Struggle. Retribution in the Twilight

— Not really. Rather, it is better to approach this issue with the help of Guzokh. That this mine also accepted the plague faith, and became another "parishioners" at his place. And for that we need him to be there, which is more difficult.

— So the fact that we need to capture not even one sector, but two doesn't bother you? — Cobra smiled wryly.

— I've been thinking about it for a long time myself. In a business like this, you know, appetites only grow… So no. It's not embarrassing.

— You surprised me," Cobra shook his head slightly. — You're starting to think like us… I thought I'd have to convince you now. And you'll say that the Maquis are far away, and how they will attack. And I'll suggest to you that there won't be any Maquis there, and you'll attack with our help… And you tell me that you've already thought about all this….

— We need to know their positions and forces. Plus your flanking cover. We'll do the rest. Cobra shook his head in surprise and affirmation:

— Dashing… Dashing… You mean you don't even need a gun?

— Weapons are not unreasonable. But your guns are the only weapons we don't have time to learn how to use. And pretending we use them is not an option. So if there's anything you can offer, we'd love to hear it.

— Of course. Hehehe. — Cobra drank the tea that was left in his mug. — I will offer you 80- millimeter mortars, with which we were recently shelled by my own group "Bravo", I have enough of these weapons … Let them think on them, since they are so fond of mowing under poppies….

High

Priest

Neuroch stood looking at the spot he had recently scorched with a kerosene lamp in the altar room. The carpets were changed almost immediately, along with the catapetasma, which had also been burned. The pedestal for candles and lamps was also changed, because the previous ones were slightly melted by the flames. And so much new incense was scattered in this room that nothing could remind of what had been here a couple of days ago… But Nevroh saw everything as he had left it when he left: the carpet was burning, smoke was billowing, and the gilded places of the pedestals were beginning to melt.

— Nothing passes without a trace. — The patriarch said quietly, but aloud. — Nothing can be washed, changed or rebuilt. Everything leaves its mark. And this trace is preserved forever… That's why everyone tries so hard to close their eyes to something on their own, so that they don't see it….

He thought about the fact that he had turned a blind eye too much to those lazy, full of mocking glances from the SSchekists and the imperial administration. He had taken too lightly what they thought of him and the holy Church. Too thought it all too insignificant. Empty. Worthless.

Not worthy of his attention. And time.

A time he doesn't have right now. When the C.S.C. does whatever it wants to his subordinates. Adherents of the holy faith. With Samokh… How could this happen? The Metropolitan in custody?!

First the priest Dolonoch, now Metropolitan Samoch. Will he be next? And what will be the rationale there? A warmonger? Of course. A warmonger. He almost burned down a temple. You can't go to jail. And then you could be charged with state treason. That's how they like it. Why "they"? We like it so much ourselves… Let's start a trial on someone. First he's a witness. And then he's already accused… We're no different. Except that we are for our holy faith, and they are for themselves. Themselves. Whatever they are.

That last one stopped straight in Neuroch's brain. And really, what an interesting difference.

Whatever they are… It's us, the clergy always want to be good, but it doesn't matter to the secret police. Good or bad, they're all the same. The only difference is the success of their careers. That's where our defeat in front of them comes from. We want to look good, but they don't mind recognizing us as such, while imprisoning us, as in the case of Samokh. He hasn't been charged with anything yet. They just said he was under guard in a case of special national importance….

It is an interesting "importance" to keep the Metropolitan in custody. And this despite the fact that he was accompanied by a storm of tacit resources. Where did she go? Is she under guard, too? You can say and think all sorts of things about their temper… There have been alcoholics there, too. But they know very well that for disobeying orders or betrayal, there's only one way to go, and that's without options. No one can save them, and they have nowhere to go… So where did they go then?

Another metropolitan would be useful here, at least to find out what was going on there and how bad it was. Someone who wouldn't be sorry to lose in case of trouble. And that's where old man Guzokh would have come in handy. But, as it turned out, he hadn't heard from him since his visit to the Krito sector, and it was Samokh, not he, who had given him the news….

