“Exactly so. Minister,” Filippov said. “But wc have a plan to invest over a billion dollars in the next year to build a pipeline linking the Black Sea with the Adriatic Sea. We have some influence in Bulgaria; Germany has considerable influence with Albania. If the United States leaves NATO and leaves Europe, as our information suggests, they will abandon any plans to build a base in Vlore, and Greece and Turkey will lose their great benefactor and will have to fend for themselves. Turkey will certainly leave Albania and Macedonia to their own fates.”
“You are proposing a Russian oil company build a pipeline from the Black Sea to the Adriatic?” Schramm asked incredulously. “A private company, I assume? Gazprom only builds pipelines in Russia. LUKoil wanted to build a pipeline through Ukraine and Poland to the Baltic Sea. but its investors scattered after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the company is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. That leaves ...” There was a pause, and Filippov heard a muted gasp. “You’re not suggesting Metyorgaz? Pavel the Playboy?”
“I’d prefer not to reveal too many details about the proposal for now, Minister,” Filippov inteijected, He was surprised as hell when Schramm mentioned Metyorgaz. Kazakov’s oil company cum drug distribution front company. But then again, Germany was very closely linked with Albania, and it certainly had a major presence in the Balkans. They would certainly be aware of any large-scale development projects proposed for the region. And Kazakov was an international crime and business Figure—they certainly would be on the alert for anything he might be involved in. “I will say that Russia is committed to developing the Caspian Sea petroleum resources and serving all of Europe with inexpensive oil. That is of great benefit to all of us. Russia is securing commitments from many different sources to do just this, and we look to the leaders in the European Union to help us.”
“You sound like a sales brochure now, Herr Filippov,” Schramm said, with a nervous chuckle. “Germany is indeed looking for safe, secure, reliable sources of energy. Our dependence on Middle East oil is not desirable, yet it is a relatively cheap and reliable source—”
“As long as the United States secures peace in the Middle East,” Filippov inteijected. “What if the United States withdraws from the Middle East as we see they have done in Europe? The price of oil will skyrocket, and supply will be in greater jeopardy. Germany needs to secure its own source of oil, right here in Europe, not the Middle East. The Caspian Sea oil reserves are the answer. The problem is, what will Turkey do with oil transiting the Bosporus Straits if instability sets in? Where will you go to get oil from Asia? To Syria? Israel—if it even exists in five years? Will you need to invade Turkey in order to get oil shipments through the Bosporus?”
There was a lengthy pause from Bonn. Filippov was going to ask Schramm if he was still on the line when the German foreign minister finally asked, “So the attack against Albania was not a retaliatory strike, but only the beginning of a campaign to secure land and rights to build this pipeline to Europe?”
“I cannot comment further on this morning’s events,” Filippov repeated. He certainly could not—he had no idea what had happened except that a NATO radar plane was a burning hunk of metal in Macedonia. But his word rang true, loud and clear. A secret attack on Albania to secure pipeline rights? Kazakov was just crazy enough to do something like that. ... “As for the rights to build a pipeline—we do not want bloodshed. We hope to convince the respective governments in southern Europe to participate in this lucrative and important expansion.”
“I see,” Schramm said woodcnly. Any person could hear the words between the words, the thinly veiled threat. “We will talk more of this. Minister Filippov.”
Filippov hung up the phone, feeling as drained and shaky as if he had just run a two-kilometer sprint. “What... in ... hell is going on?” he shouted to his aide. “What in hell just happened?”
“It sounded to me,” his aide replied with a smile, “that you have just negotiated an alliance with Germany to divide the Balkans between you, sir.”
“But what about Albania?” Filippov asked. “What happened in Albania?”
The aide shrugged and replied, “Does it matter now, sir?”
THREE
Zhukovsky Flight Research Center, Bykovo (Moscow), Russia
Several days later
“Everyone freeze! This is a raid! No one move! ”
The uniformed Spetsnaz shock troops burst into the Metyor Aerospace building without warning, automatic weapons drawn, thirty minutes past midnight. They quickly fanned out through the first floor of the building. They were followed by plainclothes Glavnoe Razvedivatel’noe Upravlenie (GRU), General Staff Intelligence Directorate, agents, with bulletproof vests under their long coats, carrying small automatic pistols.
Pyotr Fursenko and Pavel Kazakov were sitting in Fursenko’s office when the agents burst in without any further warning, guns leveled. Kazakov was casually sipping a glass of fine French sherry and enjoying a Cuban cigar, Fursenko was nervously guzzling coffee and chain-smoking bitter Egyptian cigarettes. “How much longer were you going to make us wait?” Kazakov asked, with a smile. They did not answer, but roughly hauled both of them to their feet, out of the office, and out to the main hangar floor.
There, surrounded by plainclothed agents and uniformed Spetsnaz special forces commandos, was Sergey Yejsk, President Sen’kov’s national security advisor, and Colonel-General Valeriy Zhurbenko, chief of the general staff. Fursenko looked at both men in wide-eyed shock. Pavel Kazakov merely smiled and looked directly at Yejsk and Zhurbenko in turn.
