Cauldron

by Larry Bond

  “What exactly are you proposing, Katherine? That we walk away and wash our hands of this whole mess?”

  “Exactly. For two simple reasons.” She outlined her position with the same sure precision she used when lecturing congressmen about basic economics. “One. Guaranteeing oil and gas supplies to these countries could mean an open-ended drain on our treasury. One we can’t afford. And let’s face it, the American people aren’t going to like being asked to pay other people’s energy bills. They’re having a tough enough time meeting ends themselves. Two. This is an artificial oil shortage. Sooner or later the Russians will want to sell their resources, so sooner or later the embargo will end.

  “If Warsaw, Prague, and Bratislava have to bend a little to get them to do that, well, so what? We’re not looking at the end of the world.”

  One or two of those seated around the table nodded. Several others looked less sure of themselves. Doing nothing was often the best course in foreign affairs.

  Huntington surprised himself by stepping into the debate. He’d intended to sit back and listen quietly. “With all due respect, Mr. President, the secretary is dead wrong. We can’t walk away from this.”

  Heads turned his way. “This is a classic test of wills. The French are betting we won’t have the balls to back our friends with cold, hard cash. Our friends in Europe are betting that we will. If we fail them, if we flinch now, we can kiss free trade with Europe good-bye for years. The Italians, the Dutch, and the Spanish will all know that we’ll fold the first time the French or the Germans put pressure on them. So every European government with any sense will make tracks for Paris as fast as it can. By definition, anyone who joins this monetary union accepts the Franco-German position on tariffs and subsidies. And that means we’ll lose our last realistic chance to shake the world out of this goddamned trade war before it bankrupts us all.”

  He stared across at the Treasury Secretary. “This is one instance where we don’t have the luxury of letting events take their own course. We have to act.”

  The President’s firm, determined voice cut through the stunned silence that followed his outburst. “Ross is absolutely right. I will not abandon people who’ve put their trust in us.”

  He turned toward the Secretary of State. “Harris, I’d like you to arrange a meeting for me. I want to talk with the British and Norwegian prime ministers, pronto. By satellite hookup if possible, but I’ll fly if I have to.”

  “Of course, Mr. President.” Thurman’s own earlier misgivings were nowhere in sight. He was an old hand at reading the way the White House winds were blowing.

  Clinton Scofield leaned forward. “You’re planning to ask them for North Sea oil and gas?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  Scofield nodded. “Makes sense.” Hoping to import supplies from the Arabs, the Poles had built an oil and gas port at Gdansk way back in the 1970s. Pipelines already ran to Warsaw, the other big cities, and south to the Czech and Slovak republics. Better still, the North Sea’s vast oil and natural gas reserves lay just a few hundred miles west of Poland. Shorter tanker round trips would mean lower transportation costs.

  “And how will we pay for all this petro-largess?” The Treasury Secretary’s skepticism was undiminished.

  “The Poles and the Czechs will pay us what they can — in hard money or in kind. The rest?” He shrugged. “We’ll have to pick up the rest ourselves. First we’ll try squeezing some new money into a supplementary appropriation. Maybe we can buy Congress off by backing a few more pork-barrel projects here at home.” The President’s mouth turned down as he spoke. He’d fought hard against wasteful spending for years. The fact that he would even consider reversing himself on that score showed how committed he was to aiding the Eastern Europeans.

  He went on. “If we can’t get new funding, we’ll have to try reprogramming money that’s already appropriated for foreign aid.”

  Harris Thurman’s face fell a bit at that. As Secretary of State, he’d be the one explaining to various governments why their promised assistance packages failed to materialize.

  “Congress won’t like it, Mr. President,” the Treasury Secretary warned.

  “Congress? Congress, Madame Secretary, can go to…” He paused and smiled sardonically. “Gdansk.”

  Huntington nodded to himself. The President was committed now. America would stand by her friends in Eastern Europe.

  CHAPTER 10

  Combustion

  FEBRUARY 4 — CNN HEADLINE NEWS

  The televised images were gripping and strangely beautiful.

  A giant, red-hulled oil tanker slid quietly through the narrow waters between Denmark and Sweden, gliding past Copenhagen’s stone jetties, houses, and somber church spires at a steady ten knots. The tanker dwarfed its nearest companions — the two tugs and pilot boat shepherding it through the channel to the Baltic Sea. A ragtag swarm of tiny sailboats draped with protest banners lined the tanker’s route, kept at bay by police patrol craft steaming back and forth along the sound. Chants and blaring air horns carried faintly across the water.

  “Our top story this hour: rescue on the way for Poland’s oil-starved economy.

  “With Polish refineries running almost on empty, the first tanker carrying North Sea oil crossed into the Baltic — dogged by radical environmentalists most of the way. No arrests were reported by the Danish police, despite earlier rumors that a Greenpeace-led coalition would try to block the ship’s passage before it reached Gdansk.”

