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In the spring of 1943, Hitler’s invading army looked for a knockout blow against the resurgent Red Army near the beleaguered Russian city of Kursk. Hitler’s generals wanted to exploit a salient in the front lines that they felt could be flanked to cause the encirclement and annihilation of nearly a million Soviet soldiers. Knowing they were outnumbered, the German generals all agreed that a two-pronged attack should commence as soon as the rainy season ended and should be conducted at breakneck speed before the lumbering Soviet Army could adjust and pivot its defenses.
Frustrating his generals, Hitler disagreed with the plan. He preferred to wait for the arrival at the front of new German main battle tanks that included the formidable Panzer 5, or “Panther” as well as the Panzer 6 “Tiger” that sported the war’s deadliest gun, the feared Flak 88. He believed these “super tanks” would play a decisive role in Kursk, and that despite enjoying numerical superiority, the Soviet tanks would be powerless to stop the German behemoths.
“Operation Citadel”, Nazi Germany’s name for the operation, was therefore delayed until July of 1943. The Soviets benefitted from the extra time afforded them by Hitler’s mandate to wait for the Tigers, by building elaborate defenses and flooding the area with some 3,500 tanks of their own. On July 5th, the biggest tank battle in the history of warfare commenced.
A week later on the northern fringe of the battle, four German Tiger tanks from the 1st SS Panzer Division moved to an elevated steppe. The commander of the lead Tiger watched in awe as a hundred Soviet T-34 tanks approached his position, threatening to break through the German lines. These four Tiger tanks were all that stood between this massive, mechanized force and the soft underbelly of the German artillery, communication, and logistical support elements that the Soviets perceived as sitting ducks.
With deadly accuracy, the 88-millimeter guns from the four Tiger tanks decimated the lead elements of the swiftly advancing T-34’s which created a bottleneck for the main thrust. Forced to swing around the burning husks, another hail of armor piercing rounds stopped the second wave of Soviet armor in its tracks. Before any of the shorter barreled T-34’s even fired a single 76.2mm round, nearly four dozen were obliterated.
Seeing the pinpoint accuracy of the German gunners, middle of the pack Soviet tank commanders decided to stand and fight and eventually began lobbing rounds at the elevated positions of the Tigers. Most shots missed, but the few that connected bounced harmlessly off the more heavily armored Tigers. An hour later, only seven T-34’s of the original hundred were able to retreat, with the other 93 reduced to scrap metal. The four Tigers were unscathed, and had Hitler been there to witness the confrontation, the scene would have confirmed his convictions that his Tiger tanks were invincible and worth the wait. Ironically, the Battle of Kursk ultimately resulted in a crushing defeat for the Germans and marked the end of Germany’s offensive operations in World War Two.
Eighty-two years later, on August 6, 2024, Ukraine shocked the world by sending over a dozen brigades into the Kursk region of Russia. Initial communications coming from regional governors in the Kursk Oblast were consistent and reported that a massive force had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The Ukrainians quickly overwhelmed the poorly trained and equipped Russian defenders and in a matter of days captured over a hundred Russian villages and towns.
In this new era of modern warfare, with the skies saturated by observation drones from both sides constantly monitoring most every meter of the frontlines, it was inconceivable to Russian military bloggers that the superior Russian Army could be caught with its pants down around its ankles. Furthermore, rather than defending Mother Russia to the death, the defenders quickly abandoned their positions or surrendered without shots fired.
In private, Russian President Vladimir Putin shook with rage at the rapid success of the Ukrainians who mocked him by referring to the attack as a “Special Military Operation”, which was the same term Putin used to describe his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine back in February of 2022. In public, he appeared unrattled, and Russian propogandists shared a similar demeanor telling the Russian citizenry to “Get your popcorn and watch our Army annihilate the khokhols”.
Meanwhile, still in Eastern Ukraine where the Russians had the upper hand and were slowly grinding out territorial gains at a high cost, Konstantin caught wind of the Ukrainian surge over the northern border into Kursk. Like the rest of the world, Konstantin fully expected an eventual counterattack by the Russian Army in Kursk, likely after repositioning its troops and resources from East Ukraine. Knowing that the fight to regain its lost territory in the Kursk Oblast would become a top priority for the Russian leadership, he told Beamer, “If you’re serious about helping me rescue my daughter, then we need to move quickly.”
