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Kellner restrained an impulse to say that a good many in the Kremlin still preferred to send Black Beret internal security troops to deal with dissent. General Kondratiev was gone. But how far and for how long? |
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"We Russians may not yet have learned how to make a market economy work to perfection, Mr. Adviser," Galitzin said coldly, "but we have long known what to do with generals who refuse to take orders." |
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Galitzin bowed stiffly one last time to Kellner, then stalked past Camilla Varig's desk without giving her a glance. She made a face at his back. Kellner saw her, smiled, shook his head in tolerant reproof, and returned to his inner office. Charlton Fisk, the FBI director, had appeared from an inner alcove and was sitting in the chair vacated by Galitzin. |
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"Well, Charlie," Kellner asked. "You heard. What do you make of it? Do you believe him?" |
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"He's a damned liar," Fisk said. "Kondratiev may be out of town. But not for long." |
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"Snooping in Moscow, Charlie?" Kellner said drily, seating himself behind his bare desk. |
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Fisk was a career lawman who had risen from the ghetto of Bedford-Stuyvesant to his present position as the first black man ever to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It had been his mother who had given him his "elegant" name (she had admired the movie star who had played Moses) and taught him to live up to it. He was a product of a supportive family, a public school system that only the strong could survive, and Columbia and Harvard Law. |
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When political conservatives quoted numbers to make a case against affirmative action, liberals thrust Charlton Fisk front and center. By now, he was sick of the role. But he was intelligent, his abilities had been honed by twenty-two years in the Department of Justice, and he deserved his directorship. |
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He also poached on his colleagues' turf from time to time. Charlton Fisk was always willing to take a chance when he thought the risk justified. In the case of the new Russian am- |
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