9

General Dimitri Gretchenko gazed at Ben and Rickert as he methodically prepared his tea.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked, gesturing at the metal urn at his elbow. “It is called a samovar,” he said without waiting for a reply, his thick accent emerging from beneath a bushy mustache.

“You boil the water in the urn using a metal heating rod that runs down the center of the device,” the Russian continued. “In the old days, but not so long ago, fuel for the heating tube could be coal, oil, anything that burned. Now, of course, it is electric. But the process is same, yes? Heat the water, which then heats the zavarka, the water and tea leaves in the container here at the top. You pour a small amount of zavarka in the cup when it is hot, like so, then add the hot water from the samovar. More water or less, for weaker or stronger tea.”

The old general stared intently at his American visitors as he completed the ritual. The white porcelain cup sat in a white saucer, unornamented. The dark, nearly black tea was hot, too hot to drink yet.

“It is a tradition, part of Russian life. Tsars, peasants, communists and capitalists, all drink tea in this way. A simple drink. But very important to Russians.”

Steam curled out of the cup, unhurried. Outside, bitter wind howled through icy teeth.

“But tea did not come from Russia,” Gretchencko said, folding his hands on the table in front of him and ignoring the steam and the storm. “In 1638, an envoy from Tsar Michael I to Altyn Khan, a Mongolian ruler, came back with these dried leaves, a strange gift. But it was not long before Russians saw the value of this new material and adopted tea as our own, a national drink. And you, Lt. Shepherd, are tea, a strange new thing from a very distant place.”

Gretchenko finally lifted his cup and blew softly over the hot liquid, his eyes never leaving his visitors. He sipped, expressionless. “The only question is, are you a gift, or something else?”

Ben and Rickert said nothing. Ben slid his plain, porcelain cup containing the puddle of black zavarka under the small faucet at the base of the samovar and turned the metal key to release the hot water. When his cup was nearly full, he turned the key shut. The samovar was old, but the key moved silently, a machine well and long maintained. Ben waited a moment for the drink to cool, then lifted it to his lips.

“Excellent, sir. The finest I’ve ever had,” Ben said.

“Of course it is,” Gretchenko replied with a grin, his eyes still cold. “It is the first real tea you have ever tasted.”

Ben could sense Rickert’s impatience, but the process seemed important, almost sacramental. Ben knew this trip was as much diplomatic as military. Outside, a cold wind smacked anyone unfortunate enough to have to scuttle between buildings. It would be a bracing walk back to their airplane waiting on the tarmac of JSC Information Satellite Systems in Zheleznogorsk, central Russia. Ben had never been to Russia before. Every mental image he had of it certainly seemed to be validated here—except for this Russian general. He didn’t seem to be an enemy, but not quite a friend, either. He was wary, which Ben could understand. Something seemed to be troubling him even more than the mrill invasion.

Rickert, who was bored by the tea ritual and yearned for coffee, cleared his throat.

“General, as you know, we have given you everything. The details of Lt. Shepherd’s . . . encounter, the schematics, the initial test results, everything. Very few countries have received the details you have seen.”

Rickert pointed to a thin, sleek laptop computer opened next to the antique samovar. A series of schematics and construction reports flashed across the LCD screen.

“Yes,” Gretchenko said, “I have seen the data. But the data is not what interests me. Correction, the data is tremendously interesting. For my engineers, this is probably as close as they will ever come to a religious experience.”

“So what’s the issue?” Rickert asked.

“You have, what’s the word, ‘outsourced’? Yes, that is correct. You have outsourced this work to us, and to other governments, I presume. We will build your weapons. Guns more powerful than any I expected to see in my lifetime. And then we will turn them over to you. This is not a comfortable position for my government, for my nation, to be in.”

“I understand,” Rickert said.

“Do you?” Gretchenko replied, one eyebrow arching, the closest thing to emotion he’d shown since they’d met. “It is not so long since the Cold War, my friend, and there are many who remember when our missiles were pointed at each other. Some in my country preferred it that way. This new arrangement . . . they will say Russia surrendered without ever firing a shot. There will be problems.”

“What are you saying?” Rickert asked.

Gretchenko smiled, but Ben thought he could read sadness in the Russian’s face and voice. “It’s been a long time since you Americans faced revolution and civil war. But not so for Russia. Blood flows easier, and hotter, than tea in some parts of the world.”

A Russian captain entered the room and handed the general a phone. He glanced at the screen and stood up.

“I have ordered all production to full speed. My men will work night and day. We will have our machines ready in time, and I pray, yes, pray, even an old communist like me, that you will have the strength to protect our planet. But even in victory, not all things can be preserved. You may find this world much changed, even should you win the day. Go, now, and report back to your leaders, and I shall do the same.”

“This isn’t going to help matters,” Ben said as they walked out on the airstrip.

Zheleznogorsk was a “closed town,” locked down with strict travel restrictions, one of several in the always-suspicious motherland. Once an official state secret and devoted to producing weapons-grade plutonium for the Soviet Union’s nuclear program, Zheleznogorsk was now largely a company town for JSC, which had developed the GLONASS navigation system, the Russian answer to the US military’s network of global positioning system satellites. Nearly thirty years after Glasnost, openness in the heart of Russia was still more rumor than reality.

So the town was self-contained, drab and plain, but well stocked for its 86,000 or so citizens. That included the twin runways on JSC’s corporate campus, mammoth stretches of high-grade asphalt capable of launching and landing the hulking Tupolev Tu-160 and Tu-95 strategic bombers that had once been designed to drop nuclear bombs from Sacramento to Savannah. A Tu-160, which to Ben looked a bit like a weaponized Concorde passenger jet, was parked in one of the open hangers.

“If the Russian government crumbles in the middle of their construction effort, we’re in a bad way,” Ben said. “We’re down to the bare minimum number of planned satellite launches as it is. Without the Russians, we’re doomed. We have to share our info with the world, make it clear this isn’t a hoax or a conspiracy to destabilize other governments.”

It was January, six weeks after the first encounter in New Mexico, and it was late, cold, and dark. This place redefines “dead of winter,” Ben thought. But the stark, blunt JSC buildings hummed with activity and light. Ben’s test fire demo had guaranteed that buzz wouldn’t die down anytime soon. Ben ignored the slice of cold wind and dry snow across his face as he and Rickert walked to their waiting US Air Force cargo plane, a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. Rickert was not as stoic, gasping at the frigid finger of winter that snaked down through his tightly fastened collar.

“I don’t disagree. It just isn’t my call,” he said, nearly yelling over the wind. “The president has convened another advisory council meeting for Tuesday, so you’ll get another chance to make your case.”

Ben started to reply but stopped as a new information readout appeared before his eyes. The first satellites they’d built, small surveillance birds, had already been launched several weeks ago. These early warning systems detected the electromagnetic disturbances, or “cuts,” as the scientists were calling them, created when alien spacecrafts traveled across interstellar distances. The data Ben was receiving indicated a small force of mrill spy satellites would soon enter the solar system. Unsure what intelligence the brin had shared with the humans, the mrill were treading carefully. Ben knew Earth wasn’t ready. The mrill would soon realize that, and then the strike force would come.

Rickert noticed the look on Ben’s face, the vacant expression as a new wave of digital information sprawled across his eyes.

“What is it?”

Ben at last blinked and refocused on Rickert.

“I don’t think we have until Tuesday, sir. They’re almost here.”

The two Americans paused for a moment on the frozen runway of the Russian satellite maker. Then they ran for their waiting jet.