. "May I go?"
As I turned to leave, feeling the weight of the conversation settling, I heard the Colonel’s voice again.
"Go. Wait, not yet."
I froze, halfway through the door, my hand still resting on the cold metal knob. I turned back, holding my breath, unsure of what else he might throw at me.
"Where were you all day today? I didn't see you at headquarters even once."
A bead of sweat formed at the base of my neck. I forced a casual smile and responded, “I was on my aircraft, sir. Conducting a comprehensive maintenance check.”
The Colonel eyed me for a moment longer than I liked, his gaze sharp, searching. Then, with a faint nod, he waved me off.
"Okay, you can go."
I left quickly, but not so quickly that it looked like I was running. I had just dodged a bullet, but the game wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.

Tuesday was a blur of frantic preparations. We were already three days behind the primary flight crew, and there was no time to waste. By nine o’clock Wednesday morning, we had to be ready to face the board. The clock was ticking louder than ever.
The flight route alone was a puzzle designed by someone with a cruel sense of humor. We couldn’t just take the straightforward eastern route to Vietnam. Fuel constraints and a prickly relationship with China meant we had to avoid their airspace entirely. The Chinese weren’t exactly thrilled with our military presence near their southern border, and they’d refused permission for any refueling on their land. So, instead of a simple hop over China, we had to take the scenic route: across half of Asia.
Our navigator, Vasiliev, was the key to pulling this off. As I stepped into the briefing room, I found him buried under a mountain of maps. They sprawled across his desk like a patchwork quilt of nations: from Vladivostok to Tashkent, through Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Laos, and finally, Vietnam.
"Vasiliev, where did you find the time to do all this?" I asked, genuinely impressed.
He shrugged modestly, not looking up. "Saturday and Sunday. Thought it’d be useful."
"Hero," I muttered, shaking my head in admiration.
"Don’t be so modest," he smirked. "You’ve been busy too. I hear that logbook situation didn’t resolve itself."
I chuckled. "Kovalenko handled that one. I just nudged him in the right direction."

By the end of the day, everything seemed to fall into place. The tension was still there, but the pieces were moving as planned. Walking to the bus stop, I spotted a group of officers ahead of me. They reached the highway and split off—most heading toward the airport on foot, while a few, myself included, waited for the bus.
In the crowd heading toward the airport, I saw my squadron commander and his navigator, the newly appointed main flight crew. They had swapped places with us just that morning. I watched them from a distance, the subtle grin forming on my face. They looked relaxed, maybe a little too relaxed.
"Going out for a beer to celebrate your victory, are we?" I thought, feeling the stirrings of mischief bubbling inside me. "Let’s see how long that victory lasts."
I took the bus to Sevastopol Street, eager to put the next phase of my plan into action. I knew exactly what I needed to do, and the timing was perfect. My living conditions in Artem were significantly better than what I had endured in Kamchatka—no nosy dorm supervisors or prying eyes here. I had my own space, my own phone.  I could call my father-in-law, my wife, or even Svetlana Mukhina directly, bypassing the military telephone operators.  But at the moment I didn't have time for them. The main thing was for the chief political officer of our fleet to stay at his post. Of course, I could have reached him at home, but this would involve a telephone operator, and I would have to give my name. I wanted to remain anonymous.

I entered the room, locked the door behind me, and dialed the telephone number of the chief political officer. I got lucky for the second time that day. Despite the fact that it was already after six, the General was still at his desk. As soon as he picked up the receiver and identified himself, I reported to him,
”Comrade General, the crew scheduled to depart on the international flight the day after tomorrow is currently reveling at the airport bar," I reported.
I deliberately exaggerated the situation, painting a grim picture of their indulgence in alcohol. After all, who was there to distinguish between a casual beer and several rounds of vodka shots?
I knew this would trigger the necessary reaction. For the chief political officer, receiving such a report was like a command in the K-9 Corps: he would pounce into action without hesitation. And so, the metaphorical command "Sic 'em!" was given. Now, we had to wait for the results.
Rubbing my hands together, I eagerly anticipated how this would play out. The General immediately contacted the commander of my wing, ordering him to find the commander of the AN-12 squadron and his navigator at once. The directive was clear: locate them and report back with their whereabouts. Expecting the worst, the Colonel promptly reached out to their homes. Both wives answered with alarm, explaining that their husbands hadn’t yet returned from work.
"They must be at the airport," the Colonel surmised.
The airport beer bar was notorious for being the one place where military patrols turned a blind eye to officers drinking in uniform. It was an unwritten rule. The commander headed straight there, and as soon as he entered, he spotted the two men sitting among a dozen other officers. The Majors were unmistakable, seated at a table with two empty and two full steins of beer in front of each. Without a word, the commander approached them.
"I’ll be waiting for you both in my car at the main entrance," he said.
The ride to wing headquarters was tense and silent. The Colonel was itching to unleash his frustration, but held back, not wanting to berate his men in front of the driver.
Once they arrived at his office, however, the Colonel finally exploded. His fury echoed through the room as he lashed out for several minutes. When he had vented his rage, he picked up the receiver on his direct line to the chief political officer.
"The officers you're looking for are in my office, Comrade General," he reported.
"Where did you find them?" the General inquired.
"In the airport bar," the Colonel replied. He hesitated for a moment, then added, "But they aren’t drunk. Not at all."
"Sure," the General responded with biting sarcasm. "I'm sure they were just there for coffee and cake, right? Save your stories for tomorrow. You'll be sharing them with the Fleet aviation commander."
The Colonel hung up the phone. He turned to the two pale-faced Majors, his eyes filled with frustration and disappointment.
"Why are you still standing here?" he snapped. "If you were in such a hurry, go back and finish your beer. Because now, thanks to this mess, Grigoriev will be going to Vietnam instead of you."
The next morning, the Colonel managed to get a brief call with the Fleet aviation commander. During that conversation, he pleaded for leniency, arguing that the squadron crew should at least have the chance to prove their readiness before the inspectors. To everyone's surprise, the Fleet aviation commander, respecting the Colonel's judgment, agreed to give the disgraced crew one last opportunity.

