Arkady attends a chess tournament with Platonov in hopes of luring Zhenya back. It works, and Zhenya once again portrays his amazing talent for the game. However, during his congratulatory match against Platonov, he suddenly concedes, citing imminent defeat, and flees. Heading outside, Arkady soon learns why: his long-lost father was watching the game. Demanding that he get half the prize money, Zhenya's father ends up shooting Arkady in the head with a defective war pistol. Arkady later learns that the man had enslaved his son in order to use his talents at chess to win money from travelers on the Trans-Siberian Railway. While Renko is recovering from the bullet wound, his overseer Zurin, having already vowed to get rid of him due to an altercation with a hired female killer later found to have connections to the Russian Patriots, is quick to try and shuffle Arkady off as health leave - any city of his choice. He expects Arkady to go down to the sunny coasts of the Black Sea and is amazed at his final choice: Tver. Knowing he is up to something, Zurin reluctantly agrees. Arkady is unsure of what he is after: Eva or Isakov. Either way, he begins to make his way around the town, planning his next move. Encountering Isakov, his American political consultants, and a melancholy Eva, he learns of "the diggers", who unearth Great Patriotic War dead either for profit or sentiment.