Free Ghost Force by Patrick Robinson

occupied the critically important Ministry for Foreign Trade. Above them all fluttered the white, blue, and red horizontal tricolor of the Russian Federation, high atop the flagstaff at the pinnacle of the rotunda.
    Twelve hundred meters to the south, the Moscow River flowed icily eastward, lazily as Russian history. And beyond the great Senate Tower, in Red Square, a thousand tourists stared up and over the Kremlin ramparts, most of them gazing at the towering gilded domeof Ivan the Great’s Bell Tower, still the tallest structure in the Kremlin, and once the tallest building in Moscow.
    From the wide windows of the rotunda, the Russian President and his colleagues could see the riotous colors, the greens, the yellows, and the bloodred livery of St. Basil’s Cathedral with its twisting domes jutting skyward to the south of the square.
    One glance through those windows could engulf the mind with visions of the stark and tumultuous history of Russia. Every man at the table sensed it, especially the President. And they sensed it every time a highly classified meeting was invoked. As ever, for former middle-line government officials elevated to the grandeurs of power, destiny beckoned.
    “Gentlemen,” said the President, “first of all, I think we owe a vote of thanks to Boris Patrushov, to the quite brilliant way he first located, and then dealt with, that treasonous and seditious conference that took place in Yekaterinburg. I think our mutual role model, the late First Secretary, Leonid Brezhnev, would have been very proud.”
    The head of the new secret police looked modestly down at his notes, and said quietly, “Thank you, Comrade. But I should say our success was entirely due to the very alert observation of our little mole in the office of the Chairman of the Siberian Oil Company. The rest was routine for me. That conference represented a threat to the Russian people. A threat to the bedrock of our economy. It had to be extinguished.”
    “Absolutely correct,” interjected Oleg Nalyotov. “The consequences of their proposed actions were unthinkable for any Russian not resident in Siberia.”
    The President nodded. “However,” he continued, “the Siberian threat remains. They are a vast Russian protectorate, which, at the top at least, suspects it no longer needs our protection. I think it is likely that such an intention, to secede from the Motherland, may very well occur again, though probably not for a while.
    “We have probably silenced it for maybe five or six years. But we have not killed it, any more than we could ever kill it. The will of the Siberians, to profit and prosper from the oil and gas that lies beneath their godforsaken frozen soil, will surely rise again.
    “But first I would like to deal with more immediate matters. The…er…termination of the careers of the treacherous men who gathered in Yekaterinburg on Monday. Plainly they will be missed. Probably already have been…”
    Foreign Minister Nalyotov intervened. “With respect, Comrade, the Western press has already picked up a lead on the disappearance of Jaan Valuev, the Surgutneftegas President…apparently failed to turn up at some soccer game…caused questions in sports circles…now we have formal inquiries from foreign media asking if he’s been found.”
    The President nodded, very seriously. “Nothing else?” he asked.
    “Well, they seem to think Sergei Pobozhiy, the Chairman of SIBNEFT, is mysteriously vanished. I think Gregor Komoyedov might have some information.”
    The Energy Minister nodded and said, “Very little, I am afraid. But I understand there have been some serious inquiries inside the corporation as to his whereabouts. The Chairman does not often go missing, and I did hear they were talking to his wife. That’ll be public knowledge in twenty-four hours.”
    “Plainly,” said the President, “we must move on this. I think the best course of action would be an accident in a military aircraft deep in the