Laying Parsons down, he carefully removed his battered helmet. Parsons’ face was deeply scarred and covered with blood, and all of Mace’s bandages had torn off in the windblast. His left shoulder appeared dislocated and shattered. The bandages on his chest were intact but soaked through with blood. The wound across the left side of his chest looked the worst, and Mace had nothing to cover the gaping, bloody wound with except his hands. He applied pressure on the exposed tissue — and to his surprise a low moan escaped from Parsons’ lips. Was it just air from his dead lungs being expelled through his — No! Parsons was still alive! “Oh, Jesus,” Mace murmured as he saw Parsons move his head and lips. “Bob, can you hear me? We’re okay. We made it. Help will be here in a minute.” Parsons’ lips moved, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he struggled to speak.
“Don’t try to talk, man. You’re okay. Don’t try.”
But Parsons gasped again, leaning forward to get closer to Mace. Over the sounds of the approaching rescue crews and the fire extinguishers being activated against the fires creeping toward the bomb bay, Mace leaned closer to Parsons. “What is it, Bob?” he asked his pilot.
“Nuke … you didn’t … launch … nuke.”
Then he heard one word from his pilot, but it was a word that was going to change his life:
“Traitor,” Parsons coughed. “You’re … a fucking traitor.”
PART TWO
There’s nothing I’m afraid of
like scared people.
NINE
It was very much like a state visit — the honor guard at the airport, the greeting by Secretary of State Harlan Grimm, the motorcade through the streets of Washington, and the greeting at the White House by the President, the First Lady, and members of the Cabinet and Congressional leadership. The greeting for Valentin Ivanovich Sen’kov, former prime minister of Russia, senior member of the Congress of People’s Deputies, and the moderate opposition leader to hard-line Russian president Vitaly Velichko, was almost as grandiose as those accorded a popular state leader.
Sen’kov was in his late forties to early fifties, tall, slender, handsome, and unmarried. He was a former colonel in the SPETSNAZ, the Red Army’s Special Forces, a veteran of Afghanistan. Sen’kov was a strong ally of Boris Yeltsin, the now deposed and exiled former Russian President. When Yeltsin was still in office, Sen’kov was named Deputy Chairman of the Congress of People’s Deputies, the third-highest position in the new Russian Federation. But with the ascension of Vitaly Velichko, Sen’kov was removed from that post and stripped of most of his official powers. Ideologically, the young Sen’kov was a reformer who wanted closer ties to the West, and he went out of his way to show the world how exciting it could be for a Russian to embrace the West — he had established very close ties to many Western governments and was a star of his own TV talk show in Russia and in an English-language version of the show shown overseas. Politically, however, Sen’kov swung with the winds. He was careful to make powerful friends both in Russia (including the military) and overseas, especially to show his Russian colleagues what real Western wealth was about. Although not tremendously popular with the bureaucrats or the military, his popularity with the Russian people and people from all over the world could not be ignored. He was certainly a very atypical Russian politician.
There were the usual photo opportunities at the White House, but instead of sitting around in the Oval Office, seated on the usual chairs in front of the fireplace surrounded by photographers, the President, who was a bit younger than Sen’kov and every bit as athletic, took the Russian politician out to the covered, winterized White House tennis courts for a game. The President preferred jogging, but he knew the Russian loved tennis. The press went crazy at every hit. The easy “batting the ball around for the press” turned into a serving warm-up, which evolved into a quick game, which turned into a set, which turned into an all-out head-to-head battle. It was a close game, with no real winner apparent until the very last point — Sen’kov, always politically prudent, lost. They returned for iced tea and ice cream in the Oval Office. Ice cream was one of the President’s weaknesses, and it added to his girth. The press was allowed to stay for only a few minutes before being escorted out.
“I wish I could claim a true victory, Valentin,” the President drawled in his deep southern accent, as they were joined by the First Lady, “but I had to fight for every point, and I think you let me win.”
“I wish I could claim that I let you win, Mr. President,” Sen’kov said, “but I cannot.” Sen’kov, after spending a long time overseas — including getting a master’s degree at the President’s own alma mater at Oxford — had only a very slight Russian accent when he spoke English, which made both the President and First Lady feel very comfortable around him. “We must make it a point to play more often.”
“That’s tough to arrange these days, Valentin,” the President said.
They sat in silence for a few moments, drinking iced tea and toweling off; then the First Lady said, “Valentin, I know it must be very difficult for you to leave your country at a time like this. Russia is on the front page every day, especially with that recent tragedy of that transport being shot down by the Moldovan Air Force. How awful.”
“I understand you knew many of the men on that aircraft,” the President added.
Sen’kov seemed to hesitate a bit, but whether that was from a sad memory or because he was thinking of being double-teamed by this formidable political duo, it was difficult to tell. “I thank you both for your thoughts,” he said in a low voice, seemingly choked up by their comment — which, he hoped, would make them feel a bit guilty and perhaps back off a bit. “Yes, I did know some of the senior officers on that plane.” He paused again, and the couple could see his expression change from one of sadness to one of rising anger. “It was a senseless thing to do.”
“You mean the Moldovans shooting down your transport, and the Ukrainians informing the Moldovans of its presence?” asked the President, putting a big spoonful of ice cream in his mouth.
“No, Mr. President, I mean it was a senseless thing to do to send those paratroopers in the first place like that.”
“You mean you would have sent them in at night, or in more than one aircraft, or by a different route?”
“You misunderstand,” Sen’kov said in earnest. He hesitated, then decided to be as blunt as possible: “I think it was an insane mission to begin with, perpetrated by an insane man.” Well, Sen’kov thought, at least they knew now that he had not supported the Russian mission into Moldova. Sen’kov rested his head on his hands and made a pyramid with his index fingers (he had been taught once by the KGB that doing this made one look very pensive, as if deliberating very hard on a subject), then said, “May I tell you the truth?”
“Please do,” the President said.
“I could put a bullet in President Velichko’s brain myself for what he has done,” Sen’kov said, “and not because he botched the job, but because of the way he is conducting this entire line of foreign policy.” He modestly nodded to the pretty blonde First Lady. “I am sorry if I offended you.”