Leaflets

To the north of Red Square, Moscow, Soviet Union, there was a zone that contained a building which looked like a huge cream cake, due to the square appearance and bright colors on its surface. Howbeit this building was not as lovely as it seemed, because it was the the headquarters building of Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB), namely the Committee of State Security of the Soviet Union, one of the most powerful spy organizations in the world during Cold War. KGB consisted of several bureaus, the fifth of which was responsible for dealing with various anti-government statements and actions in Soviet Union. Among all departments that formed it, especially, the Fifth Department’s obligation was to confirm and arrest producers and deliverers of anti-government but anonymous leaflets; Anatoli Petrovich Tolasov was an experienced agent in this department. As he had a pair of big ears, some colleagues of his gave him a nickname “hare”; knowing they were not malicious but merely joking, he did not dislike this nickname. In the morning of September 7, 1987, when he had just arrived at his own office in the headquarters building of the KGB, Tolasov suddenly received a notice from Ivan Dmitrievich Shebaldov, who was the head of the Fifth Department and ordered him to go to his office just right now. Daring not delay, Tolasov carried out this order immediately. “What’s the matter, head?” after arriving at Shebaldov’s office, Tolasov consulted. “A case in Tula,” answered Shebaldov, whose nose was as pointed a hawk’s beak. Tula was a city to the south of Moscow and less than 200 kilometers far away from the latter. On September 7, 1987—more exactly, only one hour before Tolasov received the notice, dozens of leaflets were discovered in Ulitsa Kauliya, a street in the east of Tula. Every of the these leaflet contained four sentences in Russian, the universal language in Soviet Union. “Local KGB agents in Tula felt themselves unable to solve this case, so they turned to me,” after briefly introducing this case, Shebaldov told Tolasov. “Now I leave this matter in your hands, because I believe in you. I hope that you won’t disappoint me.” “No problem, head,” answered Tolasov, as confident as an Olympic sprint champion who would compete with a snail. “Good,” Shebaldov praised and then gave a piece of paper to him. “The local agents will meet you in a given location. I recorded it on this paper. Carry it to avoid forgetting the location.” “Got it,” Tolasov replied and received the paper. “All right,” said Shebaldov. “You should go to Tula just right now, to solve this case as soon as possible.” “Yes!” Tolasov replied immediately. If he were entitled to choose, actually, Tolasov preferred not to leave Moscow this day. Because the next day—September 8—was his wife Eva Petrovna Tolasova’s birthday. Although Tolasov was confident of his own skills, judging from previous experience, he had to admit that he was impossible to solve this case within only one day; accordingly, he would be unable to return to Moscow to celebrate Eva’s birthday. Not surprisingly, he felt guilty for disappointing his wife. However, the dereliction of duty was more unacceptable to a loyal KGB agent. Having prepared simply, Tolasov started to drive an official car to Tula. Driving or riding a car made in the Soviet Union was not an enjoyment, because the government rarely attached importance to the non-military industry. As a result, when Tolasov was driving this car, it abnormally sounded now and then, as if it would fall apart soon. Fortunately, such problem did not really happen during the whole journey, which costed less than two hours. After arrived at the given location, Tolasov parked and then got off the car. A moment later, he saw two young men in their 20s walking towards him. Having been in front of him, one of the young men asked: “Excuse me, are you Comrade Tolasov?” “Yes, I am.” “Nice to meet you, Comrade Tolasov,” greeted the young man. “My name is Yuri Mikhailovich Chuguyev.” Then he pointed at another and introduced: “This is Akim Nikolayevich Baliyev.” Chuguyev was a thin and tall man with two bright eyes; Baliyev, a bit fatter and shorter than him, looked milder. As the reason why Tolasov came to Tula was not to travel, he did not chat with these two agents off the reel but told them: “OK, comrades, please lead me to your working place.” More than ten minutes later, Tolasov arrived at the working place of local KGB agents, which seemed to be an apartment that seemed to be extremely common in the Soviet Union. After they all sat beside a desk, from a folder, Chuguyev took out a stack of paper and gave them to Tolasov, with introducing: “These are leaflets that we discovered this morning.” Having picked up a leaflet on the top, Tolasov saw its content: To our government: Immediately end the war in Afghanistan! Let soldiers go home! Disclose full extent of the losses during the war! After checking other leaflets, Tolasov confirmed that their contents were all the same. Having returned them to the original place, he asked: “You didn’t find fingerprints on these leaflets, did you?” “Exactly,” answered Chuguyev. “So we must turn to you.” Being replied is always able to cause a person to be proud of himself or herself; Tolasov was not an exception. Proud of himself, he picked up the leaflet on the top and observed it again. As a result, he found that the paper to produce this leaflet was a plain paper extremely common in the Soviet Union. It was not a printing paper, which was firmer than a plain one. Right after this, Tolasov concluded that the leaflet was not printed but written, because the characters on it were not in a neat and orderly state. However, as the typeface looked so unique, Tolasov guessed that the producer was deliberately hiding his own handwriting, which could be an important tool to confirm his identity. After Tolasov told these viewpoints of his to the two local agents, Chuguyev