At the Base Gate, the Guard Detained Me, While My Brother Laughed — A Few Minutes Later, the Duty Officer Lost Color

The corporal opened my car door, put his hand on his weapon, and told me that I could no longer enter this base because my identity was suspicious.

The morning was still damp. At the main gate of the military base, raindrops fell on the iron barrier and made a small, sharp sound. I was sitting behind the wheel of an old dark-blue sedan, and beside me my younger brother, Glub, was clasping his hands on his knees and looking at me with that quiet smile which had accompanied all my successes for almost thirty years.

I was wearing civilian clothes. I had deliberately left behind the military uniform, rank insignia, and ceremonial reception. I wanted to see the base as it was on an ordinary morning, before anyone polished the corridors because of me and prepared the words in advance.

In my bag lay the appointment order and an old copper compass. Father had given it to me at the age of eighteen, when I first told him that I was going into military service.

“When the wind confuses you, you will still know the direction,” he told me then.

Since then I had always carried the compass with me. It was a small thing, but when I touched its cold edge with my fingers, I remembered why I had started everything.

“Documents, please,” said the young corporal standing at the gate.

“Of course.”

I handed him the card. He put it against the device. The machine buzzed twice and a red light came on.

The corporal knitted his brows.

“The card is invalid.”

“They reissued it just recently. It probably has not appeared in the system yet. Call the duty officer.”

“Do I have to check that?”

“Yes. That is exactly why I am asking you to call.”

He did not even look toward the telephone.

“You will not enter the base.”

“I have my appointment order here.”

I took the paper out of the bag and slid it through the small window. The corporal read it, but nothing changed on his face.

“Anyone can come with a paper.”

Behind me, beside the car, Glub quietly chuckled.

“Elene, perhaps today you will not play commander after all? — he said. — People are working.”

His voice hurt me more than the corporal’s rough tone. In childhood, when I said at the family table that I had passed the exams, Glub would answer me that the state gave everyone a uniform if you stood in line long enough.

The corporal closed the window.

“Get out of the car.”

“For what reason?”

“For an additional inspection.”

“I am the person whose arrival the base leadership is expecting today.”

Glub smiled loudly.

“Here she goes again.”

I looked at him. For thirty years I had wanted him to see my path at least once. The rank of captain, the years of colonelcy, the nights spent at the border, the decisions that sometimes involved people’s lives. That was why I had brought him. I wanted him to see with his own eyes where I had reached.

But at the gate I understood that some people deny the truth even when it is standing directly in front of them.

The guards took me into a small room. There was an iron chair in the room, and on the wall a camera blinked with a red light. When the door closed, I heard the sound of the lock far too clearly.

Glub stopped behind the door.

“You played at being a boss for thirty years,” he muttered. “In the end you ended up in a cell.”

“Glub, go home.”

“At least now admit that all this was excessive.”

I placed my hands on my knees and touched the copper compass. I felt its small scratches on my fingers.

Once, at words like these, I would immediately have started defending myself. Now I felt only tiredness. As if for years I had been knocking on the same door and finally understood that no one inside intended to let me in.

Soon hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor. The door opened from outside. The duty officer entered, holding several papers in his hands. He first looked at me, then looked at the order, and the color disappeared from his face.

“Corporal,” he said in a calm but heavy voice, “do you even know who is sitting in this room?”

Corporal Yanosh looked toward me in fear for the first time. Glub’s smile also disappeared.

The duty officer snatched the keys from the corporal’s hand and came toward me. His hand reached toward the lock when someone shouted at the end of the corridor:

“Do not open it until the second order is checked…”

The duty officer’s hand stopped in the air. Everyone in the corridor fell silent. Then he took the second paper from an unknown sergeant and quickly read it.

“Who requested this inspection?” he asked.

The sergeant looked toward Glub.

“Mr. Mchedlidze said that the woman had a forged order.”

Glub’s face changed.

“I only said that there might have been a mistake.”

“That is written differently in the record,” the officer replied.

He opened the door and stepped aside.

“General, I apologize. The entire headquarters is waiting for you.”

I stood up, straightened my jacket sleeve, and took the order from the table. Yanosh stood as if the floor beneath him were slowly disappearing.

“Corporal,” I said, “why did you not call when I asked you?”

“I thought you were lying to me.”

“Did you check?”

“No, General.”

The duty officer ordered him to remain in place. Glub came over to me.

“Is all this true?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

I handed him the order.

“Read it.”

He held the paper with both hands. His eyes ran over the lines, as if every word were standing against him.

“Elene…”

“No,” I interrupted him. “First read it to the end.”

Just then the duty officer placed a small memory card on the table.

“General, this is the camera recording. You must see who called the base before your arrival…”

The duty officer took the memory card to the documents room. There was a heavy wooden table, an old monitor, and a clock hanging on the wall, whose ticking everyone could hear in the silence.

Glub stood at the door. His face no longer resembled that of the person who had joked about me a few minutes before. He darted his eyes from side to side and nervously touched the pocket of his jacket with his fingers.

“Perhaps the superiors should come first,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“This is a family matter.”

“No. Now this is a military security matter.”

The duty officer played the recording. Six o’clock in the morning appeared on the screen. Glub was standing at the gate before I got out of the car. He was talking on the telephone.

“Tell him that the general’s appointment order is forged,” his voice could be heard saying. “If she comes through the ordinary entrance, everything will be ruined.”

A second shot appeared on the screen. Glub was handing Corporal Yanosh some paper.

“My sister was dismissed years ago,” he was telling him. “Now she has returned and is deceiving everyone that she is the new commander.”

The air in the room grew heavy.

“This is not the complete recording,” Glub whispered.

“There is more,” the officer replied.

Then Glub’s voice sounded on the screen:

“If she enters the base today, my contract will be canceled. The new commander will conduct an audit and find out where the fuel money went. Just delay her until I remove the documents.”

Glub put his hand on the chair.

“I did not say that I stole anything.”

“You said it in the recording,” I answered.

“I was only afraid.”

“And you used my name so that the truth would be hidden from me.”

The duty officer spread the appointment order out in front of me. The seal, signatures, and three different security codes matched on one line.

“Elene Mchedlidze,” he said, “you have officially been appointed commander of this base. The order entered into force today at six in the morning.”

Yanosh lowered his head.

“General, I did not know.”

“You did not know, but you refused to verify it,” I said calmly.

Glub turned toward me.

“Elene, listen to me. I thought I would speak to you as a brother. There are only small errors in the fuel accounting, nothing more.”

“Then why were you trying to remove the documents?”

He had no answer anymore.

The duty officer’s telephone rang. He listened, his face changed, and he looked toward me.

“General, we have just received a message. During the night, the archive door in the warehouse was opened. And one hour has been deleted from the camera recordings…”

Glub smiled for the first time, but this smile resembled fear.

The officer added:

“Someone has already carried out the order. And if we do not get to the warehouse in time, we will never find out who was with him…”