"So far, no changes in the mission plan," the deputy fleet commander addressed the senior officers who had accompanied him from Fleet headquarters. "Let the inspection commission, based on the results of the crew tests, determine who will fly to Vietnam."
The much-feared fleet-ordered evaluation board assessed the readiness of both crews.
To our surprise, the board didn't give much attention to the backup crew but still awarded us the highest marks. It’s possible the score was inflated—perhaps the Colonels overseeing the inspection felt sympathy for the backup crew, considering the demanding tasks we had to complete on such short notice.
After the assessment, the deputy fleet commander entered the wing commander’s office to deliver the results. He then called his superior and relayed the report. The Pacific Fleet aviation commander ordered him to pass the phone to the wing commander.
"Where did you find your lads yesterday?" the commander inquired.
"In the beer bar, Comrade Lieutenant-General," the wing commander replied, his tone steady.
"Then tomorrow, the backup crew will take the flight. Based on my deputy’s report, it seems they're no less prepared than the main crew."
With that, he hung up. The Colonel frowned slightly and muttered under his breath, "It does seem odd that the backup crew would be so well-prepared..."
Once the inspectors had departed, I was summoned to the wing commander’s office. In front of my squadron commander, the Colonel gravely announced that the General had assigned the state mission to me. Despite my youth and relative inexperience, he expressed confidence that I would carry out my orders with honor.
Leaving the office, I couldn’t help but feel like Octavian Augustus receiving the highest honors from the Roman Senate after his decisive victory. Yet, while I was elated by this turn of events, I knew I had to mask my overwhelming joy from those around me.
My time with this air wing would not end after the mission to Vietnam. Though I was the son-in-law of a Rear Admiral, I was no Augustus, the great-nephew of Julius Caesar. I would return within a month, but how would I be received? It was hard to predict. I suspected that someone might eventually uncover our scheme, but proving it would be another matter entirely. After all, as Vyshinsky, the infamous Attorney General of the Soviet Union under Stalin, once said, “Confession is the queen of evidence.”
And I had no intention of confessing anything.




Chapter 30

I sprinted from the regimental headquarters to the aircraft parking area—a trivial eight hundred meters. Inside the airtight cabin, the co-pilot, navigator, flight engineer, and radioman were engrossed in a game of preference, while the gunner and airborne equipment technician were absorbed in backgammon.
"We’re going to Vietnam!" I announced as I entered the cramped cabin. "That’s the good news. The slightly less good news is that we have very little time to prepare."
"We're ready," the navigator replied lazily, placing his cards down with visible reluctance.
"We're ready for the flight, sure—but not for a mission like this. And those are two entirely different things. So, listen up!" I turned to the co-pilot. "Sergey, once you’ve changed into civilian clothes, head to the children’s store and buy as many packs of 'Happy Baby' powdered milk as you can. No fewer than a parachute bag full."
Sergey nodded in silent agreement.
"Radioman and gunner," I continued, "your job is to find sea water desalination devices—get as many as possible. Vadim," I addressed the flight engineer, "you’re on condensed milk duty. Buy as much as you can carry. And Gennadiy," I glanced at the technician, "I remember you’ve got a friend at the supply depot. Get your hands on as many military naval shirts as possible. The rest of you," I said, sweeping my gaze across the team, "dig around and find any uniform pieces that are still in decent condition. We need everything on board by tomorrow."
"Commander," Radioman Onoprienko asked, "what’s the deal with this strange shopping list? Baby formula, sea water desalination kits, condensed milk, and naval shirts?"
"Nikolay, you haven’t been to Vietnam, have you?" I asked, answering for him before he could respond. "Neither have I, but I’ve heard enough from those who have. Veteran transport crews say we can easily trade two or three kilos of desalination equipment with the Vietnamese for a VCR or a video game console. A couple of cans of condensed milk can get you a bottle of rice vodka. And one naval shirt? That’ll net you five bottles. Customs won’t let us bring alcohol back through Tashkent, but they won’t say a word about condensed milk or shirts. Understand?"
"So, we're going to specialize in electronics and alcohol, then?" Vasilyev, the flight engineer, asked with a smirk.
"Vadim," I responded with a grin, "we're going to specialize in money. And it doesn't matter what brings in that money. Personally, I'd prefer pearls or fine gold jewelry, but if electronics bring a better profit, we’ll go with electronics. Consider the matter settled. Now, head home. I’ll see you all in the flight cafeteria at six tomorrow morning."
Five minutes later, only Gennadiy and I remained under the plane.
"Gennadiy, we need to talk," I said as he locked the cabin door.
The mechanic was still standing on the stairs, fiddling with a piece of plasticine, struggling to attach two strings with his seal. The heat had melted the plasticine, causing it to ooze under the pressure of the brass stamp.
"Just spit on it," I advised.
"I’ve already spat; didn’t help," Gennadiy grumbled.
"No, no—I mean forget about it. Nothing will happen to the plane overnight."
"The duty officer will wake me if anything happens," he replied, clearly still uneasy.
"Alright, don’t worry. I’ve got something else to discuss. Can you get mercury by tomorrow?"
"Mercury?" Gennadiy looked at me in surprise.
I nodded.
"What do you need mercury for?"
"It's the hottest commodity in Vietnam. I don’t know why, but it’s worth more than gold over there."
"Commander," Gennadiy began cautiously, "I could probably get mercury, but it’s expensive here too. Besides, are you sure we should be messing with it? It’s dangerous stuff. If we get caught with baby formula or desalination kits, we'll get a slap on the wrist, maybe a reprimand. But if they catch us with mercury, we'll be arrested. Or worse, we could poison ourselves."
"Alright, forget it. What I mentioned earlier will be enough for our first run."

On Thursday, we set off for Tashkent, making two refueling stops along the way. After spending the night in Tashkent and clearing customs and border checks, we took off, heading toward the Pakistani city of Karachi. We navigated carefully through the mountains, their sharp, snow-covered peaks nearly brushing against our wings, before descending toward the distant Indus River.

