Clara wondered if Bulov had had a cocktail or two. She looked at Percival, listening on headphones. He shrugged.
“President Bulov …”
“Arkady. We are neighbours, after all, along with the great governor of Alaska, sharing the Arctic vastness.”
Clara didn’t like the sound of that. The Russians were always encroaching up there. “Call me Clara, then.” This seemed an over-cozy game: both knew their respective staffs were listening in. “I’m glad you seem in such generous spirits, Arkady, because I’m hoping we can work together on this Bhashyistan matter.”
“A shared concern. We are both having some bother with that cranky, belligerent state.”
For a while they danced about the subject, keeping it light, like a family joke. Bulov characterized Bhashyistan as the juvenile delinquent in a world of otherwise grown-up nations. Clara told him of their psychological profiling, Mad Igor’s failure to find closure after his father’s death. Chuckles.
Then a sigh sounded across the ten thousand miles from Moscow to Oyster Flats. “A shocking business, Clara, with your two agents being arrested. A kidnapping, a foreign rendition — and is there not a likelihood these men committed your terrorist bombing? I pray that does not severely complicate things for you.”
Clara felt she was being needled, and she cut through the fat, bluntly telling him plans were under way to effect a rescue of the Calgary Five.
“Yet another attempt?” More than a tinge of sarcasm.
Clara took a deep breath — this was turning edgy. But she must stick to the game plan: be candid, free from pretense, let the Russians know Canadian forces proposed to attack the Ozbeg jail. Express reasoned concerns about Russian troop movements at the border.
Bulov listened without comment to her careful summary of Operation Wolverine, then to her polite entreaty that Russia respect these confidences and not put the Canadian sortie at risk.
He spoke with a slow, calculated firmness, dropping his mask of bonhomie. “The position of the Russian government, Clara, is that we shall do nothing vis-a-vis the Bhashyistanis unless provoked. We have no intentions to trespass upon their borders, but fully intend to guard ours from any spillover from the skirmishing there. We view Bhashyistan’s internal unrest as a matter for them alone to resolve. We do not, like certain other great powers, assume to be policemen to the world.”
That was one of Russia’s practised mantras. Clara took it at face value — she was sure they had something up their sleeve, a view affirmed when Bulov added: “However, it cannot go unnoticed that a major Western oil conglomerate has taken advantage of your dispute with Bhashyistan to make a deal behind our respective backs. We have substantial economic interests there. We intend to protect them.”
Clara assumed he regarded the former Soviet republic as not merely in their sphere of influence but a kind of protectorate. She thanked him for his directness and repeated that her main concern was the safety of the Canadians, those in uniform, the five in the Ozbeg jail, and the three women in hiding. When asked if his sources had any knowledge of the latter’s whereabouts, he made no direct answer — which Clara found both curious and foreboding.
“Rest assured, Clara, that we do not intend to expose your nationals to any increased danger that is not of their own making. But given the turmoil in Bhashyistan, our government cannot give you our blessings for your Operation Wolverine.”
That was about as good as she expected to get. They carried on for a few minutes more, in their earlier relaxed manner, Bulov thanking her for the Dixieland music, and belting out an off-key stanza of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Clara ventured that he’d obviously had voice training at the Bolshoi. Both laughed, and concluded with hopes for continued good relations.
“What do you make of that?” she asked Percival.
“They’re giving us a window to go in, but it’s our problem if we trip over own feet.”
“He’s really quite clever, isn’t he, in his Machiavellian way. Couldn’t help treating me like a dumb blonde, though.”
“My dear, you did look radiant. Canada’s cover girl.”
“I’ll bet he actually wants us to go in, to precipitate a crisis, give them an excuse for intervention.”
“Goodness. Maybe you’re not a dumb blonde.”
Behind schedule after the long recess at Oyster Flats, Clara gave brief, desperately hearty orations at the other stops, and affected delight at entertainments from a barbershop quartet with accordion backup, a square-dance ensemble, and two pipe bands.
Finally, in Comox, just after one, she was ushered into an operations room of Nineteen Wing, Air Command’s West Coast base. The colonel in charge had been briefed on Wolverine, so she invited him to hook into the line. Percival slipped on another headset.
From National Defence Headquarters, Clara heard a babble, the echoing of many men on a speakerphone. E.K. Boyes and his advisers would be there, facing off with senior military staff. Clara assumed the heavy breathing on the line emanated from Buster Buchanan, unaware they were connected.
“Good afternoon, General.”
“Prime Minister?”
“Let’s get right into this, General Buchanan — what’s our current situation?” More heavy breathing, like a horse pulling a load. “Shoot, General.”
“Two CF-18s are currently airborne, Prime Minister. The Herc with the attacking force has just lifted off from Kandahar field. The advance aircraft is nearing Bhashyistan air space, and in twenty minutes will drop crew and equipment — “
“Twenty minutes! I thought we had an hour.”
When Buchanan didn’t respond immediately, one of his staff broke in. “They had a strong tailwind.”
“Is that twenty minutes exactly, General Montpelier?” Buchanan asked.
“Nineteen and a half, sir, give or take — ”
“Never mind!” Clara fought another attack of the furies — they were carrying on as if she wasn’t there. “Continue, General Buchanan.”
“The drop will be to an uninhabited plateau fifteen miles south of Ozbeg — aerial surveillance has confirmed this to be a choice landing site.”
Buchanan’s composed tone, his slow, measured words, warned Clara that he was stalling until it was too late to turn back. Hard puffing by high command had produced the strong tailwind; they’d launched early.
“Let’s zip it along. The situation on the ground?”
“The enemy is focused on the border north of Ozbeg — that’s where its main positions are set up.”
“How many troops?” Clara asked.
“Four companies.”
“Stationed how far from Ozbeg?”
“Twenty-five kilometres of bad road. Not a real problem, Prime Minister, because the Ozbeg garrison hasn’t been beefed up. We will be in and out within the hour.”
“General, only two days ago you assured us that the Bhashyistan troops were poking along too slowly to pose a problem. Now we find they got there well ahead of our ETA.”
“They put on a spurt when they reached the flat country.”
“Nor was it anticipated, when designing Wolverine, that the Russian army would become a major presence twenty-five kilometres north of Ozbeg.”
“We’ve been given to understand they won’t intervene.”
“So they say.”
“General Montpelier here, Prime Minister. We have factored in the Russian presence, and I assure you it’s to our advantage. They have so many planes flying around that the enemy is unlikely to notice our airdrop and landing.”
Buchanan took over, continuing to pound the drums for Wolverine, a fait accompli, inexorable, unalterable. Subdued by this rhetoric, E.K. and his crew were as mute as cowering rabbits. And now it was ten minutes to airdrop.
“General, your enthusiasm is commendable, but now hear me. My take is we’re being played like pawns in an old-fashioned great powers coup.”