Red Hammer 1994

by Ratcliffe, Robert

  Copyright © 2013 Robert Ratcliffe

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1481998072

  ISBN 13: 9781481998079

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-63001-373-8

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013901187

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

  North Charleston, South Carolina

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 1

  Marlina Tatralova collapsed, overcome by anguish. Tears streaked her reddened, wind-chapped cheeks. She stared blankly at the graffiti-covered, red brick walls surrounding the Uralmash Zavod factory in Yekaterinburg, Russia. It was true, just like the gossips had said at the butcher shop, the one that hadn’t had any meat for six months. Marlina saw through frightened eyes that the factory gates were locked for good. A dozen or so surly looking men roamed the cluttered grounds, apparently to keep potential looters at bay—as if there was anything worth taking.

  Marlina cowered like a beaten child, an empty plastic shopping bag at her side. She rocked on her haunches, each breath labored, surrendering to the dark forces that had crushed her unmercifully. What did the politicians want? Blood? The fools in Moscow did nothing but strut like peacocks and bicker and then make bold promises that were no better than lies. She couldn’t begin to fathom the intellectual downpour that tormented her meager existence. Free markets, participatory democracy, hard currencies, private ownership, these words were nothing but gibberish to the common Russian. Outside of Moscow proper, the people lived like animals.

  The ominous slate canopy that smothered the rugged Urals seemed particularly threatening this fall day. As usual, the climactic monotony was intensified by the cold drizzle that seeped into the drab, poorly constructed apartments and filled the interiors with the pungent odor of mildew and wet wool clothes. The black mood suited this dismal industrial city that brooded like a condemned soul. Everyday life in Yekaterinburg had ground to a halt.

  Founded by Stalin in 1933, the onetime showpiece factory town had bolstered the old Soviet Union’s power and prestige during the difficult, formative years. Throughout the Great Patriotic War, Uralmash Zavod had churned out sturdy T-34 tanks by the hundreds to beat back the vicious German invaders and lead the Red Army to victory. Production hummed unabated for decades, both with military hardware and heavy construction equipment, and promised cradle-to-grave security for the thousands of tough workers who braved the frontier city with its substandard housing and brutal weather.

  But past glory had vanished into confusion, panic, and recrimination. It hadn’t been American bombs or tanks, as the propagandists had direfully predicted for so many years during the Cold War. Instead, mysterious and insipid free-market forces and muddled economic reforms had done the deed. They had sapped the life from Uralmash Zavod, like an infectious disease that rotted the innards while leaving a crumbling shell to serve as a testimonial to their collective failure.

  Production had fallen precipitously to less than a third of its 1980s peak, when the 39,000 workers churned out modern T-72 and T-80 main battle tanks and massive oil-drilling rigs that rivaled the best produced in the West. After lingering for a few years on life support, the final deathblow for the diseased patient had been the complete and rapid deregulation of energy prices—a capricious and callous edict that had been like a dagger to the heart. The bureaucrats in Moscow had convinced themselves that it had to be done. Soaring fuel-oil prices had beaten them into the ground, as easily as a steam-driven pile driver pounding steel girders.

  Sister cities throughout Russia’s industrial heartland had suffered the same irreversible fate. The supposedly sympathetic Western press called it a necessary and quite natural initiation, a much-needed slap in the face, and a tough dose of medicine for those who would enter the competitive world economy on the threshold of the twenty-first century. The Russian people called it betrayal. Like shell-shocked war victims, they drowned their sorrows in copious servings of alcohol and prayed for someone, anyone, to rescue the struggling nation from the twin evils of runaway inflation and looming starvation. Dreams of democracy quickly vanished when competing with empty stomachs and the fear of starvation.

  The Western political dynamic was impossible for the average Russian to fathom. For decades, their world had been a rigid one of necessary order and accepted struggle. But if one had performed his or her obligation to the state, they would be cared for—albeit at a standard of living that would make those in the West groan. But in the early nineties, they had been cruelly seduced by the Westerners’ constant covetousness for material possessions, a fatal diversion from the path of socialist purity, that had lead them straight to economic hell.

