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

Slava took the transfer order and glanced at the address on it—the exercise troops were at a military base in Belarus, which was one of the main battlefields of the exercise and not too far from Leningrad.

Ogarkov pulled another document from the stack on the table and handed it to Kuznetsov: "The interim results of the communications project are the prototype of that data sharing terminal and the horizontal communication protocol—deploy five sets to the Blue Army camp. I want to test them in practice during the exercise."

"Understood." Kuznetsov took the document and saluted Ogarkov. Slava then realized that he should also salute the marshal.

Sure enough, they were still too unfamiliar with the ways of working within the military.

After finishing their business, Slava and Kuznetsov got up and walked out. Just as they reached the door, Ogarkov's voice came from behind them.

"Velikoslav Ivanovich Ivanov".

Slava stopped and turned around.

“A battalion,” Ogarkov looked at him, leaning back in his chair with the anticipation of an old hunter releasing his best hounds from their cages.

"Just one battalion's worth of proof is enough for me."

"I will do my best."

Slava saluted the marshal and closed the door.

------

It was almost dark when I came out of the General Staff building. At this time of year, the days in Moscow are long, but the temperature drops as soon as the sun sets, and the wind blowing from the direction of the Moscow River carries a slightly fishy smell.

Slava stood on the steps of the building, clutching the transfer order in his hand, and remained motionless for a full three minutes in the twilight.

After a sentry passing by cast a few questioning glances at him, he snapped out of his daze and quickly walked down the steps toward the subway station.

Director Nian had already prepared dinner in the apartment—or rather, she had reheated the potato and meat stew from the state-run canteen and served it on a plate; for Director Nian's culinary skills, this was already an exceptional achievement. Slava slammed the transfer order on the table, and Director Nian picked it up and glanced at it.

"Go to Belarus?"

"We'll go to Leningrad first. The Belarusian side is the training base for the exercise troops. I still need to discuss tactics with them in Leningrad."

Director Nian ladled himself a bowl of potato stew from the pot, sat down opposite Slava, and ate a couple of bites before speaking.

"Good heavens, a battalion-sized force to fight against the Red Army's iron torrent, while also proving to all the Soviet generals present that information warfare is not just empty talk—what if the Red Army just used nuclear weapons to clear the way, wouldn't your information warfare be destroyed?"

"Information technology equipment isn't that fragile. If a nuclear bomb clears the way, what else is there to say? We might as well declare the Red Army the winner." Slava took a sip of water.

“I don’t know much about military matters, but I don’t feel as much pressure about politics. You did what Andropov wanted you to do—established direct contact with the military reformists. Ogarkov personally transferred you to his command. Do you know what that means in Moscow?”

"Is there a new bridge between Andropov and Ogarkov?"

“Yes, and you are that bridge. In fact, you’ve already won half the battle.” Director Nian put down his bowl and looked at him.

"This is a small victory now. If we win the exercise, it will be a big victory. But you also need to be careful—once this bridge is built, it won't be your responsibility alone. Andropov needs the military's support to take over, and Ogarkov needs a political backer at the top to carry out reforms—you're caught in the middle. Both sides need you, but both sides will be targeting you."

"You mean I should be careful?"

"What I mean is that you need to know who you are, where you stand, and why you're standing there." Director Nian stuffed the last bite of potato into his mouth, chewed it a few times, swallowed it, stood up, and put the bowl in the sink.

"Don't take yourself too seriously. Your power currently comes entirely from your superiors, so be careful not to be used as a pawn by anyone, including Andropov—"

You can work for him, but you can't become his tool. And don't be blinded by Ogarkov's personal charisma—he was a great military strategist, but first and foremost, he was a soldier, and a soldier's worldview is different from yours.

She walked to the door, grabbed the coat hanging on the hanger, and draped it over her shoulders.

"Alright, that's all for now. I'm going to prepare for my things. You go to Belarus tomorrow, and I'll stay in Moscow to keep an eye on things here. Contact me by telegram immediately if anything happens."

Aren't you coming with me?

“What am I supposed to do if you’re leading troops into battle? Serve you tea and water?” Director Nian chuckled. “I can do much more in Moscow than in Belarus—someone has to keep an eye on Andropov, the General Staff, and those troublemaking idiots. This exercise isn’t just being fought in Belarus; the covert battles in Moscow are equally important.”

