He shook his head. “Not yet. They want more than the French are offering to pay.” He sounded contemptuous of their mercenary motives.
“And what are the French offering?”
“Financial aid and technology transfers worth several billions of your dollars,” Soloviev told her.
“But that’s not enough?”
He shrugged. “No.” He hunched his shoulders and explained. “Kaminov knows that the longer he waits, the more important our aid becomes to Paris. In any event, it will take several days to move the additional forces we would need through Belarus and into position on the Polish border.”
Erin nodded. “So what does he want?”
“More money. More access to advanced military technologies. Co-equal status with France and Germany as a member of the Confederation.” The Russian colonel saved the worst news for last, “And a free hand against Ukraine, the Baltic States, Kazakhstan, and the other republics.”
His mouth tightened to a grim line as he spoke. “Many men of high rank in my country have never accepted the dismemberment of the old Soviet state, Miss McKenna. They long for the old days of empire.” His gaze turned inward., “No matter what price others must pay for their glory and their power. And the people would follow them. My countrymen are tired of hunger and tired of insignificance. They long for prosperity and our place on the world stage.”
Erin sat numbed. The specter of a Europe held captive by France and Germany was awful enough. The prospect of that plus a reunited and aggressive Russian empire was even worse.
She twisted her ponytail around and around her fingers, thinking hard. Something Soloviev had said, or rather had not said, seemed significant. “You keep mentioning the French. What about the Germans? Are they part of this?”
The colonel shook his head. “I don’t believe so. All the negotiators I’ve seen are Frenchmen and all the meetings are being held under the strictest security — at a dacha outside the city.” He smiled thinly. “I doubt the Germans have the faintest idea of what their ‘allies’ are up to.”
Interesting. That also made sense. The Germans were unlikely to welcome the notion of a resurgent Russia. But the French willingness to cut their supposed partner out of such an important effort spoke volumes about French arrogance or French desperation. Maybe a little bit of both, she decided.
A truck rumbled by on the street, calling Erin out of her reverie. Time was passing and Moscow was waking up. They’d have to go their separate ways soon or become uncomfortably noticeable. Few Russians had the leisure time to sit companionably on park benches during the workweek. “Do you have any proof of all of this?”
Soloviev frowned. “No, Miss McKenna, I do not. As I said, these negotiations have been closely guarded and very discreet.”
She frowned back. Without concrete evidence to back up its claims, the United States could not go public with its knowledge of these secret Franco-Russian talks. Both countries would simply indignantly deny the story, Soloviev would disappear into a shallow grave or reopened gulag, and the talks would proceed on schedule. She looked up from her fingers. “Can you get proof?”
Soloviev stared back at her for what seemed a very long time. Then he nodded slowly. “Perhaps… though it will be difficult.”
“When?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Slipping anything in writing or on tape past security will take thorough planning… and a great deal of luck. The planning I can guarantee, the luck I cannot.”
“It is important, Colonel. Vitally important.”
Soloviev nodded. “I understand.” He checked his watch and stood up. “I think we’ve stayed here long enough.”
Erin looked up at him. “How can I contact you again?”
He shook his head decisively. “You can’t. The FIS is growing stronger all the time. By now they must be monitoring all incoming and outgoing Defense Ministry calls.”
Erin made a decision. Banich had reluctantly given her a secure telephone number she could pass on to Soloviev if the Russian proved trustworthy. “Okay, Colonel. Then you call me to arrange another meeting — if you can find an untapped phone. Use this number only: two, fifty-three, twenty-four, sixty-two.”
He repeated the numbers back to her once, perfectly. Then he smiled, a brief sunburst across a somber face. “For a simple commercial attaché, Miss McKenna, you are astonishingly resourceful.”
Despite her best efforts at self-control, she blushed.
“Until our next meeting, then.” He took her hand, kissed it gallantly, and swung away.
“Colonel!”
Soloviev turned back.
“One more question.” Erin got up and walked toward him. “Why are you doing this?”
“I am a patriot, Miss McKenna.” He donned a sardonic grin. “‘My loyalties to Mother Russia supersede those to any individual.’ Or so Marshal Kaminov told my President when he took power and began this madness. If his own reasons now turn against him as dogs against their master, so much the better.”
The main highway linking the Russian city of Smolensk with the Belarussian border city of Brest passed right through the upper reaches of the wide Niemen River valley. Quiet, shadowed woods and green meadows stretched peacefully to the north. To the south, a wall of thick, yellowish dust shrouded the countryside, kicked up by the military traffic clogging the highway.
Militiamen and military police squads stood guard at intersections along the route, turning civilian cars and trucks off onto smaller, unpaved side roads. To save road space and time, the three divisions moving west were using both sides of the highway. Giant tank transporters carrying canvas-shrouded T-80s and BMP-2s mingled with trucks and wheeled BTR-80 APCs carrying troops and supplies. All told, two thousand vehicles and sixty thousand men were heading for the Polish frontier in a march column that stretched for more than seventy kilometers. Freight trains crammed with fuel and ammunition paralleled the column.
While his subordinates haggled with the French, Marshal Yuri Kaminov was massing his forces.
Nicolas Desaix eyed the man and woman sitting in front of him with a mixture of scorn and irritation. The two Belgians were a thoroughly unimpressive pair. How could anyone take a female defense minister seriously? Especially one who looked more like a plump, white-haired housewife than a senior government official. Nor did the thick waist and heavy jowls of the Belgian Army’s chief of staff inspire much confidence. The only point in their favor was that they at least had the wit to know who really wielded power inside the Confederation.
He shook his head. “I cannot agree to this request for special treatment, Madame Defense Minister. Being asked to commit a mere two brigades of mechanized troops for noncombat duties hardly strikes me as particularly taxing.”
“But those brigades represent half of our regular army, monsieur!” the Defense Minister protested. “Worse, deploying them would violate my government’s solemn pledge to the voters that our conscripts won’t be asked to serve outside our own national boundaries!”
Desaix glowered back at her. It had been his idea to requisition Belgian troops in the first place. Reports from Moscow made it painfully clear that it would take longer than he had hoped to bribe the Russians into the war. In the meantime, the French and German forces in Poland urgently needed more men and more tanks to revive their stalled offensive. Using Belgian soldiers to guard the Confederation’s lines of communication was one way to free up units for frontline duty. He was not prepared to see those plans undone by pigheaded Belgian politicians.