Politika (1997) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  ONE - THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW SEPTEMBER 24, 1999

  TWO - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA OCTOBER 6, 1999

  THREE - CAUCASUS REGION NEAR THE CASPIAN SEA, RUSSIA, OCTOBER 10, 1999

  FOUR - THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON, D.C. OCTOBER 26, 1999

  FIVE - KALININGRAD, RUSSIA OCTOBER 26, 1999

  SIX - KHABAROVSK TERRITORY NEAR THE RUSSIA-CHINA BORDER OCTOBER 27, 1999

  SEVEN - KALININGRAD, RUSSIA NOVEMBER 2, 1999

  EIGHT - WASHINGTON, D.C. NOVEMBER 5, 1999

  NINE - KALININGRAD REGION NOVEMBER 16, 1999

  TEN - BROOKLYN, NEW YORK NOVEMBER 28, 1999

  ELEVEN - NEW YORK CITY DECEMBER 23, 1999

  TWELVE - NEW YORK CITY DECEMBER 28, 1999

  THIRTEEN - VARIOUS LOCALES DECEMBER 31, 1999

  FOURTEEN - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA DECEMBER 31, 1999

  FIFTEEN - NEW YORK CITY DECEMBER 31, 1999

  SIXTEEN - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA DECEMBER 31, 1999

  SEVENTEEN - NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 1, 2000

  EIGHTEEN - BROOKLYN, NEW YORK JANUARY 1, 2000

  NINETEEN - NEW YORK CITY AND SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA JANUARY 1, 2000

  TWENTY - WASHINGTON, D.C. JANUARY 2, 2000 FROM THE

  TWENTY-ONE - NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 3, 2000 CALVARY CEMETERY, QUEENS

  TWENTY-TWO - MOSCOW JANUARY 6, 2000

  TWENTY-THREE - WASHINGTON, D.C. JANUARY 6, 2000

  TWENTY-FOUR - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA JANUARY 7, 2000

  TWENTY-FIVE - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA AND NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 8, 2000

  TWENTY-SIX - NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 16, 2000

  TWENTY-SEVEN - BROOKLYN, NEW YORK JANUARY 16, 2000

  TWENTY-EIGHT - BROOKLYN, NEW YORK JANUARY 16, 2000

  TWENTY-NINE - BROOKLYN, NEW YORK JANUARY 16, 2000

  THIRTY - NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 20, 2000

  THIRTY-ONE - BROOKLYN, NEW YORK JANUARY 26, 2000

  THIRTY-TWO - WASHINGTON, D.C. JANUARY 26, 2000

  THIRTY-THREE - WASHINGTON, D.C. JANUARY 28, 2000

  THIRTY-FOUR - NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 29, 2000

  THIRTY-FIVE - KALININGRAD, RUSSIA JANUARY 30, 2000

  THIRTY-SIX - THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW FEBRUARY 1, 2000

  THIRTY-SEVEN - ANKARA, TURKEY FEBRUARY 7, 2000

  THIRTY-EIGHT - CAPPADOCIA, SOUTHEASTERN TURKEY FEBRUARY 9, 2000

  THIRTY-NINE - KALININGRAD REGION FEBRUARY 9, 2000

  FORTY - KALININGRAD REGION FEBRUARY 10, 2000

  FORTY-ONE - NEW YORK CITY FEBRUARY 9, 2000

  FORTY-TWO - KALININGRAD REGION FEBRUARY 10

  FORTY-THREE - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA FEBRUARY 10, 2000

  FORTY-FOUR - MOSCOW FEBRUARY 11, 2000

  FORTY-FIVE - MOSCOW FEBRUARY 12, 2000

  FORTY-SIX - DAGOMYS BLACK SEA COAST, RUSSIA FEBRUARY 12, 2000

  FORTY-SEVEN - NEW YORK CITY KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT FEBRUARY 17, 2000

  THE BESTSELLING NOVELS OF

  TOM CLANCY

  RED RABBIT

  Tom Clancy returns to Jack Ryan’s early days—in an extraordinary novel of global political drama...

  “A wild, satisfying ride.” —New York Daily News

  THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON

  A clash of world powers. President Jack Ryan’s trial by fire...

  “Heart-stopping action... Clancy still reigns.”

  —The Washington Post

  RAINBOW SIX

  John Clark is used to doing the CIA’s dirty work. Now he’s taking on the world...

  “Action-packed.” —The New York Times Book Review

  EXECUTIVE ORDERS

  A devastating terrorist act leaves Jack Ryan as president of the United States ...

  “Undoubtedly Clancy’s best yet.”

  —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  NOVELS BY TOM CLANCY

  The Hunt for Red October

  Red Storm Rising

  Patriot Games

  The Cardinal of the Kremlin

  Clear and Present Danger

  The Sum of All Fears

  Without Remorse

  Debt of Honor

  Executive Orders

  Rainbow Six

  The Bear and the Dragon

  Red Rabbit

  The Teeth of the Tiger

  SSN: Strategies of Submarine Warfare

  NONFICTION

  Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship

  Armored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment

  Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing

  Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit

  Airborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force

  Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier

  Special Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S. Army Special Forces

  Into the Storm: A Study in Command

  (written with General Fred Franks, Jr., Ret.)

