Terrorists seized a regular bus with passengers. But for some reason, the amount required by the bandits has already been delivered to the local bank. But the wounded hostage released from the bus behaves strangely. But for unknown reasons, information about negotiations between terrorists and authorities becomes widely known. Quite a lot of these “buts” will accumulate before Oleg Sokolov, who is in charge of the operation to free the hostages, realizes that the “ordinary” seizure is just a cover for much more serious crimes. In 2001, the works of Alexander Mikhailov were awarded the Prize. Konstantin Simonov.