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nasty, embittered, angry old man should instruct them. The procession was almost exclusively military. The crowds Soyuz had tried to muster to march along with the procession as a show of civilian grief had not materialized. |
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In melancholy grandeur, the contingents from the army, navy, air force, and security services paced ahead and behind the missile transporter carrying Orgonev's corpse. The dreadful old man lay in a glass-covered coffin, clothed in his old KGB general's uniform. The transporter was draped in funereal red, and the old man had been propped up so that his face could be seen, waxy and artificial, like a clothing store's mannequin. The coffin was as massive as an Egyptian sarcophagus. The President marched with the rest of the nomenklatura, perforce in the place of honor, an honor that he would have willingly forgone. He had despised Orgonev in life (the feeling had been mutual) and had no reason to respect him in death. Orgonev's contribution to the welfare of humanity consisted of design of the largest ICBMs ever built, together with a series of experimental warheads of such force that they could not even be tested safely. |
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Cherny glanced sidelong at the others in his rank beside the missile transporter. (Was there ever so appropriate a vehicle to bear the old curmudgeon on his journey into hell?) Piotr Kondratiev walked at the end of the rank nearest to the dead man, his medal-bedecked chest thrust forward aggressively. When Cherny had relieved Kondratiev of command of the Black Beret security battalions, their agreement had included terms arrived at after long negotiation. There would be no arrest, no open scandal, but Kondratiev agreed to stay out of Moscow. He would keep most of his perquisites. Admiral Aleyev and Yevgeny Suvorov, then Minister of Agriculture, had been the negotiators. |
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Like the Roman emperor Claudius, Cherny had wanted clean hands: no trials or executions when he assumed the principate. But one had to rely on the integrity of the man with whom one negotiated, or the result was failure. And here was |
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