A week later they were in Konstantin’s home city of St. Petersburg. After crossing the porous border on foot while the entire world was focused on Kursk, the pair stole several vehicles for transportation along the way, driving each only a few hundred kilometers before temporarily abandoning them with full tanks of gas in case they might need any of them to escape from Russia once Nadia was rescued.
Konstantin made the trip to St. Petersburg with one primary objective: to connect with Nadia’s attorney in an effort to pinpoint Nadia’s whereabouts in Moscow. Unfortunately, whenever he had attempted to call, her law firm would simply say that she was out of the office. Unable to connect by phone and wanting to remain incognito, he told Beamer they needed to find out where the attorney lived in order to approach her there.
Staking out the firm’s headquarters from their parked vehicle across the street, as the workday ended and the staff began leaving the building, Konstantin nudged the napping Beamer and told him to follow him. Before Beamer could comprehend the plan, Konstantin had a gun pulled on a janitor that was entering the building using an access card.
“Lobby cameras?” he asked the shaken man.
The janitor replied “Yes, of course.”
“Take off your uniform and give it to him,” Konstantin ordered while nodding toward Beamer, who began to comprehend Konstantin’s likely plan. A couple minutes later, Beamer was dressed in the janitor’s shirt and jacket. “What am I looking for?” he asked Konstantin who was escorting the real janitor back to their parked car.
“A company directory for the firm, with home addresses. Start at the reception desk, and if nothing’s there look in accounting or personnel”.
Just five minutes later, Beamer was crossing the street heading back to the car. He flashed a thumbs up as he got closer. Konstantin instructed Beamer to return the man’s uniform and handed the janitor a wad of cash for his silence, saying, “Like nothing happened, go do your job.”
Stuffing the cash into his pocket, the man smiled and said, “I have three other offices to clean tonight if you’re looking for more goodies or dirt.”
“We’re good tonight but I can find you if and when we need anything else,” Konstantin replied as the man walked back across the street. Beamer figured it was both a play on the man’s greed as well as a threat to keep him quiet. As Beamer climbed back into the passenger seat, he gave Konstantin a perplexed look.
“It’s how things work in St. Petersburg. You forget, this is MY city. Let me see that directory. Half an hour later, they were parked outside the attorney’s home in a posh residential area just outside the city limits. The house was dark, and it looked as if nobody was home.
“What now?” asked Beamer.
Konstantin replied, “We wait.”
“How long?” asked Beamer in an impatient tone.
“As long as it takes. Go back to sleep. We’ll take shifts,” Konstantin instructed Beamer.
As the night wore on, not only was there no activity around the house but the entire neighborhood was quiet. Konstantin caught himself dozing off several times and shook his head often to try and wake up. The effort was only partially successful and soon both Konstantin and Beamer were sound asleep.
Konstantin woke first about an hour before dawn. Looking toward the house, he saw nothing had changed. Out of his peripheral vision, something caught his eye in the rearview mirror. Suddenly, Konstantin was jolted by the reality that someone wearing a dark hoodie was sitting in the backseat. Resisting the natural urge to scream, Konstantin calmly nudged Beamer, saying “We have company.”
Groggy at first, when he turned around to see what Konstantin was referring to, Beamer saw that the mysterious person sitting in the middle of the back seat had two guns drawn, with one pistol aimed at him and the other at Konstantin. It was a woman.
“You two idiots are not very good at stakeouts,” she said, in Russian. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
Konstantin recognized her voice from prior telephone conversations.
“Hello Tasha”, Konstantin answered. “At least I assume you are Tasha. I am Nadia’s father.”
She replied, “I know who you are. But the question remains. Why are you here? And while we talk, we should leave. You two fools aren’t the only ones watching my place.”
“FSB?” Konstantin inquired as he started the car.
