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The Karmanns had never denied their ancestry. Each generation they produced their quota of atheists, soldiers, and academics to serve the motherland. Arkady's own father had been decorated posthumously with the Order of Lenin at Stalingrad. |
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Karmann wondered why Krasny despised him. Because of the Jewish ancestral grandmother who had died in 1740, or because of his German descent, or simply because he was an intellectual? The Soyuz loathed intellectuals. They said such persons weakened the fiber of Russia. |
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The captain posed another problem. Each time Kolodin heard Karmann speak in a foreign languageand he was conversant in fivehis pale eyes narrowed and his croaking voice grew more harsh. The voice, a result of a submarine accident in a battery-powered boat, suited Kolodin, low, harsh, and ugly. |
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How strange it was, Karmann thought. Glasnost had encouraged the Soyuz to grow, and now Soyuz was the force most likely to strangle the fledgling Russian democracy. Politics was rife with such ironies. |
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Above and behind him, Karmann heard the sudden clacking of a signal lamp. Careful not to be seen, he worked his way around the sail. Viktor Krasny was resting the lamp on the spray shield as he worked the shutter. Karmann looked to the east and saw a small, fast-moving boat with a bone of white water in its teeth. The launch flew a Cuban flag. Someone aboard was replying to Krasny's signals. |
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It was very strange, thought Karmann, that the political officer of a Russian submarine should be signaling to a Cuban gunboat. In recent years Cuba had been sullen and disenchanted with the Russian inability to continue the massive subsidy begun by Nikita Khrushchev, and maintainedthough in diminishing amountsby every Russian ruler since. Only Aleksandr Cherny had had the courage to inform the old and ailing Fidel that the subvention was at an end. |
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Krasny, distracted by some passing thing, looked down and saw Karmann watching him. Instantly, Krasny produced a re- |
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