USSR, Moscow, Butlka prison.

Maxim sat on a musty-smelling bed in prison uniform and stubble, writing something on a piece of paper on his lap with a pencil bowed head.

The door was suddenly pushed open from the outside, and two men wearing Red Army uniforms with armbands with the armband "GUGB (Main Directorate of State Security, part of the NKVD NKVD, predecessor of the famous intelligence organization KGB)" walked in, stood in front of Maxim and said: "No. 3301, come with us." ”

Maxim raised his head to look at the two of them, then lowered his head again, and hastily finished what he was writing in his hand.

"Number 3301!" The two urged impatiently.

"Alright, alright." Maxim wrote the last letter on the paper, folded the paper and wrote an address on the back, then stood up, looked at the two of them and said in a pleading tone, "Two comrades, can you please help me send this letter to the address written on it?" ”

One of them stepped forward to take the letter and looked at the address on it.

is a small town located near Kiev.

"Is this your home? Who are they? ”

"Yes." Maxim nodded, "There is still an old mother and younger brother at home, and my father died ten years ago. ”

"I'll deliver it for you." The internal soldier put the letter in his pocket, "Although you have betrayed the Motherland, the great Motherland will still give you this right." ”

Maxim opened his mouth to say something, but he lowered his head and followed the two internal soldiers to the execution ground outside.

He was not the only one to be executed in Butelka prison today, and there were already 12 people kneeling on the ground before him, all of whom were the same as Aksim before they were imprisoned, the commanders of their respective units, and all of them were charged with similar crimes, either betraying the secrets of the motherland or plotting to carry out terrorist acts.

But there are a few of them that have actually done this, and most people on the scene know very well.

After seeing that the first batch of death row prisoners were all in place, the executive chief began to read out the culpability of each of them, and the atmosphere at the scene became more and more depressing.

As the document read out by the CEO drew to a close, a line of soldiers stood in front of the death row inmates, who had been relatively quiet, and the condemned inmates became excited.

They cursed Stalin, cried that they had never done what the documents said they had done, and begged the Ministry of Internal Affairs to spare them, but Maxim was the only one who knelt on the ground with his eyes closed, calmly reviewing his life.

Born in 1909, he joined the Red Army Air Force at the age of 18, and in 1930 he was sent to the Second Civil Aviation Academy in Berlin as a civil aviation pilot to study the history of aviation, the principles of flight and the use of engines, design and construction, aerodynamics, materials science and meteorology.

After three years of deteriorating relations between the Soviet Union and Germany, Maxim was forced to return home early and join the 1st Guards Fighter Regiment in Moscow as a captain, but for some time he kept up correspondence with the German friends he had made while studying in Germany until 1936.

In that year, the Spanish Civil War broke out, and his 1st Guards Fighter Regiment was ordered to send a quarter of its excellent pilots to form the Soviet Volunteer Air Force with some comrades from other aviation units to go to Spain to support the republican government.

He thoroughly learned how powerful his former classmates were, and how advanced German fighters were.

However, he did not learn in vain during his three years in Germany, although he was shot down twice, he also shot down six enemy planes, becoming one of the very few aces in the Soviet Air Force, and two of the six enemy planes he shot down were even JU87C carrier-based dive bombers piloted by German naval aviation.

For this, he was honored by both the republican and Soviet governments, and at the same time was immediately transferred back home from the dangerous front to serve as the squadron leader of a newly formed aviation squadron.

That time was the most beautiful time of his life, and Maxim, who was kneeling on the ground, smiled.

Just when he thought his future was infinitely bright, things took a turn for the worse.

By 1937, at the height of the Soviet purge, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, following Marshal Tukhachevsky, began to purge the army.

By chance, Maxim's frequent exchange of letters with his German classmates a few years earlier was learned by his political commissar, and two days later, soldiers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs threw Maxim into Moscow's Buttka prison on charges of espionage, awaiting trial.

I don't know if there were too many people waiting for trial or because he was forgotten, but in short, Maxim stayed in prison for three years, and it was not until the arrival of Christmas in the 40th year that the notice of Maxim's death sentence was issued.

And three years of prison life have made Maxim realize everything, and his attitude has changed from extreme anger at the beginning to calm now, and the only regret is that his family has been humiliated that he should not have suffered.

"I don't know how my mother and brother are doing now." Maxim whispered with his eyes closed.

"Phew!"

As more than a dozen death row inmates fell to the ground in unison, an internal soldier walked up to his chief, took out a letter from his pocket, and said, "Sir, this is a suicide note that a prisoner left to his family before he died, and he hopes that we can help him send it to his home." ”

The officer with the rank of lieutenant took the letter, looked at it twice, tore it to pieces and threw it into the sky, and said solemnly to the soldiers: "All the spies here are, who knows if their letters will be mixed with codes?" Don't tell me this stupid thing next time! Do you understand?! ”

The internal soldier glanced at the debris scattered in the wind, lowered his head and said in a low voice, "Understood......"

"Understand, go and drag the bodies of those traitors away for me with the others, I don't want to see them more." The captain waved his hand and frowned.

"Dear Mother and Brother,

Are you all right? In a month's time, the day of wheat planting will come, right? Brother, you have to help your mother.

……

In the past three years, I have accumulated a lot of things to say to you, but because the time is coming soon, I can't say anything more to you, I just hope that you will not be sad for me, and do not resent our motherland, because mistakes are always temporary.

If war breaks out one day in the future, I hope that my younger brother will follow my path and join the great Red Army to defend our great motherland in my place.

Maxim who loves you, Moscow, February 20, 1940"

Broken, white letterheads fell to the ground, making the red blood on the ground and the black boots on the blood look unusually glaring.

"Next batch!" The captain shouted at the second group of death row inmates.