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As the rest of the men in the room noticed the half a dozen armed guards standing just outside the office, they all started to look as surprised as Bortnikov.

Gromley barely managed to hide a smile as he sat down at the table cavalierly and addressed the group, “President Fradkov has just suffered a heart attack and died.”

As several of the men gasped in shock, Gromley pulled a pistol outfitted with a silencer out of his jacket, and shot director Bortnikov in the head. Before anyone else in the room could respond in any way, he fired off two more bullets, shooting General Gerasimov and General Sergun, killing them instantly. He motioned to the others, insisting that they stay calm and seated. The guards that had been standing outside the room stepped in and immediately began to move the bodies of the men Gromley had just shot.

Petr calmly walked over to the head of the table, placing the pistol down in front of him as he took a seat. He calmly announced, “A change of leadership has been called for, and I have stepped in to implement it. The rest of you sitting here have been determined to not have been a part of the corruption at the core of this government. You will be allowed to live so long as you do as you are told.”

The others in the room let out a collective sigh of relief.

“It has been determined that I should assume control of the Russian Federation. I have the full backing of the men who matter, and you will either fall in line and support me and this government, or you may leave. If you stay, there is no turning back, and no questioning of my orders.” Petr’s statement made it sound like he was giving everyone a chance to leave… of course, no one left. To leave would have meant a bullet in the back of the head.

Seeing that he had their undivided attention, Gromley snapped his fingers, letting the guards know to send in the others. Eight other men in dark suits, some known and others unknown to the men at the table, walked in and sat down at the empty seats and opened their tablets, ready to begin work.

“Effective immediately, Russia is stopping our work on the Pan Asian Alliance. We are not going to join the Chinese and become a puppet to them. Russia will not surrender its sovereignty to a ruling committee.”

Petr gestured towards a few of the others in the room as he began, “These three men are going to handle the negotiations with the Chinese, and will convey our decision to not continue with the alliance.”

Those three men nodded, and then proceeded to get up and leave the room, heading out to implement their tasks.

“The loss of the Kola Peninsula has placed our country in a precarious position. The Americans have once again surprised the world with yet another breakthrough technology, their enhanced humanoid drone, the Reaper. We have no counter to this new superweapon. We also do not have the ability to create our own version of it, at least not right now with our current technology and available resources.”

One of the newcomers to the room linked his tablet with the holographic display at the center of the table. He immediately brought up several clips of the EHD in action. The group watched as several of them advanced on a Russian machine gun position in the Kola Peninsula, and saw the EHD get hit several times but still continue to advance. In short order, the drone had killed the men operating the gun position and then moved on to the next target.

“Gentlemen, I do not need to explain to you what will happen when the Americans begin to deploy tens of thousands of these drones on our soil. Combing through the footage, we estimate it took our men nearly 50 soldiers to kill or disable one of those drones. These are odds we simply cannot sustain. The war is lost. The question now is — when will we accept that?”

“I am immediately promoting General Viktor Lodz to take over as commander of all Russian military forces. He will oversee the winding down of the war with NATO and bring us an honorable peace we can live with.”

As Gromley was explaining this, one of the other generals at the table, a man who was clearly angry that he had just been passed over as the next in line to take over, asked, “And what if he cannot secure us an honorable peace? Will the war continue?”

Knowing this was also a possibility, Petr had a prepared response. “If General Lodz is not able to secure an honorable peace, then we will remind President Stein and the allies that Russia can and will still bring this war to their streets. We may not be able to use our nuclear weapons as a deterrent or threat like we had in the past, but we certainly can unleash biological weapons and cyber-attacks in perpetuity.”

The general was clearly taken aback by the mention of biological weapons. No matter how bad the war had gotten, President Fradkov and President Stein had come to an understanding that neither side would use weapons that would destroy the people of either nation. This included the use of neutron and biological weapons. The devastation of the neutron weapon used against the IR was still being calculated, and had been responsible for the death of over a hundred million people up to that point.

Petr motioned that he was gearing to wrap up the meeting. “After we announce the death of President Fradkov and my taking over as the leader of the Russian Federation, I am going to call for an immediate 48-hour ceasefire and ask for an opportunity to talk with President Stein directly to determine if we can work out an honorable end to the war.”

They looked solemn but also accepting of the fact that Russia could no longer win the war. The best that they could hope for now was obtaining a ceasefire that allowed Russia to maintain its dignity in defeat.

Negotiator in Chief

16 October 2042
Washington, DC

The sudden death of President Fradkov and the change of leadership within the Russian Federation sent shock waves throughout the world. The Russian government requested a ceasefire and direct talks between the man who had emerged as the new leader of Russia, Petr Gromley, and President Stein. The key questions being asked in Washington were — who is Petr Gromley, and how did he become the President? No one seemed to know the answers, and this concerned President Stein and his senior staff. How did a seemingly unknown individual suddenly become the President of Russia?

President Stein did ultimately decide to agree to a 48-hour ceasefire and direct talks with President Gromley. As the intelligence community scrambled to learn as much as they could about Petr Gromley, an appointed time for a holographic telecom was set. Twenty-three hours after the ceasefire went into effect, the two leaders would have their first discussion.

As the President sat on one of the two couches in the Oval Office, he stared out the window for a second, collecting some of his thoughts. The President nervously asked Director Rubio, “Have we learned anything more about who Petr Gromley is? I’d like to know a bit more about the man I will be speaking with in a few hours.”

Director Rubio gestured towards a middle-aged analyst he had brought with him to this meeting. “Mr. President, this is Dr. Jason Strom. He’s from our Russian division, and had studied and worked for many years in Russia for us before returning to the US and official cover with the Agency. I will let Dr. Strom brief you on what he has been able to dig up.”

Dr. Strom was clearly anxious about briefing the President. He stammered at first before clearing his throat to start over. “Mr. President, while I was in Russia, I came across the name Petr Gromley only once. I learned that he was a successful businessman, but also had deep ties with the SVR, part of the FSB foreign intelligence arm. There was relatively little information I could compile while in Russia and through my subsequent dive back into his history these past 23 hours; however, we were able to link him to several the major oligarchs that run the various industrial sectors in Russia. We also linked him to several senior military and intelligence officials who are also now in charge of the government. What we found interesting about his connections was how diverse they are. He is well-connected both with Russian power brokers and military leaders, and also with members of the financial sector, both domestic and abroad. For instance, his wife is an active member of the Rothschild family.”