The time that was not beaten for questioning with worship was simply adjusted — the notes were made by hand, and a few lines were slightly changed in them, for the good of the handwriting and the figures themselves suited the possible correction. Chum, who was executed, was in reality "still" a witness, and he had not yet been reclassified as a defendant. And, no less importantly, the case was about treasury theft, not about state treason, which also radically changed the essence of what had happened.

But in this way Dolonokh himself was brought to the article on high treason and was now kept in a special isolation center of the SChK in Chum-Batu. The signal to the Church was unambiguous — the SCK would get to anyone it wanted, if necessary. And right now, Zakinhr was really hoping that this would cool their ardor in some way, at least by changing the target from Ananhr to someone else. That said, the most surprising thing was that he had yet to receive any signals from the SCK Center. No approval or reprimand. It was as if he had been given a free hand to act on the principle of "if you win, we'll join you, and if you lose, it's nothing to do with us". A possible reaction from the higher-ups, but it was particularly frightening. They clearly had their own agenda against the Inquisitors, and to expect him to straight-up hit the mark would be irrational. It was entirely possible that they'd just trade him in a couple moves, win influence a bit, and then designate more or less similar to what the status quo had been before.

But he hadn't clung to this place so tightly that he'd just become someone's pawn. And now he knew that if it came to a direct threat to him, he'd raise the stakes again. And make himself a force to be reckoned with. He was even willing to pretend to be a somewhat disconnected psycho, just to make it work… And he would certainly do that if he had to. Fabricate cases against whoever he can, accuse them of colluding with the Maquis or whoever. He'll take out his most ardent opponents quietly, and make it clear that he'll stop at nothing… That's what he'll do. After all, he's the head of the entire column, and he still has enough power….

Zakinhr looked up at the new tunnel vaults. Powerful supports holding the walls together and holding tons of concrete and earth above his head. Not long ago there had been rubble and a mass of water, brownish water mixed with chunks of cement with rebar sticking out of it. That was behind him… But for a moment, he thought he saw something dangling somewhere at the top.

It was only 7 or 8 meters there, and it seemed that some object was moving there from side to side. Shadows to the right, to the left. Is it a play of light or is something really moving? Scekist looked in the distance, then around, then turned back — everywhere was either empty or his guards were there. Nothing and no one else. And no dangling light sources… Then something rumbled behind his back.

He turned around and saw a piece of concrete rebar just a meter away from him. He looked up, and where something had just flashed, there was a small notch in the ceiling where the piece of rebar had come from.

— Fucking employees! — Zakinhr yelled. He was nearly killed by the negligence that was rampant throughout the empire, especially when someone rode horses in achieving their plans in the shortest possible time. He remembered an incident from his past and laughed in surprise.

When he first started his service in the SCS, he was entrusted with keeping an eye on one of the chiefs of the Ministry of Material Support. They had enough reason to believe that this clerk was stealing, even if only a little, but quite regularly.

He followed him very roughly — he noted all the points of his appearance, all the persons with whom he had contacts. It's all timed, coherent. Even in the framework of the table on a separate sheet. In short, the material was exhaustive.

Taking into account that the task was quite typical and did not go beyond the standards of operational work, a few freshly graduated from the academy of SSchekists were involved in it.

They said, you follow him, and you follow him. You'll see how such things are done.

Then they gave the command to detain him. There was no solid evidence against him, and the younger generation was to be taught that such things, if there was sufficient confidence, could be extracted on their own, so to speak, in the middle of the hunt.

The object was entrusted to the youngsters to take over and they were to start working with bias. Which they did. Of course, they spared no effort or expense. By the time Zakinhra and his chief arrived to take over the "work", the subject had already confessed. Looking at them, the chief nodded affirmatively, and then decided to look at the subject himself. That was where his surprise came when, instead of the original target, he saw one of the academy trainees who had been sent to observe the work of their future colleagues. They had simply mistaken the ultimate target for this failed spy.

— Fucking employees! — their boss yelled at the time. — You got the wrong guy!

Zakinhru thought it was very funny now, especially since he had given out exactly the same phrase.

— It's the same everywhere. — thought the head of the Slavic Column. — Everywhere we have the same employees…..

Inquisitor

The Samoha railroad train was traveling quite slowly. At an average speed, it was possible to get from the Corsa sector to the Deese sector in an hour and a half. They