MAY15, 2005.

       Kalanin stared into the crackling fire filling the huge, smoke-stained stone opening, arms locked behind his back, mood somber. His black shadow danced on the dusty hunting trophies and old tapestries adorning the far wall of the dark hunting lodge. Three smaller shadows danced near his, one belonging to Sergei Cheryakov, the cabin’s owner. Cheryakov was Lyunov’s successor as head of the Operational/ Technical Directorate. His cabin had often been the scene of weekend getaways, where Kalanin and others joined him in hunting boar or shooting skeet, but in the chaos of recent times there’d been scant occasion for such pleasures.
       The second shadow belonged to Aleksandr Gilyutin, hand picked by Kalanin as First Deputy Chief of the GRU. Gilyutin, Cheryakov and Kalanin together controlled and orchestrated the brain of the sleepy alligator that was the Russian army. The GRU, with its unlimited budget, was arguably the largest intelligence operation in the world. And, some said, the best.
       But the fourth shadow was neither GRU nor army. Valentin Demin was an outspoken prophet, an economist by profession, railing against those in the revolving power struggle since Putin. Demin was puzzled by his invitation to the lodge, for he was neither hunter nor skeet shooter. He came convinced that the gathering had another purpose; he was right.
       After an awkward period of traditional toasts the three sat listening to the muted roar and occasional spits of the fire, waiting for Kalanin to speak, each nursing his own dark thoughts. Outside the cabin another winter storm drove sleet against thick, wooden shutters, the icy tattoo adding its eerie voice to the moaning of wind in complaining thickets of fir trees.
       Kalanin turned, finally, facing the three. “As ranking officer, I alone am responsible for anything said here tonight so I will start by violating security.” He paced, arms still locked behind his back. “In these past few months we’ve seen the sharpest increase of civil unrest, destruction and murder in all our history, most of it disorganized — at least I hope it is — but so widespread that it needs no organization. It breeds on itself, yes?” Their silence was his answer.
        “Last month the army suffered another thirteen thousand wounded and thirty-five hundred dead, in skirmishes all the way to Sakhalin; the civilian figures are beyond belief. Thirty-eight army tanks and hundreds of other vehicles were destroyed, two bridges blown up, two of our largest refineries sabotaged. Bombs by the dozens have been set off in our subways and stores. Just a few examples out of hundreds, eh? Our soldiers fight for their lives against our own countrymen, and the ghost of Chechnya blooms around us like weeds in summer! Bodies are piling up on both sides faster than we can bury them, and it will get worse.” He exhaled in a rush. “It will get much, much worse.
       “And while the guts spill out of our country, corruption grows even faster, right? Millions of our people starve and tens of thousands die, while a handful make fortunes. Food rots behind barbed wire or in boxcars; a potato is worth a life, no?” He directed the last at Cheryakov, whose niece was among those who’d starved to death. “Good men drink themselves to oblivion rather than watch their families suffer. My friends, my comrades, I tell you — the end is in sight. Anyone who wants us can march in and take over now, today. We all think of China, but even Cuba could do it! The good news is that nobody wants us. Maybe tomorrow?”
       They said nothing. He paused, studying the sober faces in the firelight.
       “Now comes the bad news. The army, as of this morning, is 80 percent mobilized and will be fully mobilized in another few weeks if things continue this way. At this rate we have less than two years of oil reserves for the army, forget our own people. At the same time we run out of oil we are also broke as a nation. No one is going to give us oil, my friends, and we are now too weak to talk about taking it. Demin warned us years ago that our continued national stupidity would turn the West away, and we have fulfilled his prophecy, haven’t we? Even before Yeltsin we were destroying what chances we had, and under Putin we became true masters. Where do we turn now? China? The game is over! We become a nation of horses and wood, unless something is done now! We don’t even become that, because they are now eating horses!”
       “And dogs,” Gilyutin added.
       “Yes, dogs, too. I tell you, sensible men must act with the tools available, today, not tomorrow. I am here to tell you of one such tool. Do I hear arguments?” He bent forward slightly as if peering from a stage. The term ‘sensible men’ usually accompanied revolution, but there was no authority of substance to revolt against. One did not revolt against a pile of rubble, unless with something to replace it. Still no one spoke. Kalanin paced again.
