We use a burned-out apartment across from Mariana's place as a lookout. It wasn't shell damage. Worse: murder, suicide, maybe accident. The couple here hit hard times, Mariana said. Got mixed up with dealers and shysters, pimped out the girl, she disappeared. Then the place went up with him in it. Could've passed out with something burning. Someone might've poured benzin through the door. The greater the tragedy, the less room for coincidence.
“Sweep's clear. Signal's good. You ready yet, dorogaya?” I hear Olezha fish the rifle out and ready it.
To be effectively camouflaged you sometimes have to lie in shit. Grim, but it can make the difference if you take appropriate precautions. This place smells of chemical ash, even without the windows. The floor's like solidified lava that crunches under full weight. They took the bed. He must've been burned into it.
“How do I look, detka? Does this make my zadnitsa look fat?” I ask, stepping from the charred coffin of a bedroom into the melted lounge in my disguise.
“Not just a fat zadnitsa. Mr. Krivoshapka's a total zadnitsa—you look perfect.” He cocks the rifle, lying prone among charred, void-black shit, covered in cardboard by the window. “Go get your Committee pension.”
I nod and head to the door. The place is so black it sucks the night in. I mutter vechnaya pamyat for the dead I never knew, whose resting place we haunt.
I shuffle out of Krivoshapka's block, across the dark street, to Mariana's place. Her signal—the picture turned on her windowsill—means she'll be waiting, ready. I tap lightly on her first floor door.
Her whispered challenge, “Is that you, starik?”
“Krivoshapka is your oldest friend,” is the correct response.
I always hug her. I did the first time and she hung on so I keep it up. It’s like a second chance to hug my babushka, even though they're nothing alike. A secret moment of therapy. After, I get straight into my one-minute routine. Behind the lounge radiator there's a snoop. I check diagnostics and anti-tamper, change batteries, swap storage cards, restow. Music I don't recognise—old classical—plays loud enough for a deaf pensioner but too loud for easy surveillance.
There's always biskvit and chai. I never touch them. She understands.
In the dark bedroom, I spark two cigarettes. We catch up in whispers. “How have you been?”
“Fine enough. It’s getting harder to stay quiet while these bastards do worse and worse. They leave me alone because of Marko and what I still let him believe.”
I nod, keeping my focus on business. “Are the vnuchki enjoying school?”
“Yes, very much. They’re up-to-date with homework. Good results.” She’s still getting our payments, funnelled to the right places.
At seventy-eight Mariana plays the game better than most. She’s sharp, motivated, tough—one of our best sources. She passes a note in pencil: an administration building deeper in the city gets odd visits from a farm van—three times in eight days, always after hours. Mariana’s Eyes can’t see what the van does inside the courtyard. I stare, memorizing the times.
I don’t know who her Eyes are; that’s deliberate to protect them if I’m compromised.
The next note says militias and paramilitaries have been pouring in from the north and west. Their confidence is swelling, fuelled by external support. Marko’s foolish enough to brag to his babushka about “the cause”. Through him, she gets fragments of their military and security intel. She burns the notes in the ashtray.
Marko's day-to-day isn't anything to be proud of. He's in Aidar, not just a grunt but someone with deeper ties beyond that Nazi militia unit. He’s not stupid but he's too self-absorbed to suspect Mariana's past or her true loyalties. Lucky for us.
Her eyes flicker with a silent plea for something in return, but she knows the rules haven’t changed. It’s a one-way street, same as always. I soften my tone.
“Thank you for your humanity, your bravery, your decency. You and your Eyes are diamonds in this dirt. Your work will outlive us.”
Her eyes glisten, but they often do at her age. She leans back, her voice sharp. “Beware, Krivoshapka. You’re a guest here. No need for overkill or patronising.”
Her words sting like a blade. “I meant it,” I say. “I’m sorry I can’t give more.”
“You’re too young to mean those words,” she snaps, “and not experienced enough to know that about yourself. I'd mark you down for that mistake.”
Humility’s my only way out, but her test is impossible. “Forgive me, please. The sentiment was genuine, even if it sounds contrived. We all take risks for the same end.”
I rest my hands gently on her shoulders, picturing my own babushka in this grim, miserable place. Leaving her here, knowing worse is coming, unsettles me for a moment. She catches the twitch in my mouth, the way I swallow my unease.
“If you betray our house-moving,” she says, “you’ll have another stain on your soul, and you’ll run out of years to clean it before you’re judged. Don’t forget that. This place will be unliveable in a month. You need to take us. They won’t let us leave. You know it.”
“How many?” I ask.
She holds up four fingers, then four more with a wave of her hand to signal maybes, then six, lowering her hand to indicate “small.” That’s a lot of vnuchki.
Four, four, six. I meet her gaze to lock it in. “Anything else?”
