FOREWORD Read online

  That thought, after a fashion, had to be going through his mind, Lewis knew. Therefore, it was just a matter of who took the first swing.

  And so it begins.

  “Anyhow, who said anything aboutme needing you?” Fatboy growled so quietly that only Lewis could hear him. “It’s my friend who has needs. Get the drift?” He leaned forward so that Lewis could feel his fetid breath on his face. Lewis sized up the overweight aggressor one last time, allowing him a final generous opportunity to walk away, but always knowing that he wouldn’t.

  “You’ve got a cute butt,” Ratboy giggled, fidgeting on the spot. He posed little threat, Lewis decided.

  Fatboy, on the other hand, not only had an obvious need to prove his masculinity, but he suffered from a serious BO condition. Unfortunately for him, that was about to become the least of his problems.

  “I get the drift,” Lewis confirmed.

  The move was so swift that nobody even saw it. Lewis fired a hard right jab, angled upwards into Fatboy’s jugular with such force that the larger man’s windpipe was virtually crushed. In the same instant, he slid off his barstool, used his spare hand to grab Fatboy’s right arm, and snapped it over his knee at an impossible angle. Before the wave of pain even hit the biker, Lewis whipped the broken arm upwards, using Fatboy’s own fist to break his nose.

  That entire sequence of moves took less than two seconds. Had Lewis been ten years’ younger, it would have been even quicker.

  Fatboy staggered backwards, clutching his throat with his left hand and distantly wondering why his other arm wasn’t responding. His eyes were wide with shock. Blood gushed from his nose. He slumped to the floor, the pain from all his various injuries hitting him simultaneously. His mouth widened as if to scream, but the damage to his windpipe prevented any sound from escaping his lips.

  Lewis’s peripheral vision caught something approaching him from his right. He instinctively pivoted on the ball of his left foot while bringing his right up with his full body weight behind it. It connected at tremendous velocity with the jaw of a previously anonymous biker who had tried to sneak up on him. The sound of crunching bone was swiftly followed by a thud as the crippled biker hit the floor, his feeble groans those of a man verging on unconsciousness.

  The other bikers backed off as a nervous collective. Sure, they could have taken him had they combined their efforts. But nobody wanted to be the first, and besides, they were no longer sure that this ragged looking Limey doctor was just another drunk. After all, you sure didn’t see many drunk doctors move that fast. Behind his intense, alert expression, Lewis sensed the question that - after a fashion - was going through their minds: Just who the hell is this guy?

  He maintained a defensive posture for a few moments, but nobody else dared to challenge him. Ratboy was nowhere to be seen.

  Lewis relaxed and looked down at Fatboy, who was still on the floor gasping, his windpipe shattered. He hadn’t wanted it to come to this. The truth of it was, he abhorred violence in all its forms. But violence had sadly become an integral part of his life, and it always seemed to find him no matter how much he tried to avoid it. Violence had made him what he was. It had taken the lives of several friends and cost him his marriage. And now here he was, trying to find solace in a bottle of Jack, and still violence had found him. He wanted to ask the bikers why they had provoked him, why they couldn’t have just left him alone. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem in any condition to answer.

  Bitter at life, at the world, but most of all at himself, he threw a fifty-dollar bill onto the bar and pushed his way past the stunned onlookers towards the exit.

  Behind him, he didn’t hear the acerbic remark that the bartender made to the semi-conscious Fatboy.

  “Nowyou need a doctor, pal.”

  THREE MONTHS LATER

  Part 1

  THE CRISIS

  I

  RUMBLINGS

  “The human race cannot coexist with nuclear weapons”

  Iccho Itoh, Mayor of Nagasaki (1995)

  THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW

  Several years after the event, somebody would note that, “World War Three began in the most peculiar of circumstances”. In fact, the terrible sequence of events that were to lead to global conflict began in the Kremlin office of the then Russian President, who could not have known that his entire life was about to come to an abrupt and premature end, or that his death would, through a perverse distortion of fate, lead to the deaths of millions more.

