Unfortunately, Starinov thought, things were never that easy. For outside the walls of his office, from one end of the Federation to the next, Pedachenko was everywhere.

“You’re on the air.”

“Good evening, Minister Pedachenko. I would like your opinion of Minister Bashkir’s recent visit to China and his pledges of increased cooperation between our countries.”

“Thank you, caller. I think we must look at the minister’s intentions and specific agreements with China separately. In light of NATO enlargement and other recent efforts by the United States to monopolize world affairs, I would agree with him that we share many common interests with our Asian neighbor. American power is a menace that must be shackled, and to do it we have no choice but to turn eastward. But I believe Minister Bashkir was in foolish dereliction of duty when he announced plans to import Chinese technology and military products. Our own munitions plants, the best in the world, are suffering from decreased production orders. Furthermore, China has always been one of their largest customers. Why, then, should we reverse the arrangement now? It seems idiotic and misguided ...”

In his dacha northeast of Moscow, Leonid Todshivalin had been dozing off to the sound of the television when the crash of breaking glass startled him into full awareness. He jerked around in his reclining chair and saw that one of the back windows had been shattered. Cold wind swept into the living room through the jagged remnants of the pane. Spears of glass were sprayed across the rug beneath the sill. In a corner of the floor, he noticed a large rock lying amid the shards. A folded piece of paper had been bound to it with a rubber band.

Pulling his bathrobe closed around him, Todshivalin sprang off the chair and hurried over to the window. He knelt to pick up the stone, careful not to step in the glass, cocking an eye out the window at his snow-covered yard. He didn’t see anybody. But he thought he knew why the rock had been thrown.

He pulled off the rubber band and unfolded the slip of paper. Written on it in a large hand were two words:

BLOODSUCKING ASSHOLE

He felt a flash of anger. For two months his railroad had been relaying American grain deliveries bound from central warehouses in Moscow to the nearby western provinces. The amount shipped to each region was calculated according to population, and if not for his skimming off a portion of the reserves, his town’s allotment would have been negligible. He had assumed the risk. Why then did he not deserve to make a small profit by adding a surcharge to the grain he distributed?

“Ingrates!” he shouted, lobbing the rock back out at his unseen harassers. “You’ve had too much to drink! Go away!”