The work of an operations officer is unpredictable. Lev Gurov is on the trail. And in the most literal sense— the colonel is chasing a bandit fleeing through the woods. And it all started with a shootout aboard the leisure boat “Viking,” which belongs to banker Bardin. In the end, the boat sank, and Bardin’s daughter—who was having fun with friends on the “Viking”—was kidnapped. Naturally, a dollar equivalent was set as a reward for that frivolous girl. The banker decided to get his daughter back on his own, but only got a bullet and greatly complicated the operational situation. As the bandits say, they scattered. And now Colonel Kryachko works in the “stone jungles,” while Gurov runs through the night forest, wondering which tree the next burst of fire from the machine gun will come from…