The Threat (16 page)

“I just believe in talking about things instead of ignoring them. So, when you want to talk—well, come back and we'll talk. But till then—there's not much point to it. Is there?”

Then she was gone. Gone from the sea-cold and silent shifting aurora, back toward the earthly glittering inside. Her heels tapping across stone laid back when Russia had been an autocracy. The property of one man. Before it had become the property of all.

*   *   *

“Testing. Testing. Can you hear us in back?”

The conference hall at the Pribaltyskaya was not exactly crowded, but there was enough of an audience that he felt nervous. Then thought: Get real. After all you've been through, what's a little public speaking? He and the other conferees took their seats, eyeing each other like strange dogs shoved into the same cage. The Ukrainian adjusted his little tricolor. Dan remembered White's instructions, and adjusted his own banner so it was clearly visible. The reporters and photogs in the front row were focusing on him. The hot lights felt good.

The heating in Blair's room hadn't worked very well, and the wind, whistling and buffeting the warped casements all night long, had made him dream of the sea. He'd been on some ship that was no ship he'd ever served on and at the same time all the ships he'd ever served on. He'd been the skipper. Running, for some terrible but unknown reason, at full speed through the fog. Filled with dread, waiting for the crash, the impact …

Blair had been gone when he woke. He'd made it through another few pages of the briefing materials over a skimpy breakfast. The coffee was water-weak, and when he asked for more the waiter snorted in disbelief. So he felt both jumpy and not very alert. Two men were setting up a slide projector that looked as if it had been designed to bolt onto a tank.

“I had expected Dr. Solas…?” offered a cultured Oxbridge accent from the seat next to him.

“Not feeling well,” Dan said.

“The czar's revenge? I hear it's going around.”

He didn't elaborate, not knowing if Solas's affliction was public knowledge or not. “Dan Lenson. Stand-in, at short notice.” They shook hands.

The chair opened with a long statement, which Dan was able to follow in simultaneous translation through earphones. Droningly factual, detailing what had existed and where, what had been destroyed or deactivated, what had been agreed on and what deferred to a later date. All nuclear weapons had been removed from Eastern Europe, the Baltic republics, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Unfortunately, Russia was undergoing a period of insecurity and economic instability and could offer little in the way of resources to her former republics.

Dan had been stunned, reading through the materials, at how much the Soviets had left behind, and how little attention had been devoted to its security until very recently indeed. There'd been finger-pointing, but no action. The second speaker, from Belarus, was in that tradition. He sounded by turns apologetic and belligerent. The new republics had pressing challenges. The Russians had treated them as dumping grounds. The international community owed them recompense for their suffering.

The chairman put his oar in here. Weapons had been based in the republics not to “protect Russia,” but to defend the entire state, which had then included the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. The other answered angrily; his country had been
occupied
, not defended. Nor had the Russians honored their promises to permit Belarus to monitor the destruction process, to guarantee weapons were really being destroyed.

Dan cleared his throat, exchanging glances with the Briton, who interposed himself, attempting to move the discussion past recriminations. After muttered imprecations both sides subsided.

Time for the U.S. statement. Which he had in front of him, in fourteen-point caps. Apparently Solas was nearsighted. The chairman got his name right introducing him, though someone had finessed his title to “Mr. Daniel V. Lenson, U.S. National Security Council, Liaison for Threat Reduction.” He read out eight minutes of bland assurances of how important reducing the nuclear threat was. Unlike the old man's impassioned declamation the night before, this read like oatmeal. Still, it felt good, putting it on the record. It ended with the announcement that Washington was pledging $12.5 million to the destruction and removal program as part of the president's Threat Reduction Initiative.

The representative from Ukraine spoke next. She said serenely that all nuclear weapons would be gone from Ukrainian territory by the end of the current year. The quadripartite U.S.-Russian-Kazakh-Belarusian declaration to be signed as the capstone to parallel negotiations to this conference would underline that commitment.