Not long ago, a Chkalovsky crew from the elite Air Division had tragically crashed in this same mountainous region on their return from Hanoi. They had been flying an identical aircraft.
During their final flight from Karachi, the Moscow crew encountered a severe thunderstorm as they passed between Peshawar and Islamabad at an altitude of twenty-four thousand feet. Instead of assisting the crew in navigating around an icing zone, Pakistani Air Control insisted they stick rigidly to the assigned flight corridor.
Hemmed in by the mountainous terrain and unable to maneuver, the crew flew straight into a vast expanse of hail. It was a critical decision that came too late when they attempted to turn back.
Ice pellets, the size of chicken eggs, battered the aircraft, piercing the cooling systems of three out of the four engines. When the third engine faltered and its propeller automatically began to feather, the crew was faced with the grim reality that there was no escape. Fate had turned against them, and they knew it. In those final, harrowing four minutes, their descent from twenty-four to fifteen thousand feet was filled with desperate shouts and fevered exclamations. Every word carried the raw, unfiltered terror of men who knew their end was near. They hurled their words into the indifferent storm, demanding answers from the skies, the aircraft, and the mountains—knowing full well that no answer would ever come.
"Where are you going, you damn bitch?";"No way out now!";"Not like this!"
Their cries weren’t prayers—they were curses, furious protests from men staring into the abyss, defiant even in the face of the inevitable.
With seventy-five percent of their thrust gone, the aircraft banked and descended, finally crashing into a mountain near the city of Chitral.
As the investigation later revealed, the cockpit voice recorder captured the crew cursing everything and everyone in those last moments. Even for the seasoned members of the investigation board, the recorded curses were haunting. One can only imagine the horror for the pilots who listened to the playback, dissecting the tragedy second by second. No words could truly capture the gravity of that experience.
Normally, crews meet their end in silence. Pilots battle to save their aircraft to the very last moment, while the rest of the crew holds steadfast in the belief that the pilots will prevail.
Sometimes, they crash into mountains in heavy clouds, without even having the chance to press the microphone button. Occasionally, a pilot might mutter a curse a second or two before impact, an acknowledgment that there is no way out. These final utterances vary, from "this is the end" to "it's curtains" or even a simple, guttural "argh!"
But for the Moscow crew, the realization of their fate came far earlier. After the second engine failed, their chances of survival had all but vanished. They knew it. When the oil pressure dropped in the third engine and the propeller feathered, they understood the full weight of their doom. Their inevitable curse had arrived, and it would take them all. For the last four minutes of their flight, they cursed death itself as they plummeted from twenty-four thousand feet to their final, crushing impact at fifteen thousand.



It’s worth recalling that the crew who perished had a precise weather forecast for the route they were following. Whether driven by greed (since an unplanned stopover in Karachi would have earned them fifty dollars for the hotel) or the reckless Russian habit of gambling with fate, like a game of Russian roulette, no one can say for sure. One thing is certain, however: they made a conscious decision to fly through the thunderstorm, without any alternate airport in their flight plan.
We reached Karachi without incident, refueled, and set course for the Burmese city of Mandalay. As we flew over central India, I found myself reflecting on another ill-fated event involving my countrymen.
Far below lay the vast Indian landscape where six Russian comrades had become entangled in a disastrous business venture—one that led to their imprisonment in an Indian jail, sharing their fate with lice-ridden local criminals.
The tragedy began when the crew of a light transport plane, an AN-26, was chartered by British patrons in Sri Lanka. They were tasked with transporting crates from the city of Trincomalee in northern Ceylon to Madras, India, where they would deliver the cargo as planned. However, as they approached the Indian coastline, the client abruptly instructed them to descend to “fifteen hundred.”
Unbeknownst to the crew, this command was based on a fatal misunderstanding between the measurement systems used by Her Majesty’s subjects and their Eastern European counterparts. The British client had intended for the plane to descend to fifteen hundred feet, but the Russian pilots, following their own system, interpreted the order as fifteen hundred meters.
As soon as the aircraft leveled off at this higher altitude, the red light in the cockpit signaled the opening of the cargo ramp. The client, well-versed in both the terrain below and the cargo discharge mechanism, released the crates into the jungle. But, at three times the intended altitude, the crates drifted far off course, landing squarely in the hands of government forces. Inside the crates, as one might suspect, were weapons.
The plane landed in Madras without incident, and the Englishman promptly paid the pilot in cash before disappearing. But that same evening, Indian security police arrested the entire crew at their hotel.
The Indian Supreme Court’s judgment was harsh. All six men were convicted as accomplices to insurgents. It was only the historically friendly relationship between the Soviet Union and India that spared them from the executioner’s blade.
As I mulled over this tragic story, I was pulled back to the present. The copilot was asleep, the radioman had gone into the pressurized passenger cabin to play backgammon with the flight engineer, and our assigned interpreter was handling communications.

As I glanced at the translator, I reflected on his role. Now there’s someone with an easy job. It’s hardly work—it’s a breeze. All he does is fly on international missions, speaking English with ground control. Soviet pilots, after all, never learned English. The Soviet Armed Forces Command believed that if a pilot learned English, it was a sign he might want to betray the USSR and defect to the Americans or some other Westerners. So, translators like him were always on board for flights abroad.
But there’s more to his role than just relaying instructions. His hidden duty is to meticulously document everything the crew does while overseas and submit a detailed report to military counterintelligence upon our return. He’s not just a translator—he’s the eyes and ears of the system, ensuring no one steps out of line. Thankfully, I wouldn’t have to fly with him over Vietnam, since all the air traffic controllers in the Democratic Republic had been trained in the USSR and spoke Russian.
We crossed over Bangladesh, with about an hour left until we reached Mandalay. There, we would refuel, and if the weather didn’t cause any delays, we’d continue straight to Hanoi.


