Admiral Henri Gibierge — chief of staff, French Navy
Michel Guichy — Minister of Defense
General de Corps d’Armee Etienne Montagne — commanding officer, EurCon II Corps
Jacques Morin — deputy director, later director, DGSE
Michel Woerner — DGSE special operative
Brigadier General Imre Dozsa — commander, National Police
Colonel Zoltan Hradetsky — police commander, Sopron District, later assigned to headquarters in Budapest
Oskar Kiraly — aide to Vladimir Kusin
Vladimir Kusin — opposition leader
Bela Silvanus — head of administration, National Police Headquarters, Budapest
Major Marek Malanowski — commanding officer, 411th Mechanized Battalion, 4th Mechanized Division
Major General Jerzy Novachik — commanding officer, 5th Mechanized Division
Major Miroslaw Prazmo — commanding officer, remnants of the 314th Mechanized Battalion, 11th Mechanized Division
General Wieslaw Staron — Minister of Defense
First Lieutenant Tadeusz “Tad” Wojcik — American-born F-15 pilot, assigned to the 11th Fighter Regiment, at Wroclaw
Lieutenant General Ignacy Zdanski — chief of staff, Polish Army
Marshal Yuri Kaminov — chief of staff, Russian Army
Colonel Valentin Soloviev — senior aide to Marshal Kaminov
Pavel Sorokin — purchasing agent for the Ministry of Defense
PROLOGUE
NOVEMBER 1993 — ”EUROPE MIRED IN NEW FINANCIAL MESS,”
Torn by wildly variable interest rates and renewed pessimism about the world economy, the turmoil in Europe’s financial markets intensified yesterday. Despite frantic interventions by their central banks, the British pound and the Italian lira continued their free fall against the German mark and the French franc. Angry exchanges between government officials in London, Rome, Paris, and Berlin seemed likely to doom any hope for an early end to the chaos.…
JANUARY 1994 — ”RACE RIOTS FLARE IN MAJOR EUROPEAN CITIES,”
Angered by a new surge of economic refugees from poverty-stricken Eastern Europe and North Africa, neo- Nazis, skinheads, and radical leftists went on a bloody rampage through industrial towns and cities across western Europe. In day-long rioting that left dozens dead or seriously injured…
JULY 1994 — ”‘TRADE CRISIS LOOMING,’ U.S. WARNS,”
Recent French and German moves to protect their industries against fair international competition raise the specter of a devastating global trade war, key U.S. officials warned. On Capitol Hill, congressional leaders are already considering legislation to impose retaliatory tariffs and restrictions on goods imported from the two European countries.…
DECEMBER 1994 — ”EASTERN EUROPE ON THE AUCTION BLOCK,”
Desperate for the foreign monetary and food aid they need to stay afloat through the winter, several of Eastern Europe’s newly installed military regimes have signed pacts that give French- and German-owned corporations a stranglehold over their trade and economic development. So-called Governments of National Salvation in Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, and Romania were among the first to mortgage their future to Paris and Berlin.…
FEBRUARY 1995 — ”NATO ALLIANCE DISSOLVES,”
An era of unprecedented international defense cooperation came to an end today in rancor, bitterness, and suspicion. Outraged by French and German policies they blame for the continuing world recession, the United States, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Norway formally withdrew from the NATO Alliance.…
SEPTEMBER 1996 — ”WORLDWIDE SLUMP WORSENS,”
With whole segments of international trade at a complete standstill, the global economic downturn worsened last month. As unemployment rose to near-record levels in all major industrialized countries and famine spread throughout the third world, many economists are now labeling this a depression.…
COMMENTARY, ABC NEWS
“Poverty. Despair. Rising ethnic and national hatreds. Fear. This is Europe today.” Grim images flashed across the screen in time with the somber words. Pictures of miles-long unemployment lines, hollow-cheeked, hungry children, and twisted corpses scattered through burning villages. “A Europe in shambles, bleak, bitter, and adrift.
“A divided continent where old and dangerous ambitions the world thought safely buried are on the march again.” More pictures told the story. National flags of different designs and colors waved above a dozen different, strutting crowds in a dozen interwoven news clips.
The veteran journalist’s voice took on a sad, wistful edge. “When we won the cold war against communism, the world’s democracies had a fleeting opportunity to secure a lasting peace founded on free trade and prosperity. We did not lose this historic opening by chance or simple bad luck. We threw it away.”
CHAPTER 1
Provocation
The two men lay quietly on a thinly wooded hillside overlooking their target. Clouds covered the night sky
