Cauldron

CHAPTER 9 Tidal Race

Outlined by blinking beacons, passenger jets orbited slowly through Berlin’s gray, overcast skies — conserving fuel while traffic controllers held Tegel’s main runway open for an unscheduled, priority departure. The planes circled low over a city gripped hard by winter.

Below them, a freezing north wind rippled across the white-capped Tegeler See and whined through trees planted between the lake and the airport. Driven by the wind, snow flurries whirled across concrete runways, spattering against passenger terminals and flat-roofed warehouses. Snowflakes carried far enough south vanished in the black, oily waters of the Hohenzollern Canal.

The wind tugged at camouflage netting rigged over the tanks, personnel carriers, and antiaircraft guns deployed at intervals around Tegel. Some were stationed on the tarmac itself. Other armored vehicles occupied the landscaped grounds of nearby Rehberge Park — their turrets and guns aimed at high-rise apartment buildings and shops lining the field’s eastern fringe.

The airport, like the rest of Germany, was still under martial law.

More white and gray camouflage netting covered military helicopters parked around a maintenance hangar far away from the main terminal building. Their rotors were tied down against the wind. Several were shark-nosed PAH-2 tank killers, a joint French and German design manufactured by the Eurocopter consortium. The rest were troop carriers, UH-1D Hueys built by Dornier for the German Army. The Hueys were starting to show their age, but the ultramodern Eurocopter tilt-rotor troop transports that were supposed to replace them had been delayed by production and budget problems. Despite their country’s professed desire for all-European manufactures, Germany’s airborne troops and commandos were stuck using antiquated, American-designed helicopters. Few of them appreciated the irony in that.

One other thing was certain. None of the soldiers waiting in ranks outside the hangar appreciated being kept out in the cold as an honor guard for dignitaries who were already late. Light gray service tunics, shirts and ties, black trousers, and red berets were no match for winter temperatures.

Three Mercedes sedans drove across the tarmac and pulled up next to the hangar. Weapons rattled as the soldiers presented arms.

Several officials got out of the cars and strode briskly past the shivering honor guard, walking fast toward a twin-engine executive jet visible just inside the hangar’s half-open doors. Two men led the way, talking intently. Plainclothes security men formed a protective phalanx around them.

Nicolas Desaix was on his way back to France — homeward bound after his second quick trip to Germany in as many weeks.

“You agree, then, Herr Chancellor? That the economic measures I’ve proposed are a necessary first step to closer, more formal cooperation between our two nations?” Desaix was insistent, eager for some sign of progress he could take back to Paris. He found the slow-motion processes of normal diplomacy maddening at a time when events were moving so fast.

Heinz Schraeder turned his head toward the Frenchman. Germany’s Chancellor was tall enough to stand eye-to-eye with Desaix, but he carried far more weight on a much broader frame. Thinning black hair and a dour, fleshy face with massive jowls gave him a bulldog look. He nodded. “I agree, monsieur. My cabinet must concur, of course, but…” He shrugged. “They will fall in line.”

He had reason to be confident. Brought to power by Germany’s prolonged economic woes and by a growing hatred of foreign refugees and immigrants, Schraeder’s control over the Bundestag, the Parliament, had rested on a paper-thin majority — a majority threatened by rising public discontent. But now martial law made public opinion immaterial.

“Good. That’s very good. Then we shall have an agreement to sign the next time I see you.” Desaix sounded certain.

The two men crossed into the neon-lit hangar, followed closely by their aides and bodyguards. Airport workers pushed the hangar doors all the way open behind them. A ground crewman wearing ear protectors already stood waiting on the tarmac outside, ready to guide Desaix’s aircraft out onto the runway. With traffic stacking up over the field, Tegel’s managers wanted to get their government’s guests into the air as quickly as possible.

“A great pleasure, Herr Chancellor. As always. I look forward to our next meeting.” Desaix shook hands with the German leader and then hurried up a set of folding stairs into the jet. He turned and waved a final time before disappearing inside. His retinue of aides and guards followed him.

Schraeder stood watching impassively as crewmen closed the French plane’s hatch.

