“When we next speak you will tell me what you are doing about the American secret mission in Antarctica and why you should remain my Energy Minister, da? Do svidanja, comrade Petrov.”

The Energy Minister’s name was spat out like an obscenity and the President turned away from Viktor Petrov, signalling the meeting was over. On shaky legs Petrov wobbled towards the door and as he put his hand out to open it, he heard a final chilling warning from the President. “The bear feeds on incompetent ministers first, comrade Petrov.”

Petrov went out through the door quickly for a large man, only just managing to close it and get his hand over his mouth before the bile hit the back of his teeth.

In the soft burgundy leather chair Viktor Petrov finally felt his heart rate returning to normal. The small bottle of Stolichnaya Elit was half empty on his desk and he felt he could finally think clearly enough to organise his plans. The first thing he would do was find the agent who had delivered his information to the President before he had given it to him and see he spent his next assignment on the Afghani border; perhaps that would teach the little koshka to recognise his priorities.

Petrov read the security paper again. The Americans were preparing a research team to investigate a possible sub-strata oil find in the Antarctic; no wonder the President had been so explosive.

He knew that if they could in any way secure and exploit the find it would destroy the carefully crafted plans that Russia had been building slowly over the last decade. Russia was once a contender to be the supreme superpower in the world and jostled with the United States over dominance in armaments and the space race. It had an army that shook the ground when it paraded its military might through Red Square. Now it had descended into a corrupt and bloated pretend-capitalist nation that had watched its soldiers boil cabbage to eat from their helmets. But as Energy Minister, Petrov was well aware that Russia was sleeping on gold. Locked beneath its soil were an estimated sixty billion barrels of oil and twenty-one trillion cubic feet of natural gas. As the world around them became ever hungrier for oil and the Middle Eastern countries became more fractious with the West, the price of the black gold went through the roof.

Russia was the second largest oil producer and largest natural gas producer in the world. It had more than it could use domestically so could sell millions of barrels. Petrov didn’t have to negotiate better prices for the oil; he merely had to threaten to withhold supply and Russia’s customers came back magically with more to spend. This booming resource revenue once again allowed a Russian leader to square his shoulders and look the United States in the eye.