“That’s a fact, sir. I was talking with Scan Connolly the other day–he’s CO of the 10th ACR in the Negev Desert,” Hamm explained to the Russian. “The Israelis still haven’t got it all the way figured out. They still bitch about what the OCs tell ’em.”
“We keep installing more cameras over there.” Diggs laughed as he started shoveling burgers onto the plate. “And sometimes the Israelis don’t believe what happened even after we show them the videotapes.”
“Still too much hoo-uh over there,” Hamm agreed. “Hey, I came here as a squadron commander, and I got my ass handed to me more’n once.”
“Gennady, after the Persian Gulf War, 3rd ACR came here for their regular rotation. Now, you remember, they led Barry McCaffrey’s 24th Mech–”
“Kicked ass and took names for two hundred twenty miles in four days,” Hamm confirmed. Bondarenko nodded. He’d studied that campaign in detail.
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“Couple months later, they came here and got the shit kicked outa them. That’s the point, General. The training here is tougher than combat. There’s no unit in the world as smart and fast and tough as Al’s Blackhorse Cav–”
“Except your old Buffalo Soldiers, General,” Hamm interjected.
Diggs smiled at the reference to the 10th. He was used to Hamm’s interruptions anyway. “That’s a fact, Al. Anyway, if you can just break even against the Op For, you’re ready to take on anybody in the world, on the wrong side of three-to-one odds, and kick their ass into the next time zone.”
Bondarenko nodded, smiling. He was learning fast. The small staff that had come with him was still prowling the base, talking with counterpart officers, and learning, learning, learning. Being on the wrong side of three-to-one odds wasn’t the tradition of Russian armies, but that might soon change. The threat to his country was China, and if that battle were ever fought, it would be at the far end of a lengthy supply line, against a huge conscript army. The only answer to that threat was to duplicate what the Americans had done. Bondarenko’s mission was to change the entire military policy of his country. Well, he told himself, he’d come to the right place to learn how.
BULLSHIT, THE PRESIDENT thought behind an understanding smile. It was hard to like India. They called themselves the world’s largest democracy, but that wasn’t especially true. They talked about the most high-minded principles, but had, when convenient, muscled neighbors, developed nuclear weapons, and in asking America to depart the Indian Ocean–“It is, after all, called the Indian Ocean,” a former P.M. had told a former American Ambassador–decided that the doctrine of Freedom of the Seas was variably applicable. And for damned sure, they’d been ready to make a move on Sri Lanka. It was just that now, the move having been foiled, they were saying that no such move had ever been planned. But you couldn’t look in the eyes of a chief of state and smile, and say, “Bullshit.”
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It just wasn’t done.
Jack listened patiently, sipping at another glass of Per-rier fetched for him by a nameless aide. The situation in Sri Lanka was complex, and did, unfortunately, lend itself to misunderstanding, and India regretted that, and there were no hard feelings at all, but wouldn’t it be better if both sides stood down. The Indian fleet was withdrawing back to its bases, training complete, and a few ships damaged by the American demonstration, which, the Prime Minister said without so many words, wasn’t exactly cricket. Such bullies.
And what does Sri Lanka think of you? Ryan could have asked, but didn’t.
“If only you and Ambassador Williams had communicated more clearly on the issue,” Ryan observed sadly.
“Such things happen,” the Prime Minister replied. “David–frankly, pleasant man though he is, I fear the climate is too hot for one of his age.” Which was as close as she could come to telling Ryan to fire the man. Declaring Ambassador Williams persona non grata was far too drastic a step. Ryan tried not to change his expression, but failed. He needed Scott Adler over here, but the acting Sec-State was somewhere else at the moment.
“I hope you can appreciate the fact that I am really not in a position to make serious changes in the government at the moment.” Drop dead,
“Please, I wasn’t suggesting that. I fully appreciate your situation. My hope was to allay at least one supposed problem, to make your task easier.” Or I could make it harder.
“Thank you for that, Prime Minister. Perhaps your Ambassador here could discuss things with Scott?”
“I’ll be sure to speak to him on the matter.” She shook Ryan’s hand again and walked away. Jack waited for several seconds before looking at the Prince.
“Your Highness, what do you call it when a high-ranking person lies right in your face?” the President asked with a wry smile.
“Diplomacy.”