replied: “I agree with you, Comrade Tolasov. What’s more, we have checked other leaflets; the typeface on them are the same as this one. In other words, these leaflets are all produced by the same person.” “Meanwhile, I guess the producer is concurrently the distributor,” Baliyev added and then explained the reason why he guessed so. “Producing such leaflets is prohibited in our Soviet Union, as well as distributing them. If the producer and the distributor are different persons, each of them will unavoidably wonder whether another will betray him; differently, when there is only one person who does this thing, he is impossible to betray himself.” “Exactly,” Tolasov said, after nodding his head to demonstrate that he agreed with Baliyev. “Now we should start to survey the suspect.” His voice was usual when speaking so; however, this task was not as usual as his voice. Although Tula was much smaller than Moscow, there were hundreds of thousands of citizens in the former. If the three agents regarded so many citizens as all suspects and surveyed every of them, the task would be certainly and unimaginably strenuous and therefore infeasible. This was why they must lock suspects more exactly. “OK, comrades,” advised Tolasov. “Let’s discuss a question: what kind of persons are the most possible to fiercely oppose a war?” Having considered for a short moment, Baliyev spoke out an answer in his opinion: “Except soldiers themselves, it should be the soldiers’ family members. As their sons, brothers and so on are possible to lose their lives during the war, these persons will desire to end the war as soon as possible.” “Absolutely right,” Tolasov supported him and said. “Let’s start to survey just right now.” The military service bureau was the department responsible for the Soviet Union’s conscription. In the afternoon of September 7, 1987, the three KGB agents arrived at the military service bureau in Tula, where the commissioner Ivan Dmitrievich Shubnikov, a tall and strong middle-aged man, welcomed them personally. “Nice to meet you, comrades,” Shubnikov greeted them. After the three agents explained the purpose, Shubnikov replied: “No problem.” Then he asked a subordinate to go to the record office to bring records of Soviet soldiers who came from Tula and was on active service in Afghanistan. After the subordinate brought all of such records, Shubnikov gave them to Tolasov, who started to view the soldiers’ information. The first soldier that he saw was Vladimir Alekseyevich Shogolev, whose birthday was August 16, 1967, while the home was located near Novomoskovskaya Ulitsa, another street in the east of Tula. “If possible, I want to borrow these records, Comrade Shubnikov,” Tolasov told the commissioner. “After we have finished the survey, I’ll return them to you.” “No problem,” replied Shubnikov. Based on the record, the three KGB agents arrived at Shogolev’s home address, which was in an ordinary residential building. After Tolasov knocked the door, however, nobody replied. “Nobody at home?” Tolasov guessed and then regarded this guess as correct. As Shogolev was only 20 years old now, his parents, usually, would be not old yet; concurrently, as this day was a working day, it was not surprising that his parents were working. Howbeit Tolasov remained wanting to know something about Shogolev’s family. Having considered for several seconds, he turned around to knock the neighbor's door and immediately heard an old man shouting: “Please wait for a moment! I’m coming!” Several more seconds later, the door was opened; the old man, standing behind the door, stuck his head out and asked: “What’s up, boys?” Tolasov was born in 1950 and therefore 37 years old in 1987; Chuguyev and Baliyev were both younger than him, while they were already adult. This was why they all could not help feeling it comical when this old man called them in this way. However, they had to admit it was not absurd, because this man, whose hair had been completely white, looked at least 70 years old. He was indeed entitled to call them “boys”, in other words. Therefore, Tolasov answered: “Uncle, we want to visit Shogolev’s family.” “He’s working now. If normal, he won’t come back until several hours later,” having replied in this way, the old man noticed something unusual and therefore questioned: “Who are you? Why do you want to visit them?” The old man’s words let Tolasov notice: while himself was talking about the soldier Shogolev, the old man was mentioning this soldier’s father. Moreover, as he questioned, Tolasov answered: “We are the KGB agents.” The reason why Tolasov answered so bluntly was that he had considered: if he and other two agents were surveying this old man, after knowing their job, the latter was so aged that he was possible to be terribly frightened and therefore risked his own life; contrarily, as they were not surveying him, he would not be so frightened. Tolasov’s analysis was correct. After hearing this answer, the old man was indeed surprised but not frightened. Having been silent for one second, he asked: “What crime did he commit?” “Not that,” Tolasov replied in a hurry. “We need his help to solve a case. And if possible, would you like to introduce something about his family to us?” “OK, come into my home,” the old man answered. “Don’t keep standing outside.” Tolasov was happy to hear the old man answering in this way, which proved that he was not hostile to them. As a result, he and other two agents thanked this old man and then entered the residence, as allowed. “What’s your name, uncle?” having sat on a chair in the parlor, Tolasov consulted the old man. “Vasily Yurievich Sazeyev,” answered the latter. After observing the residence for a while, Tolasov continued to consult: “Excuse me, Mr Sazeyev, are you living here alone?” “Yes,” answered Sazeyev. “My wife passed away two years ago; I have three children, but they have all married and therefore live in their own residences, not in this building.”