“I should like to hear more, Comrade,” Dvornikov said. He motioned to a portable bar set up in the salon. “Perhaps we can toast your triumph.” Gabovich motioned to a chair in the living room, and Dvornikov took a seat. Gabovich poured him a snifter of brandy, and before he could say anything else, Dvornikov raised it to him. “To you and your operation, much success.”
“To the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” Gabovich said confidently. He drained his entire snifter, not noticing that Dvornikov barely wet his lips with his.
“Yes, it is quite a feat you have accomplished, Viktor Josefivich,” Dvornikov smiled. “Getting that pig Voshchanka to mobilize his troops against both Lithuania and Russia in the Kalinin oblast was a stroke of genius. Frankly, I’m surprised the old goat understood what you were telling him.”
“I think Voshchanka may have some dim inkling of the idea of a new communist state and the reunion of the fraternal Soviet republics under one government,” Gabovich said, “but what I knew he believed in was power. He was obsessed with it. Nothing was going to stop him. All he needed was the right tool, the right spark—”
“And you provided that,” Dvornikov said. “As director of security of Fisikous, you had much to tempt Voshchanka’s appetite, didn’t you? One prays for such an array of weapons to offer for sale or exchange— especially nuclear warheads. The KR-11 was a Fisikous product, if I’m not mistaken, along with the X-27 air-launched cruise missile. That is what you offered him, was it not?”
Gabovich was not surprised that Dvornikov had figured out or discovered his plan — he had a ten-year reputation of such unerring data collection. “Yes, it was,” he replied. “Not only the weapons, Comrade Dvornikov, but the command-and-control. systems as well. A simple system, really, highly automated and—”
“How many warheads did you transfer to him?”
“Three,” Gabovich replied, “with technicians to modify his existing nuclear-tipped SS-21 missiles to interface with the command-and-control system. Voshchanka has an option for nine more, as well as—”
“How many SS-21 missiles with nuclear warheads does Voshchanka have in the field?” Dvornikov asked, idly running his finger around the lip of his brandy snifter.
The repeated questions, and especially the last one, irritated Gabovich — and Gabovich also noticed that Dvornikov had not touched his brandy. This, he thought, was starting to take on the form of an interrogation. “Is there some problem, Boris Georgivich? Everything is proceeding according to plan. In just a few days Lithuania will fall. The Commonwealth will have no choice but to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Voshchanka and Svetlov.”
“What were you going to get out of all this, Viktor Josefivich?” Dvornikov asked. “Fisikous has fallen to U.S. Marines and to Dominikas Palcikas — surely you know that by now — and the scientists there have been arrested by the Lithuanians. You could not have possibly expected Fisikous to stay intact once the invasion was on, especially after the massacre Voshchanka’s troops engineered there — Palcikas made Fisikous Lithuania’s equivalent of the Alamo or the Bastille. What did you hope to accom—” And then he stopped, finally realizing what Gabovich wanted, and it had nothing at all to do with Fisikous.
“I think you have guessed what I want — and I think you agree with me, Boris Georgivich,” Gabovich said. “This damned Commonwealth, the weak-kneed Russian bureaucrats in Moscow, the pathetic sheep in the Council of Ministers in Minsk — they all know what will happen, what has to happen. The Commonwealth cannot survive. It will eventually tear itself apart. Riots in the Nagorno-Karabakh, civil war in Georgia, the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the eventual incorporation of Armenia and Turkmenistan into Iran and the incorporation of Moldova into Romania, absolute poverty all over the countryside, even the breakup of the Russian Federation itself — how can the Commonwealth hope to survive …?”
“I agree,” Dvornikov said, nodding. “The Commonwealth must eventually fail. But giving a megalomaniac like Voshchanka nuclear warheads? You know he will do only one thing with them.”
“Yes. Use them,” Gabovich said simply. “Against the Commonwealth armies, against the Russians, against Minsk, against anyone who dares attack him. And when that first warhead explodes, chaos will break out in all of Europe. The Commonwealth will rip apart.”
“And you are here in Riga because … you expect Voshchanka to target Minsk as well as the Russian and Commonwealth armies?”
“Of course he will,” Gabovich said matter-of-factly. “He has no military apparatus in Minsk — everything has been moved to Smorgon, and will soon be moved to Kaunas.”
“Because Vilnius…” Dvornikov prodded. “He intends on destroying Vilnius as well?”
“All remnants of Russian influence will be destroyed, including in his own country,” Gabovich said. “But he will have most of his one-hundred-thousand-man army and air force with him, deployed safely to western Lithuania and Kaliningrad.”
“The Russians will crush him.”
“Do you think Voshchanka believes that? He does not. He thinks he is invincible. He thinks God will guide his sword, deliver him from evil, and all that mythological crap. It doesn’t matter if it’s logical or tactically wise, Comrade, he will do it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has rolled a few missiles into Russia and has targeted Moscow.”
“What about Riga? Latvia is almost as Russian as St. Petersburg.”
“I think he harbors some thoughts about taking Latvia and Estonia,” Gabovich explained. “In any case I am monitoring his SS-2 1 unit’s movements. So far none of those units are within range of Latvia, except perhaps Daugavpils.”
“So you know where the nuclear-tipped missiles are?” Dvornikov asked. “You can pinpoint their location?”
“Of course,” Gabovich said, pouring another snifter of brandy. “I was very concerned that the old war-horse would try to come after me. I think he believes I am in Minsk, which is why he has moved all three nuclear-capable missiles to the pre-surveyed launch point in Kurenets — that is, within optimal range for both Minsk and Vilnius for the SS-21.”
“And so you think that by killing several million persons and destroying two European capitals, the Commonwealth will end and the Union will be restored?” asked Dvornikov.
“Of course it will be restored,” Gabovich said testily. “Russia will certainly occupy Belarus after the attack. After that, Russia will have no choice but to subdue all the other republics that still have nuclear weapons — the Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. The Commonwealth will end, to be replaced by a strong, dominant Russia — as it should be.”
Dvornikov studied the dark amber liquid in his glass for a moment; then: “And the deaths of millions of people, including your fellow Russians, don’t concern you?”
“Concern me? Comrade, I am counting on it,” Gabovich said. “What better way to begin a fresh start than with a nuclear release? What better way to purge the land of reformists, reactionaries, nationalists, imperialist, and capitalists? Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no liberals after a nuclear explosion. Imagine the ramifications: higher prices for Russian oil; newer, stronger military to counter the West, which will certainly want to rearm against the ‘new Soviet threat’—the list is endless. The people will realize that a divided union will only lead to more chaos. Everything will be as it once was, with Russia regaining the respect and power and authority it once had, with the foreign influences removed and with the central government firmly in command.”
Dvornikov realized now he was sitting across from a very cool, very collected, but totally insane man. Gabovich’s reputation as a tough, no-nonsense officer had preceded him for years, but there had been hints, strong hints, that he was more than just that. He was, in fact, probably many times more mad than Voshchanka. And yet… there was a spark of logic in what Gabovich was saying. Was it possible that Gabovich’s twisted plan could actually work? He wondered …