Tom Clancy - The Bear and the Dragon

“Indeed. And perhaps someday we will also need the oil fields and the gold mines of Siberia. What will we do when the Chinks take those away from us?” Bondarenko demanded.

“The Foreign Ministry discounts that possibility,” Sergey Nikolay’ch replied.

“Fine. Will those foreign-service pansies take up arms if they are proven wrong, or will they wring their hands and say it isn’t their fault? I am spread too thin for this. I cannot stop a Chinese attack, and so now we sell them the T-99 tank design …”

“It will take them five years to bring about series production, and by that time we will have the T-10 in production at Chelyabinsk, will we not?”

That the People’s Liberation Army had four thousand of the Russian-designed T-80/90 tanks was not discussed. That had happened years earlier. But the Chinese had not used the Russian-designed 115-mm gun, opting instead for the 105-mm rifled gun sold to them by Israel Defense Industries, known to America as the M-68. They came complete with three million rounds of ammunition made to American specifications, down to the depleted uranium projectiles, probably made with uranium depleted by the same reactors that made plutonium for their nuclear devices. What was it about politicians? Bondarenko wondered. You could talk and talk and talk to them, but they never listened! It had to be a Russian phenomenon, the general thought, rather than a political one. Stalin had executed the intelligence officer who’d predicted-correctly, as it turned out-the German attack of June 1941 on the Soviet Union. And that one had come within sight of Moscow. Executed him, why? Because his prediction was less pleasing than that of Levrenti Beriya, who’d had the good sense to say what Stalin had wanted to hear. And Beriya had survived being completely wrong. So much for the rewards of patriotism.

“If we have the money for it, and if Chelyabinsk hasn’t been retooled to make fucking washing machines!” Russia had cannibalized its defense infrastructure even more quickly than America had. Now there was talk of converting the MiG airplane plants to automobile production. Would this never stop? Bondarenko thought. He had a potentially hostile nation next door, and he was years away from rebuilding the Russian Army into the shape he wished. But to do that meant asking President Grushavoy for something that he knew he couldn’t have. To build a proper army, he had to pay the soldiers a living wage, enough to attract the patriotic and adventurous boys who wanted to wear their country’s uniform for a few years, and most particularly those who found that they enjoyed uniformed life enough to make a career of it, to become sergeants, the middle-level professional soldiers without whom an army simply could not function, the sinews that held the muscles to the bone. To make that happen, a good platoon sergeant had to make almost as much money as a skilled factory worker, which was only fair, since the demands of such a man were on the same intellectual level. The rewards of a uniformed career could not be duplicated in a television plant. The comradeship, and the sheer joy of soldiering, was something to which a special sort of man responded. The Americans had such men, as did the British and the Germans, but these priceless professionals had been denied the Russian Army since the time of Lenin, the first of many Soviet leaders who’d sacrificed military efficiency in favor of the political purity the Soviet Union had insisted upon. Or something like that, Bondarenko thought. It all seemed so distant now, even to one who’d grown up within the misbegotten system.

“General, please remember that I am your friend in the government,” Golovko reminded him. Which was just as well. The Defense Minister was-well, he spoke the right words, but he wasn’t really able to think the right thoughts. He could repeat what others told him, and that was about it. In that sense, he was the perfect politician.

“Thank you, Sergey Nikolay’ch.” The general inclined his head with the proper respect. “Does that mean that I can count upon some of these riches that Fate has dropped into our lap?”

“At the proper time I will make the proper recommendation to the president.”

By that time, I will be retired, writing my memoirs, or whatever the hell a Russian general is supposed to do, Bondarenko told himself. But at least I can try to get the necessary programs drafted for my successors, and perhaps help choose the right man to follow me into the operations directorate. He didn’t expect to go any further than he already had. He was chief of operations (which included training) for his army, and that was as fine a goal as any man could ask for his career.

“Thank you, Comrade Minister. I know your job is also difficult. So, is there anything I need to know about the Chinese?”

Minister Golovko wished he could tell this general that SVR didn’t have a decent pipeline into the PRC anymore. Their man, a second-deputy minister, long in the employ of the KGB, had retired on grounds of ill health.

But he could not make the admission that the last Russian source inside the Forbidden City was no longer operational, and with him had gone all the insights they needed to evaluate the PRC’s long-term plans and intentions. Well, there was still the Russian ambassador in Beijing, and he was no one’s fool, but a diplomat saw mainly what the host government wanted him to see. The same was true of the military, naval, and air attaches, trained intelligence officers all, but also limited to what the Chinese military wished them to see, and even that had to be reciprocated every step of the way in Moscow, as though in some elegant international waltz. No, there was no substitute for a trained intelligence officer running agents who looked inside the other government, so that he, Golovko, could know exactly what was going on and report on it to his president. It wasn’t often that Golovko had to report that he did not know enough, but it had happened in this case, and he would not confess his shortcomings to this soldier, senior one or not.

“No, Gennady Iosifovich, I have nothing to indicate that the Chinese seek to threaten us.”

“Comrade Minister, the discoveries in Siberia are too vast for them not to consider the advantage to be had from seizing them. In their place, I would draw up the necessary plans. They import oil, and these new fields would obviate that necessity, and make them rich in the foreign exchange they seek. And the gold, Comrade, speaks for itself, does it not?”

“Perhaps.” Golovko nodded. “But their economy seems healthy at the moment, and wars are not begun by those already rich.”

“Hitler was prosperous enough in 1941. That did not prevent him from driving his army to within sight of this building,” the chief of operations for the Russian army pointed out. “If your neighbor has an apple tree, sometimes you will pick an apple even if your belly is full. Just for the taste, perhaps,” Bondarenko suggested.

Golovko couldn’t deny the logic of that. “Gennady Iosifovich, we are of a kind. We both look out for dangers even when they are not obvious. You would have made a fine intelligence officer.”

“Thank you, Comrade Minister.” The three-star toasted his host with his almost empty vodka glass. “Before I leave my office, it is my hope to lay before my successor a plan, the accomplishment of which will make our country invulnerable to attack from any country. I know I will not be able myself to make that happen, but I will be grateful for the ability to set a firm plan in place, if our political leadership can see the merit of our ideas.” And that was the real problem, wasn’t it? The Russian army might be able to deal with external enemies. It was the internal ones which formed the really intractable problem. You usually knew where your enemy stood, because you faced them. Where your friends stood was more difficult, because they were usually behind you.