Yejsk nodded to the officer in charge of his detail, and he had his men roughly search both civilians. Fursenko looked horrified, his body jerking away at every soldier’s touch; Kazakov merely allowed the search without resisting, smiling confidently at Yejsk. The soldiers put the two men’s hands up to the backs of their heads, then slapped the hands with the barrels of their rifles to warn them to keep them there. When the soldiers were finished, Yejsk stepped over first to Kazakov, who looked directly back at him, and then over to Fursenko, who looked very much like a doe caught in headlights.
Yejsk stepped closer to Fursenko until he was almost nose to nose with him and asked, “Do you know who I am?” The scientist nodded. “Do you know who these men are?” This time a shake of his head. They are the men that will tear this building apart piece by piece, take you to prison, and throw you naked into a cold four-by-four-foot cell if I do not like the answers you give to my questions. Do you understand?”
Fursenko nodded so hard, every soldier in the hangar could see it Kazakov merely smiled. “That’s an easy one,” he said. “Are you done? Can we go now?” His guard whacked him on the side of his head with the barrel of his rifle.
“I will give you an easy one. Doctor—where is the bomber?”
“Which bomber?” Now it was Fursenko’s turn to get a shot to the head.
A soldier ran up to Zhurbenko and whispered in his ear. “What is the combination to that door lock. Doctor?” Zhurbenko asked, Fursenko gave it to him instantly, and moments later they had the secure hangar door open and the lights on. Inside they found nothing but an aircraft skeleton, roughly resembling the Metyor-179 bomber, with several large pieces of composite material, wiring, and engine parts scattered around the polished floor. “What is that?” Yejsk shouted.
“Our latest project, the Metyor-179. It didn’t work,” Fursenko replied uneasily.
“The real Metyor-179. Where is it?”
“It’s right there, sir,” Fursenko replied. “That’s all there’s left of it.”
“Ni kruti run ’e yaytsa! Don’t twist my balls!” Yejsk stepped up close to Fursenko and slapped him backhandedly across the face. “One more time. Doctor—where is the Metyor-179?”
“Stop hitting the poor doctor on the head, Yejsk,” Kazakov said. “You don’t want to ruin that fine brain of his.”
“Zakroy yibala! Shut your fucking mouth!” Yejsk shouted. “I should do the world
a favor and put a bullet in your brain right now!”
‘That’s not why you came here, Yejsk, or we’d be dead already,” Kazakov said. “But of course, then you would be, as well.” His eyes fell, and he motioned down, inviting Yejsk to look. Yejsk and Zhurbenko glanced down at their crotches and saw tiny red dots of light dancing on their clothing right near their genitals. They looked at all the soldiers in the hangar and saw red laser dots on their heads, their shoulders, and their crotches—every man had at least three dots on him, all centered on areas not protected by bulletproof vests.
“You dare threaten me?” Yejsk cried out, beads of sweat popping out on his forehead. “I will tear down everything you own and dump it into the Black Sea, and then I will have your broken corpses tossed on top of it all.”
“Well, well, General Yejsk, you are beginning to sound just like a gangster,” Kazakov said. His eyes narrowed, and the casual, relaxed, amused smile disappeared. “We stop the bullshit now, Yejsk. You came here on the orders of the president to find out what we’re doing and to get in on the action.” Yejsk glared at Kazakov, but Kazakov knew that he had guessed correctly. “Now, I suggest we send all of these security men home for the evening, and let’s talk business.”
“You had better cooperate with us, or you’ll wish you were back humping goats in Kazakhstan,” Yejsk said angrily. With a wave of his hand, Yejsk dismissed the Spetsnaz troops, leaving only two personal bodyguards. He could see none of Kazakov’s men in the rafters anymore—but they hadn’t seen them up there the first time, either. The rumors were obviously true—Kazakov had an army of former Spetsnaz commandos, well-trained and now well-paid and loyal, working for him.
“Where is the bomber, Pavel?” Zhurbenko asked. “We know it departed here two hours before the attack against Kukes, Albania, and now it’s missing.”
Kazakov lit up a cigar, then offered one to Zhurbenko and Yejsk—Zhurbenko accepted. “It’s safe, being hidden in several different secret locations in three or four different countries.” “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 w ay 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 detente. 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 stan 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 bom in New Orleans and had spent most of her life in the United States, when he
r 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 loffe-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.
She had just downloaded the latest tap from a passive listening device she’d installed in the Metyor Aerospace hangar several weeks before. Metyor had never had very much activity until recently, right around the time that the father of Metyor IIG’s largest shareholder, Pavel Kazakov, had been brutally killed in Kosovo. Suddenly, Metyor Aerospace was buzzing with activity. Before it got too hairy over there, she had managed to plant listening devices inside the main hangar and in the administrative offices. No matter how old, young, married, busy, or noninterested they were, her red hair, green eyes, luscious Louisiana breasts, and sassy attitude attracted men like nothing else, and she practically had free access to Metyor. But no matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to get inside the secure hangar or get close to the facility director, Pyotr Fursenko. The old fart had to be gay—she’d tried all of her feminine charms on him, to no avail.
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