  Marlina glanced up through salty tears at the high-bay factories and shops. What was left of the old plant? Machinery so antiquated that Uralmash couldn’t compete with the rest of the world, even if her workers labored for free. The arthritic plant required hundreds of millions of dollars of scarce capital to even contemplate the task of rebuilding. And who would lend such vast sums? Not the West. They were greedily pouring money into the Eastern European nations, those despicable ingrates. For decades their socialist brothers had sucked up Soviet largesse in the form of nearly free fuel and blanket military protection, and now they thumbed their noses at their erstwhile friends. The capstone of humiliation had been when Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic had begged their way into NATO.

  Marlina shivered uncontrollably with raw fear. Unemployment was a sentence of near death, a perpetual, grinding poverty with absolutely no escape. No so-called safety net existed in Russia; the state was bankrupt, the ruble—worthless. She tugged at her worn and faded wool sweater. The first signs of winter loomed on the horizon; a stiff breeze carried the telltale frigid air from Siberia. The cold wind bit her cheeks and made her shudder. It would be a long winter; the worst in memory they predicted. As usual, it was the common people who would pay the price for the bureaucrats’ arrogance and incompetence.

  Marlina sniffed and wiped her nose and stood, adjusting her damp scarf and rumpled skirt. Drying tears stained her cheeks. She staggered in the direction of her miserable apartment, wishing beyond hope that someone could bring back the old days. Who would save them, save Russia? Marlina shook her bowed head sadly and shuffled along in a very Russian mixture of stoic acceptance and steadfast perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds.

  The gloating, stiff-necked man with short-cropped gray hair preened. He sat pompously in his anointed chair in the section reserved for members of the Liberal Democratic Party. Actually, there was nothing in the least democratic about this gang of thugs. Once a hodgepodge of ultranationalists, neo-fascists, revanchist Stalinists, and a sprinkling of monarchists, the Liberal Democrats had deftly closed ranks and were now jus
t hitting their stride. They had gained long-sought legitimacy through their recent smashing victory. No need to any longer kowtow to coalition partners. Nikolai Laptev had seen to that.

  Over time, the more faint-hearted LDP members, those deputies lacking the stomach for a knock-down, drag-out fight, had been pushed aside to make way for the fire-breathers. The crowning glory in the early years had been the pact with the Communists and the agrarians. While those simpletons dreamed of the old collective days and Potemkin villages, the Liberal Democrats had used their votes to thwart reform and paralyze the government. Disaster led to disaster, until the government had collapsed. A sham presidential and parliamentary election had thrust Nikolai Laptev and his cohorts from the role of noisy and troublesome opposition to the seat of unchallenged power. Russia’s Choice and the other so-called reformers were in tatters—discredited, chastened, and on the run.

  The rebuilt Russian Parliament building, or White House, never looked better than this late October eve. A horde of workers had put the finishing touches on the pale marble masterpiece and scrubbed and polished for this special gathering. The rich, historical monument was a fitting backdrop for the occasion. The scene of death and destruction at Yeltsin’s direct order earlier in the month, its resurrection signaled the final triumph of the State Duma over the disgraced president.

  The former army paratroop officer suppressed the building anxiety that made him subconsciously squirm. Patience, he coaxed himself. He shifted his train of thought and focused on his earlier speech to the Duma, while he was still its speaker. He had been magnificent, his booming voice rising and falling in spirited intensity like thunder in a violent summer storm. He had his strong arms raised in defiance, his balled fist daring anyone to deny him his destiny. His pale blue eyes breathed fire, smoldering. Russia would rise from the ashes.

