Countdown: M Day

by Tom Kratman

  “How much, Free On Board, at Tivat, for the lot?”

  And so began the haggling.

  Rosoboronexport, 21 Gogolevsky Blvd,

  Moscow, Russian Federation

  There had been a time, a period of over a decade, when Russian arms exportation had been an exercise in chaos, if not outright anarchy. Factories had sold directly to customers. Military branches and even fairly small organizations—motorized rifle divisions, say—had sold direct. The air arms had sold adventure tourism using the latest in Russian fighter technology. Private individuals had also gotten in on the game. This was, indeed, how Victor Inning had begun. There’d been no control, no direction. Worse, with all those independents operating against each other, profits on the trade had been abysmal.

  No more. By Decree 1834 of 4 November, 2000, the president of the Russian Federation had set up Rosoboronexport as a monopoly, the sole official intermediary in arms trading. Others still traded on the margins, of course, but the advantages of having the backing of the resurgent Russian state were immense. Better than ninety percent of Russian arms that were exported went through the state monopoly. Moreover, they tended to be relatively quick with their deliveries.

  At the desk in charge of Latin American and Caribbean sales, a weary-looking, suited bureaucrat heard an artificial a cough from his open office door. He looked up to see a junior assistant standing with head half bowed and a folder in hand.

  “We have a small problem, boss,” the junior said.

  “Which is?” the senior asked.

  “That small order, from Guyana, for four M-240 mortars, a thousand standard shells for them, and eighty Smelchek fuses. The military attaché there recommended approval. Maybe out of boredom.” The junior shrugged.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Again the junior shrugged. “It should have been routine. It’s quite a small order, after all. But when I brought it by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs they wanted to think about it and get approval. No explanation; they just said to wait.”

  Boeing 777, Emirates Flight EK763 (Dubai to Johannesburg)

  I still think the bastard screwed me, Victor fumed. Three hundred thousand Euros for some things we don’t even know work? Well …, to be fair, the test set did indicate that at least three of the five I tested were functional. And the others might be repairable. Maybe. I suppose that, if sixty percent of them work, about twenty thousand USD for a large naval mine isn’t entirely outrageous. Assuming, of course, that the test set itself wasn’t screwed up. Then again, if it were screwed up it probably wouldn’t have said some were good while others were bad.

  But why did I ever agree to that price? He needed the money more than he knew I needed mines. Oh, Victor, I fear you’re getting soft in your old age.

  Then one of Emirates’ almost invariably lovely, and always young and healthy, stewardesses swayed by in her stylish uniform and minimal-concession-to-Islam, quasi-veiled cap.

  Victor watched the slowing receding rump for a quarter of a minute, just long enough to know, Okay, maybe not entirely soft in my old age. Yet.

  Victor rode business class, which was at least as good on Emirates as any other airline. The same could not be said for economy, in which the airline crammed people in, ten across on a 777, even more than the industry’s miserably uncomfortable standard called for. They claimed their seats were more comfortable.

  Yeah? Bullshit. I could swear I heard the crack of a whip, somebody pounding drums, and an overseer shouting, “Row, you infidel swine. Row!”

  Pretoria, South Africa

  The place hasn’t improved any, since the last time I was here, thought Victor, on the short drive from Tambo Airport to the headquarters of Pretoria Metal Pressings-Denel. PMP-D had sent a car, driver, and armed guard to meet him at the airport. That had become mere common sense, if the company hoped to do any business at all. Few places in the world had made the jump from civilization to barbarization quite so far as South Africa had, though most were racing to catch up.

  What Victor was looking for, two sizes of threaded metal adapters to allow naval mine fuses to be screwed into artillery and mortar shells, plus explosive inserts to carry the explosion from fuse to shell, was really too small a job to garner him any more attention than a car, driver, and armed guard from PMP-D. That suited him just fine. Attention was not something he craved, especially this trip.

  Thus. he was somewhat surprised to be led by his guard directly into the large, red brick headquarters and to the chief of marketing, a large, rustic, moderately elderly, and not too intelligent looking Boer who introduced himself as, “Dirk Cilliers, Mr. Turpin. Welcome to Pretoria. Please; please have a seat.”

  Victor sat as directed, then laid a folder on his lap, opened it, and pulled out a specifications sheet. “We need several hundred of two kinds of adapters, Mr. Cilliers. For mining work.” He handed the sheet over.

  The veneer of stupidity on Cilliers’ face fell away, as he looked over the sheet. “I can’t tell what you want to adapt to them but why do you want adapters for NATO and Russian artillery shells?” the Boer asked.

  Before Victor could answer, Cilliers looked up and said, “I only look stupid, Mr …Turpin. And only when I want to.”

  Victor sighed. Too clever. I was being too clever. Time for a little honesty? Yes, but not too much.

  “Mines,” he answered. “The people I represent want to turn a number of artillery shells, which they have, into mines, which they need.”

  “Congo?” Cilliers mused. “Uganda?Rwanda again? Colombia, perhaps? Peru? Never mind, I really don’t need to know.”

  “You’re not worried about this being a sting?” Victor asked.

