“— Stop the engine! And the papers, now!” A heavy hand slammed against the frame of my beige “Logan” car, whose window was rolled down. The old glass shivered from the impact. I didn’t check the time,
but the sun scorched the road, and the hot plastic of the dashboard burned my fingers. The air conditioning had given up in May. I had deliberately chosen the most inconspicuous car from the garage
— I was just returning from an inspection in a neighboring district, and a thick folder lay on the back seat, containing material on a fraudulent official. The hot asphalt, dust, and the strong minty scent of the chewing gum from the officer standing next to me immediately flooded the car’s interior.
“Good afternoon,” I said calmly, my hand on the scorching steering wheel. “May I ask why I’ve been stopped?”“I am the reason and the consequence!” the officer snarled, wiping the sweat off his forehead with his uniform.
The man looked to be in his forties, swollen, red-faced, dark circles under his eyes. His car blocked the road behind him, and the silhouette of a second officer moved behind the passive warning lights.
I was 46, having spent twenty years in internal security. My job was to identify unscrupulous officers who confuse the office with their own pocket. I had learned to read people from the first sentences, their eyes, their posture.
Today I was wearing a gray T-shirt and canvas pants, no makeup, my hair in a loose bun. He saw me as a simple, tired woman — the perfect target.“Give me the papers!” he tapped the door impatiently. “License, registration. We’re not here to waste time.”
“You stopped me on an open road,” I said calmly. “You didn’t introduce yourself or identify yourself. What’s going on here? Some special operation?”The officer’s eyes narrowed. This was unexpected:
usually people on this deserted stretch of road would panic and beg. My calmness threw him off.“Listen, smarty,” he leaned toward the door, almost reaching into the car. “Something tells me you drank heavily yesterday and now you’re behind the wheel?”
I smiled inside. This was the old trick: play on fear. People get nervous, swear they haven’t drunk, and he offers a “solution.”“I haven’t,” I looked him in the eyes. “Never. But if you suspect, we can record the incident,
call two witnesses, retrieve the certified device. We can do this under recording.”His face flushed red. You don’t find witnesses on a deserted, hot road.“You know the law, don’t you?” he ground his teeth, spitting onto the car.
“I’ll call a tow truck, your car goes to the impound, and you to the hospital for a blood test. Ready?”“Call it,” I shrugged. “And note that the device isn’t here.”He blew his nose like an angry beast. I took out my phone, turned on the camera, and placed it on the panel.
“What’s that?” he stepped back when he saw the red recording light.“I’m recording our interaction,” I raised my voice so he could hear clearly. “You didn’t identify yourself, you’re accusing me without cause, threatening me. State your name and rank.”
That was the final straw. A person drunk on the illusion of power couldn’t tolerate being defied.“What are you doing?!” he grabbed my license, which I held in my left hand.With a swift movement, I crushed the plastic card, tore it, and threw the pieces into the deep ditch.
“Walk, smarty!” he laughed. “Move without it, and complain all you want. Nobody will believe you.”
I remained still, my throat dry, but not from the heat. I remembered a colleague’s father, who had been almost robbed like this six months ago. An elderly man nearly collapsed, recovering slowly from the stress.
I unbuckled my seatbelt. The click was too loud. I pushed the door open; he stepped back. Crunching gravel under my shoes, I searched the winding ditch and found the fragments of my license.
I climbed back and arranged them on the hood, stylistically aligning them, and took a photo.“Film ready?” he asked mockingly.I approached him.“Name?”“Why do you care, pedestrian?” he grinned.
“Full name and rank.”“Senior Lieutenant, Ilya Savchenko. Happy now? Now disappear from my sight.”I noted every detail, then slowly pulled out my internal security ID.“Internal Security, Police. Deputy Head of Subdivision, Svetlana Juryevna Soboleva.”
The hologram’s light skimmed across his nose. He immediately went pale, his self-control vanished, jaw trembling.“You just deliberately damaged an official document, Ilya Savchenko,” I said slowly, deliberately. “Abuse of office. Threatening behavior.”
The younger colleague got out of the car, watching the scene in terror.“Name?” I asked him.“Lieutenant Roman Tumanov…” he stammered.“Your choice is simple,” I said. “Either you tell everything, or you become complicit.”
Tumanov shook, and eventually revealed all.In the distance, sirens wailed. The operational team arrived; Savchenko did not move as he was handcuffed.I reclaimed my car and drove again along the dusty road, hands loosely on the wheel.
The folder remained on the back seat. Calmness settled over me.A month later, Savchenko was removed, criminal proceedings were initiated. Tumanov received a warning and was transferred. I got my license back within 24 hours.
And I continue to travel these hot, dusty roads, in a simple T-shirt. Because sometimes the best method is to let people drunk on power believe they are standing in front of someone helpless.
