The Threat

“When I wonder why this nightmare has not taken place yet, I have only one answer. We have been fortunate beyond our deserts. Humanity has not been granted a pass from catastrophe. We have given our very existence into pawn.”

The ballroom was silent when he bowed his white-maned head. His audience dispersed with uneasy coughs, clearings of throats, to the labor of the day.

* * *

That afternoon Dan sat in on a breakout panel on nuclear-materials protection, control, and accounting. Mainly it focused on which tracking software to buy. He was standing in the lobby afterward hoping for the coffee break noted in the program, though no one was setting up for it, when Dr. White grabbed his arm. “Dan.”

“Present.”

“We have a problem. Umberto’s taken ill.”

Dan said he was sorry to hear that, then blinked as she asked him to substitute the next morning on a panel titled “Disposal of Legacy Nuclear Components.” “We don’t have anyone else who can step in,” she told him. “The moderator’s the deputy minister of atomic energy of the Russian Federation. We have someone from the UK, a representative from the Chinese State Science and Technology Commission, and one government rep each from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. What we don’t have is an American.”

“I don’t even know what ‘legacy components’ are,” Dan said. “Maybe Dr. Sola’ll bounce back by tomorrow.”

“Umberto’s dying. The only reason he came is because this is more important to him than his comfort, maybe his life. I can’t do it, I’m on another panel. The White House is on board with this push, isn’t it?”

Dan said unwillingly, “Well, yeah. But I—”

“So you’ll sit in? I have some papers you can read tonight. To get familiar with the various alternatives.”

Dan thought that over, making sure he was covering not just his own druthers but his direction from the assistant national security adviser. Gelzinis had told him the administration policy was to push hard on both threat reduction and further arms reductions. Reducing the weapons the other side held would give the president chips to keep trimming the defense budget. “If that’s what you need me to do.”

“Our official stance, State favors return of all weapons still held by the successor states to the USSR. I mean, the CIS. But you don’t have to say much. Just be there, and fix the little U.S. flag in front of you so it comes out clear in the pictures. Can you do that?”

“I guess so,” he told her. “On one condition.”

“Which is?”

“Find me a cup of coffee.”

She looked taken aback, then put out. But at last muttered, “I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

That evening he and Blair finally got away. Neither to the Hermitage nor the Naval Museum, but a reception at Petrodvorets. Peter the Great’s “Great Palace” lay west of the city, on a range of low hills overlooking the sea. As their limo trailed its headlights down the coast road he could see out in the black the distant twinkle of Kronstadt, a Russian and then a Soviet and now a Russian naval base again. He thought of all the neglected, poorly guarded reactors over there and shivered.

He was going to have to look intelligent tomorrow, at a mike with some very savvy people. He’d barely had time to glance over the studies and monographs. “Legacy” systems were nuclear and missile components stranded in the various republics when the Soviet tide had receded. Those in the earliest states to go — Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia — had been pulled back in good order. Those in the “Bubbastans,” State-speak for the Muslim-populated republics, had not. Which was where the device that had devastated Horn had probably come from, according to the findings of the board of inquiry.

“You’re quiet,” Blair said.

“So are you.” She was wrapped in a heavy coat. He put his arm around her in the backseat. “Do any good today?”

“Maybe we did.”

She told him about her committee meeting, on tactical nuclear weapons. He was about to say he’d be on display tomorrow when the heavy Chaika wheeled uphill and there was the palace, a kilometer of shimmering light: windows, arches, cornices, balustrades, cascades, fountains, statuary groups. As the car glided to a stop soldiers sprang forward to open their doors.

* * *

He was in uniform: the formal white gloves, blue short jacket, white shirt with studs, bow tie, gold cummerbund, and high-waisted trousers of mess dress blue. He left his cap with a bowing soldier on the way into the Chesme Hall. He patted Blair’s arm and said to stay put, he’d get the drinks.

But as he’d started to notice, in Russia no one drank anything nonalcoholic. Finally he talked one of the soldier waiters into opening a bottle of voda gazifie. He took Blair her wine and found her deep in conversation; she accepted the glass without looking at him.