““Korsakov turned away, sighing heavily as he made his way toward his SUV. It had been the early winter of 1997, a dark night in Dagestan when he and Pavel had met, both of them part of a Spetsnaz team assigned to a tank base at Buinask. Led by foreign mujahideen, the Chechens had struck without warning, small-arms fire and RPGs coming through the wire. He’d lost friends that night — would have died himself, if not for Pavel coming to his aid when his AK-74 jammed””