Politika (1997) Read online

  Okaaay, he thought. Talk about seeing oneself in perspective. We can add an utter and abysmal failure to master the subway fold to my list of personal shortcomings.

  It took Gordian another minute or so to finally wrestle the paper into submission. He found Nordstrum’s column midway down the Editorial/Op-Ed page. It read:

  Russia’s Ruling Troika:

  Can the Three-Headed Watchdog

  Survive Its Own Bite?

  BY ALEX R. NORDSTRUM, JR.

  In the weeks following the sudden death of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Western observers believed a showdown between opposing political forces to be a near certainty, with many fearing a coup similar to the takeover by old-guard Communist party animals which ended the Gorbachev era in 1991. The crisis, however, was averted—some would say postponed—with the formation of the provisional government currently in place. But does a war within the Kremlin seem any less inevitable now Vladimir Starinov is acting president, and Arkady Pedachenko and Andrei Korsikov have agreed to share power with him until such unspecified time as the state of national emergency is lifted, and a democratic election can be held? Again, there are those in the West who think not—and who see a popular uprising being born in the deep rifts among the three leaders.

  Indeed, the signs are impossible to ignore. While having proven himself a deft political operator, former Vice-President Starinov remains weakened by his close association with Yeltsin, whose popularity had been on the wane among the Russian people. Besieged with problems ranging from critical grain shortages to rampant AIDS and drug epidemics, Starinov has become the focus of growing discontent throughout his nation. Meanwhile, official statements to the contrary, sources in Moscow report that his arch-rival Pedachenko, who heads the nationalist Honor and Soil Party, has been refusing to meet with Starinov for weeks, citing conflicts in their schedules.

  Pedachenko has, in fact, been busy. He has made unusual use of the media to steal the political limelight and urge acceptance of his extremist views, which are unguardedly anti-American and hearken back to the “good old days” of Communist rule. As tensions between Pedachenko and Starinov seem to be leading toward a face-off, Korsikov, an old-style apparatchik, with strong support from Russia’s military, seems content to remain on the sidelines, waiting to see which of them is left standing when the dust settles.

  We can only wonder how this collection of political bedfellows, which has been unable to get beyond bickering over when to sit down together in the same room, can be expected to arrive at a consensus about major issues of national and international policy that will affect Russia’s future relationship with America and other world powers. Amid this tangle of doubt, one thing is clear: the President of the United States must reach out promptly to Starinov, whose Reformist philosophies, dedication to economic reform and strong ties to the West represent the clearest line of continuity with the previous government. Without the credibility he would gain from such support, he is almost sure to become a sacrificial lamb on the altar of Russian politics. Yet the White House has been characteristically indecisive...

  Gordian frowned and put down the paper. Trust his foreign affairs consultant not to pull any punches. An expert in the fields of history, politics, and current affairs, Nordstrum had an uncanny talent for predicting political events through an analysis of the nation’s past, and the past of the personalities involved.

  Not to mention a knack for ruining my mornings, Gordian thought.

  Well, that wasn’t quite fair. The truth was that he’d already gotten Nordstrum’s assessment of the Russian situation straight from his lips... that was, after all, what he paid him for. But it distressed him that Alex had expressed his lack of optimism in such a public forum, given that construction of the new ground station was about to begin in Kaliningrad next month... and especially in light of Starinov’s upcoming trip to Washington.

  Now Gordian raised his coffee to his lips again, realized it had gone cold, and put it down. No great loss; there’d be plenty of fresh cups to drink before the day was over.

  Shaking off his gloom, Gordian reached for his phone file, thinking he’d call Dan Parker for the skinny on how the House was reacting to Starinov’s appeal for agricultural aid. After that he’d confer with Scull and Nimec, get their take on things.

  He snatched the receiver off its cradle.

  It was 9 A.M.; time to get to work.

  THREE

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

  THE FLOUR MILL WAS SILENT.

  In his half century of life, Veli Gazon had grown all too familiar with the monstrous things nature could do when it turned hostile. He had lost two sons in the cholera epidemic just six years ago, his wife in an earthquake two decades earlier, part of his farm in the floods that had swept across the grasslands when the river overflowed its banks. The lines and wrinkles on his face were a record of the hard times he had weathered. The somber depths of his eyes spoke of survival despite bitter loss.

  He was not a man who had a great need for physical comfort, or believed it was anyone’s due. That way of thinking was alien to him; he could not understand it. An Alan tribesman whose people had been cultivating the soil for centuries, he had an inborn belief that it was enough to work and persevere with dignity. To complain, or wish for more, might only bring a curse upon oneself, and provoke the world into another cruel demonstration of its power.

  And yet today, standing here amid the empty storage bins that had once been filled with wheat; amid the huge, still framework of elevators and conveyors and scouring machines and rollers and sifters ...

  Today he felt angry. And scared.

  Very scared.

  He took a long pull on his hand-rolled cigarette, held the smoke in his lungs a moment, and let it gust out his nose. His family had managed the flour mill since the days of Soviet controls and collectives, and assumed full ownership when state factories were sold back to the territories. Combining their resources, Veli, his brother, and their cousins had paid corrupt officials many times the value of the old machinery to purchase it—and somehow, even during the worst of the previous shortages, had kept that machinery running.

