Patriot

CHAPTER 82

Funny thing,” Putin finally said.

“What’s that?”

“I’ve been reading Plutarch’s Caesar. While I waited for you this evening. That book on the table beside you. There it is. Hand it to me, won’t you?”

“Here you go.”

“I came across a passage… Let me find it. Ah, here we are.” He began to read aloud. “And Caesar stood on the banks of the Rubicon and said, ‘Here, will I abandon peace and desecrated law. Fortune, I follow only you. Farewell to treaties. From now on, only war shall be our judge.’”

“War is our judge?”

“Hmm.”

“Whatever you believe, Volodya, you cannot possibly believe that ‘war shall be our judge.’ That doesn’t even make any sense!”

Putin took another sip of vodka, smiled at him, and said, “And now you disparage my beloved Caesar? Tell me. Upon what meat doth this our mighty Hawke feed that he is grown so great?”

“Volodya, listen to me. Caesar was talking about breaking Roman law by crossing a river into Italy. That was a small civil war in 49 BC, for God’s sake. Not risking modern global warfare with billions of lives hanging in the balance.”

“War is war. In both Caesar’s finest hour and in mine.”

Hawke, veering toward despair at all this, said nothing for a moment or two. Desperate for time to marshal his whirling thoughts, he said, “They will destroy you, you know.”

“Who will destroy me?”

“The Americans.”

“The Americans have grown weak.”

“No. Her leaders are weak. Her generals and her people are strong. As are those in my own country. They are closely allied against you, America and Britain. The Allies will not let this stand. The attacks on American and British soil. The brutal invasion of Estonia. And even now, your troops and tanks are rolling across the Polish border. Two NATO countries whose freedom our alliance is sworn to protect.”

“Farewell to treaties, Alex. That time has passed.”

“You believe I come to bury Caesar. But I came here to try to help you. To make you see reason. I’m offering you a bloody lifeline, damn you! To try and save you.”

“Say what you have to say. I am weary of this conversation.”

“The generals are waiting for a sign from you.”

“What do they expect?”

“The cessation of hostilities against my country and the U.S. The immediate and permanent withdrawal of all Russian air, naval, and infantry forces inside the two besieged nations and on the borders of the others.”

“Never.”

“They will go nuclear then. The American and British generals. There will be no stopping them and no turning back.”

“Over a mere political dispute? Laughable. Land that was stolen from the motherland by centuries of illegal treaties? War over that? Never. It will be the same as before, Alex. Deliberation, sanctions. Negotiations, delays, and more demands. Disappearing lines in the sand. Ultimatums and mythic deadlines, just as the foolishness with the Iranians. More fucking sanctions. But, war? No, Alex. They are too afraid to do that.”

“You really believe we are afraid?”

“I do.”

“Feuerwasser? Is that it? That magic potion of yours, the one that will end all your problems. You think to threaten the world with it. You don’t drop bombs, you have them delivered by the caseload. By now, you’ve shipped hundreds of thousands of cases of it to cities around the world. You claim you can blow the whole world up at the press of your mighty button. As you demonstrated so convincingly with that freighter in France, you are become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

“One does what one can, Alex.”

“Warehouses in places like Isla de Pinos, Los Angeles, New York, or London, packed to the bloody rafters with that stuff, suddenly become Ground Zero, is that it? A plague of simultaneous Hiroshimas? Is that your dream? A worldwide apocalypse with one flick of your finger. Is that it?”

“Don’t go down this road, Alex! I warn you, do not — I repeat, do not go there!”

“I must go there, Volodya! It’s the only road we’ve got left. And you, you’re headed straight to hell in a hotrod, going over the cliff. Because you somehow still believe you now hold the world hostage. But the generals arrayed against you no longer fear you, Volodya. Not them, not the politicians, and certainly not me. Not anymore.”

“You should.”

“Perhaps, but I don’t. Because it’s all a bloody lie! An outright fraud. That elaborate demonstration you staged for me in the sub, that underwater light show. Revealing your new secret weapon so convincingly with a vial going down a smokestack. But it wasn’t true, was it, Volodya? No! It was all an elaborate hoax you spent years perfecting. That sunken tanker you blew up had been prerigged by divers. Traditional plastic explosives, I’m quite sure. But I was your friend and I trusted you. That was my own stupid mistake. I won’t make it again.”

“Try convincing them of that. Your mighty American generals. They saw what happened in Miami with their own eyes. And Texas. And that little coastal town in England. Vaporized. And was there even the slightest trace of a traditional explosive found? No. If there had been, why in God’s name have they not gone public? Pointing the accusing finger at the guilty? Presumably, me!”

“My friend Kelly at CIA told them not to. At my request.”

“Why would he ever do that?”

“Because I was looking for irrefutable proof of your duplicity. Now I have it.”

“You have nothing of the kind.”

“Trust me.”

Putin considered. Just long enough.

“You’re lying.” Putin said finally. He seemed exhausted and out of bullets.

Hawke saw his ray of hope. He needed to let what he’d just told him to bake inside Putin’s brain. Needed to give him time to reflect before taking another step.

Hawke said, “Unless you’ve got serious objections, I’ve changed my mind about that drink.” And this, unsurprisingly, brought a smile to the Russian president’s face. “Gosling’s?” he said.

“Perhaps a vodka?”

“When in Russia…” Putin grunted, getting somewhat shakily to his feet.

Hawke smiled and sank back in his chair. Slowly but surely, he felt he might be gaining the upper hand. He’d needed this small chunk of time to consolidate what he believed to be his strategic gains thus far. Then he would strike.

Putin went to the drinks table. Ice and the tinkle of crystal. He returned moments later and handed Hawke his glass, sloshing a bit over the rim, and saying: “Careful, you don’t know what’s in that.”

Hawke smiled up at him.

Always the consummate poker player, the president collapsed back into his chair and picked up his drink. Raised his glass and said, “Prost!”

“Thanks. This is an awfully fine vodka. Might I ask what it is?”

Putin could not hide a sly smile.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Alex.”

“Not Feuerwasser?”

“Hmm.”

“Seriously? Oh, come on, Volodya.”

Putin just smiled and sipped his drink, staring with those bloody black poker eyes across the rim of his glass at the Englishman.

And then it came to Hawke. Something Uncle Joe had told him en route to Moscow. Perhaps Putin had been sitting in that same bloody chair all afternoon. Drinking vodka, listening to Beethoven, and feeling sorry for himself. Mulling over the stirring words of his mighty Caesar, using alcohol and the ancient glory of military history to stiffen his spine…

Hawke held his fire.

The two men sat drinking quietly in the deep silence that pervaded the drafty wooden building. There was only the soft lapping of the waves washing ashore beyond the windows, the snoring of Putin’s wolfhound, and the distant ticking of a great clock in a distant hall… Hawke’s troubled mind slowed and drifted… back to the dark Siberian wood. It was near dawn and…