He expelled a long sigh, glancing at the oversized manila envelope that had arrived on his desk along with his usual stack of news dailies. The envelope had been overnighted from the ad firm that was designing his newest prospectus, and doubtless contained preproduction mechanicals for him to review. He would get to that in a while. First, however, there were his black coffee, a blueberry muffin, and the morning paper to go through.
Gordian took his copy of the New York Times off the pile, separated the International Report from the other sections and scanned the table of contents. Alexander Nordstrum’s guest editorial was on page A36. He chewed a bite of the muffin, took a sip of coffee, set down the cup, carefully wiped his fingers on a napkin, and began flipping through the paper.
In an interview he’d given to a televised news magazine the previous week, Gordian was asked if he spent his days in some vast electronic control center, surrounded by walls of flickering computer screens, monitoring global events on CNN and the on-line services like a technocratic Big Brother. He’d admitted to being a compulsive newsprint junkie first and foremost, despite his own contribution to — and frequent reliance on — state-of-the-art means of information access and communications. The interviewer shot the camera a skeptical and mildly accusing look, as if to let his audience know Gordian was putting them on. Gordian had known better than to try convincing him otherwise.
As he turned to Alex’s piece, two pages spilled from the middle of the section onto his lap, lingering there briefly before fluttering to the carpet. Gordian leaned forward to gather them off the floor, almost knocking over his coffee in the process. Then he slipped them back in place. And then he realized he’d inadvertently put them in upside down, and turned them right side up.
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
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…