“We’ve seen enough to know our value. A pension bonus before we next see you.” She traces “25” on her lap. She means $25,000 each. She’s shrewd. The money’s not mine, it doesn’t matter. I’ll pass it on.
Her test is done. I haven’t passed, but I haven’t failed either. That’s the point. Sticking to one-way protocol is how I avoid failing. How I do that reveals something about myself. I can live with being called “prone to overkill” or “patronising.” She doesn’t know my real flaws.
I leave with both of us content. That's success. Twenty seconds after her door closes, I sneak back up the stairs to finish my task. It's tedious but mercifully only twice a month.
The door onto the roof is heavily padlocked with three pieces of garbage we can beat in seconds. Beside is a cupboard with some utility controls and tools. We keep a secret weapon inside: a collapsed cardboard box. We call it the V2, for a laugh.
It sounds stupid but the box is engineered for superior thermal camouflage, even if it's slightly out of place on the roof of a block and moving very slowly in the dark. It's made from two layers of stout cardboard box with an IR cloak material sandwiched between. We've sprayed the outer layer the same colour as the roof, with marine Velcro down the seam to hold it together. That makes it look like a natural feature of the roof from a distance. When we stash it, we turn it inner cardboard side out so anyone looking in the cupboard will just see a flat, unremarkable box. Inside the reformed box, I edge out into the dark, then through holes on each side of the box, scan with a multiscope for anyone who might be on the rooftops. The V2 gives at least 10 minutes cover under winter conditions from mid level thermal vision, and i only need five to seven minutes max. I crouch-walk really slowly in my ridiculous disguise to the northwest corner, sucking up that vinegar, paint and glue smell of the cardboard. I check the snoop's roof-mounted IMSI catcher and swap its storage card. With our setup we grab cell calls, data and detailed comms intel. Add it all together and you get a detailed SIGINT picture for the sector at the human level.
I set up a specialised camera with the multiscope in the V2, lens through a hole, and get pissed off when my legs start to shake. Laughing at myself and the excessive glamour of the job helps it pass. Then I film 360 degrees of the horizon through the multiscope's visible, IR and thermal modes, arc-by-arc. Home uses it to look for changes: any kind of sat dish, standout antenna or differences. MANPAD units and roof-mounted air defence batteries are growing as more supplies come in. They have IR, thermal and night sights, so just walking over the roof is a total nyet, hence the V2.
One day, I'll proudly tell Mishka my story: the glory of the cardboard box! How we defeated the most sophisticated vision systems! I imagine the look on his face: childish wonder swinging immediately to confused disappointment. I’m laughing in the box thinking about it. Home will hear me on the video. I imagine the analysts working it out:
“What's with the laughing? Was he seeing something?”
“Are you kidding? On a roof, in winter, in a fucking cardboard box. All that Spetsnaz training and he ends up doing Metal Gear Solid shit. I'd be laughing too.”
That makes me laugh so much I'm shaking the camera. Four years without being detected. Discipline, humility, sore legs. Not luck. Until now. More extreme consequences come to mind. Compromise:
“How'd we find this Putinska shval?”
“We heard a cardboard box laughing at us from the opposite roof. It was this Moskal’ska hnydy! In a fuckin’ box! Vin okhuyevshyi!”
I get a grip at the thought of being shot in a cardboard coffin or tortured by the SBU. Feelings of telling Mishka stories about our glorious V2 bleed out to grey.
When I'm done, I go quicker back to the door, stash the V2, lock up, and shuffle back across the road to dump Krivoshapka's outfit and extract.
“You took a bit longer than expected,” Olezha says as he breaks down the rifle. “Everything alright? I was nearly coming for ya.”
“Yeah, fine.” I'm smirking. He's already got the wrong idea. “I had a laughing fit at how much glory there is in being in the V2 at 11 o’ clock at night. I was in a loop. Laughing at myself, shaking the fuckin’ camera.”
The rifle goes back into a hole in the burnt partition wall and another in the bathroom floor.
“I saw you jiggling, wondered what you were doing…” He mimes jerking while peering through a hole.
It's an hour’s drive back to our place. Olezha starts checking the data. Stasik drives casual, makes tail-break turns and slowdowns while I coordinate counter-surveillance using a snoop and my eyeballs. The driver always has to make acceptable music choices at not too loud a volume.
“Corroboration. Loads of new signals. A hundred to four hundred per day.” Olezha's looking at cellular signals in Mariana's sector since our last collection. “Static snapshots suggest transient signals heading east in groups, and more activity at that admin building.”
“She’s still a diamond,” says Stasik.
“Never let us down, OpSec's mint.” Olezha's always had a soft spot for her. “She's been supplying since it kicked off. Proper sleeper.”
“She's still got an edge, enough to put me on the spot tonight,” I say. “I was a bit… over earnest, but I got through it. We’re gonna be busy. I can feel it.”
