Dubroff opened his eyes. The image of the face was still before him. A young, handsome boy. So familiar. So intense. But that was more than forty years ago. Close to what? Then Aleksandr Dubroff remembered the visiting student.
For nearly two decades, everyday Russians enjoyed a sense of freedom. The government stayed out of people’s lives, and anyone with the money could travel throughout the country. But recently, soldiers with .45 mm Stolbovoy St-8 automatic rifles were taking up posts along the major highways and the transportation hubs. At the same time, newspapers and television barely concealed a conspicuous slant toward Kremlin attitudes, shunning the more populace points of view they’d exhibited.
A sure sign that Russia was in the midst of change: an occasional click on the telephone line. It took a trained ear to catch it. Even in his eighties, Aleksandr Dubroff had the knack. The government was eavesdropping again. The signs all pointed to an unequivocal fact: the country’s new president was clamping down.
Putin was the first. He’d taken advantage of America’s preoccupation with Iraq and the war on terrorism to quietly dissolve Yeltsin’s democratic gains. What Vladimir V. Putin didn’t do, his successor did. He elevated many Federal Security Service officials into high-level government positions. He arrested hundreds of foreign spies. Some fell out of windows just before FSB thugs left. Most were sent to Moscow’s notorious Matrosskaya Tishina Prison. Jews were targeted again. People spied on one another like the old days — in private industry, in political parties, and in government offices.
Of course, the rollback on freedoms was sold as reform. The Kremlin explained away the FSB intrusion in everyday life as a necessity to protect the nation from terrorists. Dissidents in the Ukraine gave Putin the justification to clamp down. In light of Anther turmoil in the East, ever-expanding terrorist attacks in Moscow, and the very basic realization in the Kremlin that Russian rule demanded strong tactics, the new Russian president turned a deaf ear toward democratic principles.
Dubroff retired before the Soviet Union fell. At the time he quietly applauded its demise. After thirty years as a party member, twenty as a KGB officer, and the last six as a respected member of the Politburo, Dubroff came to realize that Communism would not survive the millennium. He envisioned an age of reformists. But he had no doubt they would have great difficulty ruling. He foresaw elections and a fragile democracy. Borders would open up and foreign money would pour into Russia. So would organized crime. Post-Communist Russia would be ripe for drugs and prostitutes. It seemed so inevitable to him.
He also predicted that the Soviet states would eventually resist home rule. The suppressed Muslims would align with their Middle East cousins. He saw it all coming. He saw the chaos, and he predicted the day would come when Russia would have to restore authoritarian rule.
It was unfolding now.
Russia was returning to its more familiar, brutal, autocratic roots. It was the best way to control dissidents. That meant an increase in military spending, heightened authority for the secret police, and the eradication of basic freedoms. In this new-new Russia, the FSB, like the KGB of old, had to discover what potential enemies were doing.
This Russia wasn’t built on bogus five-year plans and state-owned industry. It was taking the form of a free-market dictatorship.
Elections were not necessary unless and until the president declared the need. Representatives served at the pleasure of the nation’s leader. The legislature was little more than a rubber stamp board of trustees. Information flowed to the top, not down through the press to the people. This was the Russian way.
To Dubroff’s mind, the Soviet Union failed because it excluded the West. It had been in the throes of death for years, hanging on with leftover Cold War political currency and very little cash. When both ran out, the system collapsed.
Dubroff believed that international trade was the key to Russia’s long-term survival, no matter what the Kremlin needed to do to maintain domestic order. But the newest regime was gradually closing the nation off again. Fools, he thought. What will that get us? Nothing but a new age of economic instability. To him, the only way to save Russia was to forge lasting partnerships with the West.
However, Americans were beginning to interpret Russia’s actions as a sign that the Cold War was not over. This empowered right wing political causes, most notably fresh talk of Star Wars defense systems.
Dubroff studied Machiavelli. American leaders needed enemies and wars to maintain their influence over the masses. In that respect, they were no different than the Russian government. In Dubroff’s view, recent administrations perfected that particular political art. The Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Saddam Hussein all helped sustain conservative power in America. President Taylor, a former military man, took exception with Russia’s soft stance on North Korea’s nuclear stockpiles, Russia’s lack of support for America’s war on terror, and Russia’s inability to account for its own missing weapons of mass destruction.
While the real fight was with Arab terrorists, many political factions in America didn’t want Russia as a friend. For the time being, U.S. businesses were knocking on Russian doors. But the Kremlin was seizing private businesses, and the climate was rapidly chilling. That’s why the infantry had taken to the streets. That’s why the phones were being tapped. That’s why Aleksandr Dubroff was worried for his country more than ever before.
Then an awesome truth hit him.
Years after he retired, the pieces were coming together. How could they? But of course he knew the answer. He had sown the seeds himself.
The plan seemed so preposterous years ago. It had been a simple money play for Russia. Arab money. Millions. He remembered giving it zero chance of surviving. And yet, it had. Maybe not all of it, but certainly the most elegant part.
After forty years his work — Jiis — was about to come to fruition. Not all of it, but some. How? he asked himself.
By accident, he followed the progress on the Internet. He couldn’t believe it. And yet, soon America’s view of the Middle East would be immediately and inextricably altered. And who would the United States single out as the new evil in the world?
Russia.
Aleksandr Dubroff shuddered. The results would be disastrous. Moreover, Russia, which battled Muslim fundamentalists in the eastern states, could hardly stand alone in a fight against Arab extremists. It needed the U.S.
Dubroff could not turn to his own government for help. He’d be branded a traitor for having had a hand in a plan that was, unintentionally now, so detrimental to Mother Russia. He had to do something. Somehow he had to expose this awful thing. He had to communicate with a credible contact: someone who could surreptitiously reach the American leadership. Who?
Chapter 35
Bernstein’s call gave Charlie Huddle the idea. After mulling it over for a few days he decided it was time for the mainstream press to acknowledge Elliott Strong’s impact. Actually, he mused, acknowledge wasn’t necessarily the correct term for a vanity ad buy.
Strong had surpassed all late-night radio numbers established by Larry King, Art Bell, and George Nouri. He was the first radio nighttime host to also carve out a significant daytime audience. And he was the principal political pundit on the air, overshadowing every other voice. That was worth touting in full-page ads in USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, and most of all, The New York Times.