Alexei Fyodorovich Vorontsky had struggled all of his adult life for the attainment of power, and upon reaching its pinnacle he found himself shackled by the very forces that had propelled him there. His ascension to the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party — in essence, the contemporary Russian throne — had been achieved by crushing those who had failed to make the leviathan Soviet bureaucracy perform to the state's expectations. By following such a career strategy he had no shortfall of victims, for so ponderous was the Russian bureaucratic engine that no measure — no matter how harsh or sweet-could force it to achieve the state's fanciful expectations. Year after year GOSPLAN, the central planning bureaucracy of the Soviet Union, generated reams of projections and production targets for Russian factories and collective farms. The production of everything — from toothpaste to light bulbs to cigarettes to automobiles to nuclear reactors — was controlled by the omnipotent tentacles of GOSPLAN. Yet so restrictive were GOS-PLAN's controls that production taigets were hardly ever met, and factory managers were routinely purged and replaced with fresh talent. The ridiculous production-targets-to-fired-managers cycle had become almost boring in its predictability. But such was the proletariat's paradise.
The General Secretary knew the game and played it masterfully. As Minister of GOSPLAN he had parlayed his powerful position to a seat on the Politburo, and it was from there he'd pulled off one of the most stunning political coups in decades by deposing Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Communist Party.
Upon attaining the post of General Secretary, Gorbachev had purged the "old guard," or the last remaining elements of the Stalinist and Brezhnev eras, but only after a long and bitter power feud with the old-line conservatives. "New blood" — as he called it — was injected into the Politburo, and a flurry of "progressive" programs were implemented—perestroika and glasnost, he called them. Yet despite all of the publicity-laden "reforms" and a missile treaty with the Americans, Russia was still a police state. Perestroika was challenged every step of the way by Gorbachev's political enemies, who rankled at the very thought of dismantling their bureaucracies and cutting deals with the Americans. Only by the slimmest of margins did Gorbachev remain in power. His saving grace was that there was some progress, albeit glacial, with the economy — and the troops had come home from Afghanistan.
But then the worst possible thing had happened. KGB intelligence revealed that the Americans had achieved the feared "technological breakthrough" with their Star Wars space defense system. A breakthrough so far-reaching and transcending that the specter of an impotent Soviet nuclear force was, in fact, a very real possibility — and it could happen much sooner than anyone could have anticipated. Such a fearsome possibility had unleashed violent and destabilizing forces within the Politburo, causing its militaristic and conservative members to demand a crash program to catch up with the Americans in space weapons. Gorbachev resisted, arguing it was too expensive.
The militaristic forces — who had opposed the pullout from Afghanistan — rallied around the GOSPLAN minister, and another power struggle ensued, causing divisiveness… and bloodshed. During the midst of the conflict, when it seemed he might tip the balance and retain his post, Gorbachev flew to Leningrad to consolidate his support among the Party leaders there. He was successful in his mission, but on the return flight to Moscow his Dyushin jetliner mysteriously exploded in midair.
No investigation was ever made into the "tragic incident" of Gorbachev's demise, and from that point forward, opposition to the GOSPLAN minister quickly melted away and he had a cakewalk to the post of General Secretary.
Upon achieving his lifelong goal, the new General Secretary had acted swiftly to satisfy his military and conservative constituency. The missile treaty with the United States was scrapped, Afghanistan was reinvaded, and — most critical — an incredibly expensive crash program was launched to catch up with the Americans' "technological breakthrough" in space defenses. The General Secretary was a masterful politician, but in satisfying his conservative constituency he now found that he could run, but couldn't hide, from the compelling truth. And the truth was: if the Soviet Union's five million men under arms and 25,000 nuclear weapons were stripped away, Russia would be a Third World country — and a poor one at that.
The General Secretary's rush to catch up with the Americans had bloated the Soviet military budget to such a degree that the typical Russian was being bled white, and the state's ability to bottle up dissent became more fragile with each passing day. Rioting over food supplies — once isolated in the more remote Soviet republiks—was occurring with greater prevalence, in provinces closer to Moscow. Times were bad… Worse than bad. And now his position as General Secretary was in jeopardy. After embracing the space defense system and placing its development in his personal portfolio, he soon learned from the Americans' experience that a viable space shuttle fleet was an essential tool in building and maintaining a Star Wars platform. The Politburo would not look kindly at the loss of a second space shuttle. Not kindly at all.
The agenda of the upcoming Politburo meeting would have one topic — the second failed shuttle mission, which by implication would mean a failed General Secretary. And the image of failure was frightening to him. Without a space shuttle or a technical breakthrough like the Americans', the Rodina — the Motherland — was stuck with an expensive, inoperable Star Wars project and millions of hungry, and angry, citizens. These facts would not be lost on the Politburo.
The General Secretary rubbed his eyes. In the dim light Vo-rontsky looked like the quintessential Russian that he was. Some said that with his swarthy features and heavy eyebrows he resembled Leonid Brezhnev. His large frame had once been heavy muscled, and as a young man he'd been a hammer thrower for the Soviet Union in the Olympics. But the hard muscles had long since surrendered to fat. He was growing old, tired, and soft.
A light tap on the door roused him from his stupor.
' 'Da? " he said absently.
The door opened to reveal a wiry, diminutive man dressed in a well-tailored English double-breasted suit.
"Ah, come in, Vitali," the General Secretary beckoned. Vi-tali Kostiashak, Chairman of the KGB, walked up to the larger man and spoke in measured tones — the voice of a civilized man speaking of a grossly uncivilized act. "General Secretary, I have come to personally inform you that General Shenko was executed by military firing squad forty-five minutes ago. His failure to develop an airworthy space shuttle had placed the state in very grave jeopardy." Then he added deferentially, "I thought it might help you," and he nodded toward the adjoining Politburo conference room.
The General Secretary contemplated Vitali Kostiashak with feelings he rarely experienced in this room — feelings of trust, confidence, and even warmth. Always surprising was this little Chairman, whom Vorontsky had sponsored and promoted to the Politburo. This diminutive man who possessed a penchant for English-tailored clothes and a complexion so dark he might have come from New Delhi rather than the Ukraine. A scholar with a Princeton Ph.D. and blade-sharp mind who, at times such as this, could be ruthless beyond belief. It was Vitali Kostiashak who had arranged for a kilogram of plastique explosive to be concealed in the wheel well of Gorbachev's Ilyushin jet while it was on the tarmac at Leningrad.