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“Mr. Kasperov, you’ve been touted around the world as a generous and remarkable businessman, but you have to admit, you’re surrounded by others in your country who might not be quite as honest as you are. Oligarchs, mafia . . . How do you keep yourself above all the corruption?”
Kasperov glanced once more at the doorway and tried to keep a happy face. “I keep pictures of my family close to my heart. I keep pictures of children all over the world I’ve helped close to my heart. I know they need me and believe in me. I know this company can help me do great things because I believe in it.”
“Do you think your company can help foster better relations between our nations?”
“Oh, I think it already has.”
“I can see why you say that . . . Your girlfriend’s an American. Any talk of marriage?”
He blushed. “No marriage yet. Now, gentlemen, you’ll have to excuse me, I have another visitor. If you’ll go downstairs, one of my best managers, Patrik Ruggov—we call him Ka
The journalists rose and Kasperov escorted them to the spiral staircase, then he returned to the man who’d been waiting for him in the shadows.
“Hello, Chern,” Kasperov grunted in Russian.
“Igor, I see you are massaging your ego again.”
Kasperov ignored the remark and stormed back into his office. Chern followed.
“Shut the door,” Kasperov ordered him.
Chern smirked and complied.
Kasperov knew this man only by his nickname, “Chernobyl,” aka “Chern.” Leonine, with a prominent gray widow’s peak and fiery blue eyes, Chern contaminated everything he touched and was often the bearer of bad news. While officially he was a member of the SBP, the Presidential Security Service, he served unofficially as President Treskayev’s personal strong arm and courier.
“How is your daughter doing?” Chern asked.
“Very well.”
“She’s away at school, yes?”
“She just flew home for a short visit.”
Chern gri
“And who’s that?”
“Calamity Jane.”
Kasperov nearly spit out his vodka. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“That can’t be possible.”
Chern’s eyes widened. “Are you that naïve?”
“I was told from the begi
“Then you are that naïve.”
Calamity Jane, named after the famous American frontierswoman, was created by Kasperov and a few of his lead programmers, most notably his man Ka
“I need to think about this,” said Kasperov.
Chern snorted. “There’s nothing to think about. You’re a brilliant man, Igor. You follow the news and world events. You understand the pressure. You know why it’s come to this. All the other elements are falling into place.”
Kasperov closed his eyes. Every time he consulted one of his news websites, there was a new threat to the motherland’s interests.
The merging of local European missile systems into a NATO defense system now put each country’s weapons under NATO command and standardized the command and control, along with local radar access and tactical communication systems. This gave NATO HQ the ability to launch each country’s missiles. The system was coming fully online, and the Kremlin feared it would interfere with Russia’s ability to launch their own preemptive strikes. The military had been threatening to attack the European sites for months . . .
The U.S. Navy’s decision to home port many of its Aegis missile system–equipped ships throughout key Mediterranean ports served as a bold parry to Russia’s opposition to American land-based missile defense installations in the region.
And then, of course, there was the recent surge of American natural gas being exported and sold to European nations at less than half the cost of the Russian natural gas those nations had been buying.
However, there was an even larger economic threat, one Kasperov himself had noted to the Kremlin:
European nations were aggressively developing thorium reactors, the so-called green reactors with their low levels of radiation, minimal waste materials, and outstanding safety features. Thorium, a white radioactive metal with nonfertile isotopes, was proving a viable substitute for nuclear fuel in reactors, and its demand was ever-increasing. In fact, the United States had just struck a deal to sell its current stockpiles of thorium, which were stored in Nevada, to European nations. These stockpiles would be used to bring hundreds of liquid fluoride thorium reactors—FLTR, pronounced flitter—on line throughout Europe, ultimately making Europe fossil fuel independent and destroying Russia’s customer base there.
Finally, recent U.S. sanctions against countries like Syria and Iran, where Russia had strong economic interests, continued to tax the motherland’s ability to sustain herself.
If this was a new cold war, it was one of economics under the umbrella of MAD—mutually assured disruption. There had to be a better way to address these problems.
Kasperov locked gazes with Chern. “This doesn’t come from Treskayev. It comes from the men controlling him. They’ve forced him into this. They don’t think he’ll stand up to the Americans.”
“And they’re probably right. But that doesn’t matter. We have our orders. We do our duty.”
“I want to speak to the president.”
Chern smiled weakly. “He won’t take your call now. Igor, you’ve danced your little dance for long enough. And, from what I understand, you’ll be able to walk away from this. The virus hides our involvement. We blame it all on the hackers you love to put in jail, the Estonian hackers and others. Sure, your company will suffer a blow, but you’ll survive.”
Kasperov averted his gaze, his stomach growing sour.
Suddenly, Chern was clutching his arms. “Igor, we must all make our sacrifices for the motherland.”
“You’re not asking me to guarantee an election here. You’re asking me to cripple the economy of a nation that has been very good to me.”
“No one’s asking. You know what to do.”
A chill began at the base of Kasperov’s spine and wove its way upward, into his chest. “I’m sorry . . . sorry for my reluctance. I was thinking of my employees and of all the families that would be affected by this.”
“They will be okay. Will you?”
Kasperov steeled his voice. “You don’t need to threaten me. We’ve come from the same place. We have the same heart. Do we have a timetable?”
“Yes, I’ll be communicating that to you directly. I would expect sometime tomorrow. Now, it was good seeing you. I have a plane to catch.”
Chern reached the door, hesitated, then glanced back at Kasperov. “We’re trusting you, Igor.” He nodded, opened the door, and left.
Kasperov fired his empty vodka glass across the room, spun around, then bit his fist, trying to hold in the scream boiling at the back of his throat.
Last week he was in Cancun, Mexico, speaking at a convention. He had Bill Gates to his left and former President Clinton to his right. Colleagues.