Tom Clancy's op-centre_ mirror image - Tom Clancy [58]
As keen as his disappointment was, Nikita loved his country as passionately as ever, and he loved Sakhalin. He had been sent here straight out of the spetsnaz academy, in large part to get him out of Moscow after the incident with the Greek Orthodox church-- but also, he had always felt, to keep him from sullying his father's good name. Sergei Orlov was a hero, valuable as a flight instructor to impressionable young pilots, useful as propaganda at international symposia and conventions. Nikita Orlov was a radical, a reactionary who yearned for the days before Afghanistan destroyed the morale of the world's greatest military, before Chernobyl damaged the nation's pride, before glasnost and perestroika caused the economy and then the union to come apart.
But that was the past. And here, at least, there was still a sense of purpose, still an enemy. Captain Leshev-- perhaps suffering from a touch of cabin fever after three years in command of the spetsnaz troops on Sakhalin-- spent a great deal of time organizing shooting competitions, which were his passion. That left Orlov in charge of most military matters, and he felt that someday Russia would once again face Japan militarily, that they would try to establish a presence on the island and he might have the honor of leading the shock troops against them.
He also felt, in his heart, that Russia was not yet finished with the United States. The Soviets had beaten Japan in a war, and ownership of the islands was the prize. But there was a sense that Russia had lost a war with the United States, and the Russian spirit-- certainly Orlov's spirit-- bridled at that. Spetsnaz training had strengthened his belief that enemies must be destroyed, not accommodated, and that he and his soldiers should be unencumbered by any ethical, diplomatic, or moral considerations. He was convinced that Zhanin's efforts to turn Russia into a nation of consumers would fail just as Gorbachev's had, and that would lead to a final reckoning with the bankers and their puppets in Washington, London, and Berlin.
Fresh tobacco had arrived the day before, and Orlov rolled a cigarette as the rim of the sun rose above the dark sea. He felt so much a part of this land, of each sunrise, that it seemed possible to touch the tobacco to the sun itself to light it. Instead, he used the lighter his father had given him when he entered the academy, the orange glow of the flame illuminating the inscription on the side: To Nikki, with love and pride-- your father. Nikita drew on the cigarette and slipped the lighter back into the vest pocket of his crisply pressed shirt.
With love and pride. What would the inscription have read after he received his commission? he wondered. With shame and embarrassment? Or when Nikita requested this outpost upon graduation, away from his father and nearer a very real enemy of Moscow. With disappointment and confusion?
The telephone rang, a relay from the communications shed at the foot of the hill. Orlov's aide had not yet arrived, so he picked up the trim, black receiver himself.
"Sakhalin post one, Orlov speaking."
"Good morning," said the caller.
Nikita was silent for several seconds. "Father?"
"Yes, Nikki," said the General. "How are you?"
"I'm fine, though surprised," Nikita said, his expression suddenly alarmed. "Is it Mother--?"
"She's well," said the General. "We're both well."
"I'm glad," Nikita said flatly. "To hear from you after all these months-- well, you can understand my concern."
There was another short silence. Nikita's eyes were no longer joyous as he watched the sun rise. They grew hard and bitter as he pulled a long drag from his cigarette, thought back to his increasingly tense conversations with his father, then further back to his arrest four years before. He remembered how ashamed and angry the General had been about what he had done to