Things went strangely with him. Guzoh didn't seem like some kind of enemy by virtue of his helplessness. He had been very diligent and conscientious about his duties for too long.

Management doesn't need people like that. They need those who are devoted to you personally, not to a cause. And it's strange that with all that experience, Guzokh didn't understand such elementary things. And he could be very influential… And all those recent problems that he had caused were only due to the desire to change him to a more loyal, and send him on vacation. No one wanted him to be excommunicated or killed. It was just a rest, so that he did not interfere, did not occupy the place needed by the patriarch. After all, there are only six metropolitans, and one should realize that if you occupy such a place, you have to live up to it. You have to have the necessary level of loyalty, not to mention following the patriarch's policy as you should.

Was he relying on his old acquaintance? Or that he helped him become patriarch? Who remembers that when you're at the top. When all priorities change. When you realize that there are more problems than there are opportunities to solve them. Who remembers about past merits when the ground is burning under your feet in the present time?

And with all this, it was impossible to change Guzokh. The old man had somehow clung to his place, and then it turned out that some of the priests were in solidarity with him. They shared his views on the service of the holy faith and even on the attitude to the Black Stone not just as a symbol of faith, but as a subject of faith… That was surprising. Where do so many idiots come from? In seminary they were taught to brainwash others, not themselves! Or did they stop seeing the difference as they got older?

Even Dolonokh was in some respects in solidarity with Guzokh. The same Dolonokh, who is now rotting in the investigative isolator of the Chechen Committee on charges of state treason. How can they be related to each other? Dolonokh has always been personally devoted to the patriarch, and then to the holy Church. And he considered service to the patriarch to be paramount, and service in the temple in Chum-Batu to be secondary. So where did it go?

This is it. That's where all these BCC problems come from. It comes from the Church. There in the CCC, they follow orders from the bottom to the top, no matter what anyone thinks. But in our Church, everyone thinks the same, but everyone does what they want. And it's called patriarchy. It should be called girl's snot, not patriarchy….

Neurochus felt uncomfortable. There was nothing left of the hatred he had had on his previous visit to this temple. One great disappointment. And not even in what surrounded him, but in himself. That he hadn't seen his own weakness when he could still dictate terms. Now it was only possible to recognize the losses before they became fatal.

Here he remembered his past warnings. Not so long ago, when he personally spoke to Metropolitan Samokh, he himself had warned him that there was a person in the Donetsk- Makeyevka group who posed a serious threat to them. That it is impossible not to feel this threat, as there is no more dangerous now. And what did he do to eliminate it, since he considered it so important?

Neuroch remembered that he had a decision, but it had slipped his mind. It was all because of those twists and turns with the CCC, who had killed Samokh. Were they the only ones who could do it? There had to be an answer to what had happened to the unspoken resource storm… And then he remembered — yes, a month ago he had sent his human assassin. Someone who could kill the prefect, and end all these experiments with human self-governance.

Chief

BSS

— Did he complain about anything? — Zakinhr asked. Did he demand anything?

— He speaks only of his need to hold services in the name of the Black Stone and to be in time for the consilium of the holy Church in Chum-batu. — replied the assistant.

When Zakinhr had first learned that Metropolitan Samoh had failed at everything he could, including his storm of unspoken resources, he had climbed up on his desk and danced for joy for several minutes, bouncing all sorts of documents, writing utensils, and stationery. Then, when he had calmed down a little, he ordered him to report to him on the current situation with the metropolitan's behavior twice a day — in the morning and in the evening, and recently he had come up with a startling idea, which he had not yet told anyone about.

— And when does he say this consilium will take place?

— In two weeks. And he says that he must be released immediately, otherwise he will not have time to travel and prepare. And then he's ready to report to the central office of the BSS in Chum- Batu.

