Aside from the elite, few people owned cars. The shops and stores they used were within walking distance, or could be accessed by the public transit system.
Not that there was anything to buy. And leaving their apartments would simply contribute to heat loss, since opening the door would let in ice-cold air. Fuel was expensive, far out of the reach of many. Most apartments relied on a single electric blower or cooking plate, and that only during hours when electricity was supplied. The average Muscovites hoarded their resources, covering the single pane windows with blankets and sheets in an effort to cut down on wind, keeping the door shut, and staying heavily clothed inside.
For Korsov, this was not a problem. He lived a life far different from that of most of his countrymen, but not so dissimilar from his counterparts in the United States. His large, four-bedroom house heated by a seemingly endless supply of propane. There was never a shortage of hot water or fuel for cooking — and, indeed, food was delivered to his house almost daily, coming from the special shops reserved for the elite.
While Korsov understood intellectually the deprivations his countrymen lived under, he had no real concept of the impact on everyday life. It wasn’t that he didn’t care — he did. But making the translation from intellectual knowledge to truly understanding the gut-wrenching hardships that others experienced was simply beyond him.
What he did understand, and what ruled most of his life, was the dramatic downfall of the USSR. During his early years, Korsov, the son of a member of the Politburo, had been groomed to take his eventual place as part of the reigning royalty in the Soviet Union. He had attended the right schools, made the right friends, and served with the army in Afghanistan. He was politically, ideologically, and physically beyond reproach. Everyone had predicted a brilliant future for him. Korsov basked in the glow of the future that was to come.
With the downfall of the Soviet Union, everything changed. His achievements, his education, even his contacts suddenly meant nothing. For Korsov, it was a crushing blow.
In the years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Korsov’s grief over its demise turned to anger, and then determination. He would not have it all taken from him — he would not. The Soviet Union would be restored, albeit under a new name, and he would have his revenge for what had been taken from him. He searched for years for the right way to achieve this, an avenue by which he could strike back at the country most responsible for the Soviet Union’s demise.
The culprit was, of course, the United States. He watched with hope as a succession of administrations gutted the military power of his adversary. He could barely contain his glee as the United States became more and more vulnerable to the dictates of the United Nations. And finally, the United States’ adventures in the Middle East, not only Desert Storm and Desert Shield, but the attack on the USS Cole, had given him his final insights.
From Korsov’s study of America’s history, he had derived two major understandings. First, she would not tolerate losses in combat. Oh, certainly, the military services understood the risks, at least the senior people did. But in America, oddly enough, public opinion had a great deal to say about how the military conducted its operations. He almost laughed at the idea — an insane concept, expecting a civilian to understand how and why a military must operate. At least Russia had never fallen into the track, although he had to admit that politicians had played far too powerful a role.
But the American aversion went beyond that. They were not willing to tolerate any casualties—none. Grand strategy and brilliant tactics were replaced only by efforts to reduce body counts.
Second, after the attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East, he was finally forced to reach another conclusion — America would not fight back. She would tolerate terrorist attacks, especially ones in the foreign governments, howling and wildly demanding justice in international courts, but they would not strike back.
It was, Korsov knew, a pitiful dream, and one that would inevitably lead to the eventual downfall of America. Powerful nations did not tolerate this, not tolerate it and survive. When challenged, they crushed the opposition. When threatened, they reacted with overwhelming force. When attacked, they destroyed.
But his data points were only from overseas conflicts. He suspected it would be a far different matter if a conflict took place on the United States’ own territory. But, aside from the attack on Pearl Harbor, America had never faced military action on her own soil.
That night, Korsov dreamed of revenge. He saw America as it was shown in the news reports: happy, prosperous, the streets crowded with cars, the chaos on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, the stores filled with food and consumer goods. Then, beginning along the East Coast, he saw a thin line of red creeping ever westward. The line started somewhere around Washington, D.C., and expanded exponentially, finally covering the entire country, as well as parts of Canada and Mexico.
With the red zone, nothing moved. Crops rotted in the field, cars were abandoned alongside roads. The giant military bases were silent, the industrial complexes deserted. America was dead.
Then, the repopulation began, ships and aircraft converging on the abandoned land from Russia, spilling masses of colonists out onto both coasts. Aircraft filled the center of the country with more people, even more than on the coasts, and the population began spreading out from the center toward the coasts. They filled the empty factories, the abandoned houses, and worked the fields. The faces were happy, smiling, delighted in hard work and with their lives.
And they were speaking Russian.
There would be no war — at least, not one that anyone would recognize. The United States would have to be gutted on the first strike, not allowed time to realize the outrage that had been perpetrated on her, not given an opportunity to retaliate. The strike must be instantly devastating and anonymous. America would not know who had struck her, would not know who to retaliate against. And, not knowing, she would die.
For the first time in ten years, Korsov felt a surge of hope. The effort he’d put into his earlier years would not be wasted. He had friendships, tentacles of power, in virtually every military and industrial complex in the CFS. And among those contacts were people who thought as he did, people now in positions of power. With their resources and the genetic weapons that had been developed, his dream could become a reality.
Still, he shivered at the thought of what he was about to attempt. Even his most hard-line friends might quail at the prospect of deploying genetic weapons against the United States. He would have to be extremely careful in selecting the members of his team, extremely careful.
Yuri. Yuri Maskiro. He’s as ready as I am. He will understand the dream.
For all of his friendship with Maskiro, Korsov always felt a bit intimidated around the former Spetnaz now missile commander. Maskiro retained an air of deadly menace from his days in the Special Forces, and was physically and mentally as tough as they came. Maskiro stood well over six feet tall and every inch of his body rippled with power. Korsov’s only consolation was that he had long ago concluded that he was slightly more intelligent than Maskiro.
But this wasn’t a matter of intelligence. It was a matter of determination, of visionary ability to see into the future, to a Russia as she should be, and of the will to make that future a reality. Whatever shortcomings that Maskiro might have in the intellectual department, they were more than compensated for by his utter loyalty and belief in Korsov.