  Laptev’s invective had issued forth like a poisonous snake spitting venom. Betrayal of the common people. Slaves to the West. And what to show for the years of agony? Ruthless capitalists grown obscenely rich, prostitutes on every corner, petty criminals ran amok, and a thriving, homegrown Mafia. That and millions upon millions of hungry displaced factory workers and a vicious depression that clung like a leech. Russia was an international joke, humiliated and prostrate, groveling before Jewish bankers and despicable American and German capitalists. Castrated by hastily negotiated strategic-arms agreements, her military might lay in ruins. Russia was impotent and needed to reclaim her rightful place in the world. Laptev had left no emotional stone unturned.

  His blistering attack upon the remnants of the reformers had inspired sustained applause and rampant foot stomping, fueled by a deadly mixture of half-truths and blatant lies. The outcome of yesterday’s vote had been preordained, as sure as the misery gripping the Russian people. The final tally hadn’t been announced, but the consensus had the current Russian president unceremoniously thrown out on his rump, along with his cabal of baby-faced economic advisors and worthless political sycophants. Real men would once again rule Russia.

  Long dismissed as a reprehensible madman, Laptev had masterfully manipulated the bone-weary populace. While others had fed them bland economic theory and esoteric political nonsense, Laptev spoke to their abandonment and personal humiliation. He proudly bore the common man’s burden of pain and frustration squarely on his shoulders. His maudlin brew of self-pity and deep-felt resentment struck a chord with the unemployed, the homeless, the deserted, and, most of all, the dejected and angry officer corps. Laptev and his cronies had swept both the capitol region and the countryside like a tidal wave.

  The new speaker of the Duma, the lower house of the restructured Parliament, assumed his post. He signaled for quiet. An unaccustomed hush swept the floor. He gripped the microphone and triumphantly announced the latest vote tallies. He flung his arm to the right and dramatically presented the next president of the Russian Republic. Over half the audience jumped to their feet, cheering wildly. The dejected minority clapped limply or sulked in despair. Their worst nightmare had come true.

  CHAPTER 2

  Nikolai Laptev held court inside the stonewalled Defense Ministry, surrounded by his inner circle of trusted generals and marshals. Laptev found comfort with this obedient lot. They fed his ravenous ego with their incessant groveling. The clever demagogue had proven skilled at fueling their innermost fears and arousing petty jealousies. He had deftly played to their hurt and humiliation and had them in his hip pocket. Most of the Russian brass could remember the old superpower days, when the Red Army had struck terror into the hearts of free-world leaders, and now smarted at their current societal status, one rung above the detested Moscow police. Laptev had cast a spell and had snared even the best and the brightest. Despite their misgivings, they fervently believed only their tough-talking president could restore Russia’s greatness.

  The room was cramped, but the furnishings were magnificent. Lavish ceiling-to-floor velvet drapes were gathered and pulled back from the leaded-glass windows, while ornate crystal lighting fixtures hung gracefully from the freshly painted plaster ceiling. The meeting table was polished mahogany and round, with Laptev at the head in a captain’s chair. Nearly twenty Russians completed the assembly, an emergency meeting of the Military Planning Group. Every gathering was an emergency these days.

  Laptev’s mood was combative and nasty. Outside the Defense Ministry, a brutal January storm lashed at the ancient Kremlin walls, with marble-sized ice balls violently banging on the thick windows and sounding like kettle drums at the Moscow symphony. The creaky Russian state, in desperate straits at Laptev’s ascendancy, was comatose at this, the height of the worst winter on record. The atrocious weather was a harbinger of impending doom for the punch-drunk Russians. The state survived on nothing more than constant doses of Laptev’s rhetoric, and like the habitual use of drugs, the desired effect was beginning to fade, requiring even more outrageous pronouncements to soothe the patient’s pain.

