The collegiate adviser Lykov was guilty before the authorities. The bandits killed in Odessa parents his assistant Sergei Asbestopluma. And he brought Sergei himself to the search for the murderers, and did not send him to Petersburg, as he was told. As a punishment, Lykov was sent to the Turukhansk region. From there, the escapes of exiles have become more frequent; we need to find out how they manage to disappear from such a perilous place. Arriving at the Arctic circle, the detective learns that the shoots are put on stream. And somewhere in the vicinity of Irkutsk hidden " numbers for fugitives." In them, the elite of the criminal world sit out, change their appearance, get new documents. And when the police stop looking for them, the bandits return to the big cities. No wonder Irkutsk is called the capital of fugitives. Lykov decides to go there to find and destroy the den.