  His doctors were always warning him to lay off the alcohol, but what did they know about the stresses faced by the leader of the world’s largest nation? Theydidn’t have to worry about how on earth they were going to keep Russia’s eternally warring political factions from dragging the entire nation into a pit of anarchy. Neither didthey have to worry about how to pay the soldiers who insured against that very event. Or about how to placate the West, with its self-righteous implorations to stick to a suicidal economic reform program that was strangling the Russian economy. For how much longer will the people believe that better times are around the corner? Without the West’s continued support, Russia’s struggling economy - insofar as it was any longer an economy - would implode. As for the spiraling problem of crime and corruption; well, that wasn’t the doctors’ problem either, was it?

  All of these things did, however, concern Mikhail Pushkinich Godonov, President of the Russian Federation. And, whatever the doctors said, alcohol was the only thing that kept the vast responsibilities of state from driving him to insanity. He wished that they could understand that simple truth. If he gave up his one small luxury in life and capitulated to a nervous breakdown because of it, the nation might well explode into civil war as all the potential successors to the Presidential throne fought over the political carcass of a man who had led Russia for almost a decade.

  Frowning to himself, he punched a button markedIntercom, and instructed his secretary that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed for the next hour. Then he refilled his empty vodka glass, thinking,to hell with the doctors.

  The top secret report on his desk did nothing to alleviate his foul mood. It told him what he and everybody else already knew, that the war in Ukraine had been fought to a stalemate. Unsurprisingly, morale among the armed forces was at an unprecedented low. Not only were they not getting paid, but they were being humiliated by a ragtag army of nationalist conscripts in a republic that had, until quite recently, been a part of the great Soviet empire. Although Godonov - who had once been a political prisoner under Brezhnev - despised Communism with every fiber of his soul, he could sympathize with those of his fellow countrymen who longed for the good old days when the perceived might of Russia’s armed forces – always more of a false perception than a reality, he knew – had been feared throughout the world. Of course, the country once known as the USSR no longer existed apart from in history books and in the minds and memories of those who longed for a return to those good old days (not so good for some, the Russian President told himself).

  Godonov flicked to the third page of the document. It was headedAnalysis of Defection Trends - Classified . A cursory glance of the document told him that two brigade size infantry units had already switched sides to fight alongside the Ukrainian nationalists, and more were likely to follow as news of the defections spread through the ranks. Well, who can blame them? Godonov thought bitterly. The defectors were young boys, being asked to make a terrible sacrifice for a country that couldn’t even afford to pay them.

  He knew that he had to find a political solution to this conflict that would allow him to save at least some face. It was just over two years since he had first sent the expeditionary force into Ukraine following the massacre of 200 ethnic Russians by security forces in Kiev. In the abstract, it was a simple military operation designed to oust the ultra-nationalist Ukrainian government. But the realities of war weren’t abstract, and that simple operation had escalated into a full blown conflict, costing billions of rubles that the
economy couldn’t afford to spare, not to mention the lives of more than 300,000 Russian soldiers. As much as he wanted the entire mess to simply go away, he knew that if he acquiesced now, as his predecessors had been forced to in Afghanistan and Chechnya, then all those brave young men would have died for nothing. And that would open the floodgates to political turmoil the likes of which had not been seen since the 1917 Revolution. He couldn’t believe that he, of all people, had made the same mistake as Brezhnev in 1979 and Yeltsin in 1993.

  The Russian President took a swig of vodka. Perhaps the turmoil of a revolution would not necessarily be a bad thing, he mused, loosening his tie. Perhaps Russia needed to undergo a cleansing process, even though it would be bloody to the extreme. Perhaps it would be best to grant an opportunity to all the nation’s warring political factions to place their cards face up on the table so they could…

  Don’t be ridiculous. He reproached himself for the very thought. Russia had a history of turning to brutal dictators in troubled times. What if, in its hour of need, it turned to a lunatic like that rabid nationalist Viktor Ninchenko? Here was a man who in one of his saner moments had pledged to use nuclear weapons against the West if it tried to prevent him recapturing what he had termedGreater Russia ? Godonov knew that he himself would never be remembered as one of history’s great leaders, but that didn’t bother him. For better or for worse, his presence was the only thing separating Russia from anarchy at the moment. And anarchy was represented by populists such as Ninchenko.

