facto control over the DGSE and its associated security agencies.
He leaned forward, eyeing each of his cabinet colleagues in turn. “What Morin says is true. I do not think there is anything to be gained by hiding our heads in the sand. These radicals are not making idle threats.”
“Perhaps we should negotiate with them… come to some arrangement…” Navarre’s voice trailed off as Desaix frowned. The small, stoop-shouldered Interior Minister’s prestige had fallen precipitously in the past several weeks — a product of his growing inability to control the police and special riot troops.
“Negotiate? Impossible!” Desaix shook his head in contempt. “Their demands are absurd — an insult. Meeting even the least costly of them would bankrupt our largest and most profitable companies. Nor do I see any merit in surrendering effective control of this government to a band of mechanics and shop stewards!”
“Then what, precisely, do you propose, Nicolas?” Barrel-chested Michel Guichy, the Minister of Defense, tapped the table for emphasis. “If the gendarmes and the CRS can’t keep order now, how can we depend on them during such a strike? My God, most of the bastards are in the unions themselves!”
Others around the room echoed Guichy’s sharp-edged question. Even at the best of times cabinet meetings could be contentious. Now they were all on edge, worn down by the last month’s steady stream of strikes, riots, and worsening economic indicators, and they were frightened by what was coming. France simply could not afford either the threatened nationwide walkout or the exorbitant demands being made by her trade unions. Her heavily subsidized industries were already on the edge of bankruptcy.
Desaix kept his face still, careful not to show his irritation. He’d worked too hard for too long to build his influence with these men to risk losing his temper now. Besides, he scented opportunity in this crisis — even in a crisis partly of his own making.
He shrugged mentally. It was becoming all too apparent that he’d miscalculated the effects of the foreign worker relocations. He’d anticipated widespread anger in Eastern Europe — not this rage at home.
Still, there were positive aspects to the situation. This confrontation with organized labor had been building for years. So had public hatred for the immigrant population. His first attempt to solve those twin problems, the Sopron covert action, had partially backfired. Perhaps it was time to bring both disputes to a head. To kill two birds with one presidential decree. Especially if it could be done in a way that would advance his vision of a more powerful, more united France.
Desaix fixed his gaze on the Minister of Defense. Guichy’s support for his plan would be critical. “What I propose, my friend, are measures equal to the dangers we face.” He narrowed his eyes. “Drastic measures.”
Then, speaking with utter conviction and iron determination, he outlined the steps he believed would save France from ruin.
The argument he sparked lasted half the night.
Regular army soldiers in full combat gear ringed the small executive jet parked just off Le Bourget’s main runway. They were the innermost element of an airtight security cordon surrounding the airport. The authorities were taking every possible precaution against trouble. Nothing could be allowed to delay this plane’s scheduled departure.
“Attention!”
The soldiers snapped rigidly upright, presenting arms as a sleek Citroen limousine swung off an access road and purred up to the waiting aircraft. Tricolor flags fluttered from the Citroen’s black hood.
The limousine’s rear doors popped open, and a tall, hawk-nosed man emerged, carrying a leather briefcase. A single aide climbed out the other side, clutching a suit bag and a rolled-up umbrella. Clouds pushed west by a new high-pressure system rolling out of Russia carried the threat of rain over the next several days.
As the captain commanding the guard detachment saluted, both men hurried up a folding staircase and disappeared into the plane’s dimly lit but plush interior. Its twin turbofan engines whined into action, howling louder and louder as they spun up toward full power.
Five minutes later, its navigation lights blinking against a pitch-black sky, the jet carrying Nicolas Desaix roared off the tarmac and climbed at a steep angle. The ranking member of the still-secret Emergency Committee for the Preservation of the Republic was flying east — toward Germany.
CHAPTER 5
Peacekeepers
Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm “Willi” von Seelow glanced out a headquarters building window at the brigade
The area was alive with men and vehicles. Detachments of soldiers in gray-green field uniforms milled around open armory doors collecting weapons and ammunition. Other parties stood in line, waiting their turn. All wore the dark green beret and silver crossed-rifles badge of Germany’s mechanized infantry, the panzergrenadiers.
The afternoon light, dimming as the sun set, was made grayer by a solid overcast sky. It fell on but did not illuminate the steel sides of tracked Marder APCs and the crumbling concrete walls of the brigade’s barracks and garages. The outside lights were already on, but it was still too early for them to do much to brighten a scene of military confusion.
The chaos outside was matched inside the brigade’s crowded operations room. Every phone was in use, and he could hear more than one officer demanding instant action in a strident tone, as if shouting made things work better. Von Seelow noticed one young captain who seemed to be doing most of the yelling. At least he could put a stop to that.
He called the man over, spoke softly and sharply to him, and then sent him on an errand out of the building. A little trip into the cold afternoon air should cool him off. More important, it would send a signal to the rest of the staff. Good soldiers stayed calm, even in the midst of crisis.
His reprimand had the desired effect. In the resulting quiet, von Seelow turned to his own work, trying hard to organize both his thoughts and the brigade. There was a lot to be done in an unreasonably short time.
They’d been galvanized into action by a sudden, hurry-up order from 7th Panzer Division’s headquarters in Munster: Mobilize the entire brigade immediately for civil peacekeeping duties. Von Seelow had taken the call himself once the duty officer convinced him it wasn’t a joke.
He frowned at the memory. Major Feist, at division headquarters, had managed to sound arrogant and worried at the same time. He’d also peremptorily brushed aside every one of Willi’s objections.
“No, Herr Oberstleutnant, I do mean the entire brigade. Yes, Herr Oberstleutnant, we are aware of your fuel situation. Yes, we know you are short of gear and men. I’m sorry, Herr Oberstleutnant, but we can’t spare you any troops ourselves. We’ve problems here as well. We need your brigade on the road to Dortmund by midnight. The situation is very bad. The anarchists are holed up in several vacant buildings.” Willi knew the ones he meant. Unemployed youths had taken them over several months ago, turning them into graffiti-sprayed fortresses. “They’re using them as bases for looting and burning much of the surrounding area, as well as fighting with rival gangs. The police are doing their best, but they’re outclassed.”
On that encouraging note, Feist had wished him luck and hung up.
Von Seelow knew the situation in Germany’s towns and cities was grim, but he hadn’t thought it was bad enough to warrant calling up regular army units.
A small chill ran down his back. Years ago, he’d served with Germany’s U.N. peacekeeping forces in Yugoslavia and had watched with horror as civil strife wrecked a nation. Separating the warring factions had cost the U.N. force hundreds of lives and billions of marks. It had been a months-long nightmare of frustrating patrolling, sudden, bloody ambushes, and the horrid experience of being hated and shot at by both sides. Now he was being told his own country might stand on the brink of a similar nightmare.
His combat experience had been useful to him, though. In any peacetime army, promotions were rare. He’d moved up from major to lieutenant colonel because he’d shown himself cool and utterly reliable under fire. And von Seelow knew that he couldn’t have gained promotion in any other way. His experience and training in the East German Army before the unification more than qualified him for his current rank, but “ossies,” those born in the East, were not popular in the unified Bundeswehr, the Federal German Army. Most of Willi’s former colleagues were