The tone changed when the delegate from Kazakhstan got the mike. He shouted directly at the chairman, in a threatening snarl. Dan watched faces alter as the translation filtered through the earphones.

Kazakhstan had acquiesced in the Lisbon Protocol to relinquish all strategic weapons over a seven-year period. It had also agreed, in principle, to the removal of hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons on its territory. The Kazakh government had implemented robust security. Rumors of unguarded weapons were false. However, aid promised by Russia, the United States, and others had never come. Extensive areas of radiological contamination from tests and accidents remained, especially around Semipalatinsk. Thousands of citizens suffered from radiation-induced cancers. The materials in the warheads were valuable property. Nor had Russia honored promises to allow Kazakhs to ensure that evacuated weapons were really being destroyed. As had also been pointed out by his friend from Belarus.

Therefore, President Nazarbayev had decided not to authorize the removal of the remaining R36M missiles from Kazakhstan. The country did not intend to use the weapons, but had to keep in mind its own security in an unstable region. Kazakhstan needed assistance and compensation, and a public apology for Russian actions there as well. Until these conditions were met, the missiles would stay. He spared a glare for Dan and the Chinese panelist too.

Flipping through his references, Dan saw that the R36M was known in the West as the SS-18.

With that knowledge came dread. A huge fourth-generation ICBM with ten one-megaton warheads, the R36M was bigger than the U.S. Peacekeeper and housed in deep, hardened silos. The M2 was a late-eighties variant, which meant they'd be both accurate and in decent shape.

Kazakhstan had been left with 104 of them at the breakup. If it kept them, a poor, Islamic, and increasingly corrupt and authoritarian country would wield a massive and invulnerable nuclear arsenal for many years to come.

He didn't think this was a good idea, and judging by the silence after the Kazakh's speech, no one else did either. The chairman looked furious but wasn't saying a word. Looking along the table, Dan didn't see anyone else reaching for the mike.

Reluctantly, he pulled it toward him, reminding himself to speak calmly and to accuse no one of anything. To feel his way forward, the way he'd seen the State people doing in the other panels. They usually started off by rephrasing what somebody they disagreed with had said, in the passive voice.

“The, uh … distinguished delegate from the Republic of Kazakhstan has advanced several reasons for abrogating his country's obligations under the Lisbon Protocol, which was signed by President Nazarbayev signed”—he glanced at his notes—“three years ago. If I can summarize. They are, that assurances of foreign help in cleaning up contamination and to bring medical assistance to those ill as a result of testing activities have not been followed through on; that turning the weapons over would be divesting Kazakhstan of valuable resources; that they were not confident that weapons turned over were actually being destroyed; and finally, that retaining the weapons would enhance the republic's security.”

“And an apology,” murmured the Brit.

“And an apology from the Russian Federation, successor state to the Soviet Union.”

The Kazakh nodded briefly, arms folded.

“With the chairman's permission?” Dan glanced at the Russian general, who was sitting with arms folded too. No apologies from that quarter.

He cleared his throat, wishing they had water to sip, to stall with, while he figured out what the hell he was doing. “Uh, addressing those issues one by one. First. Far from ameliorating the situation left behind by previous regimes, maintaining a nuclear force will soak up funds needed for those very tasks of decontamination and health care. Far from being valuable resources, though the fissionable materials may have a certain economic value, these advanced missiles and associated systems will probably prove a liability, not an asset, over the long run, because of maintenance costs.

“Holding back weapons is not the way to assure yourself that those taken out of service will be destroyed. Working with the UN and other concerned agencies may be a better way to move toward that goal.

“Finally, the idea that nuclear weapons bring ‘stability' in some form may be a misapprehension. Certainly both Russia and the U.S. can testify to that outcome. Twenty thousand–plus warheads on either side didn't seem to bring any more stability, or security, than when there were a hundred. Or maybe, none.”

