I walked into the tavern not really knowing who it was I was looking for. All I knew was that it was nice to be sheltered from the frigid rain blowing through the streets of Karelia. It began to drizzle when I first left my hotel to come to this cramped little bar. Those 15 blocks were a long, miserable journey through the frigid Kalugan winter. I stepped over to the small fireplace and removed my soaked gloves to warm my hands. I stood there a few seconds, turning my hands slowly as if I were roasting them. I began to look around the tavern to see if I could recognize who it was I was here for. When I received the call at my hotel room earlier in the day I was greeted by a gruff voice on the other end of the line. The man told me that he knew I was looking for him and that he would meet me at this tavern at 5:30. He hung up before I even had a chance to ask his name or what he looked like. The good thing about my search was that there were only a few people in the tavern. I turned around to let the fire warm my backside and surveyed the rest of the place. In the corner by the front window, a group of five men were sharing drinks at a large, round table. A couple of older men sat at the bar on the far end of the room, chatting with the bartender. Near the door, two young men sat at a table speaking softly to one another. They, like me, seemed out of place. No one under the age of forty seemed to belong here. The tavern's décor was mostly wood and stone. The fire cast an orange glow throughout the tavern, contrasting with the deep violet I just came in from. It seemed odd that once you walk out the front door you should be greeted by a small village in the countryside and not the bustling capital of Kaluga. The final person in the tavern was a solitary man in the far corner of the room. His head was hung low, concealing his face. He seemed to be concentrating on something under the table. He sat quietly with a samovar and two tea cups on his table. He was expecting a guest. This was my man. I walked over to the table and introduced myself in Yuktobanian—of which I only knew basic phrases.

"My name is John Adler," I paused then continued in my native tongue. "I believe you contacted me earlier. I apologize for not knowing much Kalugan."

The man looked up from what had kept his attention. He was shuffling a deck of worn out playing cards. He looked at me and motioned to the seat across from him with his cards. I sat down with my back to the fire. He picked up a rubber band from the table and wrapped it around his cards, placing them in his breast pocket.

"The two languages are close enough. Would you like tea?" He replied in English.

"Yes, thank you."

"It's too cold out there for a skinny fellow like yourself," he said with a grin. He seemed to be a generation older than me. He poured me a cup of tea and continued. "Don't worry about speaking Yuktobanian. I don't speak it well either."

"Then it is you," I said, slightly startled. I don't know why I was startled. This man didn't have a ruthless background like most Tyumen Dispute veterans that I had interviewed. In fact, he was the most noble war figure I had ever come across. Perhaps that was why I felt uneasy. He sat the samovar back on the table. I took a long sip of tea and let the liquid warm my insides.

"I am Major Anton Nikolayevich Kazakov. Pleased to meet you Mr. Adler," he said. He looked me in the eyes and a slight chill crept up my back. His eyes were a steely blue color and seemed to grab me and hold me in their gaze. But they weren't the only noticeable part of his face. A thick, brown handlebar moustache sat on his upper lip, slightly hiding his mouth. He finally looked away and took a sip from his tea cup. Some liquid became caught in his moustache, which he quickly licked away. "Why do you wish to interview me? Hardly anyone knows who I am or what I did all those years ago. In fact, my actions weren't even that pivotal to the outcome of the war."

"I disagree. You were somewhat of a legend according to most of the people I've talked with."

"A legend?" he chuckled. A big grin spread across his face as he contemplated my statement. The ends of his moustache curled up and the corners of his eyes wrinkled. He laughed softly. "Nonsense. A fighter pilot can't be a legend now. The days of the noble knights of the skies are over. It's kill or be killed. It isn't jousting and there's nothing to be won afterwards except for those lucky enough to get out with their lives. Besides, I was pegged as nothing more than a traitor when it was all said and done."

I reached into my pocket and removed my notebook. "Do you mind if I take notes?"

"Go ahead. It's your story."

I flipped to a blank page in my notebook and wrote the date. I began with a physical description. Besides the eyes and the moustache, Major Kazakov had other distinguishing qualities I noticed. He was a strongly built man in a small frame. Even with his tattered jacket on I could tell that he was a very well conditioned man. He couldn't have been more than six feet tall. After I jotted down a few things I wrote in big letters FINALLY FOUND HIM at the bottom of the page.

"Well," I said to start things off. "Shall we begin?"

"I thought we had already started," he said with a chuckle as he took another sip of tea.

"I've heard stories about you and your squadron during the war. The accounts vary somewhat, but the general facts are all there in every one. You dominated the skies. How did you make such an impact?"

Kazakov looked down at his tea and took a long breath. "How much of an impact did we really make? We certainly didn't accomplish our main goal from the outset. It took another eight years to actually break free from Yuktobania's grip. At least it wasn't as bloody as the first attempt."

"Yes, the Tyumen Dispute made some headlines all across the world back then for its brutality. I remember reading the stories as a boy. The whole air force was destroyed, right?"

He looked hurt, gazing back into his tea. "Yes," he responded, gruffly. "They wiped us out. But we got a fair amount of their planes too. Can't say I'm too proud of that though. But I suppose it's better to deprive them of an opportunity to kill us any worse than they were already."

"And how many planes did you shoot down?"