  The cool, collected features of the network’s Atlanta-based anchor appeared, replacing the footage shot earlier that morning several thousand miles away. “In other news from the region, French Minister for the Environment, Jean-Claude Martineau, expressed his grave concerns about the massive oil shipments destined for the Polish port. He pointed out that meeting Poland’s needs would require nearly two hundred tanker trips a year — even without counting the oil being shipped for the Czech and Slovak republics. With the area’s sea lanes already, overcrowded, he predicted a catastrophe that could ‘utterly destroy the fragile Baltic ecosystem.’

  “In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Millicent Fanon delivered a blistering response to the French official’s remarks, labeling them ‘a calculated attempt to mislead and panic’ people in the nations bordering on the Baltic Sea…”

  FEBRUARY 6 — THE HOUSE FLOOR, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  The U.S. House of Representatives was in session, and common sense was out of fashion.

  “Mr. Speaker, this President is out of control and out of touch!” The tall, silver-haired congressman from Missouri pounded the lectern in front of him, ignoring scattered boos from the seats to his left. “This Baltic boondoggle is just another example of an administration that cares more about foreigners and foreign politics than it does about the American people!”

  Majority Leader James Richard “Dick” Pendleton was in fine form, playing perfectly to the cameras focused on his rugged, All-American profile. He was a master of the one-minute speech, the congressional contribution to the age of television politics. Dozens of House members routinely took the floor at the beginning of each legislative day, speaking for sixty seconds or so on any and every subject that might win them national or local airtime. Used intelligently, it was a potent political weapon.

  “Ten billion dollars, Mr. Speaker! That’s billion with a capital B! That’s how much we’ll pay to fill Polish gas tanks and heat Czech homes! Ten billion taxpayer dollars down an overseas drain instead of feeding American families, clothing American children, and creating American jobs!

  “Well, 1 say that’s wrong. Downright wrong. In hard times like these, we should be looking after our own people first — not squandering billions like some kind of global Santa Claus! America deserves more, not less, Mr. Speaker. And America deserves a president who understands that.”

  The majority leader was confident that very few American voters would realize that the “huge” energy aid progr
am he’d attacked so vigorously represented just one-half of one percent of the total federal budget. When government spending soared into the trillions, it soared beyond comprehension for most people.

  Pendleton left the House floor wearing a satisfied smile. He’d done a good day’s work. Millions of Americans would see sound bites from his speech on the evening news, and their support for the President and his party would slip a little bit more. Not much. Just a percentage point or two in the polls. But that would be enough for the congressman’s tastes. Undermining an incumbent president was always a long-term process. Although the next presidential contest was still more than two years off, Pendleton was already planning to win that election.

  Like most of his colleagues, he never considered the impressions his intemperate, ill-chosen words might create outside the United States.

  FEBRUARY 10 — FRANCO-GERMAN SUMMIT, PALAIS DE L’EUROPE, STRASBOURG, FRANCE

  For the better part of five days Nicolas Desaix, Schraeder, and other would-be architects of a new European order had been meeting inside the lavishly appointed conference rooms of the old Parliament building. After weeks of preliminary discussions by lower-level officials, the French and German leaders were in Strasbourg to finish hammering out the basic military, economic, and political mechanisms needed to make a new continent-wide alliance work. Once they were satisfied, the array of related treaties would be presented to Europe’s smaller countries as accomplished facts open to acceptance but not to amendment.

  With the talks recessed for the afternoon, two men, Nicolas Desaix and Michel Guichy, the French Minister of Defense, trudged through the snow-shrouded Orangerie — a park adjacent to the towering red, bronze, and silver Palace of Europe. Aides and assistants trailed them at a discreet distance — out of earshot but close enough to run errands.

  “I’m still not sure about this scheme of yours, Nicolas.” Michel Guichy shook his head slowly. “So much change so fast. It seems unwise.”

  “When you’re on a tiger’s back, my friend…” Nicolas Desaix left the rest unsaid. The other man knew the risks they were running. The French people seemed willing to endure martial law for the moment, but that could change quickly enough once the weather warmed up. Political unrest and spring sunshine were a familiar and unwelcome pairing in France. Even worse, Bonnard, the republic’s half-senile President, was in failing health. If he died, he’d take the Emergency Committee’s paper-thin veneer of legality with him.

  No, Desaix thought, they didn’t have time for second-guessing. That was why he’d buttonholed the barrel-chested Defense Minister before the evening negotiating sessions began. He was determined to win Guichy’s support for the treaties he and Schraeder were crafting. Jacques Morin, his handpicked successor at the DGSE, was already on board. Together the three of them controlled the most important functions of the French government — the military, foreign policy, and espionage. Under the emergency decrees now governing France, they held most of the war-making and diplomatic powers ordinarily reserved for the head of state and commander in chief. Once they joined hands, the rest of the rump cabinet would trip all over itself falling into line.

  On the surface, executive power in the European Confederation they were proposing would rest with a Council of Nations made up of officials from all member states. But the council would meet only two or three times a year. That and its very size ensured that it could never be anything more than a glorified debating society. In practice, real day-today decision-making would lie in the hands of permanent secretariats. And the leaders for those secretariats would be appointed by France and Germany.

  Military matters would be handled through a NATO-like command structure. The Germans were prepared to accept French candidates for the top military and foreign policy slots. They were even willing to integrate their armed forces all the way down to the divisional level.

