“Sir, I knew Gregor Mikhailievich Kazakov for thirty years, since before we graduated from the Academy together,” Zhurbenko said. “I’ve known Pavel Gregorievich since the day he was born. I was his best man at his wedding when his father could not attend because he was fighting in Afghanistan. He is genuinely angry because he feels the Russian government has let him down, broken the trust with him and the military. Russia and her military forces are dying, sir. Not just because of hard economic times, but from a lack of respect, of prestige around the world. Pavel knew this. And he offered a possible way to fix the problem.”
“It is doubtful to me that Kazakov cares one way or another about Russia or the army, Colonel-General, as long as he gets whatever he wants,” Foreign Intelligence Service director Nikolai Stepashin said to Zhurbenko. “I knew and respected Colonel Kazakov as well, but I never knew his son to be anything but a wild drug addict who could kill without hesitation if it meant more money or power for himself. The people like him because he is a colorful character, like Al Capone or Robin Hood — both criminals in their own countries. This ‘dividend,’ Colonel-General, was a polite term for a bribe. He wants you to use the army for his own purposes, and he is willing to pay you handsomely for it.”
Zhurbenko looked at the other men in the office sternly. “I know full well Kazakov was offering me a bribe. I’m not interested in Kazakov’s bribes — to him, it’s a normal way of doing business. I do not work that way,” he said. “And when it comes to killing, Nikolai, you and I are both trained to do it without hesitation or moral question. He does it for the money — we do it for the honor of serving Russia. He may be a gangster, but he also gets results.
“But forget about the bribe. Think about the opportunity to bring some nations back into our sphere of influence. We use the army or we use Kazakov’s money — it’s just a different form of power, a different tool of government and foreign relations. The outcome is the same — the enhancement of the power and security of mother Russia. I think it is worth a look.”
The Cabinet officials looked at the floor, quietly, for several very long moments; there were no outbursts of outrage or indignation, no protests, no denials. Finally, one by one, they looked at President Sen’kov.
“I am not going to soil my first elected term in office by getting involved with bloodthirsty gangsters like Kazakov,” President Sen’kov said. “He will not dictate foreign policy. Colonel-General Zhurbenko, stay away from that hoodlum.”
“But sir…”
“I understand his father was your friend, but it is obvious to me that even Colonel Kazakov wanted to stay as far away from his son as possible,” Sen’kov said. “He is a murderous animal, and we have our hands too full as it is with antigovernment terrorists to worry about dealing with underworld drug lords. That is all.”
The High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center,
Elliott APB, Groom Lake, Nevada
As she expected, there he was, and her heart sank. Better try one more time, she thought, although she already knew how the conversation would go.
“Hey, Dave,” Captain Annie Dewey said, as she activated the retina scan lock and entered the engineering lab. “The shuttle leaves in ten minutes. Are you ready?”
Colonel David Luger looked up from his computer terminal, looked at the clock, then looked at his watch and shook his head in surprise. “Oh, no. Man, is it that late already?” he asked. “I’m sorry. I lost track of time.”
“No problem,” Annie said, trying to sound cheerful. “But we’d better hurry.”
“Okay. This’ll work.” He furiously typed in more instructions, waited for a response, then waited some more. He glanced at Annie and gave her a sheepish smile, glanced at his watch again, and then at the screen. A few moments later, he shook his head. “Man, the mainframe is slow tonight.”
“Dave, we have to leave. It takes ten minutes just to get to the shuttle terminal.”
“I know, I know, but I can’t back out until this subroutine is finished. It’ll only take a second.” She walked over to him and massaged one of his shoulders. She took a peek at the screen. Just by reading the heading, she knew what project he was working on, and knew he’d never be able to leave it at this point. As if confirming what she already guessed, Dave shook his head, muttered an “Oh, no, don’t do this to me,” and punched in more instructions.
“Problem?”
“I hate to do this to you, Annie,” Luger said, “but I need to finish debugging this routine and upload it to the firmware lab tonight so they can get the processor ready to install on an LRU motherboard for its test flight. This is a new error code, and I have to track it down. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can go with you tonight.”
“C’mon, Dave,” Annie protested. “This is the third weekend in a row you’ll be stuck out here. We’ve had to excuse ourselves out of four events at the last minute. On Monday I head off to Ukraine to help bring in the bombers for the joint NATO exercises — I’ll be gone for a week.”
“I’m sorry, Annie, but this can’t be helped.”
“The test flight isn’t until Monday morning,” Annie reminded him. “This is Friday night. I know you’ll be back out here tomorrow and Sunday working. Why not take a break for just one night?”
“I would, Annie. You know that.” She knew of no such thing, but she let that one slip by. “But I’m right in the middle of this debug routine. If I finish this in the next half hour, I can knock off early and we can spend some time together at home.”
“But the next shuttle doesn’t leave here for two hours. We’ll miss the party.”
He raised his hands in surrender, but put them back down quickly to enter more instructions. “I can’t leave this routine now, Annie — I’ll lose all my work if I exit now, and I’ll have to start over. I’ll be on the next shuttle home, I promise.”
“That’s what you said when we missed the six o’clock shuttle.”
“I can’t help it,” he said. “Why don’t you go without me this time? You can spend some time at the party. I’ll get a car to take me home, and I’ll meet up with you there. Deal?”
Her pent-up anger and frustration let go at that moment. “David, this is silly. You have six programmers and technicians on your staff that can debug that routine for you in half the time Monday morning in plenty of time to load on the chip.” He turned toward the computer, his head bowed, his hands flat on the table beside the keyboard. “You have got to think about yourself once in a while. You need a break. You’re working yourself to exhaustion. You don’t eat, you don’t sleep, you don’t socialize.” He seemed frozen, staring blankly into the desk. “Don’t you want to be with me tonight, Dave?” No reply. “David? Are you listening to me?”
Still no reply — at least, no reply to her. When the computer beeped to let him know that it had found another problem, he responded instantly, punching in more code. One moment, he was seemingly immobile, staring into nothingness; the next, he was as animated and alert as ever. Weird.
“All right.” There was no use arguing or ranting at him. They weren’t married — they weren’t even an official “couple,” at least not in his eyes. If he wanted to stay, there was nothing she could do to change his mind. “I’m off. I’ll see you at home.”