butterflies.”
“What of the border guards?” Aliyev asked.
“They will hurt the Chinese, and then they will pull out. Comrades, I cannot emphasize this enough: the life of every single private soldier is important to us. Our men will fight harder if they know we care about them, and more than that, they
But wars were not won by speeches.
CHAPTER 45 Ghosts of Horrors Past
President Grushavoy arrived in Warsaw with the usual pomp and circumstance. A good actor, Ryan saw, watching the arrival on TV. You never would have guessed from his face that his country was looking at a major war. Grushavoy passed the same receiving line, doubtless composed of the same troops Ryan had eyeballed on his arrival, made a brief but flowery arrival speech citing the long and friendly history shared by Poland and Russia (conveniently leaving out the equally long and less-than-friendly parts), then got into a car for the city, accompanied, Ryan was glad to see, by Sergey Nikolay’ch Golovko.
In the President’s hand was a fax from Washington outlining what the Chinese had in the way of war assets to turn loose on their northern neighbors, along with an estimate from the Defense Intelligence Agency on what they called the “correlation of forces,” which, Jack remembered, was a term of art used by the Soviet army of old. Its estimate of the situation was not especially favorable. Almost as bad, America didn’t have much with which to help the Russians. The world’s foremost navy was of little direct use in a land war. The United States Army had a division and a half of heavy troops in Europe, but that was thousands of miles from the expected scene of action. The Air Force had all the mobility it needed to project force anywhere on the globe, and that could give anyone a serious headache, but airplanes could not by themselves defeat an army. No, this would be largely a Russian show, and the Russian army, the fax said, was in terrible shape. The DIA had some good things to say about the senior Russian commander in theater, but a smart guy with a.22 against a dumb one with a machine gun was still at a disadvantage. So, he hoped the Chinese would be taken aback by this day’s news, but CIA and State’s estimate of that possibility was decidedly iffy.
“Scott?” Ryan asked his Secretary of State.
“Jack, I can’t say. This ought to discourage them, but we can’t be sure how tight a corner they think they are in. If they think they’re trapped, they might still lash out.”
“God damn it, Scott, is this the way nations do business?” Jack demanded. “Misperceptions? Fears? Outright stupidity?”
Adler shrugged. “It’s a mistake to think a chief of government is any smarter than the rest of us, Jack. People make decisions the same way, regardless of how big and smart they are. It comes down to how they perceive the question, and how best they can serve their own needs, preserve their own personal well-being. Remember that we’re not dealing with clergymen here. They don’t have much in the way of consciences. Our notion of right and wrong doesn’t play in that sort of mind. They translate what’s good for their country into what’s good for themselves, just like a king in the twelfth century, but in this case there isn’t any bishop around to remind them that there may be a God looking down at them with a notebook.” They’d gone out of their way, Adler didn’t have to say, to eliminate a cardinal-archbishop just to get themselves into this mess.
“Sociopaths?” the President asked.
Secretary Adler shrugged. “I’m not a physician, just a diplomat. When you negotiate with people like this, you dangle what’s good for their country-them-in front of their eyes and hope they reach for it. You play the game without entirely understanding them. These people do things neither one of us would ever do. And they run a major country, complete with nuclear weapons.”
“Great,” Ryan breathed. He stood and got his coat. “Well, let’s go watch our new ally sign up, shall we?”
Ten minutes later, they were in the reception room of the Lazienski Palace. There was the usual off-camera time for the various chiefs of government to socialize over Perrier-and-a-twist before some nameless protocol official opened the double doors to the table, chairs, documents, and TV cameras.
The speech from President Grushavoy was predictable in every detail. The NATO alliance had been established to protect Western Europe against what his country had once been, and his former country had established its own mirror-image alliance called the Warsaw Pact right here in this very city. But the world had turned, and now Russia was pleased to join the rest of Europe in an alliance of friends whose only wish was peace and prosperity for all. Grushavoy was pleased indeed to be the first Russian in a very long time to be a real part of the European community, and promised to be a worthy friend and partner of his newly close neighbors. (The military ramifications of the North Atlantic Treaty were not mentioned at all.) And everyone present applauded. And Grushavoy pulled out an ancient fountain pen borrowed from the collection at The Hermitage in St. Petersburg to sign in the name of his country, and so bring membership in NATO up by one. And everyone applauded again as the various chiefs of state and government walked over to shake their new ally’s hand. And the shape of the world changed yet again.
“Ivan Emmetovich,” Golovko said, as he approached the American President.
“Sergey Nikolay’ch,” Ryan said in quiet reply.
“What will Beijing think of this?” the chief of the Russian intelligence service asked.
“With luck, we’ll know in twenty-four hours,” Ryan answered, knowing that this ceremony had gone out on CNN’s live global feed, and positive that it was being watched in China.
“I expect the language will be profane.”
“They’ve said nasty things about me lately,” Jack assured him.
“That you should have carnal relations with your mother, no doubt.”
“Actually, that I should have oral sex with her,” the President confirmed distastefully. “I suppose everybody says things like that in private.”
“In person, it can get a man shot.”
Ryan grunted grim semi-amusement. “Bet your ass, Sergey.”
“Will this work?” Golovko asked.
“I was going to ask you that. You’re closer to them than we are.”
“I do not know,” the Russian said, with a tiny sip of his vodka glass. “And if it does not..:”
“In that case, you have some new allies.”
“And what of the precise wording of Articles Five and Six of the treaty?”
“Sergey, you may tell your president that the United States will regard an attack on any part of the territory of the Russian Federation as operative under the North Atlantic Treaty. On that, Sergey Nikolay’ch, you have the word and the commitment of the United States of America,” SWORDSMAN told his Russian acquaintance.
“Jack, if I may address you in this way, I have told my president more than once that you are a man of honor, and a man of your word.” The relief on his face was obvious.
“Sergey, from you those words are flattering. It’s simple, really. It’s your land, and a nation like ours cannot just stand by and watch a robbery of this scale taking place. It corrupts the foundations of international peace. It’s our job to remake the world into a peaceful place. There’s been enough war.”
“I fear there will be another,” Golovko said, with characteristic honesty.
“Then together your country and mine will make it the very last.”
“Plato said, ‘Only the dead have seen the end of war.’ ”
“So, are we to be bound by the words of a Greek who lived twenty-five centuries ago? I prefer the words of a
