Nikolaev, on the banks of the Dniester River.
At the edge of a dense thicket, a ragtag group of a dozen or so men retreated deeper into the brush while firing behind them.
Several dozen meters back, a squad of People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs soldiers, wearing blue caps and blue trousers, pursued them relentlessly.
The exchange of gunfire echoed across the wilderness.
Farther away, Viktor lowered the binoculars in his hands and turned toward an armored vehicle parked nearby.
Calling it an armored vehicle was something of an exaggeration.
Although the tracked vehicle resembled a tank and was indeed armored, its boxy hull was so small that it was difficult to think of it as one.
It didn’t even have a cannon—only a heavy machine gun mounted on top.
It was a Polish TK-3 tankette.
The Soviet Army had captured a number of them during its advance into Western Ukraine.
Since the army had little interest in these tiny vehicles, Viktor had used his authority to requisition two of them, treating them more as toys than serious combat vehicles.
Since officially establishing the operational framework of the Lviv People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, Viktor had concentrated most of his efforts on building a security force under the Regional Directorate’s command.
According to orders from above, this force was to be organized into a regiment consisting of three battalions.
The three battalions were not stationed together but were instead deployed separately in Lviv, Yavoriv, and Chervonohrad.
Viktor held the title of lieutenant regimental commander, though only in name.
The officer actually responsible for commanding the regiment was Lieutenant Kubkin, an arrangement made because Kubkin had genuine battlefield command experience.
Even so, Viktor regarded the arrangement as only temporary.
He had already submitted a report requesting approval from higher headquarters to recruit an experienced Border Guard lieutenant from the field to serve as the regiment’s permanent commander.
To Viktor, this People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs regiment was extremely important.
Over the next year or so, he intended to turn it into a truly elite force.
To achieve that goal, the first priority was finding a capable commander.
As the saying goes, “Sharpening the axe does not delay the cutting of firewood.” Although the newly established security regiment still lacked a permanent commander, it had already begun carrying out anti-bandit operations.
Just as Viktor had anticipated from the very beginning, the situation in Lviv, which had only recently come under Soviet control, was far more complicated than that of a small place like Shevchenko.
A city of hundreds of thousands of people naturally harbored every kind of problem.
To summarize the situation simply, the primary problem was that the entire Lviv region had only recently been reclaimed from Poland.
Since the 1920s, the area had remained under Polish control.
After more than a decade, Polish rule had become firmly established.
Now that the Soviet Union had retaken the region, anti-Soviet sentiment was naturally widespread, and various acts of rebellion and sabotage were bound to emerge one after another.
The second problem was public security.
The system adopted by Poland was completely different from that of the Soviet Union.
During more than ten years of corrupt Polish rule, industrial centers such as Lviv had become breeding grounds for numerous organized crime groups and all kinds of underground activities.
These were fundamentally incompatible with the Soviet system and had to be eliminated.
Another issue was the short-term intensification of ethnic tensions brought about by the change in government.
With the Polish state gone, many people believed it was finally time to settle old scores. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
As a result, violent incidents driven by ethnic conflict had become increasingly frequent in recent weeks.
At the same time, Moscow was urging the newly acquired territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus to rapidly implement collective farm reforms.
The People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs in both regions was also being pressured to intensify its anti-counterrevolutionary campaign, conduct a comprehensive population census as quickly as possible, and implement ethnic resettlement policies based on the census results.
In short, although Viktor was not the First Secretary of the Lviv Regional Committee, an enormous amount of work still fell under his responsibility.
The workload was so overwhelming that simply keeping an eye on the development of the security regiment was already difficult.
The pursuit on the outskirts of the forest, fought mainly among the dense bushes, came to an end fairly quickly.
A small portion of the recently active Polish partisan unit near Nikolaev managed to escape into the forest, successfully evading the pursuing security troops.
Although Viktor’s expression remained unchanged, he was deeply dissatisfied with the outcome.
He was dissatisfied not only with the soldiers’ performance but also with the leadership of the junior officers.
In his opinion, the regiment was still nothing more than a poorly organized rabble.
Having lost interest in the final casualty count, Viktor stepped down from the tankette without a word, crossed a patch of grass, and walked over to the jeep parked beneath a birch tree.