"Twenty four," he replied, coldly. "But I only ever saw six parachutes." He reached into his pocket and removed the deck of cards. He unbound them and began shuffling. As Kazakov focused intently on his cards, I began writing again. His demeanor reinforced everything I had heard about his personality. He hated mentioning his fighter kills. "If I could have my way," he began again, "I'd shoot other fighters down in such a way that the pilots would live. But war doesn't allow that."

"Nevertheless, you're good."

He snorted and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. He hated to speak about his record and hated even more talking about how skilled he was. "It was nothing more than a desire to survive. Up until the war I was just a mediocre pilot that had only been on training missions. I survived based on learning how the enemy fought and tailoring my style to not let them get me. Anyone could have done it. I'm not special," he said with a frown. "I was just lucky."

Lucky as he may have been, he was still good. His eyesight was better than any other pilot in the Kalugan Air Force. He could spot a small fighter at a distance of fourteen miles on a clear day whereas other pilots usually can't see past ten. He was also terrifyingly accurate with his fighter's cannon. But that was learned more by necessity, as ammo shortages ran rampant near the end of the conflict. In addition to expert marksmanship, Kazakov proved to be a master tactician during his air force career. This proved invaluable during the end of the Dispute when Kazakov was forced to help what was left of the general air staff command. The attrition that occurred diminished the number of air force generals and so the lower ranking officers had to plan missions during those last, desperate days. One mission in particular preserved Kaluga's future.

"And what about The Evacuation? That was your plan, was it not?"

He shot a cold look my direction. Chills went up my spine as those steel eyes stabbed at me. He gulped down the last of his tea and placed the empty cup on its saucer violently. He picked up the cards and began shuffling again.

"You… did save the lives of a lot of people," I said, cautiously.

"So what?" he said coldly, staring at his hands as the cards slapped together. "If your city is under siege and you are seen leaving with a transport full of dignitaries, never to come back, are you supposed to be revered? Will people love you?"

"Those dignitaries came back and led the country to independence in a bloodless revolution. You helped make that happen."

"It doesn't matter. If they hadn't have left the country someone else would have picked up the banner." He put the cards down and leaned over the table, staring into my eyes. "I'm not out for fame or glory. I don't care what people think. But I felt like shit when I got in a plane and took off from that airport, knowing that the Yukes were going to roll right into the capital and take over and I wasn't coming back. But what choice did I have? It was either go with the last group of pilots able to fly or stay and be witness to the carnage."

His voice had grown louder than its previous volume and had attracted the attention of some of the bar patrons. He glanced around the room and regained his composure with a deep breath. "What's it called… survivor's guilt? That's probably a good way to describe my feelings."

"Sounds like you witnessed plenty of carnage earlier on to not feel guilty."

"Maybe so. It still doesn't make one feel like a hero to run away. But I knew when it was time to stop fighting. There's only so much we could do at that point. Running was the only option we had left."

He sat there, staring into the fire. I decided to bring him out of his stupor with something he enjoyed discussing.

"So what is your background? Who did you fly with and what plane did you fly?" I asked. I knew Kazakov loved technical details and I had a feeling he loved talking about his plane too. A childish grin curled his moustache.

"I was in a squadron of Sukhoi-27 air superiority fighters. They were the newest fighters in the air force and I had the pleasure of being in the first operational squadron to receive them. I switched from the MiG-23, our old interceptor that we were retiring at the time. The twenty sevens were amazing machines." He smiled as he thought about the aircraft. I knew this was his passion. "We bought them from Erusea. They were the best thing on the market at the time. Ours were delivered so hastily they didn't even have a paint job. The skin was just bare metal with a silvery, almost shiny tint to it. You could see every panel on the body. Our paint shop on the base didn't really have the time to paint them with the standard camouflage as we needed them for training right away. They put some black flashes on the wingtips and the top of the stabilizers, slapped a roundel on the wings and bort numbers under the cockpits. That was it. It was the best fighter in the world at the time. Except for those damn F-15s Grunder was producing. But the Yukes didn't have those yet. The worst we had to deal with were MiG-31s, MiG-29s and the Yukes' own Su-27s. Those MiG-29s were the worst, though."

"The MiG-29s, that's what the Yukes used in the Battle of Dimitr, right?"

"They used everything in Dimitr. They damn near threw their whole air force at us. But the ones that were there the most often were the MiG-29s."

"The 112th Fighter Squadron, right?"

"I suppose so. We always knew who they were by their paint schemes. Soot black MiGs. And those red roundel badges on the wings really stood out. No one else in the Yuke air force had black planes. And we saw more of them over Dimitr than anywhere else." He changed the subject away from Dimitr quickly. "So am I confirming anything you've heard about me so far?"

"Yes, actually. I'm learning more than I knew though."

Kazakov nodded as he picked up the cards and began shuffling once more. He seemed to accept the fact that he was a sort of living legend. He was the top scoring jet ace of his time and a masterful tactician. Yet it seemed like even Kazakov himself didn't believe it. I finally gathered up the courage to ask what I had wanted to all along.

"Could you tell me exactly what happened to you during the war?"

After a long silence Kazakov raised his head from concentrating on his cards. "I can, but we'll be here all night."

"I have plenty of paper. And what I can't write down, I'm sure to remember it."

"Well, in that case let me get more tea," Kazakov said as he stood up and headed toward the bar.