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  Viktor Zhironovsky looked at Rudzhin with newfound admiration. What was the third piece of news his young friend would have?

  “Well, the last bit will make you smile.” Rudzhin looked him straight in the eye. “I just finished a phone call with my old friend Uggin.”

  Rudzhin took in a breath to allow for a dramatic pause.

  “Yes, Mr. Chairman, Uggin has succeeded in getting the Bolivians to sign a gas deal with Chile. Bolivia is on the cusp of being able to get its gas out to the Pacific. Meanwhile, in Peru, the legal process for Humboldt’s formal approval began right on time, three days ago. This means that the president submitted the bill to Senator Luis Matta and the Congress now has thirty days to approve the contract. We expect no delays. And, as Schutz said, we are well positioned to win.”

  Viktor Zhironovksy’s mouth curled into a huge smile. This was indeed a third piece of information that made him very, very happy.

  “Good news, Rudzhin. Very good!” Zhironovsky’s brow then furrowed in momentary concern.

  “Is there…do you think…that anybody suspects that Anfang…”

  Rudzhin cut him off, waving his hand in the air.

  “Absolutely not. There were no questions. No requests for clarification. Not even a hint. Our links to Anfang Energie are completely confidential. And our negotiations with the Bolivians are done.”

  He looked at the chairman with a smirk.

  “We have successfully provoked a race between Peru and Bolivia. We’ll see which country gets their gas to market first. When Anfang wins the Peru contract, it won’t matter to us which country wins or loses. In either case, Volga Gaz wins because we will effectively own the production from both of Latin America’s most important gas producers.”

  Zhironovsky lifted his vodka glass in Rudzhin’s direction. He swilled down the clear liquid. “To you, my dear Piotr.”

  Rudzhin smiled broadly at the gesture. Compliments were rare from this man.

  “Mr. Chairman, I wish to tell you that I am very pleased with Uggin’s work.”

  “Agreed. He has shown his loyalty. He did well on the Ukrainian shutdown. And he is now doing a good job. But, Piotr, reassure me. You know how much our effort in Latin America means to me. Are you sure he’s trustworthy? He married a foreigner, you know.”

  Rudzhin looked Viktor Zhironovsky straight in the eyes. “He is my oldest friend. I trust him completely. Full stop.”

  But Rudzhin knew this probably wasn’t enough for the chairman of Volga Gaz. He would have preferred not to tell him, but it was important that Zhironovsky understood that he too was a thorough man.

  “And…I plan to take out some insurance.”

  Nothing more needed to be said. Zhironovsky’s eyes spoke the deep admiration for his younger colleague. The chairman was a believer in covering all the bases. Rudzhin had just done that.

  “Good, then on Friday we’ll stick to our plan of taking him out for his congratulatory lunch.” Zhironovsky leaned forward as his eyes retracted in concentration.

  “Now let me tell you about something else. Sit back, because you won’t believe it.”

  Zhironovsky poured more vodka before continuing.

  “The day before yesterday, I was asked to attend a meeting with the American governor of Alaska. Governor Whitley is a nice man, elegant, late fifties, educated at Berkeley, and of the same political party as President Eugene Laurence. But there is also something unusual about the governor.

  “You see, the governor likes Russia,” Zhironovsky continued. “He always has. He is one of the few Americans who believe that a strategic alliance with Russia would be good for the United States.”

  The chairman could see that his young friend was intrigued.

  “Governor Whitley reports that the bedlam and chaos of the energy blackouts two months ago in California have made a profound impression on the White House. He says that President Laurence sees himself as the man history has destined to resolve America’s long-term energy problem.”

  Piotr Rudzhin interrupted, his voice laden with concern. “So the American president is going to promote a major program of renewable energy, right? This is what I feared would happen after California. The more the Americans realize their dependence on outsiders for energy, the greater their political clamor for conservation and renewable resources.”

  Zhironovsky raised his hand outward, imitating a policeman’s signal to stop traffic. The older man was smiling.

