Kundera waited…
A black car detached itself from the shadows and headed towards him. Kundera refused to allow himself to show fear as it came to a halt near the aircraft, the rear door opening to reveal a strikingly beautiful woman with long blonde hair and an almost perfect body. Her eyes were cold and distant, however; she eyed Kundera as if he were a mouse and she were a cat. Kundera kept himself calm; the woman, whoever she was, wouldn’t be the one making the decisions.
“Welcome to Moscow,” she said, in flawless Czech. “I am Colonel Marina Konstantinovna Savelyeva, aide to President Nekrasov. I have been ordered to escort you to his presence at once.”
“Thank you,” Kundera said, calmly. A Presidential Aide could hold vast influence, but she wouldn’t be the official face of the Russian regime. “I look forward to meeting him.”
Marina opened the door for him and motioned him into the car. The inside of the car smelled leathery, a smell that reminded him oddly of the car he’d used on his wedding day. The vehicle itself hummed almost silently as Marina sat next to him, commenting from time to time on places within Moscow; the city seemed to be almost bursting with curiously ordered life. On one corner, a blue European Union flag was being burned; American and British flags were already being prepared for a burning. Kundera realised that he was being shown everything purposefully; the Russians were trying to intimidate him.
It was working.
“As a mark of respect for your status, we have decided that you can pass through the security checks,” Marina informed him. Kundera heard the almost-hidden mocking in her tone and winced; it was a blatant slap in the face, a reminder that the Russians didn’t take him or his country seriously. “I will take you directly to the President in the War Room.”
Kundera had never visited the Kremlin before and, after hearing about some of the humiliation that Czechoslovakian leaders had suffered there, had never wanted to visit in his life. Marina’s brief tour of the strange, very… Russian building hadn’t been reassuring; the building was almost alien to his eyes, a strange mixture of different elements, all devoted to power. Marina’s running commentary had surprised him; some of the artworks on display had been looted from the Warsaw Pact countries and long believed lost. The Russians had had them all that time.
“This is the War Room,” Marina said finally, as two doors opened in front of them. The room was dominated by a massive plasma screen, showing Europe… with a massive wave of red light moving over the continent, heading west. Marina said something, but Kundera missed it almost completely; the sight before him terrified and awed him. If it was reliable, Denmark and over half of Germany had fallen, and there were Russian advance teams as far west as France and Norway. He knew, now, that a global shift in the balance of power was taking place; Russia had shattered Europe for the foreseeable future. Even if the European forces rallied…
“Perhaps the Prime Minister would care to hear a briefing from my military leaders?”
Kundera turned, slowly, and came face to face with President Nekrasov. The leader of the Russian Federation seemed more amused than anything else with Kundera’s sudden paralysis; he didn’t seem inclined to make a diplomatic incident out of it. Then, Kundera reasoned, why should he? He already had most of Europe in the palm of his hand. He hardly needed an excuse to send the Russian Army into the Czech Republic.
“That won’t be necessary, thank you,” Kundera said, after a long moment. “I understand what is happening.”
“Splendid,” Nekrasov said, his Russian seemingly soft, but with a hint of pure steel underneath. The presence of four bodyguards paled as Kundera took in the sight; there was no mistaking the leader in the room. If they had all been naked, still there would have been no mistaking it; Nekrasov was the master and they all knew it. “We will repair to one of my private rooms and discuss… matters.”
Kundera followed him into a smaller room, trying to grasp an image of Nekrasov in his mind; his sheer personality swallowed up little details like face and body. Nekrasov was shorter than he had expected, or than he had seemed on the photographs that had been sent around the world after his rise to power. His stocky body was topped with a head of white hair, almost as white as snow. His handshake, as he waved Kundera to a seat, bespoke hidden strength.
This is a very dangerous man, Kundera thought, as Nekrasov took a seat facing him. Marina stood at the rear of the small, comfortable room, her hands crossed below her breasts; the bodyguards remained outside the room. I can’t relax, not even for an instant…
Nekrasov played the gracious host. “Would the Prime Minister care to dine with me?” He asked. He sounded almost jovial. “Or perhaps something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Vodka? We even have some fine wine that the President of France sent me last year, if you would prefer it…?”
“No, thank you,” Kundera said. “I would prefer to get down to business.”
The transformation was frightening. The jovial host vanished, to be replaced with a cold-blooded calculating soul, eyes studying Kundera as if he was a hunted animal. Nekrasov stared at him for a long moment, perfectly calculated to unnerve, perhaps even unman, him, before nodding slowly and leaning back in his chair. It was a chilling display The knowledge that Nekrasov could do almost anything he liked terrified Kundera to the very depths of his soul.
“Let me discuss military realities,” Nekrasov said, very softly, but no less menacing. “I have ten divisions in a position where they can roll into your country and brush your defenders aside. I have hundreds of bombers that can be over Prague in an hour, reducing your capital to rubble, and you are powerless to prevent it. I have a large occupation force of FSB soldiers who will occupy your country and ensure that the Czech Republic takes its orders from Moscow and Moscow alone.
“These are the parameters of our conversation,” he said, after a chilling pause. “I would like you to bear them in mind at all times. It will make this so much easier.
“We started this war for various reasons, partly to gain revenge for various European acts that were against Russian interests, partly to gain access to European resources that we need for the future. The military balance of power is so firmly on our side that we can guarantee the occupation of Europe as far west as the Pyrenees within a month at most. The shift of power is impossible for any state, even America, to alter; the balance of power is firmly in my favour. Do you understand me?”
Kundera stared at him, feeling as if he had been bludgeoned to death with a club. There was no diplomacy, just a calm recital of military power; the threats unstated, but barely hidden below the surface. There was no need to spell out the ‘or else’ — a little imagination suggested possibilities that would be too nightmarish for anyone to grasp. The Czech Republic was at his mercy.
“I understand you,” he said, softly. “What do you want?”
The genial host was back. “Splendid,” he said. The cold-blooded strategist returned. “The choice is simple; the first option is that you agree to sign an alliance with the Russian Federation, bringing the Czech Republic into a new alignment with Russia. The second option is that you refuse… in which case, those ten divisions will roll into Prague and impose our own order.”
Kundera felt cold. “I would need more information,” he said. “What would be the terms of the alliance?”
Nekrasov smiled, once again the genial host; Kundera wondered — and then pushed the thought aside because it was too terrifying — if Nekrasov was mad. He switched between friendliness and coldness with terrifying speed… and he controlled a vast country. Kundera’s mind refused to escape that thought; it kept running around in his head.