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wave of laughter swept the room. |
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"What is your name and duty, Lieutenant?" |
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"Vilnius, Your Excellency. Morale officer." |
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Another damned foreigner masquerading as a Russian. Patriotism is always in our hearts. What dogshit. Since the August 1991 coup, no one lectured the troops on the glories of the Revolution, socialist centralism, and a Marxist empire. Instead, lecturers spent their time making speeches about soldiers' rights. Soldiers had no rights, Kalinin thought angrily. Soldiers did not need rights. For the man under arms there was only duty. |
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Soyuz was coming not a moment too soon. |
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This whole trip had been useless. Let these ruffians do as they pleased. He comforted himself with the thought that, in the end, all that was needed for Soyuz to succeed now was the loyalty of the troops in Moscow. He ticked them off: Colonel Temko and his Kremlin guards regiment, a few others. One could count on them. The officer corps of the Kremlin guards consisted of sons of the nomenklatura, men whose families had lost, and were still losing, perquisites and privileges, as the poverty-stricken Russian democracy staggered from crisis to crisis. Three in five of the unit commanders of the guards were Soyuz. Two others were members of Pamyat, a right-wing group even more fiercely nationalistic and anti-American than Soyuz. |
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Handpicked Kremlin guardsmen had manned Admiral Aleyev's Ukovo dacha when the Jew, Milstein, was liquidated. The old KGB had always been willing. Almost the entire command staff of the headquarters at Teplyy Stan were committed. Yulin, nominally in command of the security forces, was still too frightened of what might happen to his own skin to commit to Soyuz openly. He would pay for that. |
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Kalinin motioned to his aide to hand him his broadcrowned, blue-banded cap and put it on. The aide slipped in behind the general, holding his greatcoat. The fliers, sensing release, came to their feet and headed for the coffee machine. |
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