The general noticed something that he had almost missed in his effort not to anger this young industrialist: Pavel Kazakov was passionate about something — the welfare of Russian soldiers in Kosovo, the ones his murdered father had commanded. He spoke about “our” soldiers, as if he really cared about them. Was it just because his father had been one? Did he now feel some sort of kinship with the soldiers killed in Kosovo? Whatever it was, it was a sudden glimpse behind the eyes of one of the most inscrutable personalities in the world.
“This is very interesting, Pavel, very interesting,” Zhurbenko said. “You would advocate a much stronger, more forceful role in Kosovo?”
“Kosovo is just the beginning, General,” Kazakov replied acidly. “Chechnya was a good example of a conflict well fought — bomb the rebels into submission. Destroy their homes, their places of business, their mosques, their meeting places. Since when does the Russian government condone independence movements within the Federation? Never.
“Russia has interests outside our borders that need protecting as well,” Kazakov went on. Zhurbenko was fully attentive now — because he had been thinking along the very same lines. “The Americans are investing billions of dollars into developing pipelines to ship our oil, oil discovered and developed by Russian engineers, to the West. What do we get out of it? Nothing. A few rubles in transshipment fees, a fraction of what we’re entitled to. Why is this allowed to happen? Because we allowed Azerbaijan and Georgia to become independent. The same would have happened in Chechnya if we allowed it to happen.”
“But what about the West? Don’t we need their investment capital, their coordination, the cooperation of their oil industry?”
“Ridiculous. The Western world condemned our actions against Chechnya because it is politically popular to oppose Russia. The Americans are as two-faced as they can be. They condemned our antiterrorist security actions against one of our own republics, but NATO, a military alliance, attacks Serbia, a sovereign country and close ally, without a declaration of war, and ignores the indignation of the entire world!”
“But we did nothing because we needed Western financial aid, Western investments—”
“Rubbish,” Kazakov said, taking an angry gulp of whiskey. “We went along with NATO’s aggression against Serbia, remaining silent while our Slav brothers were being bombed, all to try to show support for the West. We were buffaloed into espousing the same rhetoric they were feeding the rest of the world — that opposing Slobodan Milosevic and so-called Serb ethnic cleansing would be more in line with the sentiment of the world community. So we remained silent and then joined the United Nations ‘peacekeeping’ efforts.
“So what has the West done for us in return? Nothing! They think of different reasons not to provide us assistance or restructure government loans to suit their own political agenda. First they blamed our actions in Chechnya, then they blamed the election of President Sen’kov and the formation of a coalition government with a few Communists in it, then they blamed so-called human rights abuses, then weapons sales to countries unfriendly to America, then drug dealers and organized crime. The fact is, they just want us to heel. They want us pliable, soft, and nonthreatening. They don’t want to invest in us.”
“You sound very much like your father, do you know that?” Zhurbenko said, nodding to his aide to refill the young man’s glass. Pavel Kazakov nodded and smiled slightly, the whiskey starting to warm his granite-hard features a bit. He still looked evil and dangerous, but now more like a satisfied crocodile with a fat duck in his mouth than a cobra ready to strike.
In fact, General Zhurbenko knew, Colonel Gregor Kazakov had never made a political comment in his entire life. He’d been a soldier, first, foremost, and ever. No one — very definitely including Zhurbenko — knew what the elder Kazakov’s opinions of his government or their policies had been, because he’d never volunteered his thoughts, no matter how casual the surroundings. But the fiction seemed to work, and the younger Kazakov seemed more animated than ever.
“So what do we do, Pavel?” Zhurbenko asked. “Attack? Resist? Ally with Germany? What can we do?”
Zhurbenko could see Kazakov’s mind racing furiously, lubricated and uninhibited by the alcohol. He even smiled a mischievous, somewhat malevolent grin. But then he shook his head. “No … no, General. I am not a military man. I have no idea what can be done. I cannot speak for the government or the president.”
“You’re speaking to me, Pavel,” Zhurbenko urged him. “No one else around to listen. What you say is not treasonous — in fact, it might be considered patriotic. And you may not be a military man, but your background in international finance and commerce combined with your brilliance and intelligence — not to mention your commendable upbringing as the son of a national military hero — certainly qualifies you to express an educated opinion. What would you do, Pavel Gregorievich? Bomb Kosovo? Bomb Albania? Invade the Balkans?”
“I am not a politician, General,” Kazakov repeated. “I’m just a businessman. But as a businessman, I believe this: a leader, whether a military commander, president, or company chairman, is supposed to take charge and be a leader, not a follower. Our government, our military commanders, must lead. Never let anyone dictate terms. Not the West, not rebels, no one.”
“No one can argue with that, Pavel,” Zhurbenko said. “But what would you have us do? Avenge your father’s death? Tear Kosovo, possibly Albania, apart looking for his murderers? Or don’t you care who the murderers are? Just avenge yourself on any available Muslims?”
“Damn you, General, why are you taunting me like this?” Kazakov asked. “Are you enjoying this?”
“I am trying to get through to you, young Gregorievich, that it is easy to point fingers and be the angry young man — what is hard is to come up with solutions, with answers,” Zhurbenko said. “Do you think it was easy for Secretary Yejsk and Deputy Minister Lianov to have to retreat to their cars without grieving with the families? Those men, the entire Kremlin, the entire high command, are suffering just as badly as you, as badly as your mother. Except the anguish you feel now is the anguish that we have been feeling for years, as we watch our great nation slip into disarray, powerless to do anything about it.”
“What would you have me say, General?” Kazakov asked. “Start a nuclear war? Go back to a communist empire? Engage the West in another Cold War? No. The world is much different now. Russia is different.”
“Different. How?”
“We have allowed our friends, our former client states, our former protectorates, to break away from us. We built those little republics into nations. We didn’t have to let them go. Now they turn on us and turn toward the West.” Kazakov sat silently for a moment, sipping whiskey, then said, “They voted for independence — let us compel them to join the Commonwealth again.”
“Now we are getting somewhere, Pavel Gregorievich,” Zhurbenko said. “Compel them — how?”
“Carrot and the stick — then plonzo o plata, lead or gold,” Kazakov said.
“Explain yourself.”
“Oil,” Kazakov said. “Look at all we have built over the years, all the places the Soviet Union invested to try to gain a foothold in Western commerce, only to lose it all. Oil terminals and refineries in Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Georgia. We gave billions to Yugoslavia to help build terminals and refineries and pipelines in Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Serbia. They are all going to waste, or they are going to bloodsucking Western conglomerates.”