“An interesting man, Herr Chancellor. I can understand why you find him so charming.”

“Charming?” Schraeder glanced sharply at the aide standing by his side. “On the contrary, Werner. I think he’s a smooth-tongued, manipulating swine.” He smiled at the younger man’s shocked expression. “But what I think of Desaix personally doesn’t matter. His ideas make sense. For us, not just for the French. And that is what matters.”

He spoke with conviction. In his judgment, closer ties with France offered the best hope of creating a unified European political and military superpower — a superpower with German industrial might as its driving engine. Earlier attempts to unite the continent had foundered in a sea of conflicting national economic policies, currencies, and cultures. And, in retrospect, the whole idea of trying to create a closer-knit union under such circumstances had been ludicrous — doomed from the very beginning.

The Chancellor snorted. Germany and France, powerhouses in their own right, should never have been expected to bend to whims of smaller, poorer countries. It was unnatural. No, he thought, the weak must follow the lead set by the strong. That was the only rational way to organize the continent. For all his faults, Nicolas Desaix shared the same vision.

Torn by feuding ethnic groups and rival trading blocs, Europe needed order, stability, and discipline to take its rightful place in the world. And only France and Germany could provide the strong leadership Europe needed.

Naturally Schraeder would have preferred that Germany alone occupy center stage in a united Europe. He was not a fool, though. The world’s memories of German militarism and the Third Reich were still too painful for that. Even the comparatively hesitant diplomatic and financial moves his country had made to regain its old influence in Central and Eastern Europe were viewed with strong suspicion. Working hand in glove with France, even letting Paris appear to take the lead, would help hold those suspicions in check.

Heinz Schraeder nodded to himself. Since the end of World War II, a series of leaders from both nations had toiled fairly successfully to cool the long-standing antagonisms between their two countries. High-level contacts, joint military exercises, and continual affirmations of new friendship had all been employed by French presidents and German chancellors to accustom their peoples to working together. Now he and Desaix would reap the rewards of their hard labor.

Nicolas Desaix listened to his special ambassador’s report without interrupting. Only the tight, angry frown on his face revealed his growing agitation. Professional diplomats never seemed able to say anything plainly — especially when they knew their news wasn’t welcome.

He waited impatiently for the man to run out of steam.

“To summarize, sir, the Polish government has expressed an interest in further talks, although it is disinclined at this time to proceed with formal negotiations on the subject. Apparently Warsaw believes that internal political considerations must temporarily take precedence over other, broader concerns.”

“They’ve turned us down.”

The ambassador shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Admitting failure was not often a good career move in the foreign service. He forced an optimistic tone. “Not in so many words, Minister. And complicated matters of this kind often require prolonged consideration. I’m sure that further discussions will produce…” His voice trailed away under his superior’s icy glare.

“Cut the crap, Bourcet. I know hot air when I hear it. Poland has rejected our offer out of hand.” Desaix’s fingers drummed on his desk as he waited for a reply. “Well? Am I right?”

The other man nodded reluctantly. “Yes, Minister.”

“Very well. You may go. But I’ll expect your written report on my desk by tomorrow morning. Make sure that it is complete and clear. I don’t have any more time to waste on fluff and nonsense.” Desaix turned his attention to the documents piled high in front of him, ignoring the special ambassador’s abrupt, red-faced departure.

He made a mental note to have the man assigned to the next undesirable diplomatic posting that opened up. Somewhere as far from France as possible.

Desaix didn’t mind the ambassador’s failure in Poland so much. After all, he’d more than half expected it. The Poles were too stiff-necked and too stupid to join the Franco-German monetary union voluntarily. What irked him most was Bourcet’s pointless attempt to disguise the truth by spouting a lot of meaningless gibberish.

He could forgive a man who failed. He would not forgive a man who mistook him for a fool.

Nicolas Desaix dismissed the matter from his mind in favor of a more immediate and important concern. Specifically the mulish resistance to the new European order he was trying to create.