She opened the door and glanced back at him.

"Brother, I may not know much about military affairs, but is one battalion really enough?"

Slava leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling and thinking for a moment.

"We don't have enough bags, but conditions are created by people! It's not like there aren't battles where the few win against the many. Can't you give me a little trust?"

Director Nian stood at the door and smiled.

"Then go ahead and do it."

The door closed.

Slava sat alone at the dining table, with leftover stewed potatoes and meat and his transfer order in front of him. Outside the window, the summer night in Moscow lingered, the last rays of orange-red sunset still hanging on the horizon, the trams clanged in the distance, and the leaves of the birch tree downstairs rustled in the wind.

He stood up and began packing his luggage.

Chapter 14 also includes a section on rare, out-of-print characters.

The next day, Slava boarded a train to Leningrad.

Although it's summer, this city built on a swamp has a unique charm—the Neva River breaks down the color of the sky and blends it into the water, reflecting it onto the exterior walls of the buildings along the river, making the whole city look like it's soaking in a thin layer of golden liquid.

Slava emerged from Pulkovo train station at 2:30 PM, the sunlight slanting across the concrete pavement at the station entrance. He stood for a moment in front of a public phone booth in the lobby, then pulled out a slip of paper with base contact information from his pocket, stuffed two kopeks into it, and dialed the number.

The phone rang six or seven times before someone answered: "Hello?"

"This is a transfer order from Marshal Ogarkov's office for Velikoslav Ivanovich Ivanov, number—"

"Okay, okay, I'm waiting for you. When are you coming?"

Slava glanced at the clock on the wall of the hall. Two thirty-five. It would take about an hour and a half by bus from the train station to the base, but he had just flipped through the Leningrad tourist guide in the hall, which said that the Winter Palace was open until six o'clock in the afternoon, and the cruiser Aurora was open for tours all day.

Had he ever been to this city? No. He had never been to Leningrad, either in his past life or this one, and once he arrived at the base to begin preparing for the exercise, he wouldn't have any free time for at least the next two months.

"Comrade, my train is delayed," he told a rather clumsy lie over the phone, "I might arrive three hours late, around eight or nine o'clock tonight."

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone, clearly as they were assessing whether the reason for the lateness was worth arguing about.

"Alright, that's all for today. I'll keep your dorm room for you. You can report to the officer on duty when you get there tonight."

Slava hung up the phone and mentally gave himself an eight out of ten for his thick skin—after all, he had worked in both the KGB and the General Staff, so this little thing was nothing to him.

He first stored his suitcase at the luggage storage, then picked up a backpack, went out, and hopped on a bus heading to the city center.

The Winter Palace! Let's go! Aurora! Here I come!

The trams clanged and rattled along the wide streets, and long lines stretched in front of the ice cream stands—Leningrad's ice cream was said to be the best in the entire Union; who knew if the centrifuges that spun the cream were used for purifying nuclear materials. Anyway, the whole way through Slava, you could smell the sweet aroma of cream and vanilla.

The Winter Palace was larger than he had imagined.

He stood in the palace square, looking up at the massive, light green building, and felt like an ant standing in front of a shoebox. The Alexander Column in the square soared into the sky, and the angels atop it, holding crosses, shimmered in the afternoon sun.

The Winter Palace is now the main building of the Hermitage Museum, but as a time traveler, Slava is more interested in its history as the last stronghold of the Provisional Government.

1917年10月25日——按照旧历是10月25日，新历是11月7日——布尔什维克的赤卫队和起义士兵从这里冲进去逮捕了临时政府的部长们，开启了苏维埃政权的历史。

Sixty-three years have passed since that night, and the provisional government has long since become a term in textbooks, but the building is still there, just like it was.

He spent nearly three hours in the Winter Palace, looking at the photographs, documents, and weapons in the October Revolution memorial hall. He stood for a while in front of his mentor's wax figure—the figure was rather mediocre, but the trench coat was a very accurate replica. He also casually strolled through the Winter Palace's painting gallery, staring blankly for several minutes in front of a painting depicting a winter scene on the Neva River. Then he spent a considerable amount of money in the souvenir shop buying a bunch of things: a large box of postcards, two enamel mugs printed with panoramic views of the Winter Palace, two art books, and a keychain supposedly made from bullet casings from the Provisional Government guards in 1917—most likely fake, but he didn't care.

