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a halt at the open grave that had been dug in the dead grasses under the Kremlin wall. |
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The deaths in Red Squareconfirmed within the hourcast a blanket of depression over a shocked city. Orgonev's eulogy had been delivered by Admiral Aleyev, who had been just sober enough to be coherent. Now, at the reception in the rotunda of the Spassky Tower, Admiral Aleyev had remedied his state of sobriety, and he and the Minister of the Environment had fallen into a dispute, shouting coarse insults at one another. |
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Aleksandr Cherny was mortified, grateful that only a few members of the diplomatic corps were represented in the Spassky today. The sad truth was that Mikhail Orgonev, at one time or another, had managed to offend each of the diplomats stationed in Moscow. His manner had always been to bluster and threaten, and his extreme anti-Semitism had disgusted all but the representatives of the Arab nations. |
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President Cherny rubbed his forehead, trying to soothe his pounding headache. What if Yulin was right and those demonstrators had been trying to kill him? He had always believed that the people loved him. David Milstein, at Cherny's elbow, was continuing an outraged diatribe, always addressing Cherny as "Comrade President." How he dreaded being addressed as Comrade President by David Davidovich. Good God, didn't the man understand how difficult matters were in the Kremlin, with Kondratiev's clique gathered around him like a cadre of destruction? |
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He rounded on Milstein in sudden temper. "What would you have done, David Davidovich? Just tell me. It was unfortunate, but it wasn't Tiananmen Square, after all. There were no tanks. The hooligans started it, with their violence and their disrespect for the dead. Yulin was protecting me, protecting all of us, doing what he thought was best." He turned his back and walked a few steps away. |
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Milstein was silent, glaring across the sparsely populated |
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