about their achievements in battle. Its fighters were the most powerful unconventional troops in the entire Border Guard. As for Gorbachev…Gorbachev was content to let this happen, as long as the Afghan “problem” was settled, as long as it didn’t cause any disruption domestically. He wasn’t concerned that the plan “stank of Khrushchev,” as Chernenko and Brezhnev had been. Indeed, as far as he was concerned “S” was just another useful organization—he wasn’t even aware that it had originated in Khrushchev’s time. And so once again “S” was granted authority to carry out illegal assignments in secret. It eliminated targets marked for elimination. In public, Gorbachev continued shouting his slogan as before: Perestroika! Perestroika! And in December 1989, he finally pushed his “new thinking” diplomacy to the limit. A Soviet-American summit was held off the shore of Malta, on a Soviet missile cruiser named Slava. Gorbachev welcomed American President George H. W. Bush with a smile. He announced that the Soviet Union and the United States were now friends. The Cold War was over. Lasting peace had been achieved between the two states. A press conference attended by reporters from all around the world was held on December 3. All across the globe, people stared at their television screens. This was a day that would go down in the history of the twentieth century. In human history. And as for dog history…dog history…
On that same day, December 3, a secret order was issued.
“Destroy all the evidence,” read the order, which had come by way of Moscow. “Leave no trace of the top-secret operations in Afghanistan. There is no Cold War. Kill the dogs.”
“This is not 1991.”
And then the street fighting began.
This was not a rehearsal. This was no simulation in the life-sized model of an abandoned city. Eighty-two people died the first day. Among them were seven bosses in the two largest criminal organizations. Three from the Russian mafia, four from the Chechen mafia. No one was paying attention anymore to whether the bloodshed was balanced. Then there were casualties among the various criminal organizations that had started streaming into the city from all across Russia, all over Asia. Many, many casualties.
The dogs began by paying house calls. There were groups on the move with lists of the members of the mafia organizations, photographs affixed. Three or four of them. One of the groups comprised an old Slavic woman with thick glasses who was built like a barrel, a Japanese girl still in her early teens, and seven dogs. Their list had the names and addresses of the mafia headquarters, affiliated facilities, and businesses, and the names and home addresses of their leaders, along with other details. The old lady led the dogs on a leash. The girl wore a shapka, pulled down low over her forehead against the cold; her face, as she walked, wore no expression at all. She looked, somehow, like the old lady’s granddaughter. She was obese. Obese in a combative sort of way. A cold glitter shone in her eyes. She was Japanese, but not in the usual way. She was Japanese like a Hokkaido dog is Japanese. Yes, indeed: she wasn’t a person, she was a dog.
Why? Because she had a dog name.
Given to her as a sign of her legitimacy: Strelka.
House calls. They’d finish one, then go on to the next. The old lady managed the gun, the dog-girl handled the dogs. Their first target lived in a luxury apartment complex. They could make him open the door himself, or they could blast it open with the gun. The girl-dog gave the commands, sometimes in Russian, sometimes in a dog language made up solely of gestures. The dogs dashed in. Keeping low, keeping out of sight. Seven dogs entered, one in charge. He was a male. The dog that was once known as number 47, the dog the girl-dog used to call Forty-seven. He went by a different name now.
Now he was Belka. His dad had died, so he had graduated from a number to a name.
Belka sprang, killed. Fell into formation with the other six dogs, leapt instantly at the target, and it was over. Just like that.
At the same time, in another place, on the grounds of a grand estate, a guard dog was killed. Teeth ripped silently into his throat. First the dogs killed their brethren, then they killed the target’s guards, then they killed the target. In some locations the target knew immediately that he was under attack and