Dupont Circle, Washington DC, February, 2078, Saturday…

Vladimir Kalinin aka Sergio Battaglia was having a bad day. His own personal brand of diplomacy with Colombia and Venezuela was causing complaints to be aired by his usually compliant minions.

Not that I don't deserve it. Things moved along too fast. The first complaint came from Peter Rayburn, National Security Adviser. He slid into the backseat of Sergio's limo.

"The boss wants to know what's going on. Why aren't these guys cooling it now? The UN troops are already in place. Your engineers are there on site. Everyone should be happy, happy, happy."

Sergio frowned. Committing an error, no matter how small, was something hard to admit.

"I think I stirred the pot a little too much. The assassination attempts were already in motion before we got the accord. I couldn't stop them because I did too good of a job of convincing Mora and Palacios. Sorry. You're just going to have to try to bring them back together using some good old fashioned diplomacy. I don't want any fighting to go on, same as Delgado. I've got what I want. Except for one thing."

He told Rayburn what had happened on level S9 in Quantico and a little about his pet black project in Maracaibo.

"Shit, you do get around, don't you? What do you want me to do?"

"Make sure neither Pezanowski nor Pennestri affect that project. In fact I want it moved to UNSA. That's where it belongs."

"That's crazy. UNSA will bureaucratically starve it to death."

"No. My funding for it will continue, but through the UN. The US is coming apart at the seams, Peter. Can't you people see that? No one pays any attention to the US government anymore, nationally or internationally. And don't worry about our enemies having access to knowledge we don't want them to have. We won't give UNSA all the information. It will still be only a handful of people who have it. We've had other projects like that with the UN and earlier with NATO. Don't screw this up. It's really important."

The latter complaint came that evening during one of Pezanowski's trying visits. It was bad enough that the man invaded his privacy, but to berate him was almost intolerable.

"I wish I knew what the fuck you're doing!" said Pezanowski.

He tried to look irate. Battaglia only thought he looked more stupid. His ruddy face was blotched. He looked a little like Adolph Hitler trying to stir up the German rabble in the early days of the brownshirts. Although Sergio had little use for dictators, he reluctantly acknowledged that the little Austrian had almost done it. He certainly beat out Pezanowski when it came to brains.