In the weeks since France and Germany reached agreement on a common currency, his emissaries had fanned out across the continent. Nations with economies in hock to either Paris or Berlin were reminded of that sad fact and urged to join the new monetary union. So far, all were bowing to the inevitable. Other countries, those aligned with the “free trade” bloc, had proved far less cooperative. One by one, they’d rejected the chance to change sides in the world’s ongoing trade war.

Every refusal angered Desaix, but he found the Polish, Czech, and Slovak stance especially infuriating. Their stubborn adherence to national sovereignty and open markets encouraged agitators in other Eastern European countries who opposed closer ties with France. With American backing, they were becoming a rallying point for the anti-French sentiment slowly spreading through the region. And that made them dangerous.

No one knew better than he how fragile the coalition he envisioned would be — at least during the first few months of its existence. The slightest setback or unexpected check might shatter it, leaving France even more isolated in a sea of hostile neighbors. It would take time to weld a confederation of unpopular, unelected governments into a strong, united whole. Polish, Czech, and Slovak intransigence threatened to rob him of that time.

Desaix’s frown deepened. He could not allow that to happen. If political leaders in the three countries would not join a new European alliance voluntarily, they would have to be coerced. They’d either fold under pressure or find themselves abandoned by their own people.

His sour expression disappeared, replaced by a narrow, unpleasant smile. The ignorant Poles and their southernmost neighbors might feel themselves secure behind their thin screen of American and British military aid. But he knew differently.

He picked up a secure phone. “Put me through to the Russian Embassy. I want to speak with the ambassador himself.”

Alex Banich stuck his head inside the lioness’s den at her request. “You rang?”

“Yep. Wait one, okay?” Erin McKenna spoke without looking away from her glowing computer monitor. Her fingers flashed across the keyboard parked in her lap, entering new data or making new demands on an already overtaxed system.

“Sure.” Banich leaned against the doorjamb, folded his arms, and watched her work. He fought off a yawn.

The Commerce Department analyst looked as tired as he felt. Her eyes were shadowed and bloodshot, the product of too many hours spent staring at tiny print and endless columns of figures. Even her long, auburn hair looked mussed. She sometimes wrapped her ponytail around her fingers when she thought no one was looking. He’d even caught her chewing isolated strands while she sat lost in thought, trying hard to piece together a coherent picture from fragments of fact, rumor, and pure guesswork.

The months since Russia declared martial law had flown by in a dizzying, exhausting cycle of busy days and work-filled nights. The CIA’s Moscow Station had been understaffed and overworked even before Marshal Kaminov and his cronies made their move. Now, with personnel restrictions in place on all foreign embassies, and with all freedoms greatly restricted, things were even worse. Neither of them could waste time or energy arguing for the sheer, cussed joy of it.

So, partly out of necessity and partly out of sheer fatigue, they’d negotiated an uneasy truce and a practical division of labor. Banich focused his efforts on the military and political side of the spectrum, while McKenna concentrated on trade and economic developments.

So far at least, she had been more successful. Her contacts inside the Russian Ministries of Trade and Finance were civilians with a reformist streak who weren’t happy under military rule. They fed her a fairly steady stream of raw trade and economic data — some classified, some unclassified, and some just hard to find without help.

Banich wasn’t as fortunate. He was being run ragged just trying to maintain his cover as Nikolai Ushenko without being bankrupted in the process. Backed by army decrees, the government ministries he supplied made constant demands for more food at below-market prices. These new price controls made it impossible for him to bargain for sensitive information. By wiping out his profit margins, they were also siphoning away the resources he needed to buy secrets from a corrupt few still willing to sell them.

Still, he’d had a little luck recently. Like Erin, he’d made several promising contacts on the civilian side of the Russian government. Even inside the Defense Ministry there were officials who despised the army’s heavy-handed attempt to reimpose Stalinist discipline and central planning. And there were persistent rumors that Russia’s President — now only a figurehead under constant GRU surveillance — still hoped he could regain effective control over his country.

Banich dismissed those rumors as simple wishful thinking. Kaminov had relearned an old lesson of Russian politics: the one with the biggest guns governs. He and his fellow marshals were too firmly dug in to be ousted easily or bloodlessly. And with the West hopelessly divided against itself, there wasn’t any realistic prospect of sustained outside pressure for a return to democratic rule.

