in this case, a pure happenstance prevented the elimination of this Golovko person,” Tan concluded.
“And now?” Fang asked. Then he cautioned himself. He was asking too many questions, taking too much of a personal position here. Even in this room, even with these old comrades, it didn’t pay to stand out too far.
“And now, that is for the Politburo to decide,” Tan replied blandly. It had to be affected, but was well acted in any case.
Fang nodded and leaned back, keeping his peace for the moment.
“Luo?” Xu asked. “Is this feasible?”
The Marshal had to guard his words as well, not to appear too confident. You could get in trouble around this table by promising more than you could deliver, though Luo was in the unique position—somewhat shared by Interior Minister Tong—of having guns behind him and his position.
“Comrades, we have long examined the strategic issue here. When Russia was the Soviet Union, this operation was not possible. Their military was much larger and better supported, and they had numerous intercontinental and theater ballistic missiles tipped with thermonuclear warheads. Now they have none, thanks to their bilateral agreement with America. Today, the Russian military is a shadow of what it was only ten or twelve years ago. Fully half of their draftees do not even report when called for service—if that happened here, we all know what would happen to the miscreants, do we not? They squandered much of their remaining combat power with their Chechen religious minority—and so, you might say that Russia is already splitting up along religious lines. In practical terms, the task is straightforward, if not entirely easy. The real difficulty facing us is distance and space, not actual military opposition. It’s many kilometers from our border to their new oil field on the Arctic Ocean—much fewer to the new goldfield. The best news of all is that the Russian army is itself building the roads we need to make the approach. It reduces our problems by two thirds right there. Their air force is a joke. We should be able to cope with it—they sell us their best aircraft, after all, and deny them to their own flyers. To make our task easier, we would do well to disrupt their command and control, their political stability and so forth. Tan, can you accomplish that?”
“That depends on what, exactly, is the task,” Tan Deshi replied.
“To eliminate Grushavoy, perhaps,” Zhang speculated. “He is the only person of strength in Russia at the moment. Remove him, and their country would collapse politically.”
“Comrades,” Fang had to say, taking the risk, “what we discuss here is bold and daring, but also fraught with danger. What if we fail?”
“Then, my friend, we are no worse off than we appear to be already,” Zhang replied. “But if we succeed, as appears likely, we achieve the position for which we have striven since our youth. The People’s Republic will become the foremost power in all the world.” As is our right, he didn’t have to add. “Chairman Mao never considered failing to destroy Chiang, did he?”
There was no arguing with that, and Fang didn’t attempt it. The switchover from fear to adventurousness had been as abrupt as it was now becoming contagious. Where was the caution these men exercised so often? They were men on a floundering ship, and they saw a means of saving themselves, and having accepted the former proposition, they were catapulted into the latter. All he could do was lean back and watch the talk evolve, waiting—hoping—that reason would break out and prevail.
But from whom would it come?
CHAPTER 41
Plots of State
Yes, Minister?” Ming said, looking up from her almost-completed notes.
“You are careful with these notes, aren’t you?”
“Certainly, Comrade Minister,” she replied at once. “I never even print these documents up, as you well know. Is there a concern?”
Fang shrugged. The stresses of today’s meeting were gradually bleeding off. He was a practical man of the world, and he was an elderly man. If there was a way to deal with the current problem, he would find it. If there wasn’t, then he would endure. He always had. He was not the one taking the lead here, and his notes would show that he was one of the few cautious skeptics at the meeting. One of the others, of course, was Qian Kun, who’d walked out of the room shaking his head and muttering to his senior aide. Fang then wondered if Qian was keeping notes. It would have been a