Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [133]
Heavy weather had blown in off the Black Sea, and rain was beating at the windowpanes as Jack, Annika, and Alli sat at an enormous gleaming wood table in the vast dining room of Mikal Magnussen’s manor house. Four members of AURA sat at the table, big-shouldered men with guileful eyes but a singular lack of delicacy. Between them lay platters of food and cut-crystal flasks of vodka, slivovitz, and soda water, a feast for more than a dozen, but not one was eating.
“Now the worst has happened,” Kharkishvili continued. “With us gone, Yukin has nationalized the uranium consortium, just as he did with Gazprom. Yukin has come to the same conclusion we did almost a decade ago, that Russia’s dependence on foreign oil—especially Iran’s—puts it at a strategic disadvantage. That’s why he’s agreed to this U.S.-Russian accord. He doesn’t mind making concessions as far as his traditional business ties with Iran as long as he has a steady supply of uranium.”
“But without the huge Ukraine uranium strike he won’t have it.”
They all turned as a man entered the room. He was darkly handsome with the rough-hewn features of a Sean Connery or a Clive Owen. His hair was shot through with gray, the color of his eyes, as if he’d trekked through a snowstorm to arrive here. And, who knew, there may have been a number of metaphorical snowstorms in his past.
He turned to Jack. “I’m Mikal Magnussen, I apologize for not being available when you arrived.” He paused now, waiting while an aide appeared at Kharkishvili’s side and whispered briefly in his ear. Kharkishvili shot Annika an involuntary glance, which was so quick, so circumspect, it was possible that only Jack noticed it.
“So Yukin means to steal it,” Magnussen said, “using soldiers who are Trinadtsat personnel.”
“It’s my understanding that it takes a decade to get a uranium mine up and running,” Jack said. “I don’t understand how an incursion into Ukrainian territory is going to accomplish anything.”
“Ah, well, here’s the true genius of Batchuk’s plan.” This from Malenko, another of the dissident oligarchs. Burly and bald, making him look like a tenpin, he had the prominent jaw of a carnivore and tiny ears absurdly low on his skull. “The troops will be sent in under the guise of aiding Ukraine, but once they’re in the area they won’t leave. Instead, they’ll set up a perimeter so that Russian tanks can roll in across the border.”
“It’ll be a fucking mini-Czech,” Glazkov, another oligarch, said, referring to the Soviet Union’s 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, “except the Russians will stop at the border to the uranium discovery.”
“They can’t just invade Ukraine on any pretext,” Jack said.
“They will, just as they did in Georgia, where their troops are still deployed,” Kharkishvili said.
“The economic situation in Ukraine, particularly the east, is dire, so much so that riots have broken out in several cities and are gaining momentum throughout the country.” Magnussen had talked to the table, but remained standing. “Experience tells me that Yukin will use this economic crisis to doubtless claim his troops are there to protect both Russian and Ukrainian interests.”
“But our problem—and yours, Mr. McClure—is not only the Kremlin,” Kharkishvili said, “but one of your own countrymen. Yukin is being aided by an American by the name of Brandt. A general in your military, an advisor to your president.”
“General Brandt is the architect of the current accord being hammered out between Yukin and President Carson,” Jack said. “Carson’s success as president is more or less tied to the accord being ratified by both sides.”
“That security accord is pure poison. Once it’s signed Yukin and Batchuk will send their Trinadtsat troops across the border into Ukraine, Russia will take possession of the uranium strike,