  Every Man a Tiger

  (written with General Charles Horner, Ret.)

  Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

  (written with General Carl Stiner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)

  CREATED BY TOM CLANCY

  Splinter Cell

  CREATED BY TOM CLANCY AND STEVE PIECZENIK

  Tom Clancy’s Op-Center

  Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image

  Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Games of State

  Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Acts of War

  Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Balance of Power

  Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: State of Siege

  Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Divide and Conquer

  Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Line of Control

  Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mission of Honor

  Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Sea of Fire

  Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Call to Treason

  Tom Clancy’s Net Force

  Tom Clancy’s Net Force: Hidden Agendas

  Tom Clancy’s Net Force: Night Moves

  Tom Clancy’s Net Force: Breaking Point

  Tom Clancy’s Net Force: Point of Impact

  Tom Clancy’s Net Force: CyberNation

  Tom Clancy’s Net Force: State of War

  Tom Clancy’s Net Force: Changing of the Guard

  Tom Clancy’s Net Force: Springboard

  CREATED BY TOM CLANCY AND MARTIN GREENBERG

  Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Politika

  Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: ruthless.com

  Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Shadow Watch

  Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Bio-Strike

  Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Cold War

  Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Cutting Edge

  Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Zero Hour

  Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Wild Card

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

  are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and

  any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

  establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  TOM CLANCY’S POWER PLAYS: POLITIKA

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with

  RSE Holdings, Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley edition / December 1997

  Copyright © 1997 by RSE Holdings, Inc.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-00252-0

  BERKLEY®

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY and the “B” design

  are trademarks belonging to Pen
guin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank Jerome Preisler for his valuable contribution to the preparation of the manuscript. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Larry Segriff, Denise Little, John Heifers, Robert Youdelman, Esq., Tom Mallon, Esq., the wonderful people at The Putnam Berkley Group, including Phyllis Grann, David Shanks, and Tom Colgan, and Doug Littlejohns, Frank Boosman, Jim Van Verth, Doug Oglesby, the rest of the Politika team, and the other fine folks at Red Storm Entertainment. As always, I would like to thank Robert Gottlieb of the William Morris Agency, my agent and friend. But most important, it is for you, my readers, to determine how successful our collective endeavor has been.

  —Tom Clancy

  ONE

  THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW SEPTEMBER 24, 1999

  HEADACHES, VODKA, AND ASPIRIN; ASPIRIN, VODKA, and headaches.

  The combination was enough to make anyone reel, President Boris Yeltsin thought, massaging his temple with one hand as he popped three tablets into his mouth with the other.

  He reached for the glass on his desk and took a long drink, then silently began counting to thirty, swishing the vodka in his mouth to dissolve the aspirins.

  Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, swallow. He put down the glass, lowered his head, and pressed his palms into his eyes. And then waited.

  After a little while the pain in his head eased. Not as much as on previous days, however. Not nearly. And he still felt some dizziness. Soon he would have to add another tablet to his home remedy. Four to a swallow. Or perhaps he would experiment. Increase the amount of vodka, chase down the medicine with a good, clean shot. Certainly that would make things more palatable. Still, one had to wonder about certain things. Was it possible to overdose on aspirin and alcohol? And where would it lead? Actually, he already knew that. Perhaps, before it was all over, he would again turn on the television news and see himself dancing foolishly to rock and roll music at a campaign stop, behaving for all the world like some drunken teenager.

  Yeltsin sat there at his desk with his eyes closed, the curtains drawn over his windows to block out the sunlight pouring in over the high east wall of Red Square. He wondered what the headaches, dizziness and early morning drinking said about the general state of his health. Certainly nothing good. And why not be expansive and think about its meaning vis-à-vis the state of the body politic? If, as he believed, the power of an elected president was largely symbolic in the modern world, how might the declining condition of a man who held that position be interpreted? A man who had scarcely had so much as a cold—and never had a drink during the day—in his entire life before taking office was now a man who had lost his appetite for sex but arose from bed each morning with an irresistible lust for his vodka. A man who had already spent too much time under the surgeon’s knife, he thought, absently rubbing the scar left by his last bypass surgery.

  Yeltsin straightened, opened his eyes. The bookcase opposite his desk doubled and trebled in his vision. He took a deep breath, blinking twice, but the room remained unfocused. Dear heaven, he felt ugly. Much of it, he knew, was due to the pressures of dealing with Korsikov and Pedachenko. Especially the latter. He had been infecting the nation with his rhetoric for some time... and the infection had been spreading more rapidly than ever since he’d acquired a televised platform from which to promote his extremist views. What would happen if the situation in the southern agricultural areas worsened? It was one thing for Pedachenko to rail about the corrupting influence of Western dollars, and the threat that he believed NATO—and especially the Founding Act—represented to Russian interests. These were abstractions to his audience. But hunger was another matter. Everyone was capable of understanding it. And it would not be assuaged by calming words from political rivals. Pedachenko was clever and opportunistic. He knew which buttons to push. And there was no escaping his charisma. If the dreadful projections being made about the crop failure were even close to accurate...