— Wow. He's ready to come back. How quickly he changed his temper after he'd been there a week. He's not saying anything else?

— Nothing else. Except this. Thanking the guards for their service and blessing them to do their duty courageously and according to regulations.

Zakinhr nodded his head and smiled:

— He's so fucking sneaky… He's already blessing his jailers. As long as they let him go… In general, give instructions to prepare him for transportation. He should be in Lugansk in three days.

— Permission to execute?

— Come on.

When the assistant left, Zakinhr leaned back in his desk chair and looked out the window. The courtyard of the building was the plaza where the daily formation of the JFC assault troops before going to the mess hall was now taking place. They were all standing in a row, not unlike soldiers in the imperial army, and judging by the actions of the sergeants, they were on time.

That's where our advantage comes from. We're not some soldiers with lousy regulations and rules of engagement. We're an elite that follows all the rules and does it on time. And that goes for everything: routines, training, inspections, inter-unit relations. Executed precisely and on time. And not like the soldiers — all day long drawing everything on paper, how everything is beautiful, and when it comes to the combat task, so it let everything work itself out… It doesn't work like that. Either you're always ready and you do it. Or you rub points in your head and you're not ready for that reason… That's why they're so hooked on the chiwi, they're nothing without them. All they know how to do is assemble barrel artillery and blast away until the barrels are red hot. You can't get much out of it.

The chief pulled a bottle of wheat vodka out of his desk drawer and poured himself half a glass. He drank it in a gulp and leaned back in his chair again, looking at the storm troopers who were already marching out of the training ground.

Ananahr's a badass. I've been sitting here worrying about her. What happens if she gets burned or something. What to do then. Bite everybody, hold on to her place. Frame her, kill her, threaten her. It didn't take anything. Look how she knows how to do it. One time and the Metropolitan under lock and key. And as a witness, so that no one could get in trouble… What did he say to her that she could cling to? It's a little strange that we don't have those details. But that's not important right now. In three days, we'll be able to find out everything in detail.

And what a good idea, though, this personal prison. Not everyone could think of such an idea. And then we will tell everyone that you are crazy, that we could not think of creating an entire penitentiary just for the sake of one plague, even if it is so important. No one would believe it. It even sounds absurd.

And when something sounds absurd, you can do it freely and without hindrance, simply because everyone thinks that such an option is simply unacceptable. This is the kind of bonus of secret police work that was talked about in SCK school in the fourth year. That only the SCK has such capabilities, that to organize operations so large-scale and at the same time ridiculous in their conception, that they will be both successful and with a perfect alibi from someone's gloating or criticism. "Do the unthinkable and you'll get yourself an alibi." That's the way it was taught there, and marvelously, it has worked so far.

A personal prison for the metropolitan with a thousand prisoners. All but one of the prisoners who had already cooperated with the prison administration and knew who it was all for and what exactly they were there to do. It took a whole week to gather them from different parts of the Slavic Column to know for sure that all of them would act as the SCK pleased and report all actions to Samokh. Not to mention provoking him into doing something in time.

Samokh would have opened his veins if he had known where he would be taken and what would be waiting for him there. A prisoner full of understanding and attention. The kind of attention he had never had before, and would never get anywhere else. A place where everything would be focused on him alone, and only to break him completely. Crush him. Destroy him as a person. And not just so that he starts snitching on his former boss, but so that he begs for the opportunity to do so and is happy for the moment when that opportunity is given to him. That's what's waiting for him out there…..

Zakinhr poured himself another half glass and drank it immediately:

— They're nice, these priests. At first they fight like that, and then they start flattering us and pretend it never happened. That everybody's a friend. Some people call us hypocrites. We're not hypocrites, we're professional executioners. And we can't have friends. Because we are not even our own friends here… And if I make a mistake tomorrow so that I can be thrown out and take my place, they will do it without blinking an eye. Until then, they'll follow orders from and to… The wrong man was attacked by those lousy inquisitors. The wrong man.

