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task was to dismantle the secret police apparatus, not to use it. But that was two months ago. An eternity. |
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Cherny's face was suffused with an almost unbearable melancholy. "Our world may vanish, Yulin, if Orgonev's device succeeds in detonating. The Americans and their NATO allies will retaliate instantaneously, destroying our cities, our beloved land, a thousand years of Russian history. Over. Finished." |
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"The West would not dare attack us, Excellency," Colonel Zenobiev spoke up bravely. What a fool, Yulin thought. Did he really believe that? Since the Gulf War, no Russian should doubt that an American President had the power to tilt the world into a holocaust. |
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"Do not deceive yourself, Colonel. The American forces are on alert," Cherny said, "and President Caidin knows that I have done the same with our forces. God forgive me, I could do nothing else. If the device in Hudson Bay actually detonates in the water, the last war on this earth will begin." |
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Yulin looked at Cherny in dawning horror. It is not a hoax after all, he thought. I thought it must be a hoax, that even Kondratiev would not threaten the very existence of our world with his Doomsday Device. I must gather my family, Yulin thought frantically, and get them into the bomb shelters under the Kremlin. Then he remembered that the shelters had been essentially abandoned. What supplies were still in them were old, the water stale, the rooms dirty and unkempt. It had been years since any Russian had actually feared nuclear attack. |
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There was a sharp rap on the door, then it opened. "The prisoners are waiting in the Spassky Tower, Excellency," an officer of the Thirtieth Shock Army announced. |
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Cherny arose and said, "Come, then, Ivan. It is time." |
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Aleyev, Kalinin, Marshal Suvorov, and Piotr Kondratiev stood shackled against the side wall of the tower room, each with a guard. The table had been moved to the center of the room, and against the big upholstered chair reserved for |
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