       “Okay. Thirty years back KGB shut down a research project at Novosibirsk. Nina Rubinova came to us to continue that project, and she has worked for us since.”
       Cheryakov’s eyes narrowed as he searched his memory for the name.
       “About the time Andropov took over, Nina was perfecting a new weapon that used mental power. It was beyond anything we have now, beyond anything dreamed. We pushed her and hid her work all this time. She developed it fully, but after détente the weapon was unthinkable — so we’ve been sitting on it.”
       “Exactly how is this discussion related to our crisis?” interrupted Demin. His voice had a high, strained pitch to it. “Your tools are now suddenly weapons?”
       “Let him talk,” rumbled Cheryakov. What weapon system?
       “She calls this thing PPK. I don’t pretend to understand the details, but it began with this idiot boy whose mind power shattered any number of red marbles among other colors, without even seeing them, because he liked red. He did this at a surprising distance. Viktor Lyunov saw that marbles were silicon, which is the basis for transistors. Semiconductors, if you prefer.” Kalanin fished a computer chip from his pocket and set it on the rough-hewn table before them, stepping back.
       “Inside that chip are incredibly precise strands of metals so thin it would take ten or twenty to make a human hair. The slightest damage to the silicon part, and the whole thing is useless. So today, not with idiots but with normal people, we can turn anything using transistors like this into junk!” His emphasis was guttural. “The range can be as much as one hundred sixty kilometers, depending on certain elements that are part of the process. A two hundred mile circle! The energy penetrates anything — air, rock, water, steel and concrete — like it’s all so much open space. Name any other weapon with such a range. Well?”
       Cheryakov, who’d sunk into the leather chair, leaned forward slowly until he was bolt upright. He put a palm on each knee, but said nothing. How was it that such a development had been hidden from him? A complete weapon system?
       Kalanin allowed his words to sink home. “Now consider western technology, all held together by silicon no thicker than a butterfly’s wing. Cars and planes and telephones, computers, televisions, mass production, distribution, banking, governments, military machines, economies....” The three faces glowed and faded as tongues of flame licked at the blackened stones. “I can’t think of many things that work without transistors. Maybe a toothpick. A shovel?”
       Cheryakov was a big man, with a white beard and heavy white eyebrows that came together and gave his face a placid look. His expression was almost dreamy as he considered Kalanin’s words. Still he said nothing. Hidden from me all these years?
       “How would such a power...?” Demin crackled. He stopped, groping for the words. “You are preaching destruction, Boris Vasilyvich, and I can’t follow your reasoning at all. We are suffering an economic crisis here...starvation and anarchy, the collapse of whatever is left — well anyway, your proposal is totally confusing to me. Our leaders are the big problem, not the West...except for giving us their corruption.”
       “What proposal? I’m just giving you background!” He glared at Demin, then softened. “You are here, comrade Demin, because I’ve listened to your speeches and read your essays. A few weeks back you promoted massive infusions of experts who’d synchronize our economy, a giant network with thousands of western economic experts sprinkled all over Russia and even the republics, experts in finance, in agriculture, manufacturing, distribution; an army of experts. Their knowledge, applied to OUR systems, OUR structures, not theirs. Throw out our people, put in theirs, you said.”
       “In principle,” corrected Demin. “I was making a point in principle where our system suffers from timid, uncommitted...”
       “Of course in principle, but the western experts we once had cleared out after Ames was caught! They went the wrong direction, didn’t they? Well, there weren’t enough anyway for your idea to work; we’d need half a million all at once. Anyone with any kind of power in Russia now — they’re all corrupt or ignorant. Or stooges, eh? We’d have to replace them all. In principle, of course.”
       “It wouldn’t work,” argued Demin. “Even if we had the experts, no one in Moscow today or tomorrow or next year would have the brains to use them, except maybe Votrin himself, but he’s too busy shuffling the government, and time grows short. If any more lunatics gain control we won’t even have a country to save. But you still haven’t said one word on how you’d use this PPK thing. What did you plan to destroy with it? The Kremlin?”
       Kalanin leaned forward to give his words punch. “Your experts are all in America, my friend, all you need. They are the ones with the technology, the logistics, methodology, administration. They have more than enough experts and power to put our country back together, more than enough food to end our starvation. And they have oil.”