Chapter 31

On our first morning in Vietnam, we acquainted ourselves with the local military authorities and grasped the magnitude of the task that lay ahead.
As expected, this wasn’t a vacation. Daily flights loomed in our future, threading through a country that felt minuscule compared to the vast expanse of the Soviet Union. These short hops were more suitable for smaller planes like the An-26, but often the cargo was so voluminous that fitting it into our cargo hold was challenging, let alone into the An-26’s, which had only a third of our capacity.
My assignment this time was to transport air conditioners from Haiphong to Ho Chi Minh. The dispatcher had warned me in advance that loading as many as possible would be the priority. Curious, I asked, "How many are we talking about?"
"A shipment arrived from Odessa by sea. Imagine the number of air conditioners you could fit onto a Handymax bulker with a deadweight of fifty thousand tons," he replied.
As I left the dispatcher’s office, a crowd of locals immediately surrounded me. I couldn’t fathom how they had learned about my upcoming flight. The Vietnamese seemed to possess an uncanny awareness. They knew exactly where I was headed and began pressing money into my hands from all directions, hoping to persuade me to carry them to Ho Chi Minh. I navigated through the crowd toward the airport hotel, and just before reaching the entrance, the crowd halted as if an invisible barrier had been erected.
This barrier was a sentry, a Vietnamese soldier standing guard with his automatic rifle. A slight movement of his Kalashnikov barrel in the direction of my would-be passengers caused them to retreat a few steps, like monkeys entranced by a boa constrictor. The comparison amused me, bringing Kipling to mind.
I found my copilot, Sergey, at the hotel and took him aside onto the street. I pointed out the group of Vietnamese seated on the ground and instructed, "Make a list of passengers interested in flying with us tomorrow. Let them know we're heading to Ho Chi Minh via Haiphong. Collect their fares and tell them to be here by eight in the morning. Got it?"
"Partially. How many passengers can we accommodate, and how much should we charge them?"
"They’re quite slender," I estimated their average weight to be around a hundred pounds. "I reckon we can squeeze about thirty into the ten-seat pressurized passenger cabin. As for the fare, charge them as much as they’re willing to pay. And one more thing: I’ll have a female passenger of my choice, so include her on the list without charging her. She’ll compensate me in her own way later."
"Can I get one too?" my assistant inquired dreamily.
"Next time."
 ïðîãíàòü ÷åðåç GPT

Sergey headed to his room to retrieve a blank passenger list while I approached the waiting Vietnamese. As I crossed the invisible threshold, they all jumped up and started talking at once. My expression tightened as if I had a toothache, and then I placed two fingers to my lips and let out a piercing whistle. The crowd fell silent instantly.


"Do you understand Russian?" I asked them.
All the potential passengers nodded, and a few even attempted to mimic, "We unnerstan, we unnerstan, commanduh..."
"Thirty people will go. Who? Decide among yourselves."
I scanned the group and spotted an attractive girl. I motioned for her to come over, and she obediently approached, eyes cast downward, carrying a basket in both hands.
"Are you a student?" I inquired.
She nodded, keeping her eyes lowered.
"Would you like to visit your mother for the holidays in Ho Chi Minh?"
Instead of replying, she simply nodded silently. I gently lifted her chin, raising her face to meet my gaze. By local standards, she could even be considered beautiful. The only thing that gave me pause was her petite size. She barely reached my shoulders.
Sergey approached from behind and quipped, "Your taste in lovers keeps getting younger, Commander. Soon you'll be scouting kindergartens."
"No, Sergey, you've got it wrong. She's already mature enough; she's just small."
"A little bigger than a local monkey."
We both burst into laughter. I took the girl by the neck, turned her toward the other passengers, and announced to everyone to prevent any potential scandal before takeoff, "She'll be joining us tomorrow morning."
The Vietnamese responded with understanding chatter in their own language, and the student dropped to her knees, taking my hand in hers and kissing it. I carefully lifted her to her feet and, looking directly into her eyes, murmured softly, "You'll have plenty of time for kissing me—and not just my hand."
I wasn't entirely sure if she understood the implications of my words, but she nodded so vigorously in agreement that I half expected her head to fall off.
The rest of the evening and early hours of the night were spent under the mosquito netting that hung over my bed. By morning, she was sitting near the hotel entrance, as if knowing not to disturb me, having slipped out of bed once I had fallen asleep. Perhaps fearing I wouldn't recognize her, she'd spent the entire night waiting on my doorstep.
Well, we had both achieved what we wanted.
I waited for Vasiliev and then went to have breakfast. While devouring rice with meat, I philosophized about the Vietnam War, sharing my insights with the navigator.
"Vadim, do you know what the Americans were dying for in Vietnam fifteen years ago?"
"For an idea," Vasiliev replied with a mouthful. "They despise the Marxist ideology, which advocates the seizure of factories and plants from capitalists and their transfer into the hands of the working class. And, by the way, Karl Marx believed that land should also be expropriated from large landowners and distributed among farmers."
"You guessed wrong," I retorted. "We're flying for an idea. Understand?"
"Why? I, for example, fly for money."
"You can't call our salary money. It's more like peanuts."

The rice was delicious, but the conversation topic intrigued me even more. I pushed my plate away, wiped the grease from my lips with a napkin, and continued:
"I’ve long wondered why American soldiers fought so passionately for the government of South Vietnam. What did they need that for? Of course, when crazy politicians make loud statements about fighting for democracy against the communist plague, they’re really discussing their economic interests in private. But what drove an average Joe from Texas or Michael from California to throw grenades at machine guns in tropical swamps never quite made sense to me. They weren’t defending their homes in Mississippi from bloodthirsty Russians; they were protecting the stinking Mekong River, carrying brown water filled with the refuse of Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia."
"And did it dawn on you?" Vasiliev asked as he continued eating rice.
"It hit me tonight. They were fighting for free sex. It suddenly struck me that here, you can sleep with underage girls or other men’s wives without consequence and for free, that a prostitute here costs no more than five dollars. Proposing to a girl to sleep with her is just as safe as asking for the time."
"We wouldn’t be thrown in jail for that either in Russia," the navigator objected.
"No doubt about that. But one out of every four will slap you. Two out of four will get offended and walk away or tell you off, and only one will give you what you want. And that, my friend, is only twenty-five percent. Not great odds. Plus, for the first half of the night, you’ll listen to her stories about how she’s not what you might think and that you’re the exceptional man she couldn’t refuse. But even in such a scenario, we should consider ourselves lucky."
"Why?"
"Because in the States, it’s a nightmare with this stuff. Men are afraid to even compliment a woman. If those women sense anything, they immediately call the police or their lawyer. They call it sexual harassment. It’s terrifying."
"And prostitutes?"
"For two dollars a minute? Not everyone can afford such luxury. The minimum is a hundred bucks an hour. How much can you indulge in at those prices? So, after a wild night with a local girl, I realized that American men were willing to shed blood for free sex. After all, we cut off their world-famous brothel, known as Cuba, in '61. They were ready to start World War III out of anger. And then Vietnam on top of that. Can you imagine the losses? How much they must hate us for it. Ideology doesn’t matter to them, Vadim. So, it turns out women come first, and ideology comes second."
"Well, you’ve drawn quite the conclusions. Finish eating and let’s go," said the navigator.
"The rice is already cold. And we’re running out of time," I replied.
We approached the aircraft. Our passengers were in their seats, the co-pilot had settled matters with the supervisor of the Hanoi Airport’s military sector, and we took off for Haiphong with the cargo.