  He emptied the glass in a single swig and poured himself another shot. In two days’ time, he was due to meet his American counterpart, who was experiencing a few political difficulties of his own. What would Godonov tell him? Russia was surviving on a purely adhoc basis, and although the fatalistic tolerance of the Russian people was legendary, it was by no means unlimited. He would use this very argument to justify his plea for increased U.S. economic assistance. What else could he do?

  Over the past few years, relations between Washington and Moscow had deteriorated to levels comparable to those of the Cold War. Much of that had to do with Russia’s intervention in the Ukraine, although the United States publicly remained neutral on the conflict. Relations had also been damaged by Godonov’s embrace of nationalist policies that had been forced on him by the State Duma. Not only was he attempting to hold the country together while seeking a resolution to the Ukrainian conflict, but he was treading a political tightrope between a nationalist dominated parliament and the liberal democracies of the west, without whose investment Russia would starve. But that investment came at a price. NATO troops were now stationed in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. More ammunition for the nationalists, he thought bitterly. He seemed to recall that the Americans had an aphorism for his predicament. Something about arock and ahard place .

  Reaching for his glass, he felt overwhelmed by a sense of claustrophobia and intense solitude. If he were so inclined, he might have cried, might have…

  Presently, the glass slipped from his fingers and shattered on the desk. He became aware of his hands shaking, failing to respond to the signals his brain was sending to them.

  From that moment, everything seemed to move in slow motion.

  The pain hit him with the force of a sledgehammer, exploding up the left side of his body and spreading across like a red hot vice being tightened around his chest. Clutching his chest, he tried to call for help, but could barely muster a gasp as his lungs refused to take in oxygen.

  Oh God. Not this, not now…

  Godonov struggled to stand upright. His legs buckled, and he collapsed to the floor in an ungracious heap. The door was over twenty feet away, but in his present condition it might as well have been in outer space. He desperately tried to drag himself across the floor, aware that not even the sound of breaking glass would have penetrated the soundproofed door. At that moment, the President felt more alone than ever, knowing that the fate of his country depended entirely on him reaching that door.

  His eyes were beginning to cloud now, and it wasn’t entirely due to his medical condition. He was scared. For himself, and for Russia. So much to do. For my country, I must not close my eyes… He managed to pull himself forward by a couple of feet, but the effort required by that single movement drained every last ounce of his remaining strength.

  Godonov rolled over onto his back, staring up at the high, gilt-carved ceiling. Like many things in this remarkable building, it provided testament to the extravagancy of the Czars. For all their shortcomings, he thought, they’d certainly had taste. He briefly wondered why he had never appreciated that until now.

  A merciful darkness encroached upon his vision as he joined them in Eternity.

  THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON D.C.

  On the other side of the world, President Edward Francis Mitchell was about to perform the singularly most unpleasant task of his career. He had been awake all night dreading the moment, but it was finally at hand. Tension was etched on his grandfatherly features as his secretary buzzed him.

  “The National Security Advisor is here to see you, sir,” she reported.

  “Send him in, Joan,” the President said, stiffening in his chair. The National Security Advisor entered the Oval Office a couple of seconds later.

  Bert Aldick – the President’s Special Advisor for National Security Affairs - had been a close friend of Mitchell’s since their days together at Harvard. As young men they had been as close as brothers, sharing apartments, belongings, even girlfriends. Indeed, Mitchell’s wife had once been Bert’s girlfriend, a fact that very few people knew.

