Free Red Phoenix by Larry Bond Page B

information between our two great peoples …”
    “Exchange.” Now there was an amusing word, Borodin thought. He and his men—some of the Soviet Union’s top pilots and aircraft mechanics—were a training team. Their very presence here chipped away at Kim Il-Sung’s so-called self-reliance doctrine.
    It was all a nice little ballet. His team had to maintain the fiction that they were here to examine North Korean air tactics, and not just to show the Koreans how to fly the shiny new toys they’d been shipped from the Soviet Union. North Korean air tactics, what nonsense. These people thought the MiG-21 was a first-line aircraft.
    At the same time, his briefings at the Defense and Foreign ministries in Moscow had emphasized how much the Soviet Union needed Kim Il-Sung’s friendship and cooperation. The colonel knew that Kim’s dynastic communism was anathema to his superiors, but the North Koreans were at least nominal socialists, and they were opposed to the West. More importantly, the country occupied a crucial geostrategic position—it was the fulcrum between the Soviet Union, China, and Japan.
    The “fulcrum.” The word described the Kremlin’s view of North Korea with precision. The Politburo saw it as the vital agent through which force could be exerted against either the Chinese or the Japanese. Borodin smiled inwardly despite his concerns. Considering his mission here, that was even a clever word play, one worthy of Crokodil, the humor magazine.
    And if his country didn’t help Kim, the Chinese would be only too happy to oblige. That was something his country could not risk.
    Borodin knew that firsthand. He had been stationed in the Far East early in his career. You couldn’t fly out of Vladivostok and remain unaware of the Chinese threat.
    Their planes were old, antique relics for the most part. Their tanks and artillery were laughable by modern standards. And their men were underequipped. But there were so many of them and they were close to the Trans-Siberian Railway, the lifeline between European Russia and its Far Eastern possessions.
    Everyone knew that the Chinese were just waiting for the right moment to stab the motherland in the back. Hadn’t those yellow-skinned, “pseudo-communists” spent years sucking up to the West, begging for technology and trade? Didn’t they insist on setting an independent, often anti-Soviet, foreign policy?
    Yes, Borodin thought, the Politburo was wise to worry about North Korea’s leanings. The State didn’t need any more enemies in this part of the world—it needed friends and allies. Puppets. It was vital to give North Korea’s Great Leader as much help as he deserved, at the highest price hewas willing to pay. The Koreans had already agreed to allow overflights by Soviet aircraft. Next, port visits by Soviet warships would be expanded into a basing agreement. The new aircraft he and his team would teach the North Koreans to fly were the first token of Soviet reciprocity. Others would soon follow.
    His mission was to smooth the way for the diplomats and their treaties by showing these Asiatics just how valuable Soviet assistance could be.
    He focused his attention back on Kim Jong-Il, the Dear Leader, still mouthing sanctimonious phrases about their “historic friendship” and the “common struggle against imperialism.” By all accounts the younger Kim should prove an ally in this quest for great Soviet influence, even if an unwitting one. His thirst for advanced military technology was well documented, and it was a thirst the Chinese could do little to satisfy.
    Borodin came back to full consciousness of his surroundings as he realized that Kim’s speech was finishing, winding up with what must be a standard invocation. “And so we are confident that the colonel and his men will gain a greater understanding of the international socialist struggle and the dynamic contribution made to it by the Korean people under the guidance of our Great