The eye of the lion

The emergency meeting in Switzerland had failed. During one of the points of the American Secretary of State’s declarations, Vostrikov had stood up, thumping the negotiation table. Raising his voice he declared that a traitor to the homeland, Gorbachev, had not only sold his country to Western Capitalism, thus causing the nation’s disintegration, but that he’d also irresponsibly returned some war booty that had been rightly won by the Soviet Union at the cost of millions of Russian lives: East Germany. The only thing his government was doing was reclaiming its legal right to something that already belonged to it.

The whole room had broken out in an uproar. Shouts and insults were heard, as well as voices of approval. The meeting’s moderator was shouting his head off, asking for order.

Douglas had stood up, asking his Secretary of State to sit down. He’d given Vostrikov a defiant look and pronounced the words that would send a shudder through the hearts of all those present.

“In that case, you need to know that the United States is prepared to use all its force to defend the sovereignty of Germany and of any of our NATO allies, right up to the final consequences.”

The Russian President looked at him without replying. He threw his chair aside and left the room.

The meeting was over.

The lot of the civilized world had been cast.