ДНЕВНИК ПАЛАЧА ГЕСТАПО СОШЕДШЕГО С УМА: «ОН НАЗВАЛ ТОЧНОЕ ВРЕМЯ МОЕЙ СМЕРТИ»

There was no fighting in the bunker. Not a single spent cartridge, not a drop of gunpowder soot—and the entire security service officer corps lay dead. A diary, written in a trembling hand, remained on the executioner's desk. "Tomorrow you will all die," an unarmed Russian prisoner told them. And he told them the time with frightening precision. Almost to the hour. Major Viktor Gaevoy didn't yet know all this. He lay in the snow a hundred paces from the concrete maw, his cheek pressed against the cold wood of his rifle butt, waiting for the guard to turn away. The blizzard was blowing slantingly. Snow slapped his right cheek, clumped under his collar, melted on his neck, and trickled down his tunic in an icy stream. The frost was so severe that his fingers, in his woolen gloves, went numb within minutes, and touching the exposed metal of the rifle breech with his bare hand would tear the skin right off. Gaevoy hadn't moved for twenty minutes. Nearby, slightly behind, four of his men breathed into the snow. To the left, down the slope, the crust creaked. The young man, Pilipenko, shrugged his shoulder, shaking off the snow, and his elbow sank into the crust. The crunch was brief, but in the dead white silence it cut like a gunshot. The sentry at the door straightened. He froze. He turned his head toward the sound, raised his machine gun from his hip, and stepped away from the wall. Gaevoy pressed himself into the snow and stopped breathing. His finger instinctively moved to the trigger. If the German came here, he'd have to fire, but he couldn't fire: one burst would set the entire bunker on fire. A second. Another. The sentry stood there, peering into the snowstorm with eyes watering from the wind, spat, and backed back toward the door, into the quiet. He couldn't see. Gaevoy glanced sideways at Pilipenko. He lay as white as the crust. "If you move again, I'll bury you here myself," he said silently, just with his lips. The entrance to the bunker was hidden in the slope of an abandoned quarry near Rivne. The Germans had dug it cleverly—a concrete box lined with frozen turf, two embrasures, a steel door. Intelligence had placed one guard outside. Inside, according to the liaison, there were up to twenty people. The SD Investigative Department. Analysts. Those who squeezed maps, call signs, and names out of the prisoners. The guard increasingly reached under his coat, tugging at the chain. Watch. Relief, Gayev realized. They'd be relieved soon. The second one would come in from the warmth, and then there would be two of them, and one would dive back through the door at the first rustle. There was no time to wait. "Somov," Gayev breathed out through his lips. The sergeant next to him moved his hand slightly. Understood. The sentry paced by the door, slapping his sides, squatting to keep warm. His machine gun dangled across his chest. He turned his back—to the wind, to the warmth, to the blank concrete wall. For three seconds. — Go. Somov started to walk. He didn't run—he walked, low, fast, rolling, like a wolf on a frozen crust. The snow muffled his steps. The sentry began to turn around at the fourth second—he sensed something behind him, the way animals and old soldiers sense danger. Too late. Somov jumped. The German jerked the machine gun, the belt caught on a button, and the barrel slid to the side. A short burst of bullets shot into the sky—three pops, carried away by the snowstorm. Somov reached up with his knife, under the ribs, and slammed the guard against the door with all his weight. The sentry began to snore. The German didn't fall. Wiry and strong, his hand found Somov's collar, grabbed hold, and pulled him down. Somov twisted the knife, stabbed again, lower. The sentry's heels scraped against the frozen threshold. Only then did his fingers release. Gaevoy was already on his feet. He flew toward the door, sinking knee-deep into the snow, counting as he ran: they heard the burst, which meant they knew inside, which meant they had no head start. He flew up as the sentry was still sliding down the steel, leaving a dark trail. The German looked up. His eyes weren't like those of people being killed. There was no malice in them, no fear of the knife. Something else. He was whispering something, hurriedly, breathlessly, and Gaevoy caught a fragment of it—in German. He would later decipher it through the interpreter, but even now, knowing a dozen words, he shuddered. "What's he babbling about?" Gaevoy jerked his head back. Lieutenant Katznelson, the translator, fell to his knees beside him. "Dead..." He listened intently. "'They're all dead down there.' He's talking about death. Not about us." The sentry twitched one last time and fell silent. Gaevoy looked at the door. The man guarding the outside wasn't afraid of an assault. He was eager to get out, into the cold, into the bullets—anything to avoid being stuck down there. "Explosives." The door was locked from the inside. The s...