  But now... now the mill was silent, shut down, its shipping floor deserted. The rail cars that normally transported the raw wheat from the farms to the mill, and sackfuls of processed flour from the mill to warehouses in the northern regions, sat clustered at the receiving station, their engines cold and dead beneath the gray October sky.

  There was no grain to process.

  Nothing.

  The chyornozyom, the fertile black earth that had nourished the crop through the most devastating of catastrophes, had failed to produce even a meager harvest. In August, when the wheat had come up stunted, some men from the Ministry of Agriculture had arrived from the capital and tested the soil and explained that it was fouled. It had been overfarmed, they said. The rain had poisons in it, they said. But what the bureaucrats had not said was that the overfarming had been ordered by their own ministry back when it would set compulsory production quotas and regulate the distribution of food. What they had not said was that the water had been contaminated by wastes from government chemical and munitions facilities.

  What they had not said before they finally left was whether there was any way to repair the damage in time for the next planting season, or even the one after that.

  Perhaps it was too late, Veli Gazon thought.

  The mill was silent, now.

  Silent as a tomb.

  There was no grain.

  Veli moistened the tips of his thumb and forefinger with a little saliva, pinched out his cigarette, and dropped the stub into his shirt pocket. Later, he would add the tobacco inside it to that of other stubs and reroll them, wasting nothing.

  There was no grain.

  Not in his village, or the neighboring one. Not in any of the fields between the Black Sea and the Caspian.

  And what that meant was that so
on...

  Frighteningly soon...

  The only things that would be plentiful in Russia were the cries of the hungry and the dying.

  FOUR

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

  “...IN RUSSIA, BREAD IS EVERYTHING,” VLADIMIR Starinov was saying in fluent but heavily accented English. “Do you understand?”

  President Ballard considered Starinov’s words.

  “I think so, Vladimir,” he said. “As best I can from where I sit, anyway.”

  Both were silent a moment.

  The Rose Garden photo ops behind them, the two men had retreated to the large, wood-paneled conference room down the hall from the Oval Office, eager to rough out an emergency aid agreement before their luncheon with congressional leaders. On Starinov’s side of the table were his minister of the interior Yeni Bashkir, known to be a strong supporter of the Communists, and Pavel Moser, a high-ranking member of the Federation Council. With the President were Vice President Stephen Humes, Secretary of Agriculture Carol Carlson, and Secretary of State Orvel Bowman. A White House interpreter named Hagen sat at the far end of the table, looking and feeling superfluous.

  Now Starinov gazed across at the President, his broad, round face sober, his gray eyes steady behind a pair of wire glasses.

  “I want to make it clear that I am speaking literally,” he said. “What matters to American voters is the availability of choices. If costs and incomes are stable, choices expand and politicians win reelection. If the economy falters, choices narrow and leaders are replaced. But the concerns of the Russian people are more basic. They do not worry about what they will eat, but whether they will eat at all.” He paused, took a deep breath. “Perhaps the best way to illustrate my point is with the exception. Have you ever seen the McDonald’s restaurant in Moscow? Men and women save for months before bringing their families there for a meal... those with jobs, that is. They stand in line for hours to get through the door, as if it opens to some strange and unimaginably wondrous place. And in a sense it does. It is an extravagance for them. A rare indulgence. And for those outside the capital, who are often without work, it is a place no one even dreams of visiting. Do you see? Bread is all they can afford. Without it millions will have nothing on their tables. Absolutely nothing. Their children will die of hunger. And fairly or not, their anger will turn toward their leaders.”

  The President leaned forward, his elbows on the table, fingers tented under his chin. “Most of all, I’d think, on a leader who appeals to the United States for assistance and comes back empty-handed.”

  Their eyes met.

  “Yes,” Starinov said. “He might indeed appear ineffectual. And, regrettably, there are elements within the government, some of whom still harbor cold war resentments toward your country, who would be pleased to use such a failure to incite the Russian electorate and gain greater standing for themselves.”

  Touché, the President thought. You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream.

  He turned to Secretary Carlson. “Carol, how much aid can we provide, and how fast could we get it moving?”

  An elegant woman of fifty-five with the inexhaustible energy and slender good looks of someone ten years younger, she pursed her lips in thought, pretending to make some hurried mental calculations. In fact, she and the President had run through this whole scenario in advance. Ballard liked, respected, and, most importantly, needed Starinov as an ally. He was prepared to do whatever it took to bolster his popularity and keep him in office. And, not to be too cynical, he liked the idea of getting food into the mouths of starving babes. Still, it was hardly beneath him to also use food as leverage—or even as a weighty club—in certain ongoing arms reduction and trade negotiations.

  “We have sufficient reserves to provide at least a hundred thousand tons of wheat, oats, and barley, with a somewhat lesser quantity of cornmeal,” she said after what seemed a reasonable pause for thought. “As far as a time frame, my best guess is we could get our first shipments out within a month. Of course, that’s assuming we can persuade Congress to go along with us.”