Erin finished her typing with a final, triumphant stab at the keyboard, punched the print key, and slewed her chair around to face him. “Thanks. I needed to get some ideas down before they wandered off in a gray fog somewhere up here.” She tapped her forehead.

“No problem.” He thought about straightening up and then decided against it. Leaning up against the door felt too good. “Now, what can I do for you? Kidnap the Minister of Trade? Swipe the Czar’s crown jewels? Or did you have something tougher in mind? Like talking Kutner into buying you a bigger computer?”

The corners of her mouth tilted upward in a quick, amused smile. “Not exactly. Though those aren’t bad ideas.”

She turned serious. “What I really need is your brain.”

“Shoot.”

Her tired eyes twinkled at that. “Sorry, I haven’t got a gun.” She ignored his groan. He wasn’t the only one allowed to make bad jokes. “Anyway, I think I’m starting to see a pattern in some of the data we’re collecting, but I need to bounce it off somebody to see if it makes any sense. Especially somebody who was born cynical.”

“Meaning me, I suppose.”

Erin nodded. “Meaning you.”

“Okay.” Banich approved of her instincts. In this business it was all too easy to fall blindly in love with your own theories. That was dangerous, because those theories rested on evidence that was, almost by definition, piecemeal, uncertain, and often contradictory. A good intelligence officer was always willing to give someone else the chance to punch holes in a piece of prized analysis.

He left the doorway and perched on a corner of her desk. “Show me.”

“All right. But it’s a pretty tangled web.” She leaned back in her chair, clearly considering where she should begin. “I’ll give you the punch line first: the French have significantly upped the amount of foreign aid they’re sending to the Russians. Both on a government-to-government level and on a corporate basis. What I don’t know is why they’re doing it.”

Her voice changed subtly as she started retracing her reasoning, always highlighting the differences between what she knew and what she could only guess at. Banich listened intently, more and more impressed by her abilities.

There were dozens of pieces to the puzzle she’d put together, some so small and so obscure that he was amazed anyone had ever spotted them, let alone recognized their significance. Some were tiny, cryptic notations on copies of shipping manifests. Others were coded transactions buried inside the State Central Bank’s computer data base. Still other clues came from conversations she’d had with friendly Russian officials and business leaders or from radio and wire intercepts passed on by the NSA.

By itself none of the information she’d collected seemed particularly meaningful. It was like looking too closely at an impressionist painting. Until you stepped back far enough all you saw were tiny dots of different-colored paint. But Erin McKenna had a talent for seeing the patterns behind bits of apparently unconnected data.

Banich sat still, waiting until she was finished. Then he leaned forward. “Let me get this straight. What we’re looking at is a massive flow of new French aid to the government and to state-run industries. Things like no-interest loans and outright grants. Massive shipments of high-tech industrial machinery, spare parts, and computer software. A lot of it has both military and civilian uses. And it’s all been showing up over the past several weeks. Right?”

“Right.”

“Any ideas on how much this stuff is worth?”

Erin nodded. “From what I’ve seen so far… at least two billion dollars. That’s just a ballpark guess, but I think it’ll hold up over time.”

Banich whistled softly in astonishment. Two billion dollars’ worth of foreign aid in five or six weeks was an extraordinary effort. The whole U.S. foreign aid budget didn’t amount to more than fifteen or sixteen billion dollars spread out over a whole year. “What the hell are the French up to?”

She shook her head. “That I don’t know. All the money and goods are coming in under the table, so they’re sure as heck not trying to win brownie points with the Russian people.”

“True.” Banich rubbed the sore muscles at the back of his neck. “But nobody throws that kind of funding around on a whim. The Frogs want something from Kaminov and his pals and they want it bad. The only question is, what?”

“Nothing good, I’m sure.”

“Yeah.” He stood up. “I’m going down the hall for a talk with Kutner. If he sees it my way, we’ll send your report off to D.C. by special diplomatic pouch tomorrow morning. I don’t think we should sit on this until we’ve crossed every t and dotted every i.”

Erin nodded wearily and turned back to her keyboard. He knew she’d be working all night and regretted the need for it. Sleep was tough to come by at Moscow Station.