There were no taxiways at Cat Bi Airport, a seaport city. After clearing the runway, we found ourselves on a small patch of asphalt in front of a weathered terminal building. On a large English letter "H," painted in white on the black asphalt, two captured American M54 cargo trucks, loaded with crates of air conditioners, were waiting for us.

As I exited the aircraft, a First Lieutenant approached me in his tropical uniform—blue s
horts and a short-sleeved shirt that made him resemble a Boy Scout leader. He informed me that he was assigned to accompany the ten-ton cargo to Ho Chi Minh and that the Vietnamese dockworkers were delayed for some unknown reason. I directed the flight engineer to have the passengers assist with loading the cargo.
"I was told I'd be traveling alone with the cargo. Where did all these passengers come from?" the First Lieutenant inquired.
"One more question like that, and you'll load the entire ten tons by yourself," I cut him off, not allowing him to intrude further.
"I apologize, Commander. I didn't think before asking," he quickly retreated.
Returning from the meteorology office, the navigator handed me the weather forecast graph with a somber expression. After glancing at the document, I asked, "Did you arrange for an alternate airport?"
"Yes, I did. Cam Ranh. But I don't recommend taking off at all. A warm front will be moving in over Ho Chi Minh City as we approach."
"All the fronts are warm here," I retorted, smiling at my own jest.
"Take a closer look at the forecast. Listen," he took the forecast from me and began reading aloud. "Heavy precipitation, wind speed of forty knots, gusting up to fifty; cloud base at three hundred feet. Visibility during precipitation is three hundred feet. Possible lightning," Vadim emphasized the last phrase as he concluded. He placed the weather bulletin into his working binder, squinted his eyes, and still hopeful to dissuade me, asked once more, "Why take the risk? Let's postpone the departure until tomorrow. Remember the Moscow crew that crashed in Pakistan? They had a similar forecast."
"I thought about them when we were flying over the area where they perished. But our situation is different. Consider where we can accommodate these little jungle adventurers. After all, we took their money to transport them to Ho Chi Minh."
"We'll take them back to Hanoi."
"But how will we return their money? The chief of the Hanoi Airport military sector won't give back the twenty-five percent he took for signing our flight assignment."
"We'll borrow it from someone and return it when we've earned enough."
"Let's say we manage to find the money and refund the passengers. But tomorrow, all of Hanoi will be talking about what lousy pilots we are. You won't be able to explain to the Vietnamese what a warm front entails for the aircraft. We can't return or stay in Haiphong. We've crossed the point of no return. We've crossed the Rubicon and burned the bridges behind us. There's only one direction: forward. Plus, we have an alternate airport—the Moscow crew didn't. If we can't land in Ho Chi Minh, we can land at the Cam Ranh military airbase. Don’t forget: there's a lot of Russian female personnel there—waitresses, nurses, and financial clerks. They're probably tired of their men by now. So we'll be like fresh meat when we arrive." I paused. "Do you know anything about Cam Ranh?"
"No," Vasiliev replied, still frowning.
"Then listen, and I’ll give you a history lesson about the base while 'the ants' struggle with the air conditioning units."
We moved away from the aircraft and sat on the grass at the edge of the concrete taxiway, seeking shade beneath the tropical trees. Settling in comfortably, I began my narration:
"The Americans built the Cam Ranh base at the deepwater port of Cam Ranh Bay in the mid-1960s, using it as a site for bombing Viet Cong-controlled territory."
"I’m familiar with the base's location," my navigator interrupted. "Tell me why they needed it. Didn’t they have enough carrier-based aircraft?"
"During the Vietnam War, B-52 bombers took off from this base. These aren’t just lightweight attack planes like the A-7 Corsair II. The difference in their bomb capacity and flight range is significant. The Americans placed great importance on this. The U.S. President himself, Lyndon Johnson, visited the base shortly after its construction. During the opening ceremony, he declared that the Stars and Stripes would fly over it forever."
"I think whoever wrote that speech for him was playing a game. A politician of his stature should have accounted for the possibility of withdrawing forces from Vietnam," Vadim remarked.
"The end of the war was still far off. The peace treaty wasn’t signed until January 27, 1973, and the North Vietnamese continued to fight the South for another two years. For now, just listen about the base; we can discuss politics when we return home."
Inwardly, I compared myself to our political officer. The comparison was decidedly in my favor. I knew much more about global politics than our Lieutenant-Colonel did.
I'm indispensable, I thought. I should at least be a General.
Chuckling at my own absurd notion, I continued:
"Later, at Cam Ranh, the Americans began their initial experiments with trained dolphins, equipping them with explosives and paralyzing gas balloons to target enemy vessels and scuba divers. Years later, the State Department declassified data revealing that dolphins were responsible for eliminating over sixty Viet Cong scuba divers attempting to sabotage American battleships anchored in the bay."
"Our specialists are training dolphins in Crimea as well, although there’s no adversary to use them against," the navigator added.
"I’m aware of that, but I believe the scope of their activities pales in comparison to what the Americans achieved. Despite the ban on hunting marine mammals, the US Congress granted the Navy permission to capture up to twenty-five dolphins and sea lions annually for national defense purposes."
"Valery, you mentioned that the dolphins killed around sixty Vietnamese scuba divers, but do you have any figures on how many enemy combatants they killed in total? Have you come across any data on this?" Vadim inquired.
"Not from our sources, but I spoke to a local officer here. He informed me that official figures stated around a million casualties, but the actual number was closer to three million. After the American evacuation from Vietnam and the end of the Vietnam War, our government hoped the Vietnamese would lease the base to us."