“That would be my guess,” Tasha replied. They’re also watching my office, but I’ve patterned their shifts. They are only slightly less stupid than you two. They abducted an associate thinking she was me, and unfortunately nobody’s heard from her since. I think they eventually realized their mistake and are once again looking for me.
By the way, you’re lucky they think you are dead (again) Konstantin. But I guess they aren’t completely sure and correctly figured if you were alive, you’d eventually show up in St. Petersburg to look for me. How about heading over to the docks. There’s a pub there that caters to the underbelly of Russian society, so we’ll blend right in. Besides, I want an Irish coffee for breakfast and will let you two fight over which one gets to buy it for me.”
Beamer smiled and thought to himself, “This gal has some rather big testicles!” When they sat down at a table in the pub and she removed her hoodie, he realized she was also good looking as hell.
After they ordered food and drink, Konstantin began pressing Tasha for information about Nadia. Before she answered, the expression on her face let Konstantin know whatever she was about to tell him would not be good news.
“Two weeks ago, she was sent to IK-2 Mordovia, the Female Penal Colony in Yavas, a small town about five hundred kilometers southeast of Moscow. That’s all I know.”
“When was the last time you spoke with her?” Konstantin asked Tasha.
She replied, “A month ago. She wasn’t aware of the impending transfer then. I only found out about it when I tried to reach her at Lefortovo and was told she’d been transferred.”
Lefortova was a medium security detention center in Moscow that typically held dissenters and political prisoners before they were transferred to other facilities.
Unfortunately for Nadia, IK-2 was a notoriously bad place to be sent. Beamer remembered that it was the prison where fellow American and woman’s basketball player Brittney Griner was incarcerated for almost a year after being caught in possession of a small quantity of medically prescribed marijuana.
The look on Konstantin’s face let Beamer know his friend’s mind was racing, trying to devise the fastest way to get to his daughter. Beamer spoke first saying, “Hold on a second Konstantin, anything we do to free her has to be carefully planned and will involve a bunch of moving parts.”
Having told Konstantin all she knew about Nadia, Tasha excused herself to use the restroom. As she vacated her seat, a muscular and heavily tattooed man sat down where she’d been sitting. Though his head was shaved, the intruder had a wiry beard…and bad breath. As if he had been invited to sit with them, the man began striking up a conversation, remarking that he had not seen the two newcomers in the pub before.
Speaking in Russian, Beamer politely replied, “My friend, we are trying to have a private conversation here. How about you tell the bartender your next drink is on me and have a nice day?”
Beamer’s attempt at cordiality didn’t sit well with the big Russian who replied, “You don’t seem to understand. You two losers are sitting at my table, in my pub in my neighborhood. Didn’t anyone tell you that when you sat down here?”
Beamer could tell Konstantin was a second away from losing his cool when he noticed a half dozen other thugs were intently following the conversation and were likely friends or associates of the troublemaker. Beamer figured he and Konstantin could take two or three of them if a fight erupted, but not six or seven. Just when it seemed a fight was about to erupt, Tasha returned to the table. As she approached, the intruder and his friends quickly departed without any further provocation, apparently frightened off by Tasha’s mere presence.
“I can’t leave you two alone for more than five minutes without you getting in trouble,” Tasha kidded, making even Konstantin smile. She continued, “So I’m coming with you.”
“To where?” inquired Konstantin.
“To get Nadia. She’s your daughter, but she is my client, and I want her out of there. So, pay up and let’s go. We need to get to Moscow first. Konstantin, whatever plan you are concocting in that feeble brain of yours to break Nadia out of prison, just forget about it. I can guarantee you that my plan is better…”
As the three left the pub, Beamer noticed that the bartender nodded and then winked at Tasha. Apparently, she was a valuable customer. Getting back into the car, Tasha caught the curious expressions her male companions subtly exchanged, and said, “The bartender is my father. His grandfather opened the pub some four decades ago. We didn’t manage to stay in business that long without developing measures to deal with troublemakers like your friends back there.”
Though he wasn’t sure about Konstantin, Beamer was glad that Tasha would apparently be joining the effort to free Nadia.