Free the Romanov Prophecy (2004) by Steve Berry

hired to look after their collective interests, each relying on Taylor Hayes’s reputation as a hard-nosed negotiator with the right contacts within the emerging Russia. This was Lord’s first meeting with the group as a whole, though he knew many on an individual basis.
    Hayes followed him inside and lightly patted him on the shoulder. “Okay, Miles, do your thing.”
    He stepped to the front of the brightly lit room. “Good afternoon. I’m Miles Lord.” A quiet came over the gathering. “Some of you I’ve already met. To those I haven’t, nice to have you here. Taylor Hayes thought a briefing might help answer your questions. Things are going to start happening fast and we might not have time to talk during the days ahead—”
    “You’re goddamn right we have questions,” a stout blond woman yelled with a New England twang. Lord knew her to be the head of Pepsico’s Eastern European operations. “I want to know what’s going on. My board is nervous as shit about all this.”
    As they should be, Lord thought. But he kept his face tight. “You don’t give me a chance to even get started, do you?”
    “We don’t need speeches. We need information.”
    “I can give you the raw data. Current national industrial output is down forty percent. The inflation rate is approaching one hundred fifty percent. Unemployment is low, about two percent, but
under
employment is the real problem—”
    “We’ve heard all that,” another CEO said. Lord didn’t know the man. “Chemists are baking bread, engineers manning assembly lines. The Moscow newspapers are full of that crap.”
    “But things aren’t so bad that they can’t get worse,” Lord said. “There’s a popular joke. Yeltsin and the governments that followed him managed in two decades to do what the Soviets failed to accomplish in seventy-five years: make the people long for communism.” A few snickers came. “The communists still have a solid grassroots organization. Revolution Day every November is marked by impressive demonstrations. They preach nostalgia. No crime, minimal poverty, social guarantees. That message has a certain appeal to a nation deep in despair.” He paused. “But the emergence of a fascist fanatical leader—neither a communist nor a democrat, but a demagogue—is the most dangerous scenario. That’s particularly true given Russia’s considerable nuclear capability.”
    A few heads nodded. At least they were listening.
    “How did all this happen?” a wiry little man asked. Lord vaguely recalled that he was in computers. “I’ve never been able to understand how we got to this point.”
    Lord stepped back toward the front wall. “Russians have always been big on the concept of a national idea. The Russian national character has never been based on individuality or market activity. It’s much more spiritual, much deeper.”
    “Be a whole lot easier if we could Westernize the whole place,” one of the men said.
    He always bristled at the notion of Westernizing Russia. The nation would never be fully associated with the West, nor exclusively with the East. Instead it was, and always had been, a unique mixture. He believed the smart investor would be the one who understood Russian pride. He explained what he thought, then returned to answering the question.
    “The Russian government finally realized it needed something that stood above politics. Something that could be a rallying point for the people. Maybe even a concept they could use to govern. Eighteen months ago, when the Duma put out a call for a national idea along that line, it was surprised with what the Institute of Public Opinion and Market Research brought back.
God, Tsar, and Country.
In other words, bring back the monarchy. Radical? Certainly. But when the issue was put to a national vote, the people overwhelmingly said yes.”
    “Why do you think?” one of the men asked.
    “I can only give you my opinion. First, there’s a real fear of a resurgence of