He is a condottiere - that is, a mercenary. Colonel Horn or Genrikh Shershnev, or maybe someone else. A mysterious man who came from Europe to Petrograd in the fall of 1965. Why, to whom, on what matter? There are many questions, but few answers, and those that exist are either true or not. She is a terrorist nicknamed the Devil. She introduces herself as Natalya Viktorovna Tselge, but is she the woman she claims to be? They will meet on an autumn night in the cold rain in Northern Kolomna, on the Prison Bridge, spanning the Kryukov Canal. From this, in fact, our story begins, in which there will be everything: love and hatred, betrayal and death, conspiracy, coup, war... So, the exposition: night, autumn, Petrograd, the Russian Empire. The curtain rises.