McKinlay could see that Kostilek knew just where this was going and sensed him trying to control his irritation. Nevertheless, like the consummate politician that he was, he stepped back to ensure that the ambassadors had their say. He looked first at the US ambassador. As de facto leader of the Alliance, the US usually spoke first on matters of importance. He declared, “The United States has the floor.”
“Secretary General, the US takes this situation very seriously. Indeed, we cannot recall a more serious state of affairs in Europe, certainly since the end of the Cold War and probably not since the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Russia has started a highly dangerous dynamic, one which could lead to a military clash with NATO. The way to guarantee that does not happen, and that Europe remains secure, is to show strength. Now is the time for Europe to prove it can defend itself. For too long European defense has been underwritten by US taxpayers. We have carried the burden of protecting you. You can be sure that the US will continue to underwrite the security of NATO, but we expect European nations to carry their share of the burden. You now need to deliver the reserve forces you agreed to generate at the Wales summit in 2014 and ratified at last year’s Warsaw summit. As we have just heard from DSACEUR, this has clearly not been implemented.”
McKinlay could feel waves of collective irritation coming toward him from the European ambassadors for spotlighting what had been promised but had not been delivered.
Only the US ambassador looked approvingly at him, before continuing, “The USA accepts the NATO Military Authorities’ recommendations in full. The USA expects other member states to do likewise.” The US ambassador stopped. He had made the American position very clear.
McKinlay then listened to around twenty statements from other ambassadors supporting the US position, but without committing to actually doing anything. As each one spoke, he reflected on how many different ways there were of saying the same thing in diplomatic speak.
Then it was the Greek ambassador’s turn. Newly appointed, he was a political appointment of the Syriza government; a shaven-headed, former Marxist sociology lecturer, who dressed in a leather jacket and T-shirt rather than the conventional suit and tie.
“Greece is bound by ties of fraternal Orthodox brotherhood to Russia. We believe that Russia is only responding to provocation from NATO. Any stationing of NATO troops in the Baltic states, or reductions in notice to move times of NATO reserve forces, will be rightly seen by Russia as further provocation and proof of NATO’s aggressive intention to surround and contain Russia. Greece cannot accept the recommendations of the NATO Military Authorities.”
There was a resigned silence around the table. McKinlay watched as the US ambassador rolled his eyes, while Kostilek’s jaw tightened in frustration.
Then the Hungarian ambassador, a rotund little man with an incongruous fixed grin on his face, raised a hand and was given the floor. Reading from a note passed to him by an aide, all he could manage in heavily accented, broken English was, “Hungary takes the same view as Greece.”
The Secretary General broke the silence. “I see we do not have agreement,” said Kostilek evenly, although McKinlay, who knew the Polish former prime minister socially, could see from the heightened color of his neck that he was well beyond irritation and now getting angry. However, he controlled himself. “I regret that without full agreement from all member states, the NAC can do no more than condemn the perpetrators of the atrocity in Donetsk, condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine and continue to monitor the situation. And, of course, NATO will continue to maintain the minesweeper group on its current task in the Baltic. Do I at least have your agreement to that?”
He looked at the Greek and Hungarian ambassadors, challenging them to come back at him. There was silence.
“I see we have agreement,” said Kostilek shortly. Then he gathered up his papers and left the Council chamber.
1900 hours, Monday, May 15, 2017
ANATOLY NIKOLAYEVICH VRONSKY shivered under the leaden gray skies as a cold northerly wind off the Baltic blasted an empty plastic Coca-Cola bottle across the path in front of him. He removed the daysack from his shoulders, placed it at his feet and pulled his black, zip-fronted fleece more closely around his body. To his right the River Daugava, a quarter of a mile wide at this point after its thousand-kilometer journey from its source in the Valdai Hills, in the heartland of Russia, looked dark and forbidding. The wind sent showers of icy spray across the path along the riverbank. “So much for spring,” he muttered to himself, as he checked his watch. Then, sure enough, and exactly on time as ever, he saw the slim, blonde-haired figure of Anna Brezhneva, cover name of Praporshchik Volochka of the FSB, seconded to the Spetsnaz for this mission and his favored operating partner.
Vronsky re-shouldered the daysack, strode toward her and enfolded her in a passionate-looking embrace; to anyone watching, two lovers greeting after an absence. However, his voice was brisk and matter of fact as he murmured in her ear. “You’re exactly on time, Anna… We’ll head for Moloney’s now. That’ll give me time to brief you before we meet them.”
Vronsky placed an arm loosely, but proprietorially, around Brezhneva’s shoulders and steered her past the entrance of the Riga Technical University, up Ratslaukums, and then they were amid the elegant art deco buildings and weathered, green copper church spires of the old city of Riga. They continued toward Riharda Vagnera Street and Moloney’s Bar.
“What news from Ukraine?” Vronsky asked. He had been in Riga for a week, since the kidnapping of the American army trainers.
“Total success, Anatoly Nikolayevich,” murmured Brezhneva, pulling Vronsky’s arm more closely around her shoulders. “The land bridge is being opened up to Crimea. Ukraine has been dismembered.”
“Excellent,” replied Vronsky. “That’ll distract the West from what we’re planning here.” Then quickly, as they walked toward Moloney’s Bar, he briefed her on how a major demonstration against the Latvian government was being planned in two days’ time, after weeks of increasing tension between Latvians and their “non-citizens”—ethnic, Russian-speaking Latvians, many of whom had lived there for generations, but were not permitted Latvian citizenship and were therefore not citizens of the European Union either.
A massed crowd of non-citizens, whipped up by the barrage of propaganda and misinformation broadcast into Russian-speaking Latvian homes from Kremlin-controlled TV, would assemble and march to the Soviet-built Monument of Freedom, erected to mark Latvia’s purported “liberation” from fascism by the “fraternal forces” of the Soviet Union in May 1945. It would end with speeches and the laying of flowers.
However, since arriving in Riga, Vronsky had been preparing the ground for inciting violence by infiltrating the demonstration with extreme nationalist elements of the Latvian Russian Union, the political party representing Latvian ethnic Russians. In addition, there was an active Latvian “non-citizens” militia, set up and trained by Spetsnaz undercover operatives, also directed by Vronsky. This was the self-styled “Russkiy Narodov Zashchita Sila” (Russian Peoples’ Protection Force—or RNZS). The RNZS would play a key role in controlling the demonstration or, more to the point, ensuring it got out of control.
“After that,” Vronsky mused, “anti-Russian feelings are so high among the Latvian nationalists that anything could happen… But first we have to meet the two guys who are leading the demo. They’re at Moloney’s Bar.”