We kept our word: we had with us a decision from the Samara Prosecutor's Office, stamped and signed, to drop the criminal prosecution.

Will he keep his? Will he impose any more conditions? Will he make new demands?

Come on, road, faster... Come on, Grozny, get closer...

Suddenly, I catch myself thinking about the wrong things.

I understand why our miserable Kuropatkins forgot an entire regiment of prisoners in Chechnya. And why no one cares about the soldiers' mothers languishing on Grozny's Volnaya Street, waiting for news of their sons. And how it happened that it's still unknown how many people we lost in this war—I understand that too. And why the military prosecutor's office keeps sending arrest warrants to the home addresses of captured boys upon their return from captivity, as if they haven't heard of the amnesty. And even what's impossible to understand: why the state didn't have money to buy tickets to Moscow for three captured soldiers and two of their mothers. I don't understand something else. Why did Yuri Anisimovich Shmatov, chairman of the Pskov Regional Legislative Assembly, after rescuing his own boy, spend two weeks glued to the phone trying to rescue others, not his own, and then flew to Grozny again? I don't understand why Lecha Idigov rushes along these roads with us and worries just as much as we do? Wasn't his house in Orekhovo razed to the ground by Russian artillery? Isn't his daughter still barely speaking? I don't understand why Azamat dropped everything for a cause that, it would seem, had nothing to do with him? I am horrified to realize that I am losing my understanding of normal human feelings. I know that our government doesn't know how to be humane. Fat governors who forget their men—that's the symbol of power, not Shmatov, for whom everyone is his own—regardless of district, city, or republic.

...A turn, another turn... Ruins. Walls pierced by shells. The shadow of a former city... Grozny, home. Said...

"You can call Samara... Check that we're not deceiving you..." we tell him, handing over the papers with stamps and signatures.

"No need... I believe you."

...We pick up the guys the next morning.

To your freedom, Private Sergey Naumenko! And you, Private Konstantin Losev! And you, Warrant Officer Mikhail Lobkov from the 205th brigade's reconnaissance battalion!

The only document left to Mikhail Lobkov is a certificate stating that he was awarded the medal "For Courage." For courage in the battles for Grozny. For courage in this dirty war, which lies as a disgrace upon all of us. But what is he to blame for?..

"I still don't understand: why wasn't I shot with such a document?"—this question haunts him.

Even now, when everything is behind him and both the war, and the groans, and the blood, and the pain, and finally, the captivity, disappear beneath the wing of the airplane.

You were lucky, guys, that you managed to escape captivity, one wants to tell them. But those words don't come out. You were lucky, guys, that you stayed alive.

How do you like our air of freedom?

That's how we managed to get the first four prisoners out.

It was all unprecedented then. That's why, both the first and second time, many TV cameras awaited us in Vnukovo. The news spread throughout the country.

Later, it became a common occurrence. To this day, Major Vyacheslav Izmailov has rescued almost two hundred of our men from captivity, forgotten by everyone (I am writing these lines in November 2002).

Sometimes—it worked. Sometimes we faced utter failure.

How did it happen? In various ways, but not once did we pay the Chechen side a single kopeck.

Incidentally, on my second trip to retrieve prisoners, one morning, as I was leaving for Grozny, I ran into Lena Masyuk at the hotel, who was going to Grozny with her group. We chatted a bit, wished each other a safe journey... This assignment would prove fatal for Lena and her group: the very next day, the guys themselves would become hostages, and the probably bitterest days of their lives would begin for them. As far as I know, the NTV group, and before that, the ORT group, were freed for colossal sums of money provided by Boris Berezovsky. I am convinced that it is his fault—that prisoners became an object of buying and selling. He opened the gates of this market, for which all of us are paying to this day!