was Vladimir Kusin’s chief of security. Maybe these people were better organized than he had thought.
The older man motioned him into an adjacent room — from the look of it a small bedroom temporarily converted into an office and library. Kusin sat down and indicated a second chair for Hradetsky. Kiraly stood behind them, near the door.
“May I see the file you showed Oskar?”
Hradetsky gave him the manila envelope, along with a separate packet containing all the documents he’d been given by Bela Silvanus. He nodded toward the photocopied police file. “Aren’t you worried that may be false?”
Kusin shook his head. “If it is, your future is short, I’m afraid.” His eyes flickered toward Kiraly. Suddenly the colonel’s shoulder blades itched. He forced himself to sit calmly. If they wanted him dead, there wasn’t much he could do about it. The opposition leader scanned the copied file quickly, smiled, and then opened the other envelope.
Kusin’s white, tufted eyebrows rose as he realized what it contained. “This is fascinating, Colonel Hradetsky. You would make a first-class spy.”
He winced inwardly, and some of it must have shown on his face, because the older man quickly added, “That is not why we need you, though.”
Kusin leaned back in his chair. “So, Colonel, what is it that you want? Why did you seek me out?” He flicked the pile of reassignment orders and termination lists in his lap. “Only to show me these? Or for something more?”
Hradetsky sighed, knowing this was a moment of truth — a turning point from would-be reformer to revolutionary. “I started out wanting to stop this man Rehling’s orders, to bring some sanity back to the National Police. Now I don’t think that can happen. Not under this government.”
“It can’t,” Kusin agreed firmly. “Rehling and the others like him are merely symptoms of a greater illness. These French and German satraps infect our country because the generals believe they need this Confederation’s support to maintain their power. What the soldiers do not seem to realize is that their onetime allies are very rapidly becoming their masters. And our masters as well.”
“Yes. I understand that.” Hradetsky stifled his impatience. For all his eloquence, Kusin was still a politician. And politicians liked to talk. “But what can we do to stop this?”
“Beside printing futile complaints, you mean?” The older man laughed softly. “There are a lot of people like you, Colonel, who were willing to accept a Government of National Salvation, but not this supposed European Confederation. We are going to mobilize those newly dissatisfied people. We are going to expand our own organization. Recruiting some of the police officers on this list you gave us will be very useful.”
Kusin’s voice grew harder, even more determined. “And if the French and the Germans push us too far, we will fight.”
There was a fire in his eyes and his voice that Hradetsky felt warming his own blood. He wanted to act, not sit here in this study. “Then what do you want me to do?”
“You are a trained leader, Colonel. An expert in the art of managing men and controlling crowds. We will use that expertise for our own purposes.” Kusin leaned closer to him. “Very soon, we will mass ten thousand people or more for a march on the Parliament building to demand reforms. You are going to help us organize this protest.”
The opposition leader sat back. His eyes were colder now, fixed on some distant horizon beyond Hradetsky’s view. “And then?” He smiled sadly. “Then we shall see just how far these madmen in Paris and Berlin can be pushed.”
The news from Europe was grim.
“Essentially the French and German military buildup along the Polish and Czech borders is continuing, Mr. President. In fact, it may even be accelerating. The whole border area is rapidly becoming a powder keg.” General Reid Galloway, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, stood behind a podium next to a wall-sized video monitor. The fact that America’s top-ranked soldier was delivering this briefing in person emphasized how seriously he viewed the events piling up across the Atlantic. The creases across a normally optimistic, good-humored face were another clear indication.
Ross Huntington shared the general’s pessimistic view. Outraged by the French-funded oil embargo and the attack on
Galloway clicked through several images in rapid succession, using a hand-held controller to circle the parts of each image he considered particularly important. Some of the photos he highlighted showed jet aircraft parked out in the open near hardened shelters. Others featured row after row of tanks and other armored vehicles lined up in cleared fields near small villages and larger towns. “As these satellite photos show, EurCon is in the process of moving substantial air and ground forces to new bases in eastern Germany. Significantly, they aren’t making any real effort to hide this redeployment.”
“Could they?” The President sat forward in his chair.
Galloway nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir. My EurCon counterparts know the orbital data for every recon satellite we have. If they wanted to, they could be moving this hardware around when we’re blind — and concealing it under camouflage netting or in shelters when we’re not. We’d still pick up signs of movement, but not anywhere near this fast or this easily.”
“So this is primarily a political maneuver to step up the pressure on the Poles and Czechs — and not a preliminary move toward deliberate military action?”
“Exactly, Mr. President.” The chairman of the Joint Chiefs keyed the monitor off and raised the room lights to full brightness. “But our allies can’t take that chance, so they’re being forced to respond in kind.
“Although they’re still worried about Russia, the Poles are more worried about EurCon. So far they’ve deployed four of their nine active-duty divisions along the German frontier, with another two close behind in reserve. And when I talked to General Staron, their Defense Minister, this morning, he informed me that his President is considering reactivating one of their reserve divisions. The Czechs and Slovaks are taking similar steps.”
Huntington felt the band around his chest tighten even more. This was very bad news. Calling reservists from their civilian jobs back to the colors was always a costly proposition. The fact that the three Eastern European countries were even considering it in a time of great economic hardship indicated just how concerned they were.
Galloway shook his head somberly. “With tens of thousands of troops on full alert and aircraft flying combat air patrols in close proximity to each other, the place is just one hell of an accident waiting to happen.”
“Swell.” The President swiveled his chair toward Harris Thurman. “Any recent diplomatic developments I should know about?”
“No, sir.” The Secretary of State sounded apologetic. “Nobody’s budged so much as an inch.”
“All right, people. I need your input. What exactly are my options here?” The President tapped the table with his pen. “General? John? Any ideas on your end of things?”
The Secretary of Defense looked thoughtful. “The Joint Chiefs and I believe we should boost our military aid to Poland and the others even further, Mr. President. By drawing down some of our reserve forces equipment we could — ”
“Send more tanks?” Thurman looked aghast. “General Galloway is right. The whole region is an armed camp now. How can shipping in more weapons possibly help?”
Lucier kept his attention locked on the President. “Weapons by themselves don’t provoke wars. Perceptions and intentions are far more important.”
Huntington nodded to himself. The short, bookish Secretary of Defense was right there. Too many arms control pundits focused only on the hardware side of the equation. By their bizarre set of rules, both Adolf Hitler’s massive program to rearm for conquest and the belated Allied efforts to thwart the Nazi dictator would have been judged equally destabilizing.