"Why would we want it? If you look closely, our own bases barely have enough resources for sustenance. Now we’re considering setting up a base so far away?" Vadim grumbled with a hint of pessimism.
"That’s a valid question. Just keep your voice down; otherwise, we might be shown the door sooner than we think—not just as flight crew members, but as suspects for spreading anti-Soviet sentiments. Why do we need the base?
I can explain.
The Cold War wasn’t over yet. Remember what the party leader said at the meeting: ‘We are surrounded by enemies.’ But let’s get serious—our side truly wanted to station our ships off the coast of Vietnam, even though it wouldn’t shift the balance of power in the Pacific theater. The USA has bases in the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea, and we have one in Vietnam. However, our comrades-in-arms in Vietnam didn’t exactly rush to express gratitude for the years of weapons supply and the efforts of our pilots who battled Phantom jets over the tropics. The Vietnamese only agreed to hand over Cam Ranh to us because of the Chinese. They decided to teach them a lesson in 1979 for overthrowing the Chinese puppet Pol Pot in Cambodia.
On February 17th, units of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army crossed the border into Vietnam, and after a month of clashes with reserves, they were swiftly approaching the capital. The Vietnamese didn’t deploy their regular army in this peculiar war. They believed that employing their battle-hardened troops in the minor border conflict could escalate it into a full-scale war against another socialist nation. A session of the Communist Party Political Bureau was called in Moscow, and a decision was made to send a special envoy to Beijing with an ultimatum for the Chinese ‘hegemonists.’
While the Chinese army assaulted the Vietnamese reserve trenches, units from the Trans-Baikal Military District executed a simulated ‘psychological attack’ at the Soviet-Chinese border, and Pacific Fleet warships steered toward the Yellow and South China Seas. Beijing heeded the warning and withdrew its troops from Vietnam. As a result, on May 2nd, 1979, our side entered into an agreement with Vietnam for the use of the Cam Ranh military base as a support point for fifteen operational squadrons of the Pacific Fleet—a free lease arrangement for twenty-five years. The squadron’s area of responsibility encompasses the southern Pacific Ocean and the entire Indian Ocean. It would be a wasted opportunity not to spend some time there—we can even go swimming. I’ve heard the water is splendid," I concluded.
"How do you know all this?" my navigator asked, clearly impressed by my knowledge.
"You should take a look at the Truth newspaper every now and then, Vadim. But it seems like you only read Playboy and Penthouse."
"Should we fly there right away then?" Vadim inquired.
"No, let’s first try to get our passengers to Ho Chi Minh and unload the cargo," I replied.
"Well, you’re the commander, it’s your call."
A flight engineer approached us, handing me a stack of pink banknotes featuring the kind face of Ho Chi Minh.
"What’s this?" I asked Gennadiy, tucking the money into the pocket of my jumpsuit.
"Dongs," Rybnikov replied.
"I can see they’re not dollars. Where did this sum come from?" I frowned.
"While our passengers were moving three hundred air conditioners, I drained fifty gallons of kerosene from the underbelly tank and sold it to the truck drivers who brought us the cargo. They had a barrel with them. They said they carried it just in case."
"I commend your resourcefulness. We could always attribute the shortage of that amount of kerosene to headwinds," I said, feeling relieved. "Is the cargo secured?"
"Yes. The crates are secured, and the passengers are in their seats."
"Then damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!" As Admiral David Farragut famously declared," I exclaimed, and made my way into the plane.


Epilogue

We saw the first signs of the approaching warm front seventy miles from our intended landing point. Cirrus clouds began to appear in our path. I contacted the airport dispatcher for the current weather report. The supervisor of military sector flights at Ho Chi Minh Airport informed us that there was no rain on the runways yet, but it was anticipated at any moment.

Initiating our descent, we navigated beneath the mass of overhanging clouds. Our primary concern was to avoid flying into the storm activity associated with warm tropical fronts, as the powerful lightning could damage the aircraft electronics. Despite the challenging conditions, I requested a straight-in approach, hopeful for a successful landing.

With approximately fifteen miles remaining to the runway, large raindrops started pelting the cockpit windshield. It was becoming evident that landing before the heavy rain would be challenging. I made the decision to descend to my minimum altitude of one hundred eighty feet.

"Sergey, see if you can spot the approach lights on the runway," I directed Kovalenko. "I'll try to maintain the glide path amidst this turbulent wind."

The aircraft, weighing sixty tons, was tossed around like a small boat in rough waters. The erratic wind shifts made it difficult to maintain the correct approach heading. I counteracted the aircraft's movements by continuously adjusting the control column left and right. The rain was so intense that the windshield wipers couldn't clear it even on the highest setting. Descending to less than three hundred feet, I was prepared to execute a go-around and make another approach. My left hand rested on the engine levers, ready to increase the thrust to take-off power once we reached our minimum altitude.

"I see the runway lights at one o'clock," Sergey reported with a tone of relief.

"You're a bit too early for the runway lights; the threshold is still six hundred yards away," noted the navigator.

Wanting to believe my copilot, I initiated a right turn and subtly moved the control column away from me. While still banking, I lowered the aircraft's nose and aimed it towards the approaching high-intensity lights.

Before I could fully level the wings, a massive jolt struck the plane, causing it to list further to the right. Swiftly shifting the engine levers to the "take-off" position, I turned the control column to the left and pulled it towards me. The propellers adjusted their pitch to cut through the dense, moist Vietnamese air. The aircraft begrudgingly responded to the controls, and we began a gradual climb.

