“What in hell do you think you’re doing?” Yejsk thundered. “Conducting your own little foreign policy campaign, your own little imperialistic war? Don’t tell me you actually loved your father so much that you stole a stealth bomber and killed hundreds of men, women, and children to avenge him?”
“I wouldn’t bother to pick up the phone to save my father,” Kazakov said, a malevolent grin on his face. “Besides, he died precisely the way he wanted to die — maybe not with his boots on, but at least within spitting distance of his enemy. He probably called them names just before they put a rope around his neck — that would appeal to his sense of defiance. I’ve got better things to do with my time and money than launch off on some romantic quest to avenge a man who didn’t care one shit about me.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I am creating a favorable economic and political climate for myself — and if you and that patsy Sen’kov were smart, a favorable economic climate for Russia, too,” Kazakov said.
“How? Are you going to bomb every national capital in the Balkans and the Transcaucasus, just to lay down some pipe?”
“I won’t have to,” Kazakov said. “The raid on Kukes was a warning. Unless you blabbermouths leak the information sooner and reveal me, I will go to the Albanian and Macedonian governments and make the same offer to them. If they refuse my generous offer, they will suffer the same fate.”
“You’re insane!” Yejsk retorted. “You expect one aircraft to bomb two sovereign governments into submission so you can build a pipeline through their countries?”
“I am hoping Russia will intervene,” Kazakov said. “Russia should come to those countries’ assistance and guarantee their security. With Russian troops firmly but discreetly in place, the security of both those republics and my pipeline will be assured. In a year, the pipeline will be in place and we can all start making money.”
“This is the most asinine idea I have ever heard!” Yejsk said. “Do you just expect these governments to roll over and play dead? What about—?”
“NATO?” Kazakov interjected. “You tell me, Comrade National Security Advisor — will NATO be a factor?” He smiled when he saw Yejsk look away, lost in thought — his intelligence information was accurate. The United States was indeed pulling out of NATO and leaving Europe. This was truly the opportunity of a lifetime, and finally some high-ranking members of the Russian government were beginning to notice it, too. “Who else? Germany? I have information that says that there is an extraordinary level of cooperation growing between Russia and Germany, now that the United States is removing itself from Europe and NATO.”
“So why do we need you, Kazakov?” Yejsk asked angrily. How in hell did this punk gangster know so much? “You’re nothing but a drug dealer. Why does Russia need any cooperation from you and Fursenko’s pretty toy?”
“Go ahead and try,” Kazakov said. “Try to march Russian Army troops into Macedonia now, without an invitation — Greece and Turkey will declare war, and it might drag the United States back into Europe and the alliance. As I understand it, the United States hasn’t left NATO yet — you will certainly give them a reason to stay. Invade Albania, and Germany will feel threatened and may break off your new little détente. You need me, Yejsk. You need the Metyor-179 to perform precision, devastating, and most important, deniable destruction in the Balkans and the Transcaucasus. If the republics believe you are at all behind this, the game is up. But if you make them believe that they need Russia’s help, you assert control over your former sphere of influence again, and I get the economic, military, and political stability I need to invest two billion dollars into the region.”
“This sounds like some kind of protection racket, Pavel,” Zhurbenko said. “Why should we be a part of it? Why can’t Russia pledge to invest in a pipeline? Have GAZPROM, or LUKoil build the pipeline and we pay for the project with revenues from the oil purchases?”
“If you could do it, you would have done it already,” Kazakov argued. “Both those companies are wallowing in corruption and debt, mostly because of the bungling and interference from their biggest shareholder, the Russian government, and its inept bureaucracy. With my plan, neither Russia nor the republics lay out any money at all — I pay for the pipeline. It belongs to me. I pay a prenegotiated flowage fee to the republics, which is pure profit for them, in addition to the profits they make if they decide to buy and refine some of the crude in their own refineries. I will make them a good deal for the crude.”
“And so what does Russia get?” Yejsk asked. “What do we get?”
Kazakov smiled broadly — he knew he had them now. Once they start thinking about themselves and their cut of the action, Pavel knew they were hooked. “Overtly, Russia gets a flowage fee from the oil that I transport across Russia and ship out of Novorossiysk,” Kazakov replied. “Covertly, I will pay a percentage of the profits for protection of my pipeline. Russia maintains a presence in the Balkans again, plus you earn whatever you can squeeze out of the republics. I know Russia is very good at milking the republics it has sworn to protect — Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Albania should be no different. I will offer the same … incentives, shall we say, to Macedonia and Albania.”
“Plomo o plata?” Zhurbenko asked. “If they accept they get rich, and if they refuse they get dead?”
“It is a win-win situation for all of us,” Kazakov said. “It is an offer no one can refuse.”
“An offer you can’t refuse, all right,” Linda Mae Valentrovna Maslyukov muttered to herself, as she finished her stretching exercises and then began a simple black-belt karate kata routine while standing on a narrow gravel turnout on the side of the road near the end of the runway.
Linda Mae was an electronics expert from St. Petersburg, the daughter of a Russian father — a former Russian consul and trade negotiator based in New Orleans and Los Angeles — and an Irish-American mother from Monroe, Louisiana. Although she’d been born in New Orleans and had spent most of her life in the United States, when her father had been reassigned back to Moscow, she had eagerly gone along. Her long, flaming red hair and sparkling green eyes made quite an impression on the boys and professors at Ioffe-Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg, but she didn’t allow her popularity to interfere with getting first a bachelor’s, then a master’s degree in science in semiconductor heterostructures.
Linda had renounced her American citizenship in 1995 after receiving her master’s degree, which completely opened up her career paths in Russia. With a citizen’s fluency in both English and Russian and advanced degrees in sophisticated electronics technology, she had her choice of jobs and salaries. She rejected a few more lucrative job offers in Moscow and professorships in St. Petersburg to go to Zhukovsky and work in a communications design laboratory. Because of her prior U.S. citizenship, she could hold no higher than a secret security clearance, but she still enjoyed a good lifestyle and a high level of prestige from her colleagues and fellow workers. She often spoke about moving to Moscow or St. Petersburg, but the talk always faded — mostly after meeting a new pilot or senior officer from one of the bomber squadrons at Zhukovsky.
No one knew the real reason why she stayed at Zhukovsky, why she broke off torrid affairs with high-ranking officers, why, she was satisfied with a relatively low salary at Zhukovsky when she could command much higher wages in the city. The reason: Linda Mae was a paid spy for the United States of America. Whatever she might have made elsewhere was more than compensated for by numbered Cayman Islands bank accounts, where she hoped to retire the second it looked like her cover was going to blow.