  “Actually, my young friend, you are dead wrong. And this is what is so interesting. According to the good governor of Alaska, it seems that America’s politicians are drawing very different conclusions. Because of its worldwide abundance and its clean burn, the lesson they seem to be learning from their California crisis is that natural gas must replace oil as the key energy currency of the future.”

  “There cannot be better news,” Rudzhin said, his eyes widening in surprise.

  “Yes, there can,” Zhironovsky answered fast, revealing just the slightest irritation that the cadence of his good story was interrupted. “And I’m about to give it to you.

  “You see, given their realization of natural gas’s growing importance, it seems that Governor Whitley’s long interest in a Bering Strait crossing—first a pipeline and then rail transportation—is suddenly being taken very seriously in Washington. Remember, dear boy, the influential female head of the CIA is from Alaska too.”

  Rudzhin was stunned.

  “Mr. Chairman, how real can this be? It seems outlandish.”

  “According to Governor Whitley, they are dead serious. Why shouldn’t they be? They need gas and we have more of it than anybody else in the world.”

  “The notion seems almost unreal—” Zhironovsky did not let Piotr finish his thought.

  “Look, we build pipelines across frozen Siberia. The Brits and the French build a tunnel in the English Channel. Technology has made the issue of length irrelevant in discussions about bridges and tunnels. The engineering here is easy; it’s the politics that are complicated.”

  “How will this affect our Latin American project?” Rudzhin interrupted again, nearly breathless. The whole thing was too much for him to digest in one fell swoop. He was thinking out loud, not the right thing to do with Viktor Zhironovsky. Piotr Rudzhin should have known better than to continue.

  “Do you think we should slow down in Latin America?” Rudzhin asked anxiously. “If a Bering Strait crossing is truly a possibility, we may need to reconsider our intentions in Peru. We have always known that, if Anfang’s connection to Volga Gaz gets out, the political aftershocks would wipe away any possibility of advancing our work in Latin America. It was a risk we were willing to take from the beginning. But do we now want to expand that risk to this new project? Do you think that we may be overreaching, sir?”

  Viktor Zhironovsky’s eyes turned suddenly cold. His green irises were like light beams locking in on Rudzhin.

  Rudzhin immediately regretted the tone of his question. He knew the instant it came out that he had crossed a line.

  Zhironovsky looked sharply at his younger colleague. Never allowing his eyes to move from Rudzhin’s, the plump, white-haired chairman uncrossed his legs and slowly got up from the sofa. He began pacing the length of the room, engrossed in thought. But his eyes never loosed their grip on Piotr Rudzhin.

  Circling behind Rudzhin’s sofa, the old man lined himself up behind the young deputy minister of the interior. He stopped, and silence enveloped the room. Piotr Rudzhin felt an iron grip press in on the right side of his neck, just at the edge of the clavicle. Finally the chairman spoke. The tone was somewhere in the decibel range of a low-pitched growl.

  “Piotr, I will consider that question not to have been asked. Don’t let our closeness fool you into thinking that you are intimate with me. I like you. I have helped you. I will continue to help you. But you are not my advisor. You are not my confidant. You are not my friend. You will learn from me. But do not ever doubt me. If you doubt m
e in private, I can only conclude that you could also doubt me in public. And that is not possible. Do you understand that, Piotr?”

  Rudzhin felt an iron thumb digging under his neckline.

  “Yes, Mr. Chairman. I understand you very clearly.”

  “Rudzhin, understand that we Russians live under constant threat. We had an empire—first czarist, then Soviet—which we proceeded to lose. Not once, but twice. Under our belly, we have Islamist countries that used to be part of our national territory. Today, they pray five times a day for our destruction. To our east, we have a billion and a half Chinese. To our west and south, we have the Baltic countries, Georgia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania. All of them formerly under our control. All are flirting with the United States and Europe today because they want investments, money, and membership in the European Union.”

  Zhironovsky had more.

  “But, most of all, Rudzhin, the United States is masterminding the expansion of NATO right up to our borders. They are sticking their missiles into our asshole. They expanded their NATO military alliance to Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Now they talk of Ukraine and Georgia joining the alliance.

