“This aircraft is amazing!” Kazakov exclaimed. “Simply amazing! I have never seen anything like it before in my life!”
“The technology we use is at least ten years behind the West,” Fursenko said. “But it has been well tested and is solid, robust equipment, easy to maintain and very reliable. We are developing standoff attack and cruise missile technology that we hope someday will make Tyenee a most deadly weapon system.”
“When can I fly it?” Kazakov asked. “Tomorrow. First thing tomorrow. Get me your best test pilot and a flight suit. I want to fly it as soon as possible. When can that be?”
“Never,” Fursenko, said in a grave voice.
“Never? What in hell do you mean?”
“This aircraft has never and will never be cleared for flight,” Fursenko explained solemnly. “First, it is banned by international treaty. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty limits the number and specifications of nuclear weapon delivery systems that can be flown, and Tyenee is not on the list. Second, it was never intended to be flown — it was a test article only, to be used for electromagnetic global propagation studies, stress and fatigue testing, weapon mating, wind tunnel testing, and computer-aided manufacturing techniques.”
“But it can fly? You have flown it before?”
“We have made a few flight tests….” Fursenko said.
“Make it flyable,” Kazakov said. “Do whatever you need to do, but make it flyable.”
“We don’t have the funding to—”
“You do now,” Kazakov interjected. “Whatever you need, you’ll have. And the government need not know where you got the money.”
Fursenko smiled — it was precisely what he’d hoped Kazakov would do. “Very well, sir,” he said. “With funding for my engineers and builders, I can have Tyenee flying in six months. We can—”
“What about weapons?” Kazakov asked. “Do you have weapons we can try on it?”
“We only have test shapes, weighted and with the exact ballistics of live weapons, but with—”
“I want real weapons on board this aircraft when it flies,” Pavel ordered, as excited as a kid with a new model plane. “Offensive and defensive weapons both, fully functional. It can be Western or Russian weapons, I don’t care. You’ll get the money for whatever you can procure. Cash. I want trained crews, support crews, maintenance personnel, planners, intelligence officers-I want this aircraft operational. The sooner, the better.”
“I was praying you’d want that, too,” Fursenko exclaimed proudly. He turned to the mafioso in the left seat of his creation and put a hand on his shoulder. “Comrade Kazakov, I have hoped this day would come. I have seen this aircraft stolen, nearly destroyed, nearly scrapped, and all but forgotten in the collapse of our country. I knew we had one of the world’s ultimate weapons here. But all it has done in the past eight years is gather dust.”
“No longer,” Kazakov said. “I have plans for this monster. I have plans to make most of eastern Europe bow to the power of the Russian empire once again.”
With myself at its head, he thought to himself. With no one but myself at the top.
Kazakov spent several hours at the facility with Fursenko. While they spoke, Kazakov was on the phone to his headquarters, requesting background information on key personnel involved in the Tyenee project. If they passed a cursory background examination — bank accounts, address, family, time of employment, criminal record, and Party affiliations — Kazakov arranged to speak with them personally. He was impressed with the level of excitement and energy in each member of the project. It all made sense to Kazakov: the only persons who would still be working at Metyor would be persons committed to the company, like Pyotr Fursenko, since other firms in Europe were certainly busier and the future looked brighter than here.
The most impressive man in the entire facility beside Fursenko himself was the chief pilot — currently the only fulltime pilot at Metyor — Ion Stoica. born and raised in Bucharest, Romania, Stoica had trained as a pilot at the Soviet Naval Academy in St. Petersburg and served as a naval aviation bomber pilot, flying the Tupolev-95 Bear and Tupolev-16 Badger bombers in minelaying, antiship, missile attack, and maritime reconnaissance missions. He’d served briefly in the Romanian Air Force as an air defense wing commander and instructor pilot in the MiG-21 fighter, before returning to the Soviet Union as a test pilot flying for Pyotr Fursenko at the Fisikous Institute. When Fisikous had closed and the Soviet Union imploded, Stoica had gone back to his native Romania, flying and instructing in MiG-21 and MiG-29 air defense fighters, before accepting a position again with his old friend Pyotr Fursenko at Metyor Aerospace in 1993.
Stoica thoroughly thought of himself as Russian, and was grateful to Russia for his training, education, and outlook on world and national affairs. He thanked the KGB’s role in eliminating the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu from power in Romania and restoring a more traditional, pro-Soviet communist regime, rather than the brutal Stalinist one that had ruled Romania for most of his life.
Pavel Kazakov found Stoica to be a hardworking, single-minded, almost fanatical Russian patriot who thought of his efforts to design a high-tech aerospace weapon system to be an honor rather than just a job. When Romania had been admitted to the Partnership For Peace, NATO’s group of ex-Warsaw Pact nations being considered for NATO membership, Ion Stoica had emigrated to Russia and become a citizen a year later. Like most of the principals at Metyor, Stoica had been happily subsisting mostly on cafeteria food and sleeping in the Metyor factory in between irregular and sparse paychecks.
By the time Pavel Kazakov was finished with his inspections, interviews, and planning sessions, the day shift had already arrived and the workday was in full swing — which for Metyor Aerospace was not very busy at all. Kazakov was escorted out the back to his waiting sedan by Fursenko. “Doctor, I am most impressed with the aircraft and your people,” he said, shaking the directors hand. “I want you to use every effort to get Tyenee ready to fly as soon as you can, but you must maintain absolute secrecy — even from the government. If any authorities come by or anyone asks any suspicious questions, refer them to my headquarters immediately. Tyenee is to remain under wraps from anyone except those whom I have spoken to and cleared directly. Do you understand?’
“Perfectly, tovarisch,” Fursenko replied. “It is indeed an honor to be working with you.”
“Decide that later, after we have begun our work,” Kazakov said ominously. “You may well rue the day you ever spoke to me out on that tarmac.”
Office of the Minister of Economic Cooperation and
Trade, Government House, Tirane, Albania
The aide was already pouring strong black coffee and setting out a tray of caviar and toast when the minister walked into his office. “Good morning, sir,” the aide said. “How are you today?”
“Fine, fine,” Maqo Solis, the Minister of Economic Cooperation and Trade of the government of the Republic of Albania, replied. It was a rare sunny and warm spring day, and it seemed as if the entire capital was in excellent spirits. “What do we have this morning? I was hoping to get a massage and steam bath in before lunch.”
“Quite possible, sir,” Solis’s aide said cheerfully. “Staff conference meeting at eight A.M., scheduled for one hour, and then a status briefing on Turkish port construction projects afterward, scheduled for no more than an hour. The usual interruptions — trade delegate drop-bys, phone calls from People’s Assembly legislators, and of course your paperwork for the morning, all organized in order of precedence. I’ll schedule the massage for eleven.”