Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe had all visited here, and Petya Samanov gloried in this connection.
Until the Transition, Birdsong had been a historic landmark, open to tourists, but it had fallen into disrepair until Petya chose it for his home and headquarters. He kept an office in the White House, but it was here that he preferred to spend his time, amid the magnolias and the sweet-gum trees.
As his helicopter alighted in the field beside the mansion, Andrei admired its clever defense network. The casual visitor saw only the house and outbuildings, the barns, ponds, jumps, white fences, and tall trees; no one would discern the regiment of KGB border troops that was on duty in the bunker beneath the largest barn, or the squadron of attack helicopters less than a mile away, screened by century-old oaks. Petya could hardly have been safer in the Kremlin itself.
The hand-carved door of the graceful mansion flew open and Petya himself burst out of the vestibule, his arms outstretched. He was a tall, robust man of sixty, deeply tanned, with shrewd brown eyes, graying hair that was thinning on top, and long bushy sideburns. His quick and easy smile illuminated his face with friendly charm. He wore gray flannel trousers and a tweed jacket, as befit his role as country squire. Andrei took the steps two at a time and embraced his friend and mentor.
“My general,” he said in Russian, truly moved.
“Andrei, my dear boy,” Samanov said, in English. “It is such a delight to see you, even under these dubious circumstances. Come in, come in.”
He led the way into a huge drawing room with fires roaring at either end, where two dozen men and a few beautiful young women were drinking and talking. The men, most of them old friends from university days, gathered around Andrei. They shook his hand, embraced him, and made jokes; soon Andrei was grinning like a schoolboy, relaxing as he never could in Chicago.
The men, primarily KGB officers, were dressed in business suits and looked quite American. Andrei took the women to be callgirls—they were Russian, for security’s sake—invited by Petya for whatever moments of relaxation might occur.
“We are all here,” Petya said. “All the area advisers, and the advisers to the South Florida Space Zone and the three International Cities.”
“I hope I have not delayed you,” Andrei said.
“We would wait for you forever, Andrei,” Petya said with a wink. “Or at least another ten minutes. Come, we must begin.”
He led the way into the dining room, where his guests left drinks and women behind and took their places around a long mahogany table whose surface was so exquisitely polished that it glinted. Elaborate silver sconces adorned one wall and on the opposite wall was an electronic overlay of the U.S. Petya Samanov stood before the map, his face somber now.
“Gentlemen,” he began, speaking in Russian. “Comrades. We can all be proud. The men in this room have accomplished a peaceful occupation of a magnitude unprecedented in the history of the world. But for our efforts, what might have happened? Nuclear holocaust? Internal rebellion? We have bought time.”
His guests glanced around uncertainly, sure he had not summoned them so urgently because he wanted to praise them.
As if reading their thoughts, Petya frowned and continued. “However, much remains to be done. There is continued unrest in the Soviet Union. Moreover, there are problems here in America. Alaska has never been pacified and it is costing us ten divisions, plus an unacceptable amount of air power, just to control it. There are lesser pockets of resistance in the Rockies and West Virginia.
“You know the details; I will not belabor them. The centra! committee met yesterday in Moscow, There was, I am told, much anger and impatience. The committee demands that America be neutralized immediately.”
The men around the table were confused; America was neutralized, was it not? It was Andrei, whose intimacy with Samanov was well known, who dared speak.
“Sir. America is a country without arms or an army. There is little or no communication between areas. The people are self-occupied and dispirited. What more is wanted?”
A smile played on Petya’s lips. “Our brothers in the Kremlin fear ghosts—the ghosts of American power and independence. At yesterday’s meeting a most serious antighost measure was discussed. A certain faction proposes to explode low-yield nuclear devices upon one or more American cities, as a demonstration of our resolve.”
“Which cities, Comrade General?” one KGB officer asked.
“None in Virginia, I trust,” Samanov said dryly. “Gentlemen, the point is that we are under great pressure. Our timetables must be accelerated. The Kremlin fears that Americans may realize they have options. Not military options, of course, but they could organize and refuse to cooperate. They could unite in spirit. They could provoke us to take actions none of us wants. We must move quickly. I have a plan, the only one I believe will avert disaster. The United States of
America must cease to exist. It must be reformed, broken up into separate countries, based upon the administrative areas you now direct. Only such a demonstration of American helplessness, I am convinced, will prevent the extreme elements in the Kremlin from proceeding with their nuclear demonstration.”
There was a long, startled silence. The KGB officers, men not easily shocked, exchanged astonished glances. Again, it was Andrei who spoke. “General, we here today seem to be in a most difficult position. We must negotiate some sort of balance between those in the Kremlin who want this nation utterly prostrate, and the Americans themselves, who wish to cling to some semblance of dignity and independence.”
“Well put, Andrei,” Samanov said.
“Thank you, General, but it is only a pretty phrase. To reconcile those objectives, we need a plan that all concerned can live with.”
“And that,” said Samanov, without missing a beat, “is precisely what we have. The specific mechanism for dismantling the United States will be what we are calling the Third Continental Congress. The whole idea will be to persuade Americans that they are participating in the process, not that they are being forced. This will require tact and subtlety. We must do in a few months what took the Romans generations—we must develop an indigenous ruling class, Americans who look to us for leadership yet have the trust of their fellow citizens.”
Petya lowered his head and spoke now in a different tone. “Too often, the world has viewed us Russians as a rude, uncultured people. It is a lie! We are the nation of Tolstoi, of Chekhov, of Pushkin, of Tchaikovsky. We are a great and sensitive people. The eyes of the world are upon us, and it is our great and historic responsibility to make this occupation a humane one.”
Andrei Denisov had heard this speech, or others like it, often enough to follow along by rote. But he wasn’t, listening. He was already thinking how Petya’s plan might be implemented in his home territory,
Amanda took a seat at the back of the darkened, nearly empty auditorium just as her daughter began to dance.
Jackie seemed buoyed up by the recorded music as she gyrated masterfully across the stage alone. She’d chosen a piece by Aaron Copland for this audition— “Fanfare for the Common Man,” a raucous tone poem that was kinetic, vibrant, redolent of American myth. It called for movements that were expansive, loose-limbed, muscular, for strutting postures that might be feminine but could never be finicky. In her stark white leotard and with a single red ribbon holding back her hair, Jackie mimed a physical wisdom beyond her years. She was part dervish, part temptress. She was riveting.
When Jackie had stepped onto the stage, Amanda’s face had been unconsciously composed into the mixture of interest and support that mothers have always worn when their children performed, recited, or played a sport. But by the time Jackie turned and flipped into the handstand she’d worked so long to perfect, Amanda’s mouth had dropped slightly open, her eyes just a bit wider with the awe that anyone, parent or not, feels at a great performance. She had almost forgotten that Jackie was her daughter in those last uplifting moments of movement; she was transfixed simply by the technical expertise and deep emotion that a performer was conveying to an audience.