Banich paused by her open door. “Oh, McKenna?”

She looked back over her shoulder.

“Good work.”

The smile she gave him would have launched a thousand special couriers.

The natural gas pipeline compressor station sprawled over several acres near the Polish-Ukrainian border. Machine shops, chemical labs, fire-fighting stations, and administrative offices surrounded a long metal-roofed shed and an adjacent cooling tower. Steam rose from the cooling tower, white against a clear blue sky.

Although nearly a foot of new-fallen snow covered the empty fields around the station, very little was left inside the compound. Work crews with shovels, the passage of wheeled and tracked heavy equipment, and the heat produced by dozens of massive machines running around the clock were more than a match for nature.

Inside the compressor shed, two men knelt beside an enormous reciprocating engine — a gas-fired monstrosity three meters high and ten meters long. Each of its sixteen cylinders was as big as a beer keg. The engine was one of eighteen mounted in pairs down the shed’s long axis. Color-coded pipes wove in and out of each compressor assembly.

Chief engineer Tomasz Rozek clapped his coworker on the shoulder. “Nice job, Stanislaw! Now, tighten it down and you’re done!” He had to yell to be heard over the constant, deafening roar.

The younger man flashed him a thumbs-up and then went back to work replacing an inspection hatch near the engine’s gas intake valve.

Rozek stood up slowly, silently cursing his aching back and knees. As a young man, he’d have been able to scamper through the tangle of piping and machinery around him like a chimpanzee. Well, not anymore. Thirty-five years spent toiling in Poland’s labor-intensive energy industry had left their mark.

He limped toward a thick metal door at the far end of the shed, performing a quick visual inspection on each pair of gigantic compressors he passed. That was standard operating procedure for any engineer moving through the shed. When his subordinates bitched about the time they wasted in such routine inspections, he ignored them. In Rozek’s view, anything that cut the chances of a major mechanical failure was worth doing. As the station’s chief engineer he set high standards for his crews, but he also made damned sure that he lived up to them himself.

You didn’t screw around with high-pressure natural gas. Not and live to regret it.

Przemysl was one of several similar stations strung out along the Druzhba II Pipeline as it stretched from Russia through Belarus and Ukraine, into southeastern Poland, and on to Germany. Sited roughly two hundred miles apart, their massive compressors kept natural gas flowing through the network’s twin meter-wide pipelines at the required pressure — around eleven hundred pounds per square inch, roughly seventy-five times the force in earth’s atmosphere.

And high pressure meant high temperature. You couldn’t pack that many gas molecules into that small a space at that speed without generating heat. A lot of heat. The natural gas moving through the station’s compressors and piping ran at close to seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Even a pinhole rupture in the pipeline could create a deadly fireball twenty meters or more wide — a fireball that would burn until it ran out of fuel.

Rozek had seen the charred corpses of those who’d found that out the hard way. He didn’t want to see any more.

The control room at the end of the compressor shed was a blessed haven of relative peace and quiet. Thick insulation reduced the shed’s steady, pounding roar to background noise. Four technicians sat facing a dial-studded console, continuously monitoring readings from the flow meters laid every twenty miles or so up the line to the next pumping station.

The engineer took his earplugs out as he closed the door. “Everything okay here?”

“Smooth as a pretty woman’s behind, chief.”

Rozek snorted. “That’s good. Because this is as close to a pretty woman as any of you lot are likely to get.”

He dropped behind a battered steel desk parked next to a window overlooking the rest of the complex. Although his rank entitled him to an office in the administration building, he’d never used it. He preferred being closer to the action. The one concession to comfort he allowed himself was a cushioned swivel chair.

With a small sigh, Rozek settled in to wade through the pile of maintenance reports, time sheets, and union grievances waiting for him. Paperwork was the one constant in his working day. And he loathed it.

Alarm bells shattered his concentration.

“We’ve got gas pressure falling rapidly on both One and Two! Down to one thousand p.s.i.!”

Mother of God. Rozek whirled toward the window, fully expecting to see a pillar of flame streaming skyward somewhere close by. Nothing. The break must be further up the pipeline. But how the hell had anyone cut through both lines simultaneously? They were buried several meters apart as a precaution against just that kind of accident.

