The Killing Ground

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Wind-driven snow howled around the eaves of the buildings in the vast compound. It was late night, and the temperatures had already plunged well below zero in the Siberian outpost. Far on the other side of the camp, enclosed within a high steel mesh fence, the guards slept in safe isolation. Out in the open, where there were no guards at night, no fences, only the cold weather and thousands of miles of frozen terrain, it was no-man’s land. This was a labor camp for some of the worst, most hardened criminals in the Soviet Union. Murderers, rapists, bombers. Russia had them all, though it was never publicized.

A tall, powerfully built man dashed from the comer of one of the buildings into the shadows behind the next. He was oblivious to the cold. His survival that night would depend upon his complete concentration. He could make no mistakes. And to fail would be the biggest mistake of all.

“His name is Balachev. Big man with a scar on his right cheek,” the mission-master explained.

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