Checkmate in two moves. Hybrid, but clean.
My name is simply “the curator.” I ran the evaluation: a twelve-kilometer forced march, then a run in full protective gear. In the morning the barracks greeted them with empty armories, and the perimeter was wrapped in electrified barbed wire. Then I switched on the screens.…
We stopped a car on a forest road. “Give us the jalopy, uncle, you can pick it up in eight kilometers. Keys under the mat.” We offered a choice: a few rabbits, or a seven-millimeter bullet between the eyes. We thought we’d outsmarted everyone.
“Get in, son,” I said, choosing the peaceful option. I discreetly pressed the send button, sat on a stump, and lit a cigarette, watching my car, packed with men in striped undershirts, bounce over the ruts. Then I said aloud: “Give those guys the maroon beret?” In the exercise zone there are no random drivers.
For now they are only designated criminals; the next step is to degrade them to “vermin.” The labor camps will become camps of extermination, and “Colonel Budanov will be avenged.” Meanwhile, in the Caucasus, officials debate where to deport an entire people, and in Ingushetia an old custom of blood feud is remembered. The secret of the palace, known to only a handful, has turned into an empire erasing whole republics from the map.
Read the complete story in “The Secret of Putin’s Palace.” This page contains only a short excerpt; the book has the rest.
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