“Pressure at nine hundred and still falling!”

The chief engineer jumped to his feet and ran for the control console. Suddenly his back didn’t hurt at all.

He leaned over the senior technician’s shoulder, squinting to read the old-fashioned dial meters. They’d been hoping to put in more modern digital readout equipment, but the government hadn’t been able to afford it yet. The indicators were still plunging, plummeting past 850 pounds per square inch.

In the shed outside the control room door, the regular, chugging roar from the compressors was changing, speeding up as they ran faster with less natural gas flowing through them. The sound sent a chill down Rozek’s spine. The engines were overrevving. Much more of that and they were likely to tear themselves apart, slashing through piping still filled with highly flammable gas.

He reached past the technician and slapped down switches controlling the first pair of compressors, turning them off. “Knock ’em down! Shut everything down! Now!”

His men hurried to obey the order while he grabbed the phone connecting Przemysl to the next station up the pipeline — two hundred miles to the northeast, on the border between Belarus and Ukraine.

A technician, an ethnic Russian by his clear diction, answered on the first ring. “Compressor Station Six.”

“This is the chief engineer at Przemysl.” Rozek fumbled for the right Russian words. He’d learned the language out of necessity, not because he liked it. “I think we’ve got a line break somewhere between us. We’re closing down right away.”

“There is no accident, chief engineer.” The Russian technician’s voice was guarded.

“No? Then what in God’s name is going on?”

“Please hold for a moment.”

Rozek could hear clicking sounds as the man switched him to another line.

A new voice came on, colder and more precise. “You are the engineer in charge at Przemysl?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Colonel Viktor Polyakov. As the Commonwealth military representative for this district, I now command this station. I suggest you put your facility on permanent standby.” The Russian Army officer delivered his next bombshell bluntly. “My orders are to inform you that all oil and gas deliveries to your country are being stopped. Effective immediately.”

Rozek gripped the phone tighter. “Orders? From where?”

“From Moscow, chief engineer.” The phone line went dead.

Rozek stood clutching the phone for several seconds as his mind sorted through the implications of what he’d just been told. “Oh, shit.”

He slammed the red emergency phone down and reached for the black phone next to it. This one was a dedicated line to Poland’s Ministry of Mining and Power. “This is Rozek. I need to speak with the minister. We have a problem.”

The senior members of the National Security Council filled the White House Cabinet Room. They were meeting here because the basement Situation Room they ordinarily used was being given a multimillion-dollar face-lift. Work crews were busy installing the latest computer-driven displays and secure communications gear, including equipment intended to allow real-time teleconferences with military commanders and other leaders around the globe during some hypothetical future emergency. Naturally, now that they were facing a real crisis, the timing couldn’t possibly have been any worse.

It was the first time Ross Huntington had ever been invited to sit in on such a high-level administration gathering. He felt distinctly uncomfortable.

The men and women seated around the long rectangular table eyed him from time to time, some with frank curiosity, others with open envy. His reputation as the President’s unofficial right-hand man was spreading. Huntington tried not to let their stares bother him. There were plenty of top officials who resented his easy access to the Oval Office. Nothing would bring their PR knives and malicious press leaks out sooner than any sign of uncertainty on his part. Politicians, like other finned scavengers, homed in on the first taste of blood in the water.

He forced himself to pay close attention to the handsome, red-haired man giving the preliminary briefing.

“Basically, Mr. President, the Poles are up shit’s creek, and the Czechs and Slovaks aren’t much better.” Clinton Scofield, the Secretary of Energy, was a former South Carolina governor who lived up to his tough-talking reputation. The Washington rumor mill said the forty-five-year-old widower liked betting on fast horses and dating even faster women. He was also known as a knowledgeable, hardworking, and completely loyal cabinet officer. In Huntington’s eyes that made up for a multitude of real and imagined sins. “Poland imports better than ninety-eight percent of its crude oil — ninety percent from one source, Russia. They’re a little better off when it comes to natural gas supplies, but not by much. Siberian gas met sixty percent of their needs last year. The two other countries are in pretty much the same position.”