Prefect

You can never have too many possessions. There's no such thing as too much influence. You can't have too many subordinates. And the Mountain had so much of it now that he couldn't say he didn't have enough of any of it. Just a couple of years ago it seemed to him that if he had a whole mine under his command, where he could control at least only coal production, and he would not want more. But now that he had all the power in his hands, and not one but seven mines, it seemed to him that it was not enough.

It's just crumbs. Crumbs from what he can actually do. What he's allowed to do. And what he will eventually take. For himself. Now it wasn't about doing it to make someone else feel better. Now it was about him needing it because he wants it, can have it, and deserves to have it.

Especially the last point seemed unshakable to him: he deserved it. Indeed, there was simply no one better suited for the role than him. There aren't even any candidates to consider. The entire structure of the miners' autonomy rests solely on the fact that he is in charge of it.

Therefore, when Tikhomirov, expressed to him Cobra's proposal to occupy two neighboring sectors belonging to the grouping "Yekaterinoslav-Kremenchug", the only question he had was how to achieve this goal.

The words of the category "all means are good" and "the end justifies the means" were swirling in my head in general. That was exactly what it was now. People must obey him. And exactly in proportion as he sees it, as he decides it for them. Because no one could know it better. And he had already proved it, including to himself.

If only by the example of those people he selected as suicide bombers for elevators in all his sectors. They were people who should be glad that they could die a dignified death, after which no one could reproach them for anything. Two of them were the guys who almost a year ago had fought in the canteen over a girl, and Gora had had to separate them and then organize a whole fake sabotage to strengthen the newly undermined cohesion of the miners. After that incident, they were looked at as lepers, who do not deserve to just stand silently next to each other. They had inwardly despised themselves to the point that when Hora told each of them of their new responsibilities, and what it all meant, only a thin ray of hope awoke in their eyes. A ray that for a moment allowed them to rid themselves of past mistakes.

And as practice showed, one of them had already done it by blowing himself up in the Corsa sector. It was the right choice. And that choice was made by Gora out of many people. He chose the right ones. The ones that would work properly. The right way. For him first and foremost. The Mountain. Based on the internal logic of the one who performed.

No, it's impossible to imagine any replacement for him. No one can do the job. Everyone knows that. And what's more, it was beginning to become a crime to think differently. People shut each other up at even the slightest doubt or deviation from the correctness of judgment of their leader's position. Not so much loyalty to the leader. But loyalty to his position. The way he thinks… And it was beginning to look like bigotry.

He understood perfectly well what fanaticism was, and what it was fraught with for him in the first place… In time, he would cease to perceive things objectively. In time, everything he will do will be perceived and reflected by his subordinates exclusively as the only right decision. And this in turn means that the right decisions will eventually become less and less….

But the point is also that the only way to keep it from happening was to at least start sharing power with someone. Not keep it all for yourself. Give some of it to someone else. Give someone else part of the mandate for truth. Part of being able to be sure of anything beyond the prefect's word. That was even more unacceptable than the inevitability of his own future mistakes.

Anyone who gets even a little bit of a mandate for truth, immediately begins to want to make that mandate unique. So that he can have his own one true truth. Usually it looks like commenting on something the leader did not say, but in the spirit of the leader — in other words,

occupying a vacant information field. And with the same terms, the same approach and essence, but by oneself. And this leads either to the fact that the leader has to eliminate such people physically, or just pretend that everything goes according to plan.

The first, of course, should have worked without fail, but this way there will be no good personnel left. All this political rotation can lead to nothing but a decrease in the qualifications of the management staff, where, over time, people will be measured solely on their ability to stay in their place longer. This both kills competition and inevitably reduces efficiency.

The second is a ticking time bomb. A leader who stands aside when action is needed can only be perceived as a weak leader. And no other way. Of course, many people, in order to preserve their own positions, will argue that this is not true, that the leader regulates everything secretly, that everything is under control. But defeat in this case will be just a matter of time.