  The Boer snorted. “Here? In South Africa? When the people who run the country are so desperate for safe-haven cash they’ll do or permit anything so long as they get their cut? No, Mr. Turpin, I’m not worried about a sting.

  “I am, however, a little concerned that you possibly haven’t thought your problem quite through.”

  “How’s that?”

  Cilliers laid the paper on his desk and tapped it with his finger. “The interior dimensions for the adapters you want are wrong. We make a number of booster charges, for mining, generally, and those correspond to certain well known uses. None of them will fit your adapters. It is not, however, an unsolvable problem.”

  Head cocked, Cilliers asked, “You did want to buy boosters for your adapters, too, didn’t you, Mr. Turpin? For ‘mining’ purposes?”

  “Ummm. Yes.”

  “Very good. We can handle this. It would help immeasurably, however, if you could tell us the metrics on the fuses that these adaptors are to connect.”

  “It’ll be about a week for that,” Victor replied. “Maybe a few days less.”

  “That will be fine. You can expect the adapters about three weeks after you get us that information. Boosters, too. That’s three weeks to being ready, here, ready to move to whatever port or airport you would like.”

  God, I wish I could ask him about getting some of South Africa’s stock of old naval mines reconditioned and sold to us. But that would probably be a bit too much. Besides, I’m not sure we could deliver any more heavy mines than I’ve contracted for.

  “You don’t foresee a problem, then, delivering this …mining equipment to port and getting it loaded?”

  Cilliers laughed, and the last vestige of apparent stupidity disappeared as he did so. “Mr. Turpin, I spent twenty years of my life busting embargoes on my country. And that was when the whole world was officially interested in consigning us to the grave. They succeeded, of course; they buried us. But it wasn’t because we couldn’t get around their silly laws. And this is much easier—less than a single container—than most of the things we used to do. So, no, no problem. And if you want them FedExed, we can do that, too. It’s only a couple of tons, after all. Of ‘mining equipment.’ And supplies.”

  Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 32 Smolenskaya-Sennaya Square, Mosco
w, Russian Fedeation

  The best one could say about Russian architecture that dated back to Stalinist times was that it was not quite as bad as had been the Nazis’ plans for Berlin. The building housing the main offices of the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not a positive exception to this rule Overengineered, because the Soviet Union of the late forties and early fifties had lacked the knowledge and skill for economy, the neo-gothic ministry had set back construction of desperately needed housing by a significant degree, all on its own. And it hadn’t been the only major, and gaudy, similar project decreed by Stalin

  In an intimate conference room in one of the rear wings of this Stalinist monstrosity, high enough and far enough back to keep at bay the sounds of the dense traffic below, a couple of mid-level bureaucrats pondered what should on the face of it have been a nonproblem: Deliver the arms or don’t and, whichever, so what?

  “Except that refusal to sell is, in this case, as bad as selling,” said one of the two.

  “I don’t understand,” said the other. “What difference does it make?”

  “The attaché in Caracas says that Chavez is planning on occupying that part of Guyana Venezuela has claimed for the past couple of centuries. It should be easy, he thinks.”

  “And?”

  “Well …if we send arms to Guyana, Chavez will be pissed off. And he is not only one of our two or three best customers, but he’s a serious annoyance to the United States. Or, at least he tries to be, has been, and will become so again as soon as the current American president is turned out of office.”

  “So refuse to allow the arms to be sent.”

  The first bureaucrat shook his head. “Not that simple. Refusal to sell, when we have no particularly good reason not to sell, might put Guyana on notice that they’re on Venezuela’s shopping list. This would be as bad for Chavez, or worse, than if we’d delivered the mortars.”

  “Ah.”

  “‘Ah.’”

  “I think I have a solution. What did you say that request consisted of?”

  Boeing 767, El Al Flight LY 054 (Johannesburg to Tel Aviv)

  The food on Emirates was better, Victor thought, staring down at a barely touched tray of kosher something-or-other. The stewardesses were better looking too, even if they weren’t authentic the way these girls are authentic Israelis. Oh, well, can’t win ’em all.

  None of the stewardesses would look him in the eye, and most of them avoided him like the plague. I suppose it’s the Hassidic outfit. Some of those people are worse than Arabs for their disgust for women. Silly sots.

  Menachem Begin Road, Tel Aviv, Israel

  Victor and his best Israeli contact, Dov, were seated, as usual on the rare occasions they met, at a table pushed flush against the railing surrounding the outdoor café portion of an eatery that fronted on the main thoroughfare. Between traffic, pedestrian talk, and the hubbub from the other patrons, no one was likely to hear anything said between the two men. Even so, they stuck to Russian as being somewhat less likely to be understood, and considerably more likely to be misunderstood, than the English they also shared.

  “That’s just too expensive, Dov,” Victor insisted, shaking his head and causing his false curls to swirl about his face. “There’s no way …”

  “Can it, Victor,” the Israeli responded, holding up one hand, palm towards the Russian. “The …items you want are not simple, nor cheap, nor easy to make. Neither are they particularly easy to disappear—which is what my company will have to arrange for, with another company, no less—if we’re to get them for you.

