Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

Wanted: Velikoslav Ivanovich Ivanov, female accomplice surnamed Ivanova, given name unknown.

Charges: Subversion of state power, theft of state secrets, bribery, being a capitalist roader within the Party, a Western spy, a Trotskyist, a Western liberal, an opportunist, a fence-sitter, attacking national ideology, opposing the Great Leader, a gangster, an ambitious schemer...

The arrest warrant states that the two men were spies sent by Western intelligence agencies to infiltrate Uzbekistan under the guise of research to steal state secrets and to accept huge bribes in an attempt to corrupt our cadres.

The last line of the arrest warrant reads: "Arrest upon discovery; if resistance is encountered, the perpetrator may be shot dead on the spot."

---

Tashkent, the Central Committee building of the Uzbek Communist Party.

Rashidov stood by the window, watching his men place the stack of documents on the table.

"Is this all they've collected?" he asked.

“That’s not all, Comrade Secretary,” Yahyaev said. “These are just what our people intercepted; some have already been sent out, but these are the most crucial.”

Rashidov walked to the table and casually flipped through the documents.

Ledgers, photos, tape covers, and copies of numerous whistleblower letters.

“Not bad, quite capable,” he said calmly. “Two people investigated so much in just over three months! They must have had helpers, probably instructed by people in Moscow who are dissatisfied with Comrade Brezhnev.”

"Comrade Secretary, if these materials arrive in Moscow..."

“It’s not going to happen,” Rashidov interrupted him. “I’ve already spoken to my friends in Moscow. The KGB may have received some things, but without this core evidence, they can’t do anything to me.”

He pushed the documents aside.

"The problem now is how to deal with these two people."

“The arrest warrant has been issued,” Yahyaev said. “The entire Republic’s police force is looking for them. But they may be hiding in a KGB safe house that our people can’t get into.”

“Then we should find a way to get them out,” Rashidov said. “We should cut off their water, electricity, and food. They can’t stay inside forever. If all else fails, we should burn it down.”

"What if Moscow intervenes?"

Rashidov remained silent for a moment.

"Comrade Brezhnev's health is not yet at a point where he is unable to manage affairs, and the opposition will not interfere openly," he said. "These two men are informal and have no official status. If we publicly defend them, it would be tantamount to admitting that they sent people to investigate me."

He walked back to the window and looked out at Tashkent.

“But I’m still not at ease,” he said. “I want those two people to disappear within three days. Alive or dead, it doesn’t matter.”

Yahyaev nodded, turned, and went out. Rashidov stood alone by the window, looking at the lights outside.

For over twenty years... he climbed step by step from an ordinary prefectural committee cadre to this position. What did he rely on? He relied on caution, patience, and never being ruthless when necessary.

These two people who appeared out of nowhere, what did they think they could do to him?

In Uzbekistan, he is the law.

---

Meanwhile, in a residential building on the outskirts of Fergana, Slava and Nian sat on the floor listening to the wanted poster broadcast on the radio.

“Traitor, spy, national traitor, spy, revisionist, Trotskyist…” Director Nian counted on his fingers, “Goodness, that’s quite a lot of labels.”

Slava turned off the radio: "They really want to kill us. Now we can't get out of the airport or the railway. Let's try to escape by car and take back roads."

"What should we do now? We still have a box of documents that we haven't delivered yet."

Slava looked at the telegraph machine and the two pistols on the table.

“Send a telegram to Moscow,” he said, “informing Andropov of the situation. Then…”

"Then?"

"Then we'll see if President An is willing to protect us. If he discards us after he's served his purpose, there's really nothing we can do—but I believe President An won't do that, and we'll definitely be able to evacuate alive."

He walked to the telegraph machine and began typing on the keyboard.

Outside the window, the night wind of Uzbekistan howled past, carrying the smell of something burning.

Chapter 9 Burning Celery

"Beep! Beep beep!"

Director Nian, who was sending a message to his superiors using a telegraph machine, suddenly stopped pressing the telegraph key, frowned, and took out a pen from his pocket to begin translating.

"A large number of gangsters have gathered... Evacuate immediately?"

"What the hell?" Slava stared at Director Nian's fingertips and immediately sensed something was wrong when he saw the word "evacuation." He quickly pulled the curtains open a crack—the light outside the window was strange, orange-red, not quite like a street lamp, and the strange smell permeated even more.

"Something's burning!" Director Nian was still translating the contents of the telegraph machine when she quickly asked Slava to check what was going on.

Slava hurried to the door and opened it a crack. A pungent smell, a mixture of gasoline and something burning, was rising from the floors below. There were seven or eight figures moving about downstairs, carrying oil cans and pouring them against the wall. One of them was holding a lighter and was moving closer.

