“What are you talking about, Pavel?”
“General, I agreed with our participation, my father’s participation, in Kosovo, because I believe Russia has a vested interest in the Balkans — namely, to help bring Russian oil west.”
“What oil?”
“Caspian Sea oil,” Kazakov said.
“How much oil?”
“In ten years, with the proper infrastructure in place and under firm political and military control — five million barrels,” Kazakov said proudly. “Two and a half billion rubles — about one hundred and fifty million dollars’ worth.” Zhurbenko didn’t seem too impressed. He took another sip of whiskey — looking bored, until Kazakov added, “A day, General. One hundred and fifty million dollars a day, every day, for the next fifty years. And we pay not one ruble to anyone in duties, taxes, fees, or tariffs. The money is all ours.”
Zhurbenko nearly choked on the Jim Beam. He looked at Kazakov in complete shock, a dribble of whiskey running down his cheek. “Wha … how is that possible?” he gasped. “I didn’t know we had that kind of oil reserves anywhere, not even in the Persian Gulf.”
“General, there is oil in the Caspian Sea that hasn’t even been discovered yet — perhaps a hundred times more than we have discovered in the past twenty years,” Kazakov said. “It could be equivalent to the oil reserves in Siberia or the South China Sea. The problem is, it doesn’t all belong to Russia. Russia owns only one-fifth of the known reserves. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran own the rest. But Russian workers and Russian capital built most of those other nations’ petroleum industries, General. Now, we pay outlandish prices for limited leases from those same countries — so they can use our equipment and our know-how to pump oil that Russia discovered. We must pay millions in bribes and fees, plus a duty for every barrel we ship out of the country. We pay huge salaries for unskilled foreign laborers while Russian men, educated oilmen, and their families starve right here at home. We do this because Russia didn’t have the balls to hold on to what was rightfully theirs all along — the Soviet republics.”
“One hundred fifty million dollars … per day,” was all Zhurbenko could murmur.
“Instead of pumping oil, refining it, shipping it to the greedy West, and taking our rightful place as the world’s greatest nation,” Kazakov said, draining his glass, “we are welcoming our heroes home in caskets draped with the flag of a dying, gutless government. No wonder my mother wanted that flag off her husband’s casket. It is a disgrace. Tell that to the president when you see him.”
They fell silent for several minutes after that, with Zhurbenko exchanging only a few whispered words with his aide and Kazakov sipping on a couple more shots of whiskey until the bottle was empty. The limousine soon pulled up before an apartment building about ten blocks from the Kremlin, with unmarked security cars parked at each corner and across from the entrance. A security guard and a receptionist could be seen through the thick front windows.
Zhurbenko easily maneuvered around Kazakov and exited the limousine. “My driver will take you wherever you would like to go, Pavel,” the commander of the Russian Federation’s ground forces said. He extended a hand, and Kazakov took it. “Again, my deepest condolences for your loss. I will visit your mother in the morning, if she will see me.”
“I will see to it that she receives you, Colonel-General.”
“Good.” He placed his left hand over Pavel’s right, pulling the young man closer as if speaking in confidence. “And we must keep in touch, Pavel. Your ideas have much merit. I would like to hear more.”
“Perhaps, General.”
The limousine drove off and had gone for a couple blocks before Pavel realized the general’s aide was still in the car. “So,” Kazakov said, “what is your name … Colonel?”
“Major,” the woman replied. “Major Ivana Vasilyev, deputy chief of the general’s staff.” She shifted over to the general’s seat, then produced another bottle of Jim Beam and a glass. “May I pour you something more to drink?”
“No. But you may help yourself. I assume you are officially off duty now.”
“I am never really off-duty, but the colonel-general has dismissed me for the night.” Instead, she put the bottle and the glass away, then turned to face him. “Is there anything else I can offer you, Mr. Kazakov?” Pavel let his eyes roam across her body, and she reciprocated. Vasilyev smiled invitingly. “Anything at all?”
Kazakov chuckled, shaking his head. “The old bastard wants something from me, doesn’t he, Major?”
Vasilyev unbuttoned her tunic, revealing the swell of round, firm breasts beneath her white uniform blouse. “My orders were to escort you home and see to it that any wishes you have are taken care of immediately, Mr. Kazakov,” she said. She removed her neck tab and unbuttoned her blouse, and Kazakov noticed she wore a very unmilitary sheer black lace brassiere. “The general is interested in your ideas and suggestions, and he has ordered me to act as his liaison. I have been ordered to provide you with anything you wish — data, information, resources, assistance — anything.” She knelt before him on the rich blue carpeting, reached out to him, and began to stroke him through his pants. “If he wants something specific from you, he has not told me what it is.”
“So he orders you to undress before a strange man in his car, and you do it without question?”
“This was my idea, Mr. Kazakov,” she said, with a mischievous smile. “The general gives me a great deal of latitude in how I might carry out his orders.”
Kazakov smiled, reached to her, and expertly removed the front clasp from her brassiere with one hand. “I see,” he said.
She smiled in return, closed her eyes as his hands explored her breasts, and then said as she reached for his zipper, “I consider this one of the perquisites of my duties.”
The White House Oval Office,
Washington, D.C.
“Mr. President, I know you meant to shake things up in Washington — but I’m afraid this bombshell is surely going to explode in your face when it gets out.”
President Thomas Thorn stopped typing into his computer and swiveled around to face his newly ratified Secretary of Defense, Robert G. Goff, who had marched into the Oval Office almost at a trot. Along with Goff was the Secretary of State, Edward F. Kercheval; the Vice President, Lester R. Busick, and Douglas R. Morgan, the Director of Central Intelligence. “Read the final draft of the executive order, did you, Bob?”
Goff held up his copy of the document in question as if it were covered in blood. “Read it? I’ve done nothing else but go over it for the past eighteen hours. I’ve been up all night, and I’ve kept most of my staff up all night, too, trying to find out if this is legal, feasible, or even right. This is completely astounding, Thomas.”
Robert Goff was known throughout Washington as a straight-talking, no-nonsense man. A retired U.S. Army veteran, three-term congressman from Arizona, and acknowledged military expert, at age fifty-one Goff was one of the new lions in Washington, not afraid to stir things up. But the President’s plan made even him gape in astonishment. Next to Goff was the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Richard W. Venti. Tall, thin, and young-looking for a four-star general, Venti was a veteran fighter pilot and the former commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe before being appointed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Unlike Goff, Venti preferred to keep his emotions and his thoughts to himself.