Hidden Empire Page 3

  "Ukrainians are not suicide bombers," said Bohdanovich.

  "Of course not—it won't be terrorism, it'll be sabotage, and the Russians will never know where you're going to hit them."

  "Our special ops don't have enough experience."

  Cole grinned. "We can take your kids along on some of our operations. It won't be hard to learn."

  "Oh, yes, the legendary Bartholomew Coleman can say that, the man who single-handedly stopped a civil war in America by pinpoint operations against enemy supply depots."

  "I was defending my country against people who wanted to take away our democracy. That's what you'll be doing, too. Believe me, your men will do whatever it takes to learn what we have to teach them."

  Bohdanovich nodded, but he still wore the sad, fatalistic expression that almost everyone in the Ukrainian military always had.

  "And you'll have secure supply lines through Poland and Romania," Cole added.

  "Will we?"

  "They're allies," said Cole. "And I can assure you that President Torrent will keep his word."

  "President Torrent will keep his word, I believe you," said Bohdanovich. "But will the Poles and Romanians? Once Russian tanks start to roll across borders, they'll all be terrified of offending the giant."

  Cole leaned back. "Well, that's what this is all about, isn't it?" he said. "Everybody's so afraid of Russia. You and the Estonians and Lithuanians are talking tough but Russia is hoping that everybody will panic and back down and they can take back the whole empire without firing a shot."

  "It worked in Georgia."

  "It sort of worked," said Cole. "And it sort of didn't."

  "The Georgian government does what they're told."

  "But Ukraine and the Baltic states and all the Muslim republics are still independent. Georgia made you warier."

  "The first time Russian troops cross a border, everybody's a coward."

  "Do you mean that?" asked Cole. "Is that a serious assessment of your own government's likely response if, say, Estonia gets attacked?"

  Bohdanovich thought about it for a while. "I don't know," he said. "They all talk about springing to the attack if Russia is the aggressor against one of the little countries—that's our plan, our policy—but the Russians know that. They probably won't roll the tanks, they'll just cut off the oil to Estonia, and then as long as the oil is still flowing to Ukraine we'll be frozen in place, we'll do nothing, and Estonia will cave in, and then we'll cave in, one by one."

  "Like dominoes," said Cole.

  "I'd like to think that at some point my country will stand and fight. Even if it's only in the western hills of Ukraine, and even if it's a hopeless war and we stand all alone. But I don't know."

  The waiter came up to the table. "Anything else?" he asked in Ukrainian.

  "Vodka," said Bohdanovich.

  "Not for me," said Cole in Russian.

  The waiter looked at him coldly.

  "He's American," said Bohdanovich. "He never learned Ukrainian."

  "Do you have Coca-Cola?" asked Cole in English.

  The waiter smiled and left.

  "Colonel Bohdanovich, you have to look at this rationally. Why is Russia pushing things with all their neighbors?"

  "To restore the empire," said Bohdanovich. "The democracies are prospering and Russia is the sick man of Europe, even with all their oil. The Russian people are angry, population is shrinking, life expectancy is going down, Russia is a mess. So their fearless leader bullies the little countries, the ones that used to be part of the empire, and the Russian people feel proud again, they remember the big soviet empire. Nobody riots or goes on strike, nobody kills the fearless leader and takes over the government."

  "And if they can get Ukraine and the Baltic states back into the empire," said Cole, "they think it might jump-start their economy."

  "No, they're not stupid," said Bohdanovich. "They know that it's our freedom and independence that make us prosperous, and when they get us back into the empire it will all go away. The Russians don't want to steal our prosperity, they want us to be as poor and miserable and drunk and sad as they are."

  The waiter set down a glass of vodka in front of Bohdanovich and a glass of Coke in front of Cole. Cole slid his Coke over in front of Bohdanovich. "Don't give them a head start," he said.

  Bohdanovich smiled. "One vodka doesn't make me drunk, it makes me Ukrainian."

  "So the best strategy," said Cole, "is to persuade them to back off."

  "Which is why we must have nuclear weapons." Which was Bohdanovich's mission, of course, to try to find a way to get Cole to get President Torrent to allow some American nukes into Ukraine so that the Russians would be deterred.

  "Not a prayer," said Cole, "and you know why." Nukes would be a provocation and would absolutely guarantee an invasion—and in the end, the American nukes would end up in Russian hands. Not an acceptable risk.

  "Then how would you keep Russia from walking all over us?"

  Cole smiled. "It's all about appearances," he said. "The Russians don't want to appear to be imperialists. It's like Hitler pretending to be looking out for Germans living in Austria and Czechoslovakia and Poland. The Russians are pretending that it's all about Russian nationals living in the Baltic states. If they send troops in—or cut off the oil—it will be to protect the interests of Russians who are an oppressed minority."

  "Exactly," said Bohdanovich. "But if we try to expel them—"

  "No, no," said Cole. "You do the opposite. Well, not you. Make it Estonia, where the national language is nothing like Russian. The Estonian government declares that they understand the plight of the 'visitors,' the Russian nationals, and they are going to make sure that they don't suffer any disadvantage. In fact, the 'visitors' are going to have the very best that Estonia has to offer."