"Damn it, they're going to burn the building down! Stop translating, let's go! Let's go!" Slava slapped his thigh and hurriedly stuffed the documents on the table into the box and slammed it shut.

"boom!!!"

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a muffled thud came from downstairs, followed by crackling and popping sounds. Suddenly, orange-red flames shot up from the first floor, illuminating the entire room!

"Let's go!" Director Nian threw off his headphones, stuffed the telegraph machine into the closet, and knew that it would be too difficult to run away with it, so he might as well burn it.

Slava grabbed his pistol and folder, and the two rushed to the door. Smoke was already filling the stairwell, black smoke mixed with heat rising up the stairs. They crouched low and ran down to the corner on the second floor when suddenly gunshots rang out below—two bangs, bullets hitting the stair railing and sending sparks flying.

"Bang! Boom!"

The two of them pressed themselves against the wall at the same time.

"Damn!" Director Nian gasped, "There are people blocking the way below! It's unlikely we can break out from the front—"

"Go through the back window!" Slava pointed upstairs.

They retreated to the third floor, rushed into the room, and slammed the door shut. Slava ran to the back window and pulled back the curtains, but there were people behind her too.

"boom!"

Two men crouched behind the courtyard wall, guns in their hands, muzzles pointed directly at the window. As soon as they saw the curtains move, one of them immediately pulled the trigger.

The glass shattered on the floor. Slava fell backward and rolled into a corner, another bullet grazing his scalp and embedding itself in the ceiling.

"I'm fine!" He touched his head; there was no blood on his hand. Under the influence of adrenaline, Slava's perception of pain had become somewhat dulled. Director Nian had already overturned the table in the corner and placed it under the window. She pulled the Makarov pistol from her waist and pulled the slide.

"Shall we fight our way out?"

Slava wiped the ash from his face with his sleeve. The fire downstairs was still burning, and heat waves were rising from the cracks in the floorboards; the smell of burning wood was already in the air.

"Okay! Damn it, let's do it!" He loaded another gun, "Count to three and fire at the same time."

"One"

Director Nian raised his gun.

"two"

Two more shots were fired outside.

"three!"

Both men simultaneously leaned out from behind the table and fired towards the courtyard wall. Director Nian was much quicker; after three shots, one of them clutched his shoulder, cried out, and rolled to the base of the wall. The other ducked back, but quickly raised his gun to return fire. Just as Slava was about to fire again, his right arm suddenly felt hot, as if he had been struck hard by a red-hot iron rod, and he dropped his gun.

"Slava!"

Director Nian pounced on him and dragged him behind the table. He looked down and saw that a large patch of blood had seeped out from his right upper arm, soaking his shirt and dripping down his arm.

"Damn..." he gritted his teeth, his voice trembling, "I just wiped them off, it's nothing, hurry up and take them down!"

Director Nian knew the situation was urgent. She had just moved her gun toward the window when several bullets came in, and a stray bullet ripped a piece of her hair off.

"No, there are too many of them! Let me check your condition first!" Director Nian quickly pulled open his sleeve. The wound was on the outside, the entrance and exit of a bullet, with a small piece of flesh turned out and blood still gushing out.

She quickly pulled off the scarf from her head, wrapped it around her head, and tied a knot: "Can you still move?"

“Yes.” Slava tried; he couldn’t lift his arm very high, but his fingers could still grip it. He gritted his teeth, picked up the gun from the ground, and put it in his left hand.

The fire outside was growing bigger and bigger, the windows on the first floor were crackling and popping, and thick smoke began to seep into the house through the cracks in the door.

“We can’t leave,” Director Nian grabbed him. “There are people blocking the door downstairs, gunmen behind us, and people are probably buried at the stairwell.”

"What the hell are we supposed to do? Just wait to be burned to death?"

"The telephone line is probably unusable, we'll have to send a telegram for help!" Director Nian quickly ran back to get the telegraph machine. "Let Moscow rescue us, and also call all the surrounding intelligence stations!"

“I still have one hand that can move. I’ll send a telegram. You go and figure out how to take fire prevention measures. Wet blankets to block the gaps in the door. We have to hold out as long as possible!” Slava carried the telegraph machine to the bathroom with one hand, turned on the tap and filled the bathtub with water. Director Nian threw the suitcase containing documents into the bathtub and soaked the clothes and blankets in water.

Slava sat on the edge of the toilet, tapping the telegraph machine with his left hand. He had almost no feeling in his right hand, and blood dripped down his scarf, splashing onto the telegraph machine's casing.

"Urgent distress call... Building on fire at No. 17 Mixh Street, eastern suburbs of Fergana... Large number of armed personnel outside... One wounded..."

