He didn’t sleep, he sat there — thinking. It was dark. He left the windowless office. His mind was unencumbered by sights or sounds. His thoughts were not of words to go in his increasingly weighty treatise. He roamed the clean beauty of the cold expanses in the east. Of the color that cold put in Miss Dunn’s smooth cheeks.
He’d loved the years he’d spent in the east. He’d loved the purity of the cold. His love of the winters there, however, had clearly been in the minority. Most — prisoner and guard alike — had relished the short summers that visited Siberia during which life had bloomed with stunning intensity. Nature had so little time to flourish that it burst forth in a verdant display as if to scream out, ‘I’m alive! Look at me!’
The same was true of the people. Prisoners who — from a distance — had appeared little more than trudging greatcoats. They spent long winters buried under clothing. But they bared their skin to the summer sun. In winter, the guards only left their warm huts for duty after bracing for the cold with vodka. But in the summer, they drank less. They exchanged crude jokes with the prisoners through the wire. Learned the prisoners’ names. Let portions of the prisoners’ parcels from home slip through. To Kartsev, summers in the camps had meant smells and mosquitos and mud… and the discipline that only killing could bring. When nature lifted her firm grip from the men’s souls, Moscow had sent Kartsev in to replace it.
The words returned now in a gush. He groped for the lamp and turned it on. He wrote feverishly — longhand, with his pencil. He would type it — refine it — later.
‘It is the most oppressed among men that possess the greatest potential energy. In them, life lies coiled to its greatest tension. When the repression is eased, there is a brief and instantaneous flowering. Nature’s force is released onto the streets. The populace is invigorated And if uncontrolled, that release is always violent.’
Kartsev wrote for six hours straight — recording the torrent of new ideas. Then — exhausted — he went to his sofa. He pulled the duvet to his chin and closed his eyes. He was smiling the entire time. In his mind, billiard balls bounded off felt cushions in a deliciously unpredictable manner.
Chapter Fifteen
From the way the passers-by were bundled up, Pyotr Andreev would’ve thought it was cold. He jogged down the sidewalk wearing gloves and a towel wrapped around his neck and tucked into his Adidas warm-ups. The walk was icy, but the already bright sun would soon melt it away into a warm winter day.
He rounded the block — startling a woman in a heavy wool coat walking her small dog. When Andreev turned to apologize, the car pulled up to the intersection. Two men in the front seat were looking his way. The driver extinguished his left-turn signal and proceeded straight through the intersection.
The nondescript government car sped away. Andre scanned the streets ahead for the team that would pick him up next. It was too cold for them to leave their heated cars. Plus, their sunglasses and dark suits always gave them away.
The Senate and House leadership gathered in a semicircle of seats pulled up to Gordon’s bedside. Their faces were grim. The chants of the demonstrators outside the hospital — now nearly ten thousand strong — were clearly audible in the silence.
Gordon knew that the meeting would surely be contentious. His visitors had all just run the gauntlet of protesters at the gate. But it was the quieter protests which worried Gordon most. The flood of anti-war sentiment evidenced by calls, letters and faxes. It was the collective roar of the politicians’ constituents against which Gordon would fight his battle.
Daryl got off the phone in the sitting area to the side of the large room. He stepped up to the head of the bed. ‘Thank you all for coming,’ he began. ‘We’ve had a couple of people who have been held up, so we’re going to go ahead and get started.’ He looked at Gordon, who nodded. Gordon marveled at how comfortable Daryl seemed in his new role of consummate insider — White House Chief of Staff. ‘First, President Davis would like to thank all of you for coming. These are difficult times, and everyone is under a lot of pressure. President Davis certainly doesn’t want a confrontation with Congress, but there are some things he would like to say to you, and then he’ll listen.’
Daryl looked at Gordon and winked. The crowd turned their full attention to the President.
‘The question has been raised,’ Gordon began, ‘why are we fighting in Siberia?’ He surveyed the room. Almost all of the politicians facing him had voiced strong opposition to the war. ‘I called you here to answer that question.’
Daryl handed Gordon a glass of water. The painkillers gave him a cotton mouth, and the words sounded as if they were stuck together. Gordon cleared his throat and looked up at the waiting audience.
‘Siberia has a land mass equal to that of the U.S., Western Europe, and India combined. It had a pre-Civil War population, however, of only nine million. That population has now dropped by almost half. And yet Siberia contains the greatest deposits of natural resources on the planet. Cobalt, chromium, iron ore, molybdenum, nickel, vanadium, tungsten. The deposits are still virtually unexploited. Gold, copper, mercury, lead, platinum, tin, and zinc are all buried under Siberia in abundance. As are diamonds, emeralds, graphite, mica. And, of course, the fuels that run the world — oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium. There is not a region on earth that is richer in resources. And those resources are now “in play.” They’re up for grabs.’
He paused to take another sip. The Congressmen and women waited patiently. ‘And there is another factor at work here. It is a struggle between East and West. Between China, and the U.S. and Western Europe. In another era — the era of imperialism — it would be quite correct to say that we were the imperialist exploiters. We were in the wrong, then. But that era is gone, and in this new era we are in the right. We have just passed through a half-century of ideological competition in which our principal foreign policy was to contain the spread of totalitarianism, whether fascist or communist. In that struggle, we expended vast sums from our treasury, and we paid for that policy in blood in war after war. This current war between East and West is, in part, a continuation of that competition. It is not racial. It is ideological. We are not imperialists. We are warring for the side that is just. We are fighting for liberal democracy and against totalitarian dictatorship.’
His voice had grown weak. He again paused to take a drink. This time, several of the Congressmen glanced at each other. Some even leaned to whisper and nod. The signs were not good. ‘And finally,’ Gordon resumed, having to clear his throat repeatedly, ‘we are fighting for something more important than either natural resources or ideological principles. We are fighting for our soul. Our identity. Many are tempted to cast that identity in terms of how the rest of the world sees America. Whether they see a nation that will show resolve when committed to a cause, or cut and run in the face of adversity. But the more important question is what lies inside us? What is the true character of the people of this country? Do our people see America as a powerful force on the side of right and justice? A nation that, once committed, will not back down even from war if that war is in our national interest and is just? Or will we ignore the call to duty whenever the price we have to pay is high? How many times can we back out, fail to commit, look the other way and still retain our national identity? And what could be more important than our self-image? Americans are not defined by any race or religion. We don’t have a single, distinct culture. It is Americans’ image of themselves that defines what this country is. We become, over time, who we believe we are. And if we are not today the triumphant United States of 1945, then just how different have we become? Who are we? That’s the question that this war poses.’