  Bohdanovich belched softly. "They already do."

  "No, no, you're missing the point. They need to make it extravagant. Exaggerated. From now on, any Russian national who wants to get into the best schools and universities will be admitted, no questions asked. They declare that they are Russian nationals, and they go straight to the head of the line. Native Estonians will go to the lesser schools. Therefore the lesser schools will all be taught in Estonian?'

  "So it's segregated," said Bohdanovich.

  "But the Russian nationals get the best. And in order to get that 'best' they have to declare themselves to be Russian nationals … and not Estonians. They're still citizens, but they have a strong incentive to make a decision, a clear dividing line. Russian nationals on this side, as 'visitors,' and real Estonians on the other side. And it's not just schools. Everywhere—movie theaters, butcher shops, the post office—Russian nationals can always go straight to the head of the line. Just show their papers or even speak Russian and zip—they get waited on ahead of everyone else."

  Bohdanovich shook his head vehemently. "So the Estonians do it to themselves instead of waiting for the Russians to come in and take over? They'll never."

  "The point is, Russia will have no pretext. Russian nationals in Estonia are getting the best of everything. Instead of a persecuted minority, they're being treated like lords, like conquerors. How could Russia justify cutting off the oil or attacking? It would be naked imperialism instead of looking out for Russians. In fact, Russian citizens will be envious of the advantages Russians are getting in Estonia—they're sure not getting any of that at home!"

  "So the Estonian people become second-class citizens in their own country?"

  "No," said Cole. "That's the beauty of it. They become the only real citizens. Any Estonian of Russian descent who claims 'visitor' status is confessing that he's not a real Estonian. It's social death. They know they don't deserve this special treatment. They know it's resented. They know they're only getting it because of the big Russian army across the border. So if they march to the head of the line or put their kids in the Russian-language schools and universities, they're saying to everybody, I'm not Estonian."r />
  "You think they won't? They'll be happy to! You don't know how arrogant Russians are."

  "Some Russians," said Cole. "Some Russians will accept all the perks. But others won't. They'll see what's happening. That this is a division, a way to mark who is really Estonian and who is really just a Russian visitor. They don't want to go back to Russia—are you kidding? Who would want to, when they're prospering so well in Estonia? I give you ten years and there won't be more than a few thousand 'visitors' left in Estonia. Everybody else will have declared themselves to be Estonians, not Russians, and now what does Russia do? The Baltic states aren't one-quarter Russian anymore, there are almost no Russians there at all."

  "It will never work. Baltic Russians think they deserve special treatment. They'll just take advantage of it."

  "It's worth a try," said Cole.

  "The Baltic nations have too much pride. We have too much pride."

  "Too much pride to survive? Look, it's all about keeping the Russian army behind their own borders and keeping the oil flowing until the Russian economy destroys itself. Already the Russian army is underequipped and undertrained and underpaid. Already corruption is sucking the life out of the Russian economy. Already the population of Russia is falling. And if you deprive the fearless leader of his big bold conquests, things only get worse inside Russia."

  "So after a while the Russian threat goes away, and then—"

  "And the worse it gets in Russia, the less the Baltic Russians want to be Russian and the more they want to be Estonians and Latvians and Lithuanians."

  "So maybe it works," said Bohdanovich. "How does that help Ukraine?"

  "In the short run, you can't stop the Russian army from crossing the border. In the long run, the Russian economy and the Russian army can't keep it going against a determined resistance. You will win, if they invade. You think the Russian generals don't know that? So they don't want to invade Ukraine. They only want to invade one of the Baltic states, because it would be over immediately and then everybody else falls in line. If the Baltic states make it politically impossible for the fearless leader to invade them, what does he do? He's dictator of a failing country, he's getting less and less popular, he has to invade somebody because he can't actually fix any of the problems."

  "So he invades us, thank you very much!"

  "No," said Cole. "He orders his generals to invade Ukraine, and they know it's a losing proposition, so they arrest him and take over the government and use the military to root out the corruption and try to fix the economy."

  Bohdanovich laughed. "Oh, you're better than vodka. You're better than an American movie. The world doesn't work that way."

  "No," said Cole, "the world works exactly that way, if only somebody had the vision to see past their fears and take bold, surprising action."

  "Go to Estonia, then, and sell this idea to them."

  "No," said Cole. "I can't."

  "Because your president won't let you be a crazy man," said Bohdanovich.

  "Because you're going to do it."

  "My government won't—"

  "Not your government," said Cole. "You."

  "Me? I'm just a colonel."

  "Your reputation is known. You're going to talk to your counterpart in Estonia, and you're going to tell him the same story I just told you. Only you won't tell him you got it from me. It's your idea. And then you'll tell him to take the idea to his own government. Again, not your idea, his. No American fingerprints on it. No Ukrainian fingerprints on it. Estonia's own plan for dealing with the Russian minority. They do it, it keeps the Russians from taking action, things get worse and worse in Russia, and there's finally a coup that gets rid of the fearless leader."

  "Or else he invades Ukraine."

  "And you win. You and your very well-supplied army with special forces disrupting their supplies win in an extended campaign against their impoverished, badly trained, underequipped, depressed, and vodka-swilling army."

