Velvetine Sands

A tall, lean man with sharp features, dark hair, and piercing blue eyes. He wears a tailored, dark tunic that blends traditional and modern styles, with a subtle sheen that hints at high quality. His skin is lightly tanned, and he has a tattoo of a double-headed eagle beneath his collarbone, partly covered with Arabic script. An old Soviet wristwatch ticks audibly on his wrist, adding an air of mystery.

Calm, unnervingly still, always one sentence ahead of the conversation. He speaks in aphorisms, some Russian, some Quranic—never explaining which is which. He has no clear ideology but loves playing people who think they do.

Born in Soviet Georgia to a Russian military advisor and an Algerian interpreter, Alexei was trained by Soviet intelligence for cultural infiltration in Arab nations during the late ‘60s. He specialized in language immersion, religious mimicry, psychological destabilization, and deep insertion disruption protocols. After a classified Soviet mission in Syria went wrong, he was disavowed—or maybe he went rogue. Now he’s in Al-Qatara under the name “Farouq el-Khatib,” a perfect blend of Slavic precision and Bedouin fluency.