Command Authority

26

The situation on the ground in Kiev seemed to be deteriorating by the day. What had begun as a series of daily speeches by pro-nationalist Ukrainians in the city’s massive Independence Square had, in the span of just a few days, morphed into ten-thousand-strong rallies where speeches, banners, and chants proclaimed the anti-Russian leanings of the attendees.

The division in the nation was on full display when pro-Russian Ukrainians started their own daily rallies on the other side of Independence Square. Any hopes the police might have had that the situation would defuse itself went away when tents started to be erected on both sides, and nationalists and Russian Ukrainians began clashes that turned more and more violent.

Riot police had broken up fights, tear-gas canisters and Molotov cocktails streaked through the air on a daily basis, and arrests and injuries were piling up by the day.

And this was not just happening in Kiev. In Sevastopol, in the Crimea, skinhead gangs of the Russian majority were shattering the shop windows of Ukrainian nationalists and Tatars, starting fires in the streets, and picking out people at random to beat up.

The morning after Clark surprised Keith Bixby with his offer to help him post surveillance on Gleb the Scar, the men of The Campus awoke in their flat to the sound of sirens outside. They were a few miles from the square, but the noise of a chanting crowd made its way up to their third-floor safe house.

Since they were playing the role of journalists, Clark, Chavez, Caruso, and Driscoll quickly dressed, grabbed their cameras and microphones, and headed downstairs. They walked out onto the street into the middle of a protest march that had begun outside of the city, supposedly spontaneously, and was heading directly for Independence Square. From the banners and the vitriol spouted by the marchers, it was clear this was a group of ultra-nationalists from the west of the nation.

It was obvious they hadn’t walked across western Ukraine to descend on the capital; clearly, they had been bused to a location during the night and then formed into a “spontaneous” march.

Once the group passed, the four men went back upstairs. Clark’s approach to the local CIA station chief had been spurned, so he decided he would have to improvise. Igor Kryvov had been a cop, and he knew quite a few personalities in the local underworld, so Clark decided he would use this access to get his own ear as close to the ground as possible.

Just after breakfast, he announced to the men in the safe house, “Igor, Ding, and I are going to head out for a little recon.”

Caruso said, “I get it, you Russian speakers get to hang out together while Sam and I stay back here with the nerd.”

Biery was hard at work on one of his laptops. Without stopping what he was doing, he said, “I’m a geek, not a nerd.”

Chavez said, “Igor is going to take us around to meet some people who can get us closer to the world we need to penetrate if we’re going to learn anything about Gleb the Scar.”

Driscoll said, “So you are off to meet drug dealers, pimps, and human traffickers. Have a nice time.”

“Will do,” Clark said.

Valeri Volodin was back on New Russia’s Evening News with his favorite interviewer, Tatiana Molchanova. Tonight the topic of conversation was a new trade pact enacted with China, but Molchanova had notes and follow-up questions in preparation for tackling a wide range of topics, depending on Volodin’s whims.

Volodin, as usual, spoke directly into the camera, and his “answers” were less in response to her questions and more the talking points that he’d come to the studio to get across to the viewers of the Evening News. With a strong jaw and a proud gaze into the lens, he said, “I am announcing a new trade pact with our friends in the People’s Republic of China. Our two powerful nations will tighten our energy security relationship. We will double oil shipments to China, securing their energy needs for growth, and securing that our markets are made stronger, despite the West’s attempts to rule us by starvation. The land routes have been decided. Our pipelines will begin construction almost immediately. We will build land bridges and high-speed rail between our two countries. We have begun coal exploration in Siberia in a joint agreement.

“We have put our past differences behind us, and together we will create the biggest economic market on earth.

“With America’s so-called Asia pivot, and the illegal attack against China’s mainland last year, the Chinese know it is in their interests to accept our friendship and our increased economic cooperation.”

The raven-haired beauty nodded thoughtfully and asked her next question as if it had just come to her organically as a response to Volodin’s last answer, although her questions had been written by her producers beforehand. “Mr. President, how do you feel this development will affect Russia’s relationship with the West? Recent conflicts with NATO and the USA have worried some Russians, who wonder if our economic future might be negatively impacted.”

Volodin looked directly at Molchanova now. “On the contrary, just the opposite is true. America’s domineering role in the world ends in our sphere of influence. They can make a lot of noise, threaten to expand NATO yet again, and they can continue to make threats on the world stage, but the Europeans need our products and services.

“Now that Russia and China have created a new world order, the childish threats of the West will have even less of an effect on us.”

“Mr. President. Do you consider Russia to be a world power?”

Volodin smiled. “No one can deny that the greatest powers of the twentieth century were the United States and the Soviet Union. The fall of the Soviet Union was one of the greatest tragedies of the last century. In my role as leader of Russia, I cannot say more than this without being branded by the West as a communist. This, of course, is a ridiculous accusation, because, frankly, who in modern Russia has had more success in the open markets than me?

“But it is the West that does not understand our history. The economic model was faulty, but the nation was strong. During our drive from command economy to market economy, we hit many patches of ice, but in retrospect, it was the West that was watering the road.”

“Are you saying the West now has less influence on Russia?”

Volodin nodded. “I am saying that exactly. Russia will make decisions based on Russia’s interests, and Russia’s interests alone, but this will be good for our neighbors.”

He smiled into the camera. “A strong Russia will create stability in the region, not discord, and I see it as my role to make Russia strong.”