  The President nodded, shifting his attention to the Veep. “Steve, what about financial aid?”

  “I’ve been recommending three hundred million dollars in loans as part of an overall package. Realistically, we might be able to secure half that amount, with strict conditions attached to its use and repayment.”

  “In my opinion, it’s the distribution end of this effort that’s going to be the hardest sell,” Secretary Bowman said. “Even with the participation of U.S. troops kept to a minimum, everybody’s concerned about another Somalia-type situation.”

  Which, everyone in the room knew, was a moderately delicate way of saying a situation in which American soldiers were forced to repel violent mobs of looters trying to raid cargo from trucks and grain storehouses.

  Bashkir gave Bowman a sharp look. A dour man of middle age whose dark complexion and thick, flat features bore the somatotype of his Far Eastern ancestry, he was known in diplomatic circles for being as personally loyal to Starinov as he was outspokenly critical of his pro-Western policies.

  “With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, my government is fully capable of dispensing the food to its own citizens once it arrives,” he said. “I see no reason for direct involvement by your military.”

  “Actually, I was thinking in terms of a larger World Food Program mission.” Bowman cleared his throat. “If the U.N. contributes as expected, it’s likely to ask that my country send forces as a component of a multinational disaster relief team. We’d have great difficulty denying such a request.”

  Bashkir shifted in his chair but made no further comment.

  Noting his ramrod-straight posture, the President decided it would be a good time to cut in and break the tension.

  “Why don’t we cross that bridge when we come to it?” he said, and produced a version of the folksy smile that had served him so well on the stump. He checked his watch, then looked over at the vice president again. “Our parley with Congress starts in less than a half hour. Who can we count on for support?”

  “Senator Sommers from Montana looks strong,” Humes said. “He’s a key man on the Foreign Relations Committee, and has tremendous admiration for Minister Starinov’s efforts to preserve and advance vital economic reforms.”

  Not to mention the fact that his state’s had a bumper grain harvest for the past three years, the President thought.

  “What about on the other side?”

  “Senator Delacroix is sure to oppose. But his own party will be divided on this issue, and I doubt he’ll do much more than grumble.”

  President Ballard nodded.

  “Okay, I think we’re all ready for lunch,” he said in an enthusiastic tone. “I hope I’m not alone here in feeling very good about our prospects.”

  Starinov smiled. “Thank you, my friend. I, too, have confidence—both in your leadership, and the generosity and compassion of your people.”

  He reached across the table, gripped the President’s hand, and shook it vigorously.

  His face expressionless, Bashkir watched them in brittle silence.

  FIVE

  KALININGRAD, RUSSIA OCTOBER 26, 1999

  GREGOR SADOV MOVED THROUGH THE DARKNESS LIKE a thief in the night. But Gregor wasn’t a thief. Not on this mission. He and his team had a larger goal in mind.

  Their target loomed out of the darkness. A low, squat building, it stood less than three stories tall yet took up most of this city block. It was a warehouse, with service entrances on all sides and a loading dock that ran along most of the back. In better, more prosperous times, there had been two shifts of workers, bringing foodstuffs into the warehouse and loading it onto the trucks that passed through in a steady stream.

  But these weren’t prosperous times. These days, the warehouse was less than half-full, and had only a single shift working—a shift that wasn’t due to arrive for another three hours.

&
nbsp; Gregor held up a hand. Around him, his team merged with the shadows surrounding them and froze, waiting for his next command.

  Sadov smiled to himself. This was a new team, but they were improving. After months of intense training, the four who had survived to this point were beginning to show real promise.

  Still smiling, he reached down and unclipped the night vision goggles from his belt. Gregor had spent the last seven nights watching this warehouse, timing the guards, counting the assets arrayed against them, and laying his plans.

  There were fourteen guards, ten on irregular foot patrol within and around the building, the rest up on the rooftop. None of them were hidden. The owners of this warehouse didn’t want their guards to catch anyone; they wanted the guards to scare away thieves and looters, and so kept their presence highly visible.

  The guards were all armed alike, small-bore handguns strapped to their sides and AK-47s in their hands. Gregor was sure that they had riot guns locked in a cabinet somewhere inside as well, but he wasn’t concerned about their weapons. If he and his team found themselves in a position where the guards were likely to fire at them, they had failed in their mission.

  No, it wasn’t the weapons he was most concerned about. It was the K-9 units: one guard with a German Shepherd in each unit. The patrols appeared to be random, but Gregor had noticed that the two dog units managed to always stay on opposite sides of the building.

  That would help. It gave his team a window of approximately two and a half minutes to get in, do their work, and get out. It might be longer than that before one of the guard units passed near their exit, but that was the minimum time they would have.

  It would have to be enough.

  Slipping the goggles into place, he motioned for his team to do the same. Within moments they were set. Now all they had to do was wait.

  It didn’t take long. Gregor was watching intently, tracking the dog unit patrolling the two sides he could see. From its position, he could make a good guess as to where the other unit was.