  "Does your president know the nonsense you tell people in other countries?"

  Cole laughed. "Oh, I'd never tell him an idea as crazy as this."

  "There you are," said Bohdanovich triumphantly.

  Cole leaned in close to him and whispered, "But he might just tell it to me."

  Cole put down enough money to pay for lunch—and a few more drinks if Bohdanovich decided to stay and think about it. Then he got up and walked out of the coffee shop.

  It's hard for governments to spend resources on projects that won't have any immediate return. For instance, it is a scientific fact that someday a large object from space will collide with Earth. If the object is large enough, it could destroy all life on our planet. If it is smaller, it might simply destroy human civilization.

  A meteor large enough to cause us terrible damage might still be so small that with existing technology, we would not detect it until only a few weeks before impact. Wouldn't it be nice if, when such an object appears, a technological civilization from Earth had had the foresight to set up distant observation stations to detect such an object years before any possible collision?

  Wouldn't it be nice if that technological civilization had even installed an automatic system that would obliterate or turn away most such objects without any conscious human intervention? And what if this system were built with such high tolerances that it could last for a hundred thousand years without any further maintenance? That way it could go on protecting the human race even if we stupidly allow ourselves to lose our high technology.

  There has been only one civilization, one nation in the history of the human race that could realistically aspire to achieve such early-warning and protection systems to benefit the whole world. And that is the United States of America.

  But we're a democracy. That means that it is extremely hard for our government to take expensive actions whose benefits do not come before the next election.

  And since we can't predict when we will actually need this system to warn us of or deflect a dangerous meteor, how can the American government justify taxing our people now to pay for a system that may not save the world for a hundred years? Or a thousand?

  Yet if we, with our present level of prosperity and technology, do not create such a system, then when an Earth-wrecking object approaches and there is nothing that can be done in time, they will spend the last days of their lives cursing our names, remembering what we could have done, and chose not to.

  I will certainly not be president long enough to see such a project to its conclusion. But neither was John F. Kennedy still president, or even alive, when his moon-landing project came to fruition. Yet if he had not begun it, it would not have been achieved. And it was that achievement that laid the groundwork for what we in turn must do.

  Oh, and yes—spending money on developing this system will certainly stimulate our present sagging economy, and the benefits of the new technologies will once again spread through the world.

  Already, all the people who are smarter than me are readying their criticisms. They will say, "Don't we have enough problems right here on Earth, right now, that we shouldn't waste money on space?"

  All I can do is ask those of you who are as dumb as me to remember that this is a project that will someday save the human race. Our children may well bless our names because we just weren't smart enough to know we couldn't or shouldn't do the job.

  Cecily Malich stood at the kitchen sink, scrubbing the mixing bowl and watching through the window as her firstborn son, Mark, mowed the back lawn. His man-height was beginning to come on him—at age thirteen, it was right on time, or maybe a little early. He was wearing shorts, not because the spring weather in northern Virginia was really warm enough yet, but because all his long pants were too short.

  She'd take Mark shopping later in the afternoon. She hated to do it, because there were only another couple of months of school, but she couldn't send him to school any longer in pants that showed so much ankle. Not to mention the fact that the crotch was too hig
h, which forced him to wear his pants way too low on his hips.

  Other boys might welcome the excuse to look cool, but not Mark.

  When she asked him, "Is this really a problem? Isn't this more stylish anyway?" Mark looked at her rather coldly and said, "Dad would never have wanted me to wear my pants like this."

  Mark never pulled the "dad" card except when it was true. Reuben would have disapproved. "Pull your pants up, son," he would have said. And Mark would have said, "I will, sir, but it really hurts when I do."

  And then Reuben would have said something like, "What, you think you've got such big balls now that you need to have more room for them? You running out of ball space?"

  And Cecily would have said, "Reuben, please don't teach him to be crude."

  And now she wished he would say "balls" or whatever he felt like saying, just so he was here to say it.

  How can you wipe your eyes when your hands are covered with citrus-scented Dawn?

  People had been right, after Reuben was killed—when enough years passed, you don't cry every single day. You can think of him without crying at all. But then sometimes it hits you, all the things he's missing, all the things that their children needed him to do and say, and he would have said it, he would have done it, he was a great father, and he was cheated out of all of it because some ideological maniac who served as his secretary for years suddenly pulled out a pistol and shot him in the eye.

  Their little civil war ended up amounting to almost nothing, though it certainly didn't look that way at the time. It was a terrible danger—states and cities were seriously trying to join the revolt. It could have destroyed the country. And Reuben had somehow become a pawn in their game. He was sacrificed like a chess token.

  Well, he had never been a chess piece in this house. He was a father. In the outside world, Reuben had been—what, a knight? What would a brilliant special ops officer be if they were inventing chess today? He was certainly not a king—that was Averell Torrent. But the game of chess was set in that outside world. Inside their home, there were no games.That's what so many people didn't understand about life. The real world is the one within the walls of home; the outside world, of careers and politics and money and fame, that was the fake world, where nothing lasted, and things were real only to the extent they harmed or helped people inside their homes.