  “Who do you think they are allying against, Rudzhin? They say ‘Don’t worry, we’re just modernizing the alliance.’ Horseshit! Against whom is all this military expansion directed? We all know it’s against us, Rudzhin. We’re the target. We’re the bull’s-eye.”

  Zhironovsky walked back around the room to his seat on the sofa in front of Rudzhin. His breathing was labored, but his eyes were less wild now. Nonetheless, they signaled a steely determination.

  “A few years ago, we succumbed to the illusion that Russia had no enemies. We paid dearly for this, Piotr. As Russia’s leaders, we have a responsibility to push back. To show that we have cards and that we’re willing to play them. And, my young friend, the biggest, nastiest, loudest card we have is gas. Lots and lots of expensive gas.”

  Rudzhin took advantage of a pause as the old man threw back the rest of the clear liquid in his vodka glass.

  “Chairman Zhironovsky, please don’t mistake my questions for doubts. You know the endless admiration and appreciation I have for you. You know that I am with you, sir. I too believe that the blessings of our natural resources give us a unique opportunity to reassert the strength of our country. My only question is whether we should find a way to slow down the Latin American effort until we know whether this new opportunity of the Bering Strait will bear fruit.”

  Zhironovsky was much more relaxed now. Rudzhin’s soothing words had had the right calming affect.

  “Piotr, my dear boy, you will see that age brings the wisdom to assess the risks and opportunities of every move. Less than two years ago, we shut the Ukrainian pipeline down for nearly three weeks and everybody worried that this would send Europe into a frantic frenzy to build alternative pipelines from Algeria and Libya. Nothing happened. But the French and the Germans got the message. Last year, we told the Byelorussians, who became too intimate and comfortable with us, that they would have to pay market price or we would shut the gas down. After what happened in Ukraine, they believed us.

  “I don’t play children’s games, Rudzhin. Russia doesn’t play children’s games. Remember this, Piotr. This isn’t about a few little movements on a chessboard. The crisis in California has given us a strategic opening. In one fell swoop, we now have a chance to rebuild and strengthen our country and weaken the Americans at the same time. There can be no reconsiderations or second thoughts.”

  Zhironovsky was now on a roll.

  “No, Rudzhin, this is not about economics. It’s about power. For the past year, you have helped me to plan and implement a secret takeover of Latin America’s largest natural gas fields. Once we get the Humboldt contract, it won’t matter if the Americans find out that Anfang Energie is a cover for Volga Gaz. It will be too late to do anything about it. They will scream. They will protest. But the gas fields in Peru and Bolivia will belong to us. And we will control the movement of liquefied natural gas on tankers to California for the next fifty years.

  “Everybody had been aware of a coming natural gas shortage in California. But the stupid Americans can’t make long-term political decisions. Our analysts were smart enough to understand that bringing liquefied gas to America’s shores on boats was their only medium-term answer. That is why we wanted Peru and Bolivia. The natural gas in those two countries can provide nearly the totality of America’s liquefied natural gas imports. They’ll soon be investing billions in loading facilities and infrastructure to take the Latin American gas. There will be no turning back; they will be stuck with depending on us.”

  Zhironovsky paused, sucking in a deep breath of air. Piotr Rudzhin took advantage of the split-second lull to try to further placate the chairman.

  “Your plan has been impeccable every step of the way. Our financial offer for the operation of the Bolivian fields was done in the open, as Volga Gaz. You were absolutely right that the Americans would not protest our bid; they didn’t see a single foray into one Latin American country as a threat. And you were also correct about our need to disguise our Peruvian bid under Anfang’s corporate cover. Control of a single Latin American country’s large gas fields is one thing. Control of both Bolivia and Peru’s fields at the same time is quite another. The Americans would have taken us down.”

  Zhironovsky waved his hand in the air. He didn’t want interruptions.

  “Stop looking at the tactics, Rudzhin. Don’t get fixated on the little movements. If you want to go further, learn two lessons, Rudzhin. Learn them now.