He would type a line, pause, catch his breath, and then type again. The smoke grew thicker, choking him and causing him to cough incessantly.

"Commander-in-Chief Andropov... requests assistance..."

After sending the last word, he leaned against the table leg, his vision blurring. Director Nian, staring out the window, said, "Hold on! Hold on, reinforcements are coming soon!"

"Hoo...how would you know..." Slava's head was spinning, his hands were trembling violently, the adrenaline rush had worn off, and his courage and strength were draining from his body. "Damn...give...give me a cigarette...it hurts..."

"Hold on for me!" Director Nian glanced at him, lit a cigarette for him, and then carefully checked the wound—luckily, the bullet had pierced through, and her bandaging skills were decent; the bleeding from the wound had basically stopped.

“You know… about our situation…” Slava hadn’t finished speaking when Director Nian sat down next to him and told him to shut up.

"Stop talking, brother, save your energy. Trust me! You can always trust me! We'll survive!"

"Okay... I'll trust you this time..."

--------

Moscow

It was still light outside. July was over, and it was early October in Moscow at four in the afternoon. Sunlight streamed obliquely through the office window. Andropov was looking at a document about Poland. The strike in Gdansk had been going on for over a month, the Solidarity movement was gaining influence, and the whole of Poland was in an uproar. The assessment from the KGB's Warsaw station was not optimistic either.

"Ding!" The phone rang; it was the red dedicated line on the table.

He put down the documents and picked up the receiver: "It's me."

The voice on the other end was very low, taking about ten seconds to finish a sentence. Andropov listened without saying a word, then held the receiver to his ear and slowly drew a circle on the document with his other hand.

When did this happen?

"Ten minutes ago." "What's the situation now?"

"The building is still burning, and people are still trapped inside. Our branch in Fergana is about ten kilometers away from the nearest one, and it would take half an hour to get there, but they don't have authorization to operate publicly."

"Where's the data?"

“Some of it is on them, and the rest is still at several contact points in Uzbekistan. If something happens to them tonight, Rashidov will clear everything out before dawn.”

Andropov didn't speak. After half a minute, he said, "You wait online first."

He placed the receiver face down on the table without hanging up, then got up and walked to the window. Outside was Dzerzhinsky Square, the afternoon sun making the bronze statues gleam. A tram happened to pass by, its bell ringing twice.

He raised his hand and rubbed his temples.

...

June Kazakhstan

He remembered it was at a reception at Almaty airport. Brezhnev took a few steps on the red carpet and then stopped. The old man looked at Kunayev, who was receiving him, and his mouth moved as if he wanted to ask something, but he didn't say anything. The accompanying doctor quickly stepped forward to support him.

Then Xunzong shook his head, waved his hand, sat down at the main table, and after about three minutes stood up again and said he wanted to go back to rest.

The entire reception lasted less than ten minutes. Everyone present that day knew perfectly well that Brezhnev was nearing his end.

That night, Andropov sat in his office all night. From then on, he began to do some things, meet some people, and transfer some cadres. He had several private conversations with Ustinov and Gromyko, the topics of which were all roundabout. He was also keeping an eye on what was happening with Chernenko. Romanov was in Leningrad, and Grishin was in Moscow. Neither of them were easy to deal with.

Everyone knew the president was nearing his end, and everyone was having their own ideas, including him.

Andropov returned from the window, sat down at the table, and kept his fingers on the receiver. If he were to intervene now to save these two men, he would have to unleash the KGB's claws and openly and directly take action against the current First Secretary of a constituent republic!

Who stood behind Rashidov? Brezhnev.

Brezhnev is confused now, but not so confused that he doesn't recognize people. If this matter were to reach him directly, what would he think? He would feel that Andropov is targeting his people, which is tantamount to targeting him!

What might be worse is that the old man is confused today and lucid tomorrow. If he recovers and lives for another three or five years, then all the plans Andropov has laid out over the past two years will be wasted, and he himself may not be able to wait that long.

He'd always had kidney disease, and he knew it was incurable. The doctors would give vague answers during each routine checkup, but he knew his body—years of intense work and long hours had taken a toll on it. In his current state, even if Brezhnev died tomorrow, he himself might not last more than a few years.

He'll never be able to clean up this mess in his lifetime.

What's the best way? The best way is to endure, to be patient! Let go of these two people and keep waiting, until Comrade Brezhnev goes to see Marx before him, until he's settled in his position, until he can deal with Rashidov in a fair and square manner!

It's just two lives. Hasn't he done enough bad things in his life? Two more won't make a difference.

He picked up the teacup on the table and took a sip; the tea had gone cold. As he put the cup down, he suddenly remembered something the young man had said that night at the suburban villa.