  A blend of self-deprecation and betrayal stoked the hatred brewing in Laptev’s heart. The reformists had so thoroughly destroyed the country’s weakened and fragile infrastructure that an attempt to turn back the clock was failing miserably. The civil glue that held man’s more primitive instincts in check was cracking. The prognosis made even the most hardened and cynical Kremlin bureaucrat tremble—civil war across the length and breadth of Russia. Once unleashed, the fighting would be uncontrolled and catastrophic, like Yugoslavia magnified one hundred times.

  The Russian defense minister banged the door open and entered the smoke-filled room, waving a message over his head, incensed. An adroit old communist that had long ago sold his soul to the Liberal Democrats, the anointed head of the military was of medium height, completely bald, grossly overweight, and sour looking. His reddened face was puffy like he had just awakened from a difficult nap and his ample jowls jiggled as he shuffled toward his chair to the right of Laptev. He wore a drab brown suit that fit like a tent. Despite his shabby appearance and dull eyes, he was a clever survivor who had served many masters and had proved himself invaluable in military matters.

  Laptev publicly applauded the old-party faithful who had flocked to his banner. Privately, he ridiculed them. To their credit, they worshipped a strong leader, despised democracy in any form, and rarely had an independent bone in their body. Orders were obeyed without question. Even many of the early Liberal Democrats exhibited a tendency to question Laptev’s more outrageous commands. Today the defense minister was the indignant patriot as he plopped into his chair.

  “The latest dispatch from Ossetia,” he blurted out to no one in particular. “Traitors! They will be shot!” A buzz rose, and heads nodded in unison. A nondescript secessionist group in the so-called Northern Ossetian Republic had stormed an armory and made off with a cache of weapons including handheld surface-to-air missiles, leaving over twenty Russian troops dead. Such crimes were coming much too regularly. Laptev rightly suspected that some of the generals in this very room were encou
raging such treasonous behavior, skimming a share of the spoils. A rash of executions had temporarily squelched such treason, but the lure of hard currency tucked safely in a foreign bank account provided a powerful inducement.

  Laptev leaned forward slowly, shifting his weight to his thick forearms, resting on the table. His fat fingers were interlaced in a death grip. “Marshal Kiselev,” said the Russian president to a now-hushed room. “Perhaps you could explain how a ragtag mob of Muslim fanatics can snatch weapons in broad daylight right from under our very noses?”

  Kiselev, the first deputy minister of defense and chief of the general staff, winced. He cleared his throat and cast a disparaging glance at the nearest army general, the one in charge of the Transcaucasus region. “Our forces are spread thin, too thin, President, and there are literally thousands of such armories throughout the nation, but the lapse of security is inexcusable.” The sentence had been pronounced—another “early retirement” from the ranks. The guilty officer accepted his fate dispassionately. The general staff had become a revolving door of late, and no one, even Kiselev, expected to last the winter.

  Laptev chopped the air with his beefy hand. “These criminals must be taught a lesson.” He turned to his personal secretary, standing to his rear, a serious-looking mid-level bureaucrat, and the fifth in the last three months. “I want food and fuel deliveries to Ossetia cut by fifty percent immediately. I will show those ungrateful bastards.” He turned again to Kiselev, with a smug look folded into his face. “I want the missing weapons found and the culprits caught and executed. Understood?” Laptev had no patience for secessionists, or anyone that disagreed with him, for that matter.

  No less than twenty-two separate entities within Russia’s borders were demanding varying degrees of sovereignty. The Caucasus Mountains just happened to be the latest flare-up. Besides chafing under the heavy yoke of their Slavic masters, the Muslim Ossetians were warring with neighboring Chechen-Ingush, also a Muslim hotbed of rebellion. If ethnic Russians weren’t caught in the crossfire, Laptev would gladly let the backward, filthy peasants slaughter each other. The northern and Siberian province breakaway threats presented a more severe headache. The Finno-Ugric speaking Republic of Karelia lay astride the militarily important Kola Peninsula, and the Republic of Yakutia-Sakha encompassed half of Siberia, including rich mineral deposits. It was like stamping out forest fires and chasing the band of arsonists at the same time.