  In the abstract, the two men were complete opposites. Aldick came from old money, the solitary heir to a banking fortune. His family had always been extremely prominent in New York society and, with several relatives still in Wall Street directorships, remained so to this day. Mitchell’s father, on the other hand, had been a police officer from Sacramento, California. Yet these social contrasts had drawn them together, each man driven by a mutual fascination with the motivations and lifestyles of society’s other half.

  After Harvard, the two men had gone their own separate ways; Aldick to join a Washington think tank, Mitchell to become an economics lecturer at UCLA. But, despite the distance between them, they had remained in touch. It was now almost thirty years since Aldick had attended a lecture by Mitchell on the limitations of interventionist economics. Although the subject hadn’t particularly interested Aldick at the time, he had been struck by the brilliance of his old friend’s oratory, the way he’d captivated his audience using skillful lingual nuances and gentle humor to draw them willingly into the substance of his logic. Immediately after that lecture, Aldick had persuaded Mitchell to try his hand in the political arena, to use his oratory skills tomake a difference and fight for the ideals that both men had harbored in their youth.

  It had taken several months of cajoling to convince Mitchell to come to Washington. When he did, Aldick introduced him to many of the capital’s most prominent figures and ensured that the Police Officer’s son was seen in all the right places with all the right faces. Within two years, Edward Mitchell had been elected to Congress; within five, he had become Governor of California.

  And now, a political lifetime later, he was three and a half years into his first term as President of the United States.

  All of which made what he was about to do all the more difficult.

  Aldick was a big man, both in terms of stature and physique. Well known in DC’s finer dining establishments, his appetite for red meat was legendary. As was his fondness for the opposite sex. There weren’t many female staff in the White House who could claim not to have been propositioned by the National Security Advisor at one time or another, and it was a source of amazement to many Washington insiders that he had avoided allegations of sexual harassment. But, in fact, many of his female conquests could be counted among his closest friends. He had a unique charm that seemed, so far, to have dissuaded any of his var
ious one-night-stands from turning against him. Most spoke about him with fondness, rather than acerbity.

  But lately, he had been looking tired and the signs of age were beginning to show on the rotund features that normally bore his trademark crooked grin. The Russia-Ukraine war had taken its toll on everybody; not least of all Aldick, who had spent much of the last six months shuttling between Moscow and Kiev, vainly attempting to negotiate a cease-fire to a conflict that was now threatening to engulf the rest of Eastern Europe. It was for that reason that U.S. troops were now stationed in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. And, because of that, relations between Washington and Moscow had reached their lowest ebb since the 1980’s.

  “Hi Ed.” Aldick couldn’t seem to muster the energy for a proper smile as he entered the Oval Office. “What gives?”

  “Take a seat, Bert.” The President’s oddly formal tone with his old friend immediately put Aldick on edge. Mitchell looked up at the two Secret Service agents flanking the door. “Could you guys leave us alone please?”

  The agents departed reluctantly. Mitchell was certain that they had the room bugged anyway, or at least had a hidden camera somewhere in the room, just in case Aldick - in a moment of blind insanity - tried to strangle the Leader Of The Free World. But they understood what was going on and, furthermore, that even a President needed to do some things in privacy. This was one such instance.

  “The Chief of Staff wanted to do this,” Mitchell began, shifting awkwardly in his Kevlar reinforced leather chair. “But I felt you should hear it from me instead.”

  “Hear what?” Aldick’s mind was racing. He tried to imagine what he could have possibly done wrong. Unlike some that he could think of, he had always served his country with conviction and hadn’t to his knowledge acted unethically or in any way that was detrimental to the interests of the American people. He prided himself on his honesty - not always a worthy trait in DC, but certainly not one deserving of the sack. Of course, there was always the matter of his various sexual liaisons, but the President had known him long enough to know exactly what he was like. Certainly, he had never seemed to consider that aspect of his friend’s behavior a serious problem before. After all, every man has his weaknesses, and women just happened to be Aldick’s. It wasn’t as if he toured the country preaching family values, leaving himself open to charges of moral hypocrisy. So…