Although the organization had assigned him both a driver and a bodyguard, the man driving for him was still Valenka.
When Viktor returned to the jeep, Valenka looked at his expression, said nothing, and simply handed him an oval-shaped badge.
This was an identification badge issued to personnel of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs.
It was oval-shaped, bearing the emblem of a dagger crossed with the Party insignia.
The badge belonged to Viktor and had been left in the car.
Valenka had no idea where she had found it.
Viktor took the badge, pinned it to the right side of his chest, got into the jeep, and said, “Let’s go.
Head back to Nikolaev.”
To be honest, Valenka’s greatest strengths were his diligence and his ability to keep his mouth shut.
However, he wasn’t particularly sensitive to other people’s feelings, nor was he especially perceptive.
Even so, he had been working hard to improve himself recently.
For example, he now understood very well what it meant to talk less and do more.
The jeep quickly started and drove north across the open wilderness, where there were no proper roads at all.
After more than twenty minutes of rough driving, it finally entered the outskirts of Nikolaev.
Compared with Lviv, Nikolaev at this time was far less developed.
The main reason was that it had once served as Poland’s frontline city against the Soviet Union.
The People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs office in Nikolaev had only been established a week earlier.
Its director had been transferred directly from Kyiv and was named Mikhail.
As for his patronymic and surname, Viktor still didn’t know them because he had yet to receive the man’s personnel file.
Although both belonged to the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, and specifically to the Ukrainian People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, the Nikolaev office was technically subordinate to Viktor.
Even so, he was not in a position to interfere directly in its affairs.
Where there are people, there are bound to be factions, and the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs was no exception.
He wielded enormous authority, and after the recent round of promotions, Viktor had clearly become one of Serov’s protégés.
To put it bluntly, Viktor was Serov’s man.
However, even Major General Serov did not have absolute authority within the Ukrainian People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs.
He, too, had to contend with various competing factions.
At present, aside from Beria himself, none of the three most influential figures within the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs were easy to deal with.
Each constantly sought opportunities to undermine the others.
This lieutenant named Mikhail was one of the pieces deliberately placed by Serov’s rivals.
For the time being, however, Viktor did not regard this mysterious subordinate as an enemy, because he had little interest in his current position anyway.
Viktor had three objectives in coming to Nikolaev today.
The first was to inspect the progress of the security regiment stationed here.
The second was to make arrangements for Comrade Korochenko’s inspection of Nikolaev’s security work.
The third was to meet this man named Mikhail.
Now that the first objective had been completed, it was time to move on to the second.
The Korochenko mentioned here was Demyan Sergeyevich Korotchenko, a veteran member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
At present, he was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR.
In other words, he was a truly important figure.
Two days earlier, Viktor had received notice that Korotchenko would be leaving Kyiv to inspect the newly incorporated territories of Western Ukraine.
The task Major General Serov had given him was simple: ensure Korotchenko’s safety within the Lviv region at all costs.
As for the third purpose of his visit, Viktor had no intention of taking the initiative.
In other words, he would not go out of his way to meet Mikhail.
He wasn’t going to lower himself to that extent.
During his stay in Nikolaev, he intended to act as though the man simply didn’t exist.
However, if Mikhail failed to come and pay his respects before Viktor left Nikolaev, Viktor would naturally find a way to make life difficult for him.
At the very least, he intended to make the man understand who the real authority within the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs in the Lviv region was.
The jeep drove along the somewhat desolate streets of Nikolaev.
Slightly hunched over, Viktor scanned the sidewalk through the dusty window.
As the jeep passed a tram stop, his attention was drawn to two women in long dresses sitting on a bench inside the semi-open shelter.
Viktor immediately noticed their hands hanging casually at their sides.
On the middle finger of each woman’s hand was a green loop that looked like a ring.
The corners of Viktor’s mouth twitched.
He recognized at once that they weren’t real rings at all.
They were folded three-ruble banknotes wrapped around their fingers.
One shouldn’t assume that wearing a fake ring made from a banknote was merely for decoration.
It was a secret signal.
Or, more accurately, it was a price tag—a silent advertisement.