He didn't know how well the translators were keeping up. He couldn't tell from the expressions in the front rows. His fellow panelists looked interested, though. So he took a breath and plunged on.

“Yet the concern about security is real. It seems to me the way forward may be to address the delegate's concerns in this area. Maybe we need to discuss a joint guarantee of his country's security. Perhaps by the U.S., Russia, and possibly China as well.”

After a moment of silence the Kazakh said something, which Dan got a moment later through the headphones: “A guarantee? From exactly what?”

Dan referred to his briefing materials, having found a sentence he liked. “Against threats of use of nuclear weapons, threats of conventional force, threats of resort to force, and economic pressure.”

He was not quite done with this sentence when he caught undisguised horror on the faces of both the British and the Chinese delegates. The Brit was whispering, “Not on your Nelly.” The Russian had gone white. The Kazakh was still sitting impassively, listening to the translation.

Dan sucked in his breath, realizing he'd done something wrong, but not knowing what.

Both the Chinese and the Kazakh were beginning to speak when his Oxbridge neighbor put in, having wrestled the mike out of Dan's hands, “Of course, this is offered on a speculative basis, for discussion by the appropriate authorities. I believe that is all the United States' participant is placing on the table. And Her Majesty's government would no doubt be glad to assist in such discussions, in the interests of fostering mutual understanding. Should the responsible principals desire our participation.”

Dan wasn't stupid, so when their eyes switched back to him he said meekly, “Uh, that's right. On a … speculative basis. For discussion by the appropriate authorities.”

“The record should show that,” the Brit delegate prompted. Dan said into the mike, “The record should show that: on a speculative basis only, no commitments by the United States or any other government.”

*   *   *

He was sweating by the time the discussion broke. Seeing the punji pit he'd almost stepped into. As they stood to polite applause he muttered to his new friend, “Thanks for saving my can there.”

“We must all help one another,” the Briton said quietly, and limped off the platform. Dan, watching, realized he had an artificial leg.

*   *   *

It took twenty minutes after the panel ended for Dr. White to catch up with him. In fact she was lying in wait for him outside the men's room. Her mouth looked as if it had been drawn with white chalk. “Tell me you didn't make a public commitment to a security guarantee for Kazakhstan,” she hissed.

“Uh, it might have started out that way. But the situation got retrieved.”

He told her about the British diplomat's skillful pullback of his gaffe. White fitted a hand over her eyes. “But the transcript. What'll the
transcript
say?”

“I got to the woman who's producing it. From the Carnegie Endowment. It won't be in there.”

She wavered, caught between further anger and, he saw, the knowledge that she'd asked him to sit in; chewing further on him, or passing the ding up the line, would be admitting her mistake. At last she said he had to watch everything he said. Even a hint that the U.S. was considering a security commitment in central Asia would trigger every immune system left in Russia, and send the Chinese to the battlements as well.

But maybe he'd succeeded in retrieving his misstep, because he hadn't heard anything since, no calls from a livid Sebold or outraged cablegrams from the president's personal son of a bitch, Holt. And the parallel negotiations must have gone all right, because
Air Force One
landed again that afternoon, back from central Asia with De Bari and the presidents and other plenipotentiaries from the region. Blair was invited to the signing ceremony for the protocol or whatever it was, Dan hadn't gotten a clear picture exactly what, back in the Catherine Palace. But he thought he might as well make himself invisible for a while.

*   *   *

He woke suddenly in the icy dark, clawing for the bedside light. Gusts rattled the windows, shrieking. This time he'd heard them screaming, behind the wind. The ones he'd left behind, while he went on. But the dark presence was with him. He couldn't see it. Only feel its paralyzing closeness, as if it were lying next to him.

When he reached out, her side of the bed was empty.

The bedside phone beeped again. He realized it was what had woken him. As he lifted it even the memory of the dream faded, leaving only a lingering terror. Black outside the window. The sea crashing far below. “Yeah?”