There are no former intelligence officers. Retired KGB colonel Timur Karaev learned this when he was invited to the secret organization “Shield and Sword.” The organization’s goal is to locate and eliminate defectors—traitors who gave Russia’s state secrets to foreign intelligence services. The mission assigned to Karaev became a real blow. It turned out that his recently deceased friend and colleague from the authorities, Pavel Sleptsov, was a traitor. That’s an undeniable fact. Now Timur has to find Sleptsov’s deeply hidden contact. About this person, nothing is known except his operational pseudonym—The Woodcutter…