“Way too big a data set for us to work with. Need Home analysis and signal filtration,” says Olezha.
“Build a queries for Home to run. You're too good for that, honey,” I say. We're hunters, not nerds.
“I know, daddy. Already on it.”
“So babushka put you on the spot?” says Stasik. “Not surprised. She’s got balls. If Marko doesn't know she's a Jew, I bet no one does. She's headed straight for the Library if she slips up. Or we do.” Stasik says.
“Yeah, and that's why we don't slack off, ever.” I'm scanning the signals around us, using pursuit mode to spot anything showing tail behaviour.
I’m staring at the snoop.
Fists clench.
“No pizdá makes books out of us. We’ll… fucking… destroy them.”
The burning feeling of us going into the basement after clearing blocks out…
“Hey, Danya-sha,” Olezha's arm snakes around and jolts me in embrace. “Vozvrashchaysya, come back…”
I suck in breath, drop the window and the biting, freezing air feels warm on my face as I lean to drive off the sweat. They know. They understand. They were there. Bratishki moi.
“That… fucking… basement.” I dump it into the sharp, icy wind in a faltering sigh, that childish gasp that goes with tears. I growl at myself as a wipe it off my face. Until the next time.
“So serious, Danochka!” Stasik's smile is the crack in his stone mask. “Here's one for your mood…” He taps a track. Ultravox kicks in with the staccato synth, then the snare and guitar note. We all love this song. If ever a Western song could've been Russian, it's this one. It goes to show that we’re all the same deep down, and that history rhymes. You don't even need to understand the words, you can feel everything.
Dancing, with tears in my eyes
Weeping for the memory of a life gone by
“We’re the rope,” I say, invoking the mantra. “We're her rope too, even if she is ruthless.” I like to keep things serious when the lads get a bit emotional. “She's an asset until she's not. Stop kissing babushka's zadnitsa. She just landed us a ton of work.”
Stasik starts up his fist-clenching 80s power dance that sways at half beat. The pit of my stomach says he might regret this song choice.
There’s no reason to feel good about an asset until we deliver them an ending. If luck and circumstances align, it might be the end Mariana hopes for. If I have to make deals at her expense I will, and she knows it. Stasik smiles and nods in recognition of our reality, swaying with his fist at his temple, smile giving way to a pained, intense expression to match the minor key of eighties’ apocalypse vocals.
There's a hierarchy and I still give orders, despite the schoolboy and gallows humour.
“Chill out, Danochka,” says Olezha as he leans forwards and rubs my shoulder. “I'll cook tonight. You take some time to listen to some tunes, write a poem, plan something. Maybe have a wank.”
“Da, da. Two wanks!” Stasik confirms my prescription with a grin. I laugh and pat them both. My brothers.
“Two loud wanks.” I hammer the dashboard to complete the theatre and crack the window to have a smoke.
“I'll take the car in. I wanna check the vans and start thinking about the extraction.” I say. “Swing by the deli on your way back and get a feast. Lots of steak. Grab some rabbit, veal and offal for the freezer if they've got any.”
“That's what I love about you, Danochka,” says Olezha, shaking his head. “You're great at taking advice. ‘Relax’ says the doctor. ‘Yep, OK! I'm just gonna prep the vans,’ he says.”
“Read between the lines, dummy,” says Stasik. “He's a yebány furgónny drochíla.” He mimes jerking onto the steering wheel. “Question is, does he do it in the front or in the back?” Olezha's laugh sets off Stasik, who sets me off.
“Two loud van wanks is one in the front, one in the back, of course,” I point out, in condescending tone. Stasik's cackle keeps going. This could go on forever but reality always steps in. I can't pick up a permanent nickname of “box wanker” or “van wanker”. I have to pull rank. I swallow my laughter and get my breath. I fall into the song's minor key. “If she's pushing us for a run, she's pushing Home too. It'll be last minute unless we’re ahead of the curve.”
I look Olezha dead in the eyes. “She said fourteen.” I turn. “Six kids.” That goes straight in Stasik's ear, through the synth line. “This is gonna be High. Performance. Shit.”
Gravity takes hold of their faces. Thoughts mute their laughter. Olezha's hazel eyes move to shadow. Both Stasik's fists are now on the wheel. Their capitulation to the driving beat of the snare drum is acceptance of my orders to get ready.
It’s late and I’m with my love alone
We drink to forget the coming storm
We love to the sound of our favourite song
Over and over
“Furgónny drochíla,” whispers Stasik.
I feel my mask harden. Out here, we answer only to ourselves unless someone else is strong enough to make us answer to them.
We aren’t bound by the decorum of true spies or the accountability of diplomats.
Call it hypervigilance, but people who die in combat zones because they're not ready are called civilians, tourists or amateurs. We're stonefish: camouflaged ambushers packing fatal poison, but we're not entirely immune.