Tom Clancy's op-centre_ mirror image - Tom Clancy [100]
Kosigan: Let?
Dogin: They're professionals. We need amateurs. This has to look like a revolt that springs up across the nation, not like an invasion.
Kosigan: Why? Who do we have to mollify, the United Nations? Half the Army and Air Forces and two-thirds of the Navy of the Soviet Union belong to Russia. We control 520,000 Army troops, 30,000 Strategic Rocket Forces, 110,000 Air Defense forces, 200,000 Navy personnel- Dogin: We can't break faith with the entire world!
Kosigan: Why not? I can seize Poland and then take the Kremlin. When we have power, what does it matter what Washington or anyone else thinks?
Dogin: And how will you control Poland when it's time to move on? Martial law? Even your troops would be spread too thin.
Kosigan: Hitler made object lessons of entire villages. It worked.
Dogin: A half century ago, yes. Not today. Satellite dishes, cellular telephones, and fax machines make it impossible to isolate a nation and break its spirit. I've told you before this must be a groundswell, and it must be guided by the officials and leaders who are already in place. People who can be bought but whom the Poles trust. We can't afford chaos.
Kosigan: What about the promise of broader powers when they win the elections there in two months? Isn't that enough to move the constables and mayors?
Dogin: It is. But they've also insisted on bank accounts if they lose.
Kosigan: Bastards.
Dogin: Don't fool yourself, General. We're all bastards. Just stay calm. I've alerted Shovich that the shipment will be late, and he's told his agents.
Kosigan: How did he take it?
Dogin: He said he used to mark time by scratching lines on the wall of his cell. A few hash marks more won't bother him.
Kosigan: I hope so, for your sake.
Dogin: Everything is still on track-- merely delayed. Instead of twenty-four hours from now, we'll be toasting our new revolution forty hours from now.
Kosigan: I hope you're right, Minister. One way or another, I promise you: I will go to Poland. Good evening, Minister.
Dogin: Good evening, General, and stay calm. I won't disappoint you.
When the transmission ended, Orlov felt the way he had the first time he was spun in a centrifuge during cosmonaut training: disoriented and sick.
The scheme was to take over Eastern Europe, oust Zhanin, and build a new Soviet empire, and it was ingenious in its evil way. A Communist newspaper in a small Polish town is blown up. The Communists in cities from Warsaw to the Ukrainian border counterattack hard, well out of proportion to the blast, and Dogin gets his groundswell as old-time Communists become encouraged-- there were still a lot of them who respected the way Wladyslaw Gomulka tossed out the Stalinists in 1956 and formed Polish-style Communism with its odd hybrid of socialism and capitalism. Poland is torn in two as the old Solidarity alliances are revived and, with the Church, they begin railing against the Communists, just as they did when the Polish Pope urged Catholics to make Lech Walesa President. Closet Communists come out in the open, leading to a replay of the strikes, lack of food and other goods, as well as the disorder that Poland experienced in 1980. Refugees pour into the rich Ukrainian west so they can eat, old tensions between Catholics and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are fired up, Polish troops and tanks are called in to stem the exodus, and Kosigan's troops are used to escort the refugees back to their homes in Poland. Those troops don't leave, and then the Czechs or Romanians become the next target.
Orlov felt as if he were dreaming, not only because of the events that were about to unfold but because of the position in which he'd placed his son. To stop Dogin, it would be necessary to order Nikita not to turn over the cargo that had been entrusted to him, and perhaps to take up arms against anyone trying to claim the crates. If Dogin were victorious, Nikita would be executed. If Dogin lost, Orlov knew his son: Nikita would feel as though he'd betrayed the military. Then there was also the possibility that