That is why there can be no distribution or fragmentation of the truth mandate. Everyone thinks only as the leader says. Everyone agrees with that, and there is no need for anyone to comment on anything. There can only be those who duplicate what is said exactly as it is said. Word for word. Without distortion or clarification. Additions and subtractions. And only then we can say that the truth is united and is in the same hands. Otherwise, it will be simply impossible to explain anything to them.

Horus was now in the Korsa sector, where he had a new office. It was exactly the same as the one in the Diza sector, with the same bulky canvas with the symbol of self-government on the entire wall. It seemed safer to him in this sector, because here the exit to the surface had been essentially destroyed, and all access was left only through underground paths. And from this sector there were routes to four other sectors, and now it was more logical to be in the hub, and to equip his headquarters there.

It was not the same sleeping here, though. He had slept strangely the first few days he had been here. Several times he dreamt of Raphael, who only looked at him with a very strange and dissatisfied look. Gora asked him how he was doing, how he was feeling, how his wife and child were. And in response he received this awkward silence. It was completely unclear what it was about, and every time his thoughts went into some absurd state, raising his anxiety to the limit, Gora woke up.

He looked around, and didn't immediately remember where he was. What he was doing in this room that looked so luxurious. It seemed to him that he was still the foreman of one of the four catfish and was sleeping in the common barracks. That he had a son and daughter-in-law, and that the main task for today was to fulfill the production rate. And only a few seconds later he realized that everything was far from that.

And there was a time like that. And at that time everyone even thought that plagues were not able to move freely on the surface, sleep almost 16 hours a day and absorb only cruelty and sadism towards people. How narrow people's views can be when they have nothing to compare them to.

It turned out that the plagues move enough on the surface and sleep about as much as humans. And they are no more sadistic and cruel than ordinary people. It's just that back then the miners had seen plagues from the imperial army who were just overseers and nothing more. And human overlords are no different from them. Plagues-eschekists are quite different, and there are some who think with their heads and can even understand the need to negotiate with their opponents. The latter was the most surprising, but the agreement with Guzokh is nothing but a direct confirmation of this. And even a year ago it was unimaginable that life could change so much that agreements of this kind would become a reality.

And the interesting thing is that absolutely everyone used to think wrong. There was no one who said the phrase, "Maybe not all plagues are like that." Nobody said that. Because everyone hated the plagues fiercely, did not want to treat them in any other way than as those who should go under the ground for their crimes. Everyone wanted only revenge against the plagues at any moment, even after a thousand years, but only if it came. And this vengeance, which was a veil in their eyes, hid the secret that there were other ways to achieve their goals….

Gora turned to the canvas, the emblem of the local government, and gazed into it. It is to his credit. It is only his merit that people now have such achievements. There is an opportunity to choose, to expand, to strive for a better life for themselves. Without him, no one could have even imagined something like this. Without him, this system just wouldn't exist. And there is not a single person who would have been able to even continue it.

He remembered an incident almost ten years ago, when Kostya Bogatyi, his deputy, apparently being very sleep-deprived, had miscalculated the daily production rate, deciding that it was necessary to extract almost a quarter less than it actually was. When he discovered this in the afternoon when checking his own results, he immediately reported it to the Mountain. He looked very guilty and wanted to rush immediately to the slaughtering sector to speed up the work somehow. After all, with the incorrect distribution of work among the catfish, the punishment for the 381st was going to be much more severe than before. All these complicated calculations should have resulted in meeting all the standards, but it turned out that in fact someone would not work enough, and someone would probably be stoned to death.

Then in a hurry the miners of one of the catfish had to shift their share of production to the side of the 381st catfish in order to improve the situation somehow. This helped, but not completely. It turned out that in two catfish there was overprocessing, and in 381 there was a shortage. As a result, three miners were crippled, and one couldn't stand it and died the next day. Rich could not forgive himself for this miscalculation, and asked to be removed as deputy and sent to the front lines of the slaughter. Of course, Gora refused.