It was almost five o'clock when he came out of the Winter Palace. In this day and age, there was no satellite navigation or mobile phone. So Slava bought a map from a nearby newsstand and asked for directions while looking at the map. He found that the cruiser Aurora was anchored on the bank of the Petrograd River, less than two kilometers upstream of the Neva River. It was within walking distance.

The Aurora was smaller than he had seen in the photographs. The cruiser that fired on the Winter Palace during the October Revolution of 1917 is now a floating museum, its gray hull resting quietly on the river, a few cannons pointing to the sky, and pigeons perched on their muzzles.

There were some tourists taking pictures on the deck, mostly from out of town. Slava asked a passing sailor to take a picture of him on the bridge—he was holding onto the bridge railing with his hands, the Neva River behind him and the Smolny Palace in the distance, his expression a little silly but his smile genuine. He didn't look like someone about to command a military exercise with hundreds of people, but rather like a young man from a small town going on his first long trip.

After taking the photos, he bought a bunch of things at the ship's souvenir counter: several toy models made from shell casings, a small naval ensign, a tin cigarette case with the silhouette of the Aurora printed on it, and a small flask. He stuffed all these things, along with what he had bought at the Hermitage, into his backpack, which immediately bulged so much that the zipper could barely close.

He planned to send these things to Director Nian, as well as Sherov, Alim, Isayev... as a belated gift.

It was past 8 p.m. when we disembarked from the Aurora. In Leningrad in July, it gets dark very late. At this latitude, around the summer solstice, you can even experience white nights—the sun hardly sets, and at midnight the horizon still has a faint orange-red hue. But now the season of white nights has passed, and the sun is indeed setting, but it's setting very slowly and reluctantly, dyeing the western sky a large, thick orange-purple.

Slava stood on the riverbank watching the sunset for a while before remembering a serious problem—he hadn't returned to base yet.

He pulled out a map and looked at it. The base was about twenty kilometers southeast of the city. Taking the bus would require a transfer at Nevsky Prospekt, but the next bus had left twenty minutes ago. What about the metro? He found the nearest metro station—Golgi Station—and hurried over. When he arrived, he saw the iron fence was closed, and a handwritten notice was posted:

"Due to equipment maintenance, this website will close early at 20:00 today. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Your mom.

Slava looked at the notice and silently cursed the Leningrad Metro system's ancestors for eighteen generations.

Call a car? There are public phone booths, but after searching all his pockets, he only found one kopek. He did have some large bills to exchange for change at a nearby store. But even if he got through to the base, it would take more than an hour for them to send a car to pick him up.

Should we walk back? We can treat it as exercise anyway; I'm so fat, I need to lose some weight.

He carried his bag and picked up his retrieved suitcase, walking alone towards the base. The straight-line distance from the Petrograd district where the Aurora was located to the base southeast of the city was about fifteen kilometers, and walking along the main road would take at least two and a half to three hours.

After walking for about forty minutes, he entered an old residential area in the southern part of the city. There were far fewer streetlights in this area than in the city center, and some sections were simply dark, with only the occasional headlights of passing cars illuminating a small section of the road. On both sides were five-story slab buildings built during the Khrushchev era, their gray exteriors covered with pipes and wires. Clothes were still hanging on some balconies, swaying in the night wind, looking like rows of silent, swaying ghosts in the dim light.

There was a small restaurant on a street corner. The storefront wasn't large, and warm yellow lights shone behind the glass windows. Indistinct voices and the clinking of glasses could be heard coming from inside. Two bicycles and a motorcycle were parked in front, and several crushed cigarette butts lay on the ground.

Slava was unfamiliar with the area and stared at the map under the ghostly lights—civilian maps certainly wouldn't mark the location of military bases, and he only knew which building the base was next to, so he had to search carefully.

Suddenly, the restaurant doors opened from the inside, and four young people came out.

The leader was a young man of medium build, probably in his early twenties, wearing a dark leather jacket, bald, and looking like a younger version of Brother Dao.

Behind them were three young men of similar age, dressed casually but with a street thug vibe—shirt collars turned up, hands in pockets, and shoulders swaying as they walked.

The street gang culture in Leningrad was quite prevalent during the Brezhnev era, and this is clearly a street gang.

