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Page 153
dratiev should have come to speak to these men himself. He was the one who could make it all come alive for them; the months of secret planning, the excitement ahead when they began to storm the walls of the Kremlin, the joy and the power that would follow fulfillment of their goals. He could make them hear the cheers of the Russian people when their new Soyuz leaders stood on the mausoleum.
And Kondratiev would have made them understand that all this would be accomplished as soon as the bolt of Holy Russia's lightning rose from an inland sea to strike down the vragny glavthe mortal enemy. They would be clamoring to be a part of Soyuz.
They really don't deserve to know, Aleyev thought angrily. They have not paid their dues, shed their blood. Let them stew and beg for favors when Soyuz has succeeded in recovering Mother Russia from its destroyers, when the Russian Empire is whole once more. He wheeled and strode abruptly from the room, then along a covered walk to where his Chaika limousine waited, the one last privilege he clung to as Admiral of the Pacific Fleet. His driver was holding the rear door open for him. Once in the backseat, Aleyev grabbed at the open bottle from the built-in bar, knocking his prized car phone from its seat, and poured himself a glass of vodka with trembling hands. He gulped down the vodka and refilled the glass before he called to his driver, "Back to the airport. Be quick about it."
By the time the Chaika reached the military airport at St. Petersburg, Admiral Aleyev was sodden and singing "Moscow Nights" softly to himself in the rear seat.
"We have officers from one of the shock armies on our side, clever ones, who have managed to ingratiate themselves with high members of Cherny's government," Sergei Korchilov said, his clenched fists on the top of General Piotr Kondratiev's makeshift desk. The two men faced one another angrily in the room the Soyuz organization maintained in the

 
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