"Thank goodness we're still in one piece," Onoprienko remarked.
"I thought it was the end for us," Vasiliev added.
"Team," came the cargo mechanic's voice from the hold, "this isn't the end. It's just the beginning. The entire right main landing gear has been torn off. All four wheels are gone. There's a hole in the fuselage about nine square feet in size. Hydraulic fluid is leaking from the severed lines.”
"Then we won't be able to retract the landing gear," the flight engineer said, his voice filled with concern.
I grasped the implications immediately but refrained from voicing them. Landing on a single main landing gear was uncharted territory, as it wasn’t a scenario we had practiced during training.
Landing without nose gear was relatively straightforward—touch down on the main gear and gently lower the nose by pulling back on the control column until the aircraft slows down. Landing with no landing gear at all was simpler—glide down onto the belly and slide to a halt. But landing on a single main landing gear posed a unique challenge. We would have to figure it out when we reached the alternate aerodrome.
"Navigator, provide the heading for Cam Ranh," I calmly requested, trying to restore a sense of stability to the tense atmosphere in the cockpit.
"Forty-five degrees," Vadim responded, his tone tinged with apprehension as he foresaw the difficulties ahead.
"Copilot, inform the flight controller that we're diverting to the alternate."
"Well, you always wanted to visit Cam Ranh, Valery," Vadim commented.
"Yes, but under different circumstances. Let's focus on saving what we have," I replied.
As we flew from Ho Chi Minh to Cam Ranh, I reflected on what might have happened.
"Vadim," I addressed my navigator, "what's your take on this situation?"
"If you mean the landing gear, I'm certain we struck the iron post of the approach lights. I told you the lights Sergey saw couldn't have been the runway lights. I think the shifting wind played a cruel trick on us. We ended up slightly lower than we should have been and collided with one of the aerodrome's lighting fixtures."
"Your analysis seems logical," I replied, a sense of melancholy creeping into my voice.
As we approached Cam Ranh, the flight controller instructed us to circle until our fuel reached emergency levels. He also briefed us on certain characteristics of the landing strip and its surroundings, saying:
"The American engineers designed the runway to prevent flooding. They constructed wide ditches on either side of the rounded runway, and beneath these ditches is a drainage system that carries water away through concrete pipes. These pipes, about five feet high, are spaced every three hundred feet along the runway. They're your main concern. But if you land where the aerodrome maintenance plans to ignite a fire, even if you slide off the runway due to uneven braking, you'll stop before reaching the pipes."
"Will the fire be easily visible?" I asked as we continued circling at three thousand feet above the base.
"The maintenance service is set to burn a stack of old tires. The pillar of black smoke will be visible even from across the ocean. Better yet, it'll be the tires of American strategic B-52 bombers that are on fire. So don't worry; focus on your landing strategy."
Ten minutes before touchdown, the maintenance team ignited the rubber tire fire. The thick black smoke would have obscured my view if the wind hadn't shifted it to the side of the runway. Without that shift, I wouldn't have been able to locate the base, let alone the landing spot.

Meanwhile, First Lieutenants Goncharov and Nikolishin were chopping an electrical cable two hundred meters from the runway in dense shrubbery. Their tropical shirts were soaked with sweat. Chopping through the American multi-core cable with axes wasn't easy. They had dug it up the previous evening and were hurrying to finish the task before their fellow seamen discovered the location of this "golden vein."
"Igor," Nikolishin said to Goncharov, "look at the smoke rising above the airfield. Do you think someone crashed?"
"Who could have crashed when nobody's taken off or landed at the airfield? Use your brain a little. Can't you hear that idiot circling above the runway for half an hour? They probably lit a fire for him. Chop your side faster; I'm almost done with mine."
Lack of hydraulic fluid prevented me from extending the flaps, so I executed a low approach to the runway. Over the threshold, I instructed the flight engineer to shut down all four engines. Now, we were entirely reliant on inertia and the force of gravity.
However, at this glide angle, the aircraft was also subject to what they call "ground effect"—that aerodynamic phenomenon all pilots know about but can't explain to their wives.
My plane skimmed three feet above the concrete, stubbornly refusing to land. After streaking another thousand feet, it finally touched down with the left main landing gear. I immediately turned the control column as far left as possible, trying to keep the aircraft balanced on one wheel.
But the plane ignored my command. It slammed the right side of the fuselage against the runway, producing a horrible screech, like the roar of a severely wounded, dying monster. It then veered into the ditch that the enemy had so prudently dug, and at enormous speed, it smashed its glass nose against a concrete pipe.
That’s it, I thought to myself.
But I spoke too soon.
I looked over at what remained on my right—what were now the former members of my crew and the shattered remnants of the cockpit. Slowly, I turned my head to the left. Not far from my half-ruined aircraft, two trucks had stopped.
A fire truck and a street-watering truck stood ready, with the latter serving as an additional water source for the fire truck.
A brave Petty Officer dashed towards the crash site, clutching a fire extinguisher. As he approached, he swiftly climbed onto the roof of the watering truck, then leapt onto the plane's wing, sprinting in my direction.
Ah, so that's why the firemen are here. I didn’t smell the smoke at first—another sense returning to me, albeit briefly—the sense of smell. We weren’t on fire, but we were smoking.
The scent of burning cotton came to mind. It meant the interior lining of the fuselage was smoldering.
The Petty Officer with the fire extinguisher paid me no attention. He turned the red cylinder upside down and smacked it against the side of the fuselage, but no foam emerged. Frustrated by the lack of effect, he threw the red cylinder to the ground, cursed loudly, and shouted at the sailors milling below to bring him the fire hose.
I wondered where he got the fire extinguisher. Perhaps he grabbed it off the wall of headquarters as he ran to our rescue. He handled the hose much better.
After inexplicably soaking me and my deceased crew with water, he directed the stream at the door to the pressurized passenger cabin, where smoke was streaming out of the cracks.