9
DISTANT HOWLS
GOLOVKO READ OVER
Ambassador Lermonsov’s report without sympathy for its subject. Ryan looked “harried and uncomfortable,” “somewhat overwhelmed,” and “physically tired.” Well, that was to be expected. His speech at President Durling’s funeral, the diplomatic community agreed–along with the American media, which was straining its capacity for politeness–was not presidential. Well, anyone who knew Ryan knew him to be sentimental, especially when it came to the welfare of children. Golovko could easily forgive that. Russians were much the same. He ought to have done otherwise–Golovko had read over the official, undelivered oration; it was a good one, full of assurances for all listeners–but Ryan had always been what the Americans called a maverick (he’d had to look up the word, discovering that it denoted a wild, untamed horse, which was not far off the mark). That made Ryan both easy and impossible for the Russian to analyze. Ryan was an American, and Americans were and had always been devilishly unpredictable from Golovko’s perspective. He’d spent a professional lifetime, first as a field intelligence officer, then as a rapidly climbing staff officer in Moscow, trying to predict what America would do in all manner of situations, and only avoiding failure because he’d never failed to present three possible courses of action in his reports to his superiors.
But at least Ivan Emmetovich Ryan was predictably unpredictable, and Golovko flattered himself to think of Ryan as a friend–perhaps that was going a bit far, but the two men had played the game, most of the time from opposite sides of the field, and for the most part both had played it skillfully and well, Golovko the more experienced professional, Ryan the gifted amateur, blessed by a system more tolerant of mavericks. There was respect between them.
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“What are you thinking now, Jack?” Sergey whispered to himself. Right now the new American President was sleeping, of course, fully eight hours behind Moscow, where the sun was only beginning to rise for a short winter day.
Ambassador Lermonsov had not been overly impressed, and Golovko would have to append his own notes to the report lest his government give that evaluation too much credence. Ryan had been far too skilled an enemy to the USSR to be taken lightly under any circumstances. The problem was that Lermonsov had expected Ryan to fit into one mold, and Ivan Emmetovich was not so easily classified. It wasn’t so much complexity as a different variety of complexity. Russia didn’t have a Ryan–it was not likely that he could have survived in the Soviet environment which still pervaded the Russian Republic, especially in its official bureaucracies. He was easily bored, and his temper, though kept under tight control at most times, was always there. Golovko had seen it bubbling more than once, but only heard of times when it had broken loose. Those stories had percolated out of CIA to ears which reported to Dzerzhinskiy Square. God help him as a head of government.
But that wasn’t Golovko’s problem.
He had enough of his own. He hadn’t entirely relinquished control of the Foreign Intelligence Service–President Grushavoy had little reason to trust the agency which had once been the “Sword and Shield of the Party,” and wanted someone he could rely upon to keep an eye on that tethered predator; Golovko, of course–and at the same time, Sergey was the principal foreign-policy adviser to the beleaguered Russian President. Russia’s internal problems were so manifest as to deny the President the ability to evaluate foreign problems, and that meant that for all practical purposes the former spy gave advice that his President almost invariably followed. The chief minister–that’s what he was, with or without the title–took the burden seriously. Grushavoy had a domestic hydra to deal with–like the mythical beast of old, every head cut off just gave room for another to grow into its place. Golovko had fewer to deal with, but they made up for it
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in size. And part of him wished for a return to the old KGB. Only a few years before, it would have been child’s play. Lift a phone, speak a few words, and the criminals would have been picked up, and that would have been that–not really, but it would have made things more .. . peaceful. More predictable. More orderly. And his country needed order. But the Second Chief Directorate, the “secret police” division of the agency, was gone, spun off into an independent bureau, its powers diminished, and its public respect–fear bordering on outright terror in the not-so-old days–had evaporated. His country had never been under the degree of control expected by the West, but now it was worse. The Russian Republic teetered on the edge of anarchy as her citizens groped for something called democracy. Anarchy was what had brought Lenin to power, for the Russians craved strong rule, scarcely having known anything else, and while Golovko didn’t want that–as a senior KGB officer he knew better than any what damage Marxism-Leninism had done to his nation– he desperately needed an organized country behind him, because the problems within attracted problems without. And so it was that his unofficial post as chief minister for national security was hostage to all manner of difficulties. His were the arms of an injured body, trying to fend off the wolves while it tried to heal.