were mounting in the run-up to Kiev’s presidential elections. How the Russian minority needed protection from the ethnic violence threatened by their own nationalistic neighbors.
Entirely believable, Alexis thought, that ethnic tensions in the sharply-divided fledgling country were reaching a boiling point. But no one who knew the Russians would buy for a second this new assertion that Moscow was motivated by genuine concern for human rights and democracy in the region. Washington would never swallow this preposterous claim that the Russian blockade was some sort of unilateral peacekeeping exercise, designed to protect threatened minorities and prop up the faltering Ukrainian government.
But at least the Russians seemed to have dropped the flimsy argument that the blockade was a training exercise, undertaken with Kiev’s full concurrence.
Only the discipline of an experienced diplomat kept Alexis in her chair, scribbling notes. Her entire body quivered with the overpowering urge to lunge for her cell phone. This latest propaganda offensive was something her government needed to know ASAP, before the Russians debuted it in the UN or another public venue.
When she was certain he’d finished speaking and she’d captured all the details, Alexis dug the phone out. “My Ambassador needs to know about this right away.”
“He will,” the captain said calmly, topping off his glass. “As we speak, your Ambassador Stuart Malvaux is incommunicado, is he not, on an overnight flight from Vladivostok back to Moscow? When his plane touches down at Domodedovo airport tomorrow at 1000 hours, you’ll be there waiting to deliver this report.”
“You’re pretty well informed on the Ambassador’s schedule,” she noted tartly, matching his remarks with her recollection of Stu’s itinerary. If she hadn’t been so worked up about this latest curve ball the Russians had lobbed at them, she’d have remembered herself that Stu was en route from the Far East, eight time zones away. “I should brief the Russia desk in Washington at least.”
“It’s Friday evening,” he pointed out. “Your capital will do nothing until the relevant experts can obtain your Ambassador’s perspective, which he will doubtless instruct you to convey via the State Department’s duty officer on Saturday. And nothing is going to happen in Ukraine until the elections occur in two weeks.”
He aimed a sardonic glance at her untouched glass. “Drink your vodka.”
Alexis wrestled with the impulse to launch a barbed comment on his detailed knowledge of internal U.S. government procedures. Although he was right about the next steps, that was the hell of it.
Still, she vibrated with the need to take action. If Russia was going to play the ethnic minority card, and cite human rights as the justification for its blockade, Washington would want to give the issue immediate airplay at the United Nations. And that would take time to arrange.
In short, she couldn’t afford to sit on her ass and do nothing.
“I’m going to call this in.” She thumbed open her Motorola. “At a minimum, the Deputy Chief of Mission should know.”
“You’ll observe that your mobile telephone is receiving no signal from this dacha , since we’re well outside the city limits. I repeat, Ms. Castle: at the moment, there is nothing you can do. Drink your vodka.”
She mastered an irritated impulse to toss the damn vodka in his lap, the more so because—once again—he was right. Her bloody phone was getting no signal.
Even if Kostenko’s own phone was working, by some technological miracle, she could hardly discuss sensitive matters with Geoff or anyone else in the USG on a Russian officer’s mobile phone. It would be equivalent to speaking directly into a tape recorder for the Federal Security Bureau, Moscow’s equivalent to the FBI.
“It must be tiresome, captain, to be always right,” she muttered. Just to show him she could handle it, to remind him she was
Entirely believable, Alexis thought, that ethnic tensions in the sharply-divided fledgling country were reaching a boiling point. But no one who knew the Russians would buy for a second this new assertion that Moscow was motivated by genuine concern for human rights and democracy in the region. Washington would never swallow this preposterous claim that the Russian blockade was some sort of unilateral peacekeeping exercise, designed to protect threatened minorities and prop up the faltering Ukrainian government.
But at least the Russians seemed to have dropped the flimsy argument that the blockade was a training exercise, undertaken with Kiev’s full concurrence.
Only the discipline of an experienced diplomat kept Alexis in her chair, scribbling notes. Her entire body quivered with the overpowering urge to lunge for her cell phone. This latest propaganda offensive was something her government needed to know ASAP, before the Russians debuted it in the UN or another public venue.
When she was certain he’d finished speaking and she’d captured all the details, Alexis dug the phone out. “My Ambassador needs to know about this right away.”
“He will,” the captain said calmly, topping off his glass. “As we speak, your Ambassador Stuart Malvaux is incommunicado, is he not, on an overnight flight from Vladivostok back to Moscow? When his plane touches down at Domodedovo airport tomorrow at 1000 hours, you’ll be there waiting to deliver this report.”
“You’re pretty well informed on the Ambassador’s schedule,” she noted tartly, matching his remarks with her recollection of Stu’s itinerary. If she hadn’t been so worked up about this latest curve ball the Russians had lobbed at them, she’d have remembered herself that Stu was en route from the Far East, eight time zones away. “I should brief the Russia desk in Washington at least.”
“It’s Friday evening,” he pointed out. “Your capital will do nothing until the relevant experts can obtain your Ambassador’s perspective, which he will doubtless instruct you to convey via the State Department’s duty officer on Saturday. And nothing is going to happen in Ukraine until the elections occur in two weeks.”
He aimed a sardonic glance at her untouched glass. “Drink your vodka.”
Alexis wrestled with the impulse to launch a barbed comment on his detailed knowledge of internal U.S. government procedures. Although he was right about the next steps, that was the hell of it.
Still, she vibrated with the need to take action. If Russia was going to play the ethnic minority card, and cite human rights as the justification for its blockade, Washington would want to give the issue immediate airplay at the United Nations. And that would take time to arrange.
In short, she couldn’t afford to sit on her ass and do nothing.
“I’m going to call this in.” She thumbed open her Motorola. “At a minimum, the Deputy Chief of Mission should know.”
“You’ll observe that your mobile telephone is receiving no signal from this dacha , since we’re well outside the city limits. I repeat, Ms. Castle: at the moment, there is nothing you can do. Drink your vodka.”
She mastered an irritated impulse to toss the damn vodka in his lap, the more so because—once again—he was right. Her bloody phone was getting no signal.
Even if Kostenko’s own phone was working, by some technological miracle, she could hardly discuss sensitive matters with Geoff or anyone else in the USG on a Russian officer’s mobile phone. It would be equivalent to speaking directly into a tape recorder for the Federal Security Bureau, Moscow’s equivalent to the FBI.
“It must be tiresome, captain, to be always right,” she muttered. Just to show him she could handle it, to remind him she was
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