       “Boris, you are drunk!” Cheryakov scowled. “You make no sense. Give our country away?”
       Kalanin smiled. “No, Sergei, quite the opposite, but first answer me this: if we commanded American expertise right now, if we brought their experts over here and put them where they’re needed, would our people still starve, or riot, or die in the streets? Think! All their technological might here now, running things exactly as Valentin theorizes. Their wheat, their technology — their big computers! Would we fear China then? Iran? Anyone? Well?”
       “Irrelevant!” screamed Demin, leaping to his feet. “The situation is far too complex to discuss in these naive terms. Anyway, I don’t believe for a second there is any power like you describe. What you’re saying is stupid, crazy!”
       “Because it’s complex we can’t discuss it? You sound like a politician. Imagine what you could do with American might the way I just described it? They are the solution; in enough numbers they can do it. Come on, humor me. Would it help us? In theory?”
       “Oh, in theory there is little doubt, but you can’t...”
       “Little doubt! You say little doubt. Did I hear you say that? Did we all hear it? Yes? No?”
       “All right, all right, I’ll humor you. In a classroom it could be discussed as a remotely possible solution, perhaps the only solution if something else isn’t done by our infinitely wise leaders, and quickly. But what you are describing to achieve such a thing is idiocy!” His hands trembled as he reached for one of the opened bottles.
       “This is all madness.” Cheryakov shook his head. “You surprise me, Boris Vasilyvich.”
       “Since you are both humoring me so nicely, I have even more. You see, our solution isn’t limited to just America. We can take over any technically advanced country, as quickly or as slowly as we wish. Japan, China — Germany. Britain. All of them if we like, without destruction.”
       “You’d simply walk in and take over,” sighed Cheryakov.
       “With your fairy tale PPK power,” Demin sneered.
       “Well, I see that we are all in a receptive mood,” Kalanin cooed, “so now you will hear the real proposal.” He waited for Demin to sit again.
       “Let us say there is a small city in America located some distance from other population centers. I propose putting one of our trained PPK agents inside this target city. He would be conditioned for a range of...oh, say ten miles by the American system; sixteen kilometers. With the release of PPK power from this agent’s mind, every transistorized thing inside a circle of twenty miles — the number isn’t critical — would become junk instantly. Everything stops, you see: phones, computers, radios, clocks, traffic controls, televisions, watches, everything. Anything you can think of using modern electronics, which is anything you can think of in the first place, all junk. Chaos will be unleashed beyond anything a bomb could produce, but without devastation. Nothing ruined, buildings still standing, roads still there. Even glass in all the windows. Maybe a few cracks...”
       “Yes, yes, we’re not imbeciles,” snapped Demin. “And then? What then? Are the Americans going to just sit there?”
       “Well, of course they will analyze the cause,” Kalanin smiled, his index finger waggling as if conducting music. “And when they grasp what has happened to their electronic city, while they’re busy denying to themselves and to the world that such a thing can come from anything earthly, we will tell them exactly how we did it: with one very ordinary man! Thirty or forty trained agents operating at full range, and the whole continent can be effectively reduced to junk just as easily. Of course, no one will let that happen, and that...”
       “This is not destruction, of course! You are only talking about wiping out an insignificant hemisphere,” Demin mocked. His glass to his lips, he tilted his head back with a single motion.
       “We shut down one little city, my friend. That’s all we’ll need, in America or anywhere in the world, although we can easily repeat the example if needed. Think of Japan. What if the U.S. had dropped one of their atomic bombs on some little island instead of killing the residents of two cities? Do you think the Japanese would have been stupid enough to continue their war after seeing a whole island vaporize? Of course not! So will the Americans watch a whole city turn to instant junk, not a thing out of place otherwise, and just go back to business as usual afterward? Of course not! We alone have PPK, and nothing known can block its power. They’ll have no choice but to open their doors to us and become part of us, work for us. Their allies, too — Japan, Britain, Germany, even China — if we want them. They’ll all be thinking that their cities will be next on the list. Is there another way? We just agreed that our very existence is bleak, that our people will continue dying by the thousands, maybe millions, and that in a few more months Russia will no longer exist. Are you all ready to speak Chinese?”