  “These things are made to be dropped from aircraft, high speed aircraft, Victor, then survive that drop, finish arming themselves, and have all their delicate little electronic components working perfectly. That kind of reliability, under those kinds of circumstances, doesn’t come cheap.”

  Victor lowered his head to his hands, thinking furiously. At the price he’s quoting, the redundant 105mm shells are just not enough bang for the buck. So what’s that leave me? Thirty-two purpose built, ex-Yugoslav M-70’s, and a thousand heavy mortar shells. And maybe we can get some explosive, some barrels, and gin up a better mine, if I have the fuse packages. Maybe. Hell, the fuses and sensors have always been the problem with these things.

  “Six hundred,” Victor said, raising his head. “At that price that’s all I can afford.” Which is bullshit, but he won’t know that.

  “That’s bullshit, Victor,” Dov replied. “It may be all you have of bombs—you want them for bombs, yes?—but you and your organization can afford damned near anything, if you want to.”

  “It’s all we can use then,” Victor conceded, neglecting to mention that, no, they didn’t actually have any bombs. “And one other thing. I need the exact specifications for the threading on your destructor kits.”

  “That’s easy. You realize, right,” Dov asked, “that at that number the unit price goes up?”

  “Yes, I realize that, Dov. Now, what can you come up with to turn a 105mm shell into a landmine. And don’t try to screw me on the price.”

  Rosoboronexport, 21 Gogolevsky Blvd,

  Moscow, Russian Federation

  “So we can transfer the arms to Guyana, but we have to screw them on the deal?”

  The assistant nodded, stopped, then explained, “No, we must transfer the arms to Guyana and screw them on the deal. Partially transfer them, that is. We’re supposed to send the shells and the guidance packages, but hold off on the actual mortars. ‘People pay little attention to ammunition,’ said the foreign ministry, ‘and much to real arms.’ I suppose there’s some truth to that.”

  The senior of the two went silent, thinking. At length he said, “All right. Make the arrangements for the ammunition. Tell the military attaché in Guyana to tell the customer that the mortars need to be thoroughly rebuilt at the depot before we can forward them. ‘Sorry, sir, but we don’t have a firm date yet.’ But assure them the delivery will be made as soon as possible. After all, we have our reputation as arms-makers and-dealers to think about.”

  “Where do we send the shells?”

  “Trieste.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Elements within the British establishment were

  notoriously sympathetic to. Today the enjoy similar

  support. In the 1930’s it was Edward VIII, aristocrats

  and the Daily Mail; this time it is left-wing activists,

  The Guardian and sections of the BBC. They may not

  want a global theocracy, but they are like the West’s

  apologists for the Soviet Union — useful idiots.

  —Anthony Browne, The Times, 1 August, 2005

  Turkeyen Campus, University of Guyana, Georgetown, Guyana

  In the green parkland west of the main campus, red flags the approximate color of blood waved above a sea—or at least a decent sized lake—of humanity. In that swaying, shimmering crowd, surrounded by the hundred and twenty-two people she had paid a thousand Guyanan dollars—about five United States Dollars, or a bit less—each to attend, Catherine Persons waved such a flag, herself. She’d actually paid a hundred and fifty people, but a few of those had taken the money and then quietly disappeared. For the rest:

  Except for the students, Catherine thought, they have no revolutionary fervor whatsoever. She laughed at herself. Fervor? They don’t even have any interest. But it doesn’t matter. Interest will be provided.

  It was, perhaps, not entirely without significance that the university had been founded under the auspices of the People’s Progressive Party, initially a hard left, but nationalist, group, which much later morphed into something recognizably social democratic. The PPP had been in power through most of the period 1966 to 1992, and continuously from 1992 to the present day. Nor was it insignificant that among those who had had been contacted for input into the recruitment for the initial faculty of the university was one Paul A. Baran, a Russian Empire-born, naturalized American citizen. Baran had t
he distinction of being the first neo-Marxist, indeed Marxist of any degree of antiquity, to claim that poverty in the Third World was not a natural condition, but had been introduced and deliberately fostered by capitalism. Marx and Engels would have been surprised by this revelation, of course. Even Lenin, who thought that the exploitation of the Third World was a mere artifact of the attempt to postpone the immiseration of workers in the industrialized world, might have been a little nonplussed. Indeed, any number of starving Indians, prior to the British Raj, might have been surprised to discover that they weren’t really poor and wouldn’t be until the introduction of capitalism in the West.

  In any case, the university remained what it had been designed to be, a center for fairly hard left indoctrination, with a few high points where people actually tried to learn something useful to their own lives and to their country and people. In this, it was not notably different from most any American institute of higher education.

  “Power to the people!” finished the final speaker for the morning’s festivities. His clenched fist shot up over his head, a sort of physical exclamation point.

  With that, the red flags, carried by such as Catherine Persons, began moving to the south, where Dennis Street bordered that edge of the campus. The followers, both paid but unmotivated citizens and unpaid but motivated students, trooped along, generally in close company with the banner bearers. Mixed in were a number of better paid thugs, but their job wouldn’t come until a bit later. The initial echoes of “Power to the people” were rather badly out of synch. This improved, however, as the marchers caught their rhythm.