“The Molotov Plan was conceived as a joint KGB-GRU operation, in association with the Red Army. The objective of the plan is to bring the West to heel once and for all, while achieving our age-old foreign objectives of total dominance, secure warm-water ports and control of worldwide resources. I have asked Comrade Svetlov to provide an overview of the operation,” Fyedorenko said, summoning Svetlov with a flick of his finger. While Svetlov stood anxiously by the wall, Fyedorenko’s secretary set up a large wall map. The room buzzed with conversation as each minister tried to be noncommital about whether he had any foreknowledge of the operation.

“Comrades,” Svetlov’s bull-frog voice boomed out. With his squat body, shapeless gray suit, bulging eyes and a face pitted from a terrible case of childhood chicken pox that had almost killed him, Svetlov looked like a talking toad. But that deep frog’s voice of his was unmistakable and despite his evident nervousness at addressing the Politburo, it had authority and power. Turning to the map, Svetlov gestured at the Straits of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

“This is the Achilles’ heel of the West. Through these waters pass the oil lifelines of the major western powers. Roughly three quarters of Japan’s oil, sixty per cent of Western Europe’s oil and about a third of America’s imported oil comes from the Persian Gulf, most of that coming from Saudi Arabia. Whoever controls this oil, controls the world. Make no mistake about that, comrades,” Svetlov said, his eyes boring into them.

“The Molotov Plan was designed to place control of this oil into our hands,” he declared. The room buzzed with excitement.

“The plan was coordinated in the Middle East by a mole recruited by the KGB when he was a student,” Svetlov went on. “Today, he is a wealthy and influential Bahraini businessman. Under our orders, he established contact with Prince Abdul Sa’ad of Arabia and together they began to plot a coup against King Salim. Abdul Sa’ad leads a fanatically antiwestern Wahabi faction in the Saudi royal family. He is also Deputy Commander of the Royal Saudi Army, numbering some fifty thousand troops, who are loyal to their commanders. The object of the coup is to give us control of the oil. In exchange, we will support Abdul Sa’ad as King of Arabia.

“We expect Abdul Sa’ad’s army to be opposed by the Saudi National Guard, which is fiercely loyal to the king. In a one-to-one fight they would be an even match for the army, but Abdul Sa’ad won’t be fighting alone.

“As you can see by the map, control of Arabia really rests upon the control of three key areas: the Hejaz, particularly the holy city of Mecca, Riyadh the capital, and the oil facilities at Ras Tanura. The Molotov Plan will place all three areas under our control,” Svetlov declared.