“Let me ask you a question if I may, Ivan.”

“I'm the one asking the questions.”

“I'm aware of that, but it's the least you can do in return for the beautiful flowers I sent you.”

“I've already repaid your kind gesture with one of my own. I didn't kill you. But go ahead. I'll allow one question.”

“What the hell is this all about?”

A slight smile tweaked the ends of Petrov's lips, and he picked up the cigarette pack in front of him. Extracting a cigarette with great care, he put it between his lips, lit the end and blew the smoke from his nostrils. The strong tobacco smell filled the office and drove out the musty odor.

“What do you know about the current political situation in Russia?”

“What I read in the papers. It's no secret that your country has big problems. Your economy is shaky, organized crime and corruption are worse than Chicago under Capone, your military is underpaid and unhappy, your health care system is a mess and you've got independence movements and civil wars nibbling around your borders. But you've got an educated and energetic workforce and abundant natural resources. If you don't keep shooting yourself in the foot, you may come out okay, but it will take time.”

“A reasonably accurate summary of a complicated scenario. Ordinarily I would say you are right, that we would muddle through. Our people are used to adversity. Thrive on it, in fact. But there are forces at work that are much more powerful than anything we have talked about.”

“What sort of forces?”

“The worst kind. Human passions, whipped into a fiery nationalism by the winds of cynicism, dismay and hopelessness.”

“You've had nationalist movements before.”

“True, but we've managed to marginalize them, blackmail the proponents or demonize them as eccentric cranks before they could build up their cause and bring others into it. This is different. The new movement has sprung whole from the steppes of south Russia along the Black Sea where the neo-Cossacks live.”

“Cossacks? Like the crew I met the other day?”

“That's right. The Cossacks were originally outlaws and fugitives, nomads who drifted into south Russia and the Ukraine, where they formed a loose federation. They were known for their horsemanship, a skill that helped Peter the Great defeat the Ottoman Turks. In time they evolved into a military class. Cossacks served as an elite cavalry for the tsars, who used them to terrorize revolutionaries, strikers and minority groups.”

“Then came the Bolshevik revolution, the tsar fell and the Cossacks ended up driving cabs in Paris,” Austin observed.