  Yeltsin jettisoned the thought before it could complete itself. He capped off the vodka, put it into his bottom drawer. At any minute the lights on his phone would begin to flash. His aides would arrive with their file folders and summary briefings. He would be presented with a multitude of problems, many requiring his immediate attention. Be given documents to read and sign.

  He needed to pull himself together.

  He stretched his legs, pushed back his chair, and stood. The bookshelf swelled in his eyes again. He put his hand on the edge of the desk to steady himself and waited. This time the blurriness didn’t subside. He waited some more, perspiring now, queasy and light-headed. He could hear his heart beating in his ears. The collar of his shirt suddenly seemed much too tight. It was as if all the air pressure had been let out of the room.

  What was wrong with him?

  He reached out for his phone console, thinking he would have to cancel his appointments for the next several hours. He needed to rest.

  But before Yeltsin could push the intercom button, the pain tore through his head in a blinding, jaggedly excruciating white bolt that made him stagger back from the desk, his eyes wide and bulging, his hands flying to his temples as if to keep them from blowing apart. Groaning and terrified, he propelled himself toward the phone, literally dove across the desk for it.

  His fingers were still fumbling for it when the seizures came on. He began helplessly thrashing around on the desktop, then rolled to the floor, his arms flapping with uncontrollable spasms, his hands hooked into claws.

  Yeltsin was already falling into a coma when he was discovered by his secretary ten minutes later.

  Two hours after that, agitated doctors at Michurinsky Hospital pronounced the President of the Russian Federation dead.

  TWO

  SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA OCTOBER 6, 1999

  FOR THE LONGEST TIME, ROGER GORDIAN HAD BEEN uncomfortable hearing the word “visionary” precede his name when people talked about him in the media, or introduced him at lectures and business functions. But he’d gradually acknowledged that everybody got labeled and that some labels were more useful than others. Heavyhitters in Congress didn’t make certified visionaries languish in their waiting rooms. Military procurement officials paid closer attention to their ideas than those of someone with a reputation as an ordinary fellow with a little intelligence, a strong work ethic and some old-fashioned, Wisconsin-bred entrepreneurial zeal. There was the way he saw himself, and the way other people saw him, and both had their own sort of validity. He ran with what best served his goals.

  None of which meant Gordian was inclined toward false modesty. He was proud of his success. It had taken him just five years to turn Tech-Electric, a failing electronics firm that he’d bought for a song in 1979, into a leading manufacturer of business and personal computer products. By the early eighties his company, rechristened UpLink International, had become a major government contractor specializing in satellite reconnaissance technology. Toward the end of that decade his heavy investment in research and development, and his commitment to designing a complete intelligence system for the expanding military of that era, had resulted in GAPSFREE, the fastest and most accurate recon tech on the worldwide market, and the most advanced guidance system for missiles and precision guided munitions ever devised. And all that was before he’d diversified his holdings...

  Still, you had to keep things in perspective, Gordian thought. Despite twenty years of professional accomplishments, he apparently still didn’t know how to make a marriage work. Or maybe that was something he’d forgotten along the way, as his wife Ashley believed.

  He expelled a long sigh, glancing at the oversized manila envelope that had arrived on his desk along with his usual stack of news dailies. The envelope had been overnighted from the ad firm that was designing his newest prospectus, and doubtless contained preproduction mechanicals for him to review. He would get to that in a while. First, however, there were his black coffee, a blueberry muffin, an
d the morning paper to go through.

  Gordian took his copy of the New York Times off the pile, separated the International Report from the other sections and scanned the table of contents. Alexander Nordstrum’s guest editorial was on page A36. He chewed a bite of the muffin, took a sip of coffee, set down the cup, carefully wiped his fingers on a napkin, and began flipping through the paper.

  In an interview he’d given to a televised news magazine the previous week, Gordian was asked if he spent his days in some vast electronic control center, surrounded by walls of flickering computer screens, monitoring global events on CNN and the on-line services like a technocratic Big Brother. He’d admitted to being a compulsive newsprint junkie first and foremost, despite his own contribution to—and frequent reliance on—state-of-the-art means of information access and communications. The interviewer shot the camera a skeptical and mildly accusing look, as if to let his audience know Gordian was putting them on. Gordian had known better than to try convincing him otherwise.

  As he turned to Alex’s piece, two pages spilled from the middle of the section onto his lap, lingering there briefly before fluttering to the carpet. Gordian leaned forward to gather them off the floor, almost knocking over his coffee in the process. Then he slipped them back in place. And then he realized he’d inadvertently put them in upside down, and turned them right side up.