"Nothing yet!" Akim shouted back. "If anything happens, I'll contact you myself!"
The old man turned and continued on his way. Pasha watched him thoughtfully for a moment, then hurried to the car.
Naturally, Gronin didn't immediately return to the "Shelter." Instead, he and Vorobyov meandered along the pre-arranged route for a while, then hid the car and secretly watched it for several hours, checking for a tail, but there was none.
2
The year proved to be a bountiful one for spring rains. Rain fell frequently and heavily. This hampered both Gronin's men and the "wolves." The former twice arrived late to villages that had only recently been inhabited, finding fires in one case and empty houses in the other. The bandits, however, "fortunately" got stuck on a dirt road that had turned to
