Dogin wasn't so sure of that, but there didn't seem to be any other option. He needed a lot of money to buy politicians and military officials, to wage an aggressive war without Kremlin assent. Unlike Afghanistan, this would be a war the Russians could win. But money was the key. How Marx would have bristled.

"I speak for myself," Dogin said to Shovich. "Your terms are acceptable to me. On the day Zhanin's govement is ousted and I am named President, the man you select will become the new Minister of the Interior."

Shovich smiled a cold, chilling smile. "What if I select myself'?"

Dogin felt a flash of horror, though he was too seasoned a politician to show it. "As I said, the choice is yours."

The tension of mutual distrust was thick when Kosigan broke it with a blustery, "What about the Ukraine? What about Vesnik?"

Dogin looked away from Shovich. "The President of Ukraine is with us."

"Why?" asked Shovich. "The Ukrainians have the independence they sought for decades."

"Vesnik has more social and ethnic problems than he or his military will be able to manage," Dogin said. "He wants to tamp them down before they get out of hand. We will help him do that. He also longs for the glory days, as Kosigan and I do." Dogin regarded the cold monster beside him. "My allies in Poland are planning to stage an event there on Tuesday, 12:30 A.M. local time."

"What kind of event?" Shovich asked.

"My spetsnaz assistant in St. Petersburg has already sent a secret team to the border town of Przemysl, Poland," Dogin said. "They'll arrange for an explosion at the Polish Communist Party office there. The Communists won't tolerate the attack, and my people there will make sure the protest turns violent. Polish troops will be sent in, and the struggle will spread toward the Ukrainian border six miles away. At night, in the confusion, Vesnik's troops will fire on the Polish forces."

"When that happens," Kosigan jumped in, "Vesnik will contact me to request military support. Zhanin will already have learned that he is outside the real circle of power. Now he will scramble to find out which generals are on his side, just like Yeltsin when his officers elected to pound Chechnya. He will have very few allies, and the politicians we're buying won't support him either. Poles of Ukrainian and Belorussian descent will also be persecuted. When the Ukrainians and I counterattack, White Russia will join us, bringing the front to within one hundred miles of Warsaw. Russians will be caught up in nationalistic frenzy while Zhanin's foreign bankers and businessmen desert him. He'll be finished."