Two officers rushed up to the airplane with axes but hesitated, stopping about two meters away from me.
"Igor, chop a hole around the window!" Nikolishin shouted. "There are no structural elements there in the fuselage."
"Don't teach the father how to have children," Goncharov retorted, swinging his axe forcefully into the aircraft's skin.
Nikolishin stood shoulder to shoulder with his friend.
Apparently, the smoldering fire had been deprived of oxygen until that moment. After the first blows, acrid smoke spurted out from the holes they had cut, and tongues of flame appeared.
"Comrade Colonel!" a youthful, high-pitched voice called out. "The plane is on fire."
"Then put it out, damn it!" the garrison commander shouted back.
The sailors made an opening large enough to fit the fire hose through and flooded the passenger compartment until there were no more signs of smoke.
Soon, the water in the fire truck ran out. The Colonel, who had been observing the rescue operation from a distance, hurried to the driver's cabin, pounded on the door with his fist several times, and growled at the sailor who emerged.
"What the hell are you standing there for? Hurry and get more water immediately!"
But the truck couldn’t move. The poorly connected hoses had allowed a large quantity of water to gather beneath its wheels. The ground had softened, causing the wheels to spin and the truck to sink deeper into the soil.
The firefighters stopped working on the aircraft and began trying to free the fire truck. The sailors retrieved a thick metal cable from somewhere, with a hook at each end. They attached one end to the watering truck and the other to the fire truck. When the watering truck jerked to a start, the cable snapped and whipped over the heads of the startled men.
Goncharov hurried off and returned with a ladder. He climbed up the side of the fuselage and peered into the passenger compartment. The sight astonished him. He let loose a string of expletives at the sailors and firefighters, then ordered them to remove the bodies of the Vietnamese passengers from the fuselage.
There were only two stretchers available. The bodies extracted from the pressurized cabin were transported on them from the aircraft to the runway, where a doctor checked for a heartbeat in the hopes of finding at least one survivor. But the scrawny Vietnamese bodies were lifeless. The sailors tossed the dead one after another onto the concrete and ran back for the next one.
If I could have spoken, I would have told them,
"Guys, there's no need to rush. Anyone who didn’t choke to death on the smoke drowned when you doused the smoldering cotton."
But of course, they weren’t the ones at fault.
A hoist arrived, and men with cutting torches began to slice through the twisted metal to free my pilot’s seat. Everything that remained of my copilot Sergey and the flight engineer Gennadiy had already been recovered and removed long before. They decided to handle the navigator’s remains later. They swarmed around me, unaware that I was watching their every move. They were afraid to look me in the face. No one wants to look into the open eyes of death.
It seemed they had cut through everything. A voice yelled,
"Start lifting!"
The rescuers attached a hook to the headrest of my seat, and the crane operator carefully began to hoist me up with the long derrick. I dangled downward, suspended by the straps of my pilot seat. The pain, which had temporarily subsided, surged back tenfold.
While watching the damage to the aircraft and the rescuers’ efforts, I had momentarily forgotten the sorry state of my own body. Involuntarily, I moaned, unable to endure the unbearable torture.
"The commander is alive!" word spread from one person to another.
The mobile hoist lowered me between the ambulance and the pile of thirty yellow-skinned corpses. The doctor, feeling for my pulse, shook his head and said to the nurse kneeling beside me,
"Hurry, Larisa. We might not get him to the hospital if we’re not quick."
He began cutting away the seat straps with his scalpel, while the nurse, Larisa, started cutting off the parachute straps. They placed me on a stretcher in the ambulance, and we sped down the aerodrome's taxiway on what I knew would be my final journey.
Larisa sat beside me on a portable seat, wiping the perspiration from my forehead with a sterile napkin. Tears filled her eyes as she managed to tell me that the gunner in the tail had survived without injury. The First Lieutenant who had been accompanying the cargo had also made it to the gunner shortly before the emergency landing and was alive, though he had broken both legs when jumping from the tail cockpit. The cargo mechanic in the hold had been killed by the air conditioners that broke loose during the crash.
I was grateful for her tears of sympathy, falling hot on my hand. For her imploring me not to die, to hold on until we reached the hospital, where they might yet save my life. For the fact that in my final moments, this beautiful girl, Larisa, was sitting beside me.
I passed away in the ambulance, with only two hundred yards left to reach the intensive care unit.
I chose not to cling to this life.


Post Scriptum

My soul ascended slowly to the heavens, drifting into unconsciousness. I saw the weeping nurse leaning over me and the doctor, nervously smoking and cursing. As my ephemeral body moved further from Earth, the entirety of Vietnam became visible when I turned my gaze toward space. Out of nowhere, the Apostle Peter appeared before me, sternly asking:

        "Valery Grigoriev, on the Day of Judgment, how is it that you—a person born in sin, who lived a brief life, committed several tragic mistakes, and took more than three dozen lives—are loved not only by those who knew you well but also by those who encountered you only once or twice?"

        My soul responded, "Regardless of what Christianity claims about the soul being created by God, it isn’t true. Twenty percent is childhood psychological trauma, thirty percent is encoded in our genes from our parents, and the remaining fifty percent is shaped by society. I am not guilty of anything, Apostle. Although, by Christian laws, I deserve hell."

        "Do you truly remember your childhood traumas?" the Apostle asked.

        "I remember everything and can recount it if you wish."

        "Tell me about the earliest one; I want to understand how far your memory extends into childhood."

        "I was five when our family lived in Artem, from where I departed for Vietnam," the soul began.

        "Skip the details. I know where you departed from, at what cost, and how many innocent lives you took with you, driven by greed," Peter sternly interrupted. "Get to the point."

        Even in death, my soul remained resolute, unshaken by Peter’s attempts to intimidate. Ignoring the Apostle's threatening tone, it continued calmly:

        “My twenty-five-year-old mother decided to take a break from her thirty-three-year-old husband and their five-year-old son. She planned to fly six thousand miles to a ski resort, despite never having skied before, let alone on mountains. My father, her twenty-year-old brother, and I accompanied her to the roadside bus stop to catch a ride to the airport. My mother walked ahead while my father held my hand and followed her. My uncle, carrying my mother’s suitcase, brought up the rear. As we made our way down the road, a drunk driver in a dump truck approached us from behind and grazed the suitcase my uncle was carrying with the front bumper. The suitcase was hurled into the air, striking my father and breaking four of his ribs, sending him tumbling into a ditch. Since I was holding my father's hand, I ended up in the ditch as well, with a broken leg.
In the end, my father was hospitalized with broken ribs, my uncle suffered a dislocated arm, and I, a five-year-old with a broken leg, was also taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, my mother, full of energy, managed to board her flight and flew to the resort for her month-long vacation.
      
         I don’t want to discuss my father at all. Despite his efforts to keep his affairs discreet, I was well aware of many of his infidelities. Both of my parents lived their lives solely for themselves.
         
         That accounts for fifty percent of me—a mix of trauma and genetics. The consciousness of a young person is shaped by society’s attitude toward them. If the fundamental rule of human behavior in that environment is the law of the jungle, where one person is a predator to another, then the new member of society grows up as a predator too. A predator recognizes only its own kind and is prepared to kill any outsider. That’s where the other half of my consciousness—or soul, if you prefer—comes from, Peter. After the death of my first crew, I found myself in jungles beyond even Mowgli’s darkest nightmares.
   
          This is why everyone in my close or distant circle loved me. I not only amassed everything for myself but also shared my wealth—both spiritual and material—with others."

         “You haven’t hidden anything; I commend you,” Peter said. “However, the weight of your good deeds, like saving the second pilot’s leg, is overshadowed by the countless sins you have accumulated. Your last flight has ended. Ahead of you lies only a descent into hell. Farewell, Grigoriev.”