Deadly Games

At the Kursk railway terminus in Moscow two men have been kidnapped in broad daylight. One, a small-time criminal and drug addict, has already been found along the tracks. The other has simply disappeared... It looks like a simple case, but the second man is Vadim Belkin, a nationally known journalist and President Breznhnev's personal nominee for the press corps reporting on round two of SALT. Special investigator Shamrayev has only seven days in which to find him - preferably alive. The only clue is an incomplete manuscript written by Belkin. It reads like fiction, telling a strange tale of street gangs in thrall to a master criminal and drug trafficking on a vast scale. The deeper Shamrayev probes, the wider the web of intrigue and corruption stretches, implicating men in high places. And the closer he moves to the truth, the more elusive it becomes and the shorter the time at his disposal...