new treasures as it had fucked up everything else. The Soviet government had
“It will do us little harm. Sergey, this is the salvation of our country. It will take ten years to get the full benefit from the outfields, but then we shall have a steady and regular income for at least one whole generation, and perhaps more besides.”
“What help will we need?”
“The Americans and the British have expertise which we need, from their own exploitation of the Alaskan fields. They have knowledge. We shall learn it and make use of it. We are in negotiations now with Atlantic Richfield, the American oil company, for technical support. They are being greedy, but that’s to be expected. They know that only they have what we need, and paying them for it is cheaper than having to replicate it ourselves. So, they will get most of what they now demand. Perhaps we will pay them in gold bricks,” Solomentsev suggested lightly.
Golovko had to resist the temptation to inquire too deeply into the gold strike. The oil field was far more lucrative, but gold was prettier. He, too, wanted to see one of those pelts that this Gogol fellow had used to collect the dust. And this lonely forest-dweller would have to be properly taken care of-no major problem, as he lived alone and was childless. Whatever he got, the state would soon get back, old as he was. And there’d be a TV show, maybe even a feature film, about this hunter. He’d once hunted Germans, after all, and the Russians still made heroes of such men. That would make Pavel Petrovich Gogol happy enough, wouldn’t it?
“What does Eduard Petrovich know?”
“I’ve been saving the information until I had a full and reliable reading on it. I have that now. I think he will be pleased at the next cabinet meeting, Sergey Nikolay’ch.”
As well he should, Golovko thought. President Grushavoy had been as busy as a one-armed, one-legged paperhanger for three years. No, more like a stage magician or conjurer, forced to produce real things from nothing, and his success in keeping the nation moving often seemed nothing short of miraculous. Perhaps this was God’s own way of rewarding the man for his efforts, though it would not be an entirely unmixed blessing. Every government agency would want its piece of the gold-and-oil pie, each with its needs, all of them presented by its own minister as vital to the security of the state, in white papers of brilliant logic and compelling reasoning. Who knew, maybe some of them would even be telling the truth, though truth was so often a rare commodity in the cabinet room. Each minister had an empire to build, and the better he built it, the closer he would come to the seat at the head of the table that was occupied, for now, by Eduard Petrovich Grushavoy. Golovko wondered if it had been this way under the czars. Probably, he decided at once. Human nature didn’t change very much. The way people had acted in Babylon or Byzantium was probably little different from the way they’d act at the next cabinet meeting, three days hence. He wondered how President Grushavoy would handle the news.
“How much has leaked out?” the spymaster asked.
“There are doubtless some rumors,” Minister Solomentsev answered, “but the current estimates are less than twenty-four hours old, and it usually takes longer than that to leak. I will have these documents messengered to you-tomorrow morning?”
“That will be fine, Vasily. I’ll have some of my own analysts go over the data, so that I can present my own independent estimate of the situation.”
“I have no objection to that,” the economics minister responded, surprising Golovko more than a little. But then this wasn’t the USSR anymore. The current cabinet might be the modern counterpart to the old Politburo, but nobody there told lies … well, at least not big lies. And that was a measure of progress for his country, wasn’t it?
CHAPTER 11 Faith of the Fathers
His name was Yu Fa An, and he said he was a Christian. That was rare enough that Monsignor Schepke invited him in at once. What he saw was a Chinese national of fifty-plus years and stooped frame, with hair a curious mix of black and gray that one saw only rarely in this part of the world.
“Welcome to our embassy. I am Monsignor Schepke.” He bowed quickly and then shook the man’s hand.
“Thank you. I am the Reverend Yu Fa An,” the man replied with the dignity of truth, one cleric to another.
“Indeed. Of what denomination?”
“I am a Baptist.”
“Ordained? Is that possible?” Schepke motioned the visitor to follow him, and in a moment they stood before the Nuncio. “Eminence, this is the Reverend Yu Fa An-of Beijing?” Schepke asked belatedly.
“Yes, that is so. My congregation is mainly northwest of here.”
“Welcome.” Cardinal DiMilo rose from his chair for a warm handshake, and guided the man to the comfortable visitor’s chair. Monsignor Schepke went to fetch tea. “It is a pleasure to meet a fellow Christian in this city.”
“There are not enough of us, and that is a fact, Eminence,” Yu confirmed.
Monsignor Schepke swiftly arrived with a tray of tea things, which he set on the low coffee table.
“Thank you, Franz.”
“I thought that some local citizens should welcome you. I expect you’ve had the formal welcome from the Foreign Ministry, and that it was correct … and rather cold?” Yu asked.
The Cardinal smiled as he handed a cup to his guest. “It was correct, as you say, but it could have been warmer.”
“You will find that the government here has ample manners and good attention to protocol, but little in the way of sincerity,” Yu said, in English, with a very strange accent.
“You are originally from …?”
“I was born in Taipei. As a youth, I traveled to America for my education. I first attended the University of Oklahoma, but the call came, and I transferred to Oral Roberts University in the same state. There I got my first degree-in electrical engineering-and went on for my doctor of divinity and my ordination,” he explained.
“Indeed, and how did you come to be in the People’s Republic?”
“Back in the 1970s, the government of Chairman Mao was ever so pleased to have Taiwanese come here to live-rejecting capitalism and coming to Marxism, you see,” he added with a twinkling eye. “It was hard on my parents, but they came to understand. I started my congregation soon after I arrived. That was troublesome for the Ministry of State Security, but I also worked as an engineer, and at the time the state needed that particular skill. It is remarkable what the State will accept if you have something it needs, and back then their need for people with my degree was quite desperate. But now I am a minister on a full-time basis.” With the announcement of his triumph, Yu lifted his own teacup for a sip.
“So, what can you tell us about the local environment?” Renato asked.
“The government is truly communist. It trusts and tolerates no loyalty to anything except itself. Even the Falun Gong, which was not truly a religion-that is, not really a belief system as you or I would understand the term-has been brutally suppressed, and my own congregation has been persecuted. It is a rare Sunday on which more than a quarter of my congregation comes to attend services. I must spend much of my time traveling from home to home to bring the gospel to my flock.”
“How do you support yourself?” the Cardinal asked.
Yu smiled serenely. “That is the least of my problems. American Baptists support me most generously. There
