Page 26 of Winterveil

Klaudia turned to go, and this time Julian let her. When the sound of her footsteps faded, he leaned forward against the wall and squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t open them again until he was sure he wouldn’t cry.

His first class, Strategic Leader Foundational Course, was nearly full by the time he arrived, leaving Julian to take a seat in the middle of the first row. He felt the eyes of the other students on him as he entered, fixed and scorching. Still smarting from his confrontation with Klaudia, Julian slid silently into his chair.

The teacher—Professor Narendra, according to his syllabus—did not greet the students or introduce himself. He didn’t say a word. Instead, he began writing something on the chalkboard. When he was finished, he turned back around, dusted off his hands, and stepped to the side, allowing the class to read what he had written.

WHO KILLED MIKHAIL GORBACHEV?

Julian frowned, bewildered. He glanced around the room and found that his classmates looked equally puzzled. Professor Narendra said nothing, arms crossed over his chest.

“Well?” he asked, after several excruciating moments had passed. “Surely you’ve all heard plenty on this subject before.”

Of course they had. Julian had never taken a history or government class that failed to cover it. Gorbachev had been a promising Soviet reformer who was expected to take over as general secretary of the Communist Party upon the death of the ailing current secretary, Chernenko. His leadership promised an easing of tensions between Russia and the West, and, in 1984, already making good on his promise, Gorbachev had traveled to London to meet with Margaret Thatcher.

“I like Mr. Gorbachev,” Thatcher had remarked. “We can do business together.” And then, as they stepped outside Downing Street for a joint press conference, a shot rang out from the crowd. The bullet spattered Gorbachev’s brains on the pavement.

The shooter was never apprehended and, in the years and decades that followed, it did not become clear who the assassin had been. Had Gorbachev been killed by an anti-communist radical? Or had he been taken out by his own countrymen, the Soviet old guard, who did not want to make peace with the West? Julian had always suspected that the CIA and MI6 knew the truth, even if they never revealed it to the public.

Gorbachev’s assassination was always emphasized as a major historical moment. In the early ’80s, with the ascension of a new class of Soviet politicians, there had been some hope that the frozen conflict between Russia and the West might be thawing. But those dreams died with Gorbachev. Another round of proxy battles and regime changes exploded, and the gyre of the Cold War turned on.

Tentatively, a boy in the back of the class raised his hand.

“Gorbachev was assassinated by a rogue MI6 agent,” he said. “They viewed him as a danger to the West.”

Professor Narendra remained silent. Another boy raised his hand.

“No,” the second boy said. “Andropov and Gromyko ordered his assassination. They wanted to keep the Iron