       “My poor Boris,” sighed Cheryakov again. “I’ve never seen you this way. We’d trigger Armageddon with your idiot proposition. Is this really why you called us here tonight?”
       Kalanin smiled. It was a difficult concept to grasp all at once. Even Gilyutin had foolishly missed the most vital aspect at first.
       “Sergei Andreevich, my good friend, don’t you realize that the total American arsenal is built on that same butterfly wing of silicon? Everything that can hurt us uses transistors. All their computers, missiles, planes, satellites, communication. Their soldiers even carry personal electronics without which they can’t function; not any more.”
       “And their submarines?” countered Cheryakov. “Their fleets. Will they conveniently all cluster together so your PPK can take them out, too? What has happened to your reason?”
       “You limit your thinking; expand it. Americans will face a dilemma of incredible proportions. They’ll know we can reduce every city and town, in every state, to barbaric conditions in an instant, because our example will prove it. They’ll also know that their reactors will all fail, meltdowns many times Chernobyl, because we’ll tell them that will happen, too. We’ll never target their reactors, obviously, but they’ll assume it. Now think about the biggest problem of all, administration and control of two hundred million people. There is your nightmare! Records are all in their computers. There will be no radio or TV or communications of any kind, no ground control for their satellites, not even navigation systems. Their money system collapses. Cars and trucks won’t start, so nothing moves; their highways are parking lots, their airports junkyards. All business stops. Food becomes impossible to find, and riots follow. Those with firearms quickly become lords, as well as targets for others similarly armed. Public health disappears and the bodies will pile up. Unchecked epidemics will follow. What could they possibly do, Sergei, to stop all that from happening if they launched missiles from their submarines, even if they could launch them? The slightest twitch on their side could mean destruction of all America in a single moment! Remember that it only takes thirty or forty PPK agents to do this and we can easily have those agents in position. If the Americans don’t believe we have that capability after one demonstration, then we will quickly use another target to prove our point.”
       “And, of course, that is not destruction?” harped Demin.
       “Except that it will never happen, and that is precisely my point,” said Kalanin. “They can’t let it happen. Look….” He made a fist. “Imagine that I am gripping a switch connected to a bomb of unimaginable power. As long as I squeeze this switch the bomb will not go off, but you’ll all die if I let go; you’ll all die if you kill me, or jostle me, or trick me into letting go. What will you do? Well? Won’t you find out what it takes to buy me off? Of course! Americans are no different.”
       “You will never convince parliament or the president that this PPK should be used,” objected Demin, “even if it is what you say.”
       “Who’s asking? Not ten minutes ago you said our leaders didn’t have the brains to use experts even if they were all standing here in rows with their sleeves rolled up. Anyway the parliament and even the Security Council is a joke, a day to day thing now, so which version of it are you going to ask? Today’s or tomorrow’s?”
       “They must know,” Cheryakov murmured, without conviction.
       “Why? Think! We can deliver America to them in such a way that even Nina’s red marble idiot could see it as the answer to our crisis.”
       “You’re saying we’ll be the only ones? That responsibility will be ours alone?” Demin croaked, his voice straining again.
       “Does that bother you? The demonstration succeeds or it fails, one or the other, nothing in between. Success is reason enough to let others know we were behind it. Failure?” He shrugged. “What imbecile advertises failure? No one else will know if we fail, but we have tested Nina’s methods constantly; there have been no failures, only variations such as range. We are now to the point where any of us in this room can be trained.” He paused. “U.S. scientists will never guess the source, unless we tell them; they’ll blame a UFO. And if our target city included some kind of military base, which in this case it does...”
       “You have tested this on such a target here in Russia?” asked Cheryakov. “This was going on in my directorate, and yet I knew nothing of it?”
       “It was a psychological program, Sergei, so naturally we hid it in one of our training units. Look there. Anyway there is no large-scale way to test PPK until its power is needed. We did limited testing in the Urals.”
       “Then how do we know you’re right? How do you yourself know?”
       “The demonstration is its own proof, and since the conduits are all in place….” He shrugged. “We can have a trained man in position in under a week. He has been ready for months. Where is the risk? Well?”
       “What is the city?”
       “Las Vegas.”

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