The four people left the restaurant and stood under the streetlights for a while. The one in the lead glanced to the left and right, his gaze sweeping across both ends of the street before quickly locking onto a lone figure walking about thirty meters ahead—a young woman wearing a dark dress and carrying a small bag.

The young man in the lead tilted his head and pointed in that direction with his chin.

But just then, another figure appeared from behind the corner.

A short man, carrying a bag on his back, holding a suitcase in one hand, and holding a map in the other, squinted at the map under a streetlamp.

The young leader immediately changed his target.

The woman was walking too fast; chasing her would be too noisy, and women are prone to screaming—a lesson he had only recently learned. But this short man was different: alone, carrying a clearly heavy backpack and a suitcase, wandering around in this deserted area—he was practically a gift from heaven!

We've won the grand prize, everyone!

...

Slava didn't realize he'd been silently turned around and attacked until he was hit on the back of the head.

A blinding white light flashed in his vision, his knees buckled, and he collapsed to his knees. The weight of his bag pulled him forward, his face nearly hitting the ground. The suitcase slipped from his hands, tumbled twice on the pavement, and rolled to the side of the road.

Before he could figure out what was happening, someone grabbed him from behind by the collar and dragged him into a side alley. Slava tried to resist, but the blade pressed against his carotid artery clearly offered no chance to fight back.

"Don't fucking move, stay still and I won't hit you."

"Can we settle this? My wallet is in my right pocket. I can give you all my money, and then you can let me go, how about that?"

Slava, after all, had served in the KGB and received some training. Now, he was alone with a knife to his throat, so saving his life was his top priority.

"Shut up!" The blade pressed deeper into his neck, and Slava immediately shut up.

Now he could see his surroundings clearly: four people, one squatting in front of him rummaging through his pockets, one next to him rummaging through his backpack, and the other two standing on his left and right, one holding his arms and the other holding a knife.

The man squatting in front of him was the leader, the one in the leather jacket. His movements were swift, and the way he rummaged through his pockets showed this wasn't his first time doing this. The first thing he pulled out was his wallet. The leather jacket opened it and glanced inside; there were a few small-denomination ruble banknotes and some coins, probably less than twenty rubles in total.

"That's all? You poor bastard." The man in the leather jacket scoffed, tossed his wallet to the person next to him, and continued rummaging through it.

“Friends, this is really all I have.” Slava knew that if these people found something they shouldn’t have, they would be stuck with it for life.

Nobody paid him any attention. His notebook was pulled out, and in the dim light filtering through the alley from the streetlamp, he flipped through a couple of pages. It was full of incomprehensible technical jargon and diagrams—useless, so he threw it away.

Then there was the tourist map—which was crumpled up—and a crumpled pack of White Sea cigarettes.

"Suka, how much money could someone who smokes this kind of junk have?" The drunken accomplice staggered over and kicked Slava's suitcase. "What's in the suitcase? What's the combination? Tell me!"

"1991," Slava revealed the fake combination to the box.

This fake password can open the box, but it will also trigger the box's transmitter, which will be directly received by nearby KGB signal monitoring stations.

“Go search his suitcase.” The leather jacket waved him off, continuing to pat Slava’s coat, his fingers pulling something out of his left breast pocket. It was a document holder, with a leather cover, thicker than a regular resident ID card.

The ID card had a photo of Slava affixed to it, next to which was her name, number, and organization. At the top line, in bold red lettering, were the following words:

Soviet Ministry of Defense officer's certificate

The man in the leather jacket trembled slightly. He brought the ID closer and looked at it again before slowly raising his head to look at Slava.

"Zenia, this guy—is he a soldier?" His accomplice behind him, who was smoking a cigarette, leaned over to look at the identification, almost dropping the cigarette from his mouth.

PS: Zhenya is the most common nickname form of the name Yevgeny in Russian.

"A military officer's ID card, but it doesn't show his rank."

"No military rank? What's that? Reserve? Civilian?"

“I don’t know,” the leather jacket said, stuffing his officer’s ID into his pocket—whatever it was, it was better to have it than to throw it away. “Keep searching.”

"I advise you not to go down there." Slava had already let go of his resentment, as if he could already see the future of these petty thieves.

The hand in the leather jacket quickly reached the left armpit of the Slava jacket and touched something hard.