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Page 263
Kellner whispered to Charlotte, "My God, I'll bet he isn't sure. I wonder if his internal security people have pledged loyalty to Kondratiev and Soyuz?"
"My arrangements are excellent, thank you," Cherny said, his expression forbidding further discussion. This exchange was not starting well.
Caidin sat up straight and said, his voice equally cold, "Very well, Mr. President . . . " Then he plunged ahead. "We believe that another coup d'état is about to take place in Russia, that your government is in imminent danger of being overthrown."
Cherny stiffened perceptibly. Behind him, the communications technicians and his personal interpreter, who was standing by in case Cherny's English abandoned him, looked up, their faces reflecting shock and surprise.
The Russian smiled and spoke calmly. "I must have misunderstood you, Mr. President. What is this nonsense? How can you know this?"
Cole Caidin rubbed his swollen jaw again and winced at the pain. "It is not nonsense, sir. I meant exactly what I said," he stated with a new edge in his voice. Caidin was not fond of foreign policy matters. He was more at ease with domestic concerns; hence his almost automatic delegation of his authority in foreign affairs either to State or to Kellner. When he had been awakened this morning at the crack of dawn with the awful news that the cold war might be on again, he was furious. Goddamned devious Russians, he thought bitterly, and after all I've done for them. All that time, all that money, all those votes in the World Bank and the UN just to give them enough time to save their treacherous hides.
Now Caidin glanced over at Charlotte Conroy, then said to Cherny angrily, "The information reached us through one of your own men."
Charlotte Conroy's eyes widened. She reacted to that statement with a half-suppressed "Mr. President!" but Vincent Kellner's gesture warned her to be quiet.

 
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