And now he was remembering that moment. The rich man could not admit that he had made a mistake. He didn't even have to falsify any facts, because there were times when miners were beaten even in case of meeting the work rate. It could have been blamed on that at least. But he confessed right away. As soon as he noticed. He confessed and informed the foreman about his own mistake, which could kill others, but not himself. And you can talk a lot about the fact that it seems to be the only right decision, but in fact not everyone does it, a smaller part does it. They confess their mistake in order to correct it as soon as possible. Regardless of what follows for them personally.

That is why Rich is now in charge of the entire economic layer of the Donetsk-Makeyevka group. And it is precisely because of that mistake, which quite possibly he still cannot forgive himself for, that he will work like a cursed man, calculate everything a hundred times and carry out any orders the prefect gives him. There is nothing like the need to rehabilitate oneself after a mistake to gain loyalty and fulfillment.

Even if you have to create the mistakes yourself… It is a very subtle mechanism, how to give tasks in such a way that the subordinate internally realizes that he is able to do it properly, but in reality is not able to do it. Here they are two main things: internal confidence in success and real impossibility to do it. It looks like a very complex combination, but in reality it all lies in the first point.

It is very important that the subordinate internally agrees with all the parameters of the task and considers them feasible, not just physically agreeing. He must believe in his own capabilities. The capabilities of his colleagues. Favorable factors. And then he will not have any contradictions in the ability to do everything in a given time.

And all this is perfectly achieved when the only truth comes from the mouth of the leader. Then the picture comes together and your own calculations begin to come true. When all the gears are absolutely sure to do what is expected of them.

Gora looked around his Corsa Sector office once more, and once more thought about the fact that the only possible mandate of truth the miners had was himself.

He got up from his desk, walked around the office, looked again at the canvas with the symbol he had once said out loud:

— You can't sit here all the time. The leader must be seen with his own eyes and then retold to others as some kind of miracle. So that people believe it's not a ghost. The leader must appear in public, no matter how much he wants to avoid it.

It was as if those words brought him back to life. As if they had been spoken by someone else who could look at it objectively. To look and say what would be enough and what would be unnecessary. It was now someone who thought he was too long in one place.

There were two men on duty at the prefect's door. The approach to the office was through a corridor that was not very long, five meters, but it turned twice, and at each turn there was another guard. The approach to this corridor passed through a checkpoint, which was a real post with loopholes and steel doors. Inside the checkpoint, there was a 40-man GBI, the prefect's personal guard, which could also perform more delicate tasks like escorting individuals to private conversations.

Gora left the office, moved along the corridor… one turn, another turn. Now the checkpoint.

A room forty by twenty meters with a second tier of the same size on the floor below, where weapons, ammunition and explosives were also stored.

— Mr. Prefect, if I may clarify. — a mine duty officer approached the Mountain. — Should we prepare a group for transportation, escort?

— I'll go over the mine facilities and nothing more.

Still, Tikhomirov came up with a good system. He introduced the distribution of responsibility according to the army principle: every day there was a mine duty officer with his own outfit and a mine officer who supervised him; there were also his own duty officers and officers in charge of the face, cleaning and transportation sectors. Everyone filed reports, and on the basis of these reports everything was checked daily by Rich's men — whether the required volumes had been completed in order to adjust the work for the next day.

And now a few more men from SMERSH counter-intelligence would keep a close eye on everyone while the prefect walked around the facility, looking at the mine's operations. He had had a rather long conversation with Tikhomirov about this. Then Gora argued that it was far-fetched, that the miners were still brothers to each other, that he was their leader, and they would not live a day without him. But Tikhomirov's argument covered everything else — one attempt had already been made, and to hope for the failure of the next one was like playing Russian roulette. Gora even joked at the time that it was good that it was not Caucasian, where everything is the other way around. In Russian roulette the drum is empty except for one cartridge, in Caucasian roulette the whole drum is loaded except for one empty slot.