“What about stockpiles?” Harris Thurman, the Secretary of State, asked his question around the stem of a pipe he wasn’t allowed to light. “Don’t they have strategic reserves?”

Scofield shook his head. “They do. But not a lot. Two weeks at normal consumption. Maybe thirty days’ worth under the emergency rationing program they’re implementing. If they’re lucky. They sure won’t make it through the winter without suffering a complete economic collapse.”

Most of those around the table looked astonished by the Energy Secretary’s dire assessment. The United States held enough oil in its SPR, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to meet all domestic needs for at least three full months. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that other, poorer nations operated closer to the margin.

“Can’t they just find other suppliers?” The dark-haired woman who headed the Treasury had done some homework. She held up one of the weekly reports prepared by DOE’s Energy Information Administration. “Your own department keeps saying there’s no worldwide shortage of oil or natural gas. If that’s true, I think we should simply urge them to look elsewhere and be done with it.”

Several cabinet officers murmured their agreement. Even inside the administration there were deep divisions over fundamental policy. A strong minority opposed any moves to increase America’s overseas commitments. Domestic initiatives were closer to their hearts and departmental budgets. They were backed by isolationist sentiment in the Congress.

“It’s not that simple.” Scofield cleared his throat. “You can’t buy on the spot market without hard currency — real dollars — and that’s something else the Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks are short on. They were paying the Russians in kind, trading iron, steel, chemicals, computers, and the like for crude oil and gas. No OPEC country’s going to cut the same kinds of deals with them.”

Nobody could dispute that. The world’s oil powers weren’t famous for their disinterested charity.

For the first time, the President spoke up. He looked down the table toward Walter Quinn, the director of Central Intelligence. “There’s no doubt that the French are behind this oil embargo?”

“None at all, sir.”

The Secretary of State added his own two cents to the discussion. “Paris wants all of Eastern Europe inside this new monetary union — or else too bankrupt to give it much trouble.”

The President acknowledged Thurman’s point with a quick nod before turning back to the DCI. “One thing still puzzles me about this, Walt. What about the Germans? Weren’t they pulling oil and gas through those pipelines, too?”

“Yes, sir. Mostly for refineries and factories in the east. Replacing those supplies on the open market will cost them a pretty penny.”

Huntington mentally chalked one up for the nation’s chief executive. He’d overlooked the German angle during his own hasty boning up for this meeting.

“Well, we know the French are covering Russia’s out-of-pocket expenses for this thing. Are they doing the same for the Germans?”

The DCI looked troubled. He’d been riding high on the credit the CIA had gained for its heads-up warnings of Kaminov’s putsch and the secret French subsidies to Russia. Now he had to admit ignorance. “If they are, we haven’t seen any signs of it. But I can’t be sure about that, Mr. President. We don’t have any sources high enough in the Schraeder regime to tell us, one way or the other.”

Huntington wasn’t particularly surprised by that. Germany had been a trusted American ally for decades — a close partner in the long straggle against Soviet communism. It took time to successfully shift the CIA’s German operations from open cooperation to covert competition. Still, even the faint possibility that the French hadn’t bothered telling Berlin what they were up to inside Russia was intriguing. Maybe their fledgling friendship wasn’t as solid as all their joint press releases made it seem. That was worth closer study.

The President evidently agreed. He jabbed a finger toward the CIA chief. “Keep digging, Walt. I’d like to know exactly who’s orchestrating this damned embargo.”

He ran his gaze around the crowded table. “All right, folks, let’s move this along. The problem our Polish, Czech, and Slovak friends are facing is pretty damn clear. What I need to hear are some workable solutions.”

“Is that even necessary, Mr. President?” The Treasury Secretary didn’t mince her words. She had been in the cabinet long enough to know that the nation’s chief executive valued candor more than consensus.

“I still don’t see that we have any compelling interest at stake here. Who really cares whether they pay their bills with zlotys or with franc-marks?” She shrugged. “After all, every dollar American-owned companies make in those countries wouldn’t keep this government in pocket change for half an hour.”

“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.