the morning, rather than wake him in the middle of the night. Harry and his new Red Banner resources might come in handy in ferreting out the source of Rostov’s anger.
Insanity? American anger? What could that mean?
45
Count Ivan Korsakov stared in angry disbelief at the raving lunatic standing before his fireplace, pounding his fist on the wooden mantel, sending a few precious silver-framed family photographs crashing to the floor. He’d known Vladimir Rostov for many, many years and had never seen him so enraged. Such fury made his drunkenness almost incidental, comical, were it not so late in the evening and so much to be done by morning.
He glared at the Russian president, now stomping on broken glass.
“The Americans will annihilate us for this insanity!”
“Calm down, Volodya. Enough,” the count said, reverting to Russian. He listened in hostile silence to this calumny, his anger building.
“Enough? Have you lost your fucking mind?” Rostov bellowed, looking wildly around the room, as if answers to his shouted questions might be hiding in dark corners or floating up near the ceiling. His eyes were rolling around in his head like marbles.
“Now, you listen to me,” Korsakov said, as calmly as he could. “You are a guest in this house. I won’t be addressed in this manner. Sit down in that chair, and shut up until you can compose yourself.”
“Do you realize what you’ve
Korsakov, furious, came out of his chair, grabbed the irate man by his shoulders, shook him violently, and then wrestled him down onto a large leather sofa. He held him there, his hands around his throat, squeezing, until Rostov’s arms and legs stopped flailing.
The president lay back against the cushions, red-faced and breathing heavily, but he was no longer shouting at the top of his lungs.
“Are you quite finished with this outrageous behavior?” Korsakov snarled, removing his hands from the president’s reddened throat. He’d had countless men shot, poisoned, beheaded, and even impaled. But he had never killed a man with his bare hands before, and he could see the attraction.
“I asked you, are you finished?”
“Yes, yes. Just leave me alone for a moment.”
The count crossed the room and picked up the receiver of a telephone sitting on his desk. He whispered a few words into the mouthpiece and hung up. He looked angrily at the broken picture frames and shattered glass on the stone hearth floor, then collapsed into the same fireside chair where he’d been sitting earlier. After a few moments’ contemplation, he leaned forward with his hands on his knees and stared at the drunken president until he had his full attention.
“Now, in a slow, calm voice, I want you to tell me what in God’s name you are so incensed about. If you raise your voice, even slightly, I shall have the servants throw you out in the snow. Do we understand each other?”
“Damn it to hell,” Rostov said, sitting up and shakily pouring himself a drink from the decanter on the table. “Why wasn’t I informed of this decision? I’m still running this country, unless I missed a meeting.”
“I make a lot of decisions in a day. Which one are we speaking of?”
“What decision? Your decision to blow up an entire American town! Wipe it off the face of the fucking map! You know they will trace this back to us. Twenty-four hours. Maybe less. And then what? War? War with America? You know as well as I the number of American nuclear submarines even now prowling the Black Sea.”
“There will be no war with America, Volodya, I assure you.”
“No? You know the Americans have back-channeled the Syrians, the Iranians, and others. Told them that if any act of terror on American soil can be traced back to Damascus or Tehran, the capitals of those countries will cease to exist within twenty-four hours. You know that as well as I!”
“Syria and Iran are not Russia.”
“Thanks be to God. Jesus. We all want to go against the Americans. Every one of us. And we will. But, not
“I think we
“You don’t think repositioning our troops to the Baltic and East European borders is provocation enough? You don’t think we have already pushed the White House to the limit? Already they are making noises at the Security Council. You think the UN, pitiful and pathetic as it may be, will just look the other way? Or NATO? Really, it all defies belief. The Duma will have your head for this one, Ivan. That I can promise.”
“Or it may be that I will have the Duma’s heads, Volodya.”
Rostov stared at him in disbelief. This form of treachery far exceeded anything he’d thought possible. Even that lunatic Stalin had shown restraint when it came to-
They were interrupted by a knock at the door. A uniformed man strode through, shut the door, and locked it.
“Volodya, calm down. Look, here is your old friend General Kuragin, come to join our little party. Nikolai, bring my special carafe of vodka from the drinks table, and join us, won’t you?”
General Nikolai Kuragin, a longtime aide to Rostov, had for years been secretly the head of Korsakov’s own private army. He did as he was told and moved to the drinks table. A skeletal man who looked more Teutonic than Russian in his sharply tailored black uniform, he was utterly ruthless. There was a large black leather case in his right hand, attached to his wrist by a stainless-steel chain and bracelet.
Inside the general’s black case was an electronic device, one of only two in existence, which carried the codes to initiate detonation of every single Zeta bomb on the planet. The one he carried was to be used only as a backup to the primary, that one always in the possession of Korsakov himself. Kuragin knew the codes as well. They were permanently inscribed in the folds of his brain. He’d never even written them down.
“Good evening, Mr. President,” Kuragin said to Rostov, with a sharp nod of the head.
Rostov glared at him. “You’re part of this, aren’t you, Nikolai? You lying bastard. All these years, all I’ve done for you. You’ve pretended to be my friend and ally. And now you betray me for this perverted megalomaniac?”
“Watch your tongue,” Kuragin barked at him, and Rostov sank even deeper into the cushions. It was over now, he knew. All was lost. All.
Korsakov looked at Kuragin, a wry smile playing about his lips. “The president thinks we may have gone a bit over the line destroying the American city, Nikolai.”
“Really? Why does he think that?”
“He’s afraid of the American reaction. NATO. And the UN.”
“He’s afraid of shadows,” Nikolai said. “Always has been.”
“He needs courage, perhaps. Pour him another drink. From my carafe.”
Kuragin took Rostov’s glass from his hand and filled it from the silver carafe emblazoned with the Korsakov coat of arms. Handing him the glass, he said, “Drink.”
Rostov needed little encouragement at this point. He swallowed the contents in one gulp, then held out the crystal tumbler for a refill.
“Another?” Kuragin said, his eyes on Count Korsakov.
“Coals to Newcastle. Why not, Nikolai?”
His glass full once more, Rostov tilted it back, swallowed, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He glared at the two men who’d betrayed him.
“And tonight this fucking fox in the henhouse?” he managed to croak.
“Fox?” Korsakov asked the president. “Henhouse?”
“This Englishman you invite into your home! Who is he? Do you even know? He could well be a spy.”
“Oh, we know this fox quite well, do we not, Nikolai? We’ve had this particular fox in our sights for a very, very long time. Here. Have another drink, Volodya.”
President Rostov staggered to his feet, stood for a moment, then collapsed back into the deep leather