  Those arrangements at least had Guichy’s unhesitating approval. Combining French and German troops in a unified army would act as a powerful check on any future German territorial ambitions. An existing Franco-German corps showed that creating such an army was possible, if not easy. Better yet, he would be the logical choice to head the new confederation’s forces.

  “But what do the Boche get out of this?” The Defense Minister’s pleased look faded to a frown. “Germans don’t even piss without asking for a receipt.”

  “You’re right about that.” Desaix allowed himself a smile. Bored by anything not directly connected with defense policy, Guichy had absented himself from the talks concerned with other matters. “They want us to guarantee their control over the finance and industry posts.”

  “And you’ve agreed?”

  “Of course.” Desaix shrugged. “We each have our spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and our own vital industries. The Germans know better than to interfere with those. If they want to play at printing pretty new bank notes and setting interest rates for our junior ‘allies,’ I for one see no reason to stop them.”

  “True.” Guichy stroked his chin. Awarding Germany the nominal responsibility for making economic policy meant very little. France had long ago learned how to ignore policies and agreements it disliked. In any event, these days the Germans were better businessmen and bankers than they were soldiers and statesmen. “I begin to see why you want this new alliance so badly.” He shook his head in undisguised admiration. “You are a sly one, Nicolas.”

  “Merely careful, my friend. I gamble, but only when I know what cards the other players are holding.”

  The Defense Minister nodded. “So I’ve seen.” He hesitated. “But what about the wild card? The United States, I mean. I doubt the Americans will want to see Europe unified under our banner.”

  “The Americans?” Desaix grimaced. “They’re nothing. All wind and no backbone.”

  “But this Polish venture of theirs…”

  “Means nothing, Michel.” Desaix contemptuously waved away the U.S. oil and gas supply effort. True, he’d been stunned by the first reports. He’d never expected Washington to break the energy embargo he’d engineered. Since then, however, he’d seen American public and political opinion starting to crack. Americans liked quick, easy victories like the Persian Gulf War. They didn’t have the stomach these days for open-ended, expensive commitments.

  That was a weakness — one he planned to exploit.

  Desaix laughed sourly. “Even their own Congress is trying to stop these shipments. One small setback and the whole ridiculous thing will come to an end. Like that!” He snapped his fingers. “And when it does, we’ll have the Poles and the Czechs begging at our doorstep.”

  He could tell that Guichy liked that image. The Defense Minister was a proud man, and several failed attempts to sell the two countries French military hardware and expertise still burned in his memory. Reports he’d seen suggested that they’d all but laughed at Guichy’s offers before turning to the Americans and British for weapons and advice. Seeing them come crawling for admission to a new European alliance would avenge that insult.

  Equally important, Guichy was a patriot. Desaix’s vision of a continent subject to French authority — no matter how indirect or disguised — was bound to stir his spirit. The twentieth century had not been kind to their beloved country. Bled white by World War I and crushed underfoot during World War II, she had been largely ignored by the two superpowers during the cold war years that followed. Now, for the first time in a hundred years, France had a real chance to regain its glory and its rightful place in the sun.

  “Well, Michel? Will you stand with me?” Desaix stood waiting while his colleague came to a decision. Though it irked him to plead with any man, he concealed his irritation. For the time being, humility best served his ends.

  Slowly, ponderously, the Defense Minister nodded.

  Nicolas Desaix had his ally. France would pursue its old imperial ambitions in a new guise.

  Heinz Schraeder and Jurgen Lettow, Germany’s Defense Minister, stood at a
window overlooking the Orangerie, watching the two Frenchmen take their walk.

  Lettow, shorter and leaner than his leader, nodded toward Desaix’s distant figure. “I do not trust that man, Chancellor.” He grimaced. “Was it wise to award the French so much?”

  He had reason to be displeased. The treaties they were finalizing would make the ministry he headed only an adjunct to a French-dominated Confederation Defense Secretariat. French generals would command German troops. The Defense Minister’s scowl grew deeper.

  Schraeder shrugged, unconcerned. “Let the French strut about in uniform for a time, Lettow. This is a modern age. Who will go to war now?” He smiled thinly. “The rest of these agreements are very much in our favor. We give Desaix and his colleagues a slight measure of authority over the trappings of power — the soldiers and the diplomats — and they give us control of the real levers of power — industry, banking, and trade.”

  Germany’s Chancellor shook his head. “No, Lettow. We will allow France to bask in its artificial glory while we reshape the continent to our advantage.”

  For their own wildly contradictory reasons, Europe’s two strongest powers were coming to the same conclusions.

  FEBRUARY 15 — NATIONAL POLICE COMMAND, MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR, BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

  Colonel Zoltan Hradetsky folded his newspaper and took his feet off the desk. He glanced at the clock hanging on his wall. Only two-thirty in the afternoon. Another hour and a half before he could leave the office, and even that would be an hour earlier than everyone else who worked in the ministry. Of course, his peers had real work to do. He didn’t. After being yanked out of Sopron for offending the French-owned Eurocopter conglomerate, he’d been shunted from dead-end department to dead-end department.