  “First, never forget that the beauty of life is in the strategy. It’s the end result that counts. The destination. History won’t give a damn how we got there. What the books will write about is the audacity that suddenly put Russia in control of a huge percentage of the liquefied gas needs of the United States of America.

  “They will write about that day as the time when the world’s power equation shifted,” said Zhironovsky, his voice ponderous.

  “Now here is the second lesson, boy. You need balls to seize an opportunity. Roman generals had a name for knowing how to take advantage of the enemy’s smallest battlefield mistake. They called it carpe diem—seize the day.

  “This is what we will do now with the Bering Strait. We are going to behave very elegantly with our American friends. We are going to show interest. We are going to say the right things about building a whole new alliance and we will talk about global interdependence. Something as huge as a project to cross the Bering Strait might never happen at all; and if it turns out to have been a dream, we will still have them by the neck in Latin America.

  “But God have mercy on the Yankees if they really want to build a chunnel between our countries.” Zhironovsky smiled. “Because when they make this great battlefield mistake, the liquefied exports from Latin America and the piped gas across the Strait from Siberia will make up nearly one hundred percent of America’s gas needs. All of it controlled by Russia. We will have the power to detonate a thousand Californias with a mere snap of our fingers.”

  Zhironovsky looked at the ornate ceiling of the CDL’s Pushkin Room.

  “History will write about that day as more than just a ‘shift’ in power. History will identify that exact moment as the end of the American empire.”

  MOSCOW

  AUGUST 3, 5:40 P.M.

  THE HOTEL BALTSCHUG KEMPINSKI

  The next day, Daniel Uggin’s flight from La Paz, with a change of planes in São Paulo, landed punctually, late in the afternoon, at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, the city’s largest airfield. For a man who just eighteen months earlier had no more than a handful of plane rides under his belt, flying had now become second nature.

  As Sheremetyevo’s mechanical doors slid open, Uggin looked around and saw a man dressed in a gray suit walking his way.

  “Oleg from the ministry of the interior, sir. Very nice to see you. I h
ave instructions from Deputy Minister Rudzhin to pick you up and take you directly to the hotel to relax. Later, Mr. Rudzhin has arranged a social gathering for you. The deputy minister and his friends will be waiting for you at GQ around midnight.”

  Uggin was pleased with the attention. Tomorrow would be an important day; Volga Gaz’s big boss had invited him to lunch. By now, he had become accustomed to the occasional business meeting with Viktor Zhironovsky. But this was to be the first meal with Volga Gaz’s chairman. By Russian standards, it was a breakthrough.

  He followed Oleg across the busy hall and outside toward a waiting Mercedes-Benz. A man jumped out of the driver’s seat and took Daniel’s bags. Oleg opened the rear door and Daniel got in, immediately scooting behind the driver to allow Oleg to take the seat next to his. Instead, Oleg closed the door and swung into the front seat.

  Sheremetyevo was the closest of Moscow’s three airports from the city center, so the ride had taken under an hour. Daniel smiled as the car made the turn into the Hotel Baltschug Kempinski’s elegant driveway. When he was in Moscow, the hotel became Daniel’s home away from home. Andrei, the Baltschug Kempinski’s outstanding concierge, always made sure he got his favorite room—suite 914 was one of the rooms designed by Her Royal Highness, Princess Michael of Kent; it had one of the most panoramic views of the Kremlin and the Moskva River as it wound its way through the city.

  After leaving his suitcases in the suite, Daniel took a stroll to bring some life back into his limbs, still numb from the fourteen-hour flight. He returned to his room and napped for two hours exactly. His room-service dinner was followed by a long, hot shower. At 11:45 P.M., Daniel descended in the elevator to find Piotr Rudzhin and his friends.

  He walked out of the Baltschug Kempinski’s ornate lobby and strolled the half block down Baltschug Street to the marble-columned seventeenth-century mansion that today housed GQ Bar. Though it was still hours before the GQ Bar would reach its usual 3 A.M. frenzied pitch, he noticed that the sidewalk was already littered with sports cars, Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, and the occasional Ferrari.