Tom Clancy - Politika

Table of Contents

THE BESTSELLING NOVELS OF

TOM CLANCY

RED RABBIT

Tom Clancy returns to Jack Ryans early days in an extraordinary novel of global political drama...

A wild, satisfying ride. New York Daily News

THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON

A clash of world powers. President Jack Ryans trial by fire...

Heart-stopping action... Clancy still reigns.

The Washington Post

RAINBOW SIX

John Clark is used to doing the CIAs dirty work. Now hes taking on the world...

Action-packed. The New York Times Book Review

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

A devastating terrorist act leaves Jack Ryan as president of the United States ...

Undoubtedly Clancys best yet.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

NOVELS BY TOM CLANCY

The Hunt for Red October
Red Storm Rising
Patriot Games
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Clear and Present Danger
The Sum of All Fears
Without Remorse
Debt of Honor
Executive Orders
Rainbow Six
The Bear and the Dragon
Red Rabbit
The Teeth of the Tiger

SSN: Strategies of Submarine Warfare

NONFICTION

Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship
Armored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment
Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing
Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit
Airborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force
Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier
Special Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S. Army Special Forces

Into the Storm: A Study in Command
(written with General Fred Franks, Jr., Ret.)
Every Man a Tiger
(written with General Charles Horner, Ret.)
Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces
(written with General Carl Stiner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)

CREATED BY TOM CLANCY

Splinter Cell

CREATED BY TOM CLANCY AND STEVE PIECZENIK

Tom Clancys Op-Center
Tom Clancys Op-Center: Mirror Image
Tom Clancys Op-Center: Games of State
Tom Clancys Op-Center: Acts of War
Tom Clancys Op-Center: Balance of Power
Tom Clancys Op-Center: State of Siege
Tom Clancys Op-Center: Divide and Conquer
Tom Clancys Op-Center: Line of Control
Tom Clancys Op-Center: Mission of Honor
Tom Clancys Op-Center: Sea of Fire
Tom Clancys Op-Center: Call to Treason

Tom Clancys Net Force
Tom Clancys Net Force: Hidden Agendas
Tom Clancys Net Force: Night Moves
Tom Clancys Net Force: Breaking Point
Tom Clancys Net Force: Point of Impact
Tom Clancys Net Force: CyberNation
Tom Clancys Net Force: State of War
Tom Clancys Net Force: Changing of the Guard
Tom Clancys Net Force: Springboard

CREATED BY TOM CLANCY AND MARTIN GREENBERG

Tom Clancys Power Plays: Politika
Tom Clancys Power Plays: ruthless.com
Tom Clancys Power Plays: Shadow Watch
Tom Clancys Power Plays: Bio-Strike
Tom Clancys Power Plays: Cold War
Tom Clancys Power Plays: Cutting Edge
Tom Clancys Power Plays: Zero Hour
Tom Clancys Power Plays: Wild Card

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and
any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

TOM CLANCYS POWER PLAYS: POLITIKA

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with
RSE Holdings, Inc.

PRINTING HISTORY

Berkley edition / December 1997

Copyright 1997 by RSE Holdings, Inc.

eISBN : 978-1-101-00252-0

BERKLEY
Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY and the B design
are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

http://us.penguingroup.com

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Jerome Preisler for his valuable contribution to the preparation of the manuscript. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Larry Segriff, Denise Little, John Heifers, Robert Youdelman, Esq., Tom Mallon, Esq., the wonderful people at The Putnam Berkley Group, including Phyllis Grann, David Shanks, and Tom Colgan, and Doug Littlejohns, Frank Boosman, Jim Van Verth, Doug Oglesby, the rest of the Politika team, and the other fine folks at Red Storm Entertainment. As always, I would like to thank Robert Gottlieb of the William Morris Agency, my agent and friend. But most important, it is for you, my readers, to determine how successful our collective endeavor has been.

Tom Clancy

ONE

THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW SEPTEMBER 24, 1999

HEADACHES, VODKA, AND ASPIRIN; ASPIRIN, VODKA, and headaches.

The combination was enough to make anyone reel, President Boris Yeltsin thought, massaging his temple with one hand as he popped three tablets into his mouth with the other.

He reached for the glass on his desk and took a long drink, then silently began counting to thirty, swishing the vodka in his mouth to dissolve the aspirins.

Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, swallow. He put down the glass, lowered his head, and pressed his palms into his eyes. And then waited.

After a little while the pain in his head eased. Not as much as on previous days, however. Not nearly. And he still felt some dizziness. Soon he would have to add another tablet to his home remedy. Four to a swallow. Or perhaps he would experiment. Increase the amount of vodka, chase down the medicine with a good, clean shot. Certainly that would make things more palatable. Still, one had to wonder about certain things. Was it possible to overdose on aspirin and alcohol? And where would it lead? Actually, he already knew that. Perhaps, before it was all over, he would again turn on the television news and see himself dancing foolishly to rock and roll music at a campaign stop, behaving for all the world like some drunken teenager.

Yeltsin sat there at his desk with his eyes closed, the curtains drawn over his windows to block out the sunlight pouring in over the high east wall of Red Square. He wondered what the headaches, dizziness and early morning drinking said about the general state of his health. Certainly nothing good. And why not be expansive and think about its meaning vis--vis the state of the body politic? If, as he believed, the power of an elected president was largely symbolic in the modern world, how might the declining condition of a man who held that position be interpreted? A man who had scarcely had so much as a coldand never had a drink during the dayin his entire life before taking office was now a man who had lost his appetite for sex but arose from bed each morning with an irresistible lust for his vodka. A man who had already spent too much time under the surgeons knife, he thought, absently rubbing the scar left by his last bypass surgery.

Yeltsin straightened, opened his eyes. The bookcase opposite his desk doubled and trebled in his vision. He took a deep breath, blinking twice, but the room remained unfocused. Dear heaven, he felt ugly. Much of it, he knew, was due to the pressures of dealing with Korsikov and Pedachenko. Especially the latter. He had been infecting the nation with his rhetoric for some time... and the infection had been spreading more rapidly than ever since hed acquired a televised platform from which to promote his extremist views. What would happen if the situation in the southern agricultural areas worsened? It was one thing for Pedachenko to rail about the corrupting influence of Western dollars, and the threat that he believed NATOand especially the Founding Actrepresented to Russian interests. These were abstractions to his audience. But hunger was another matter. Everyone was capable of understanding it. And it would not be assuaged by calming words from political rivals. Pedachenko was clever and opportunistic. He knew which buttons to push. And there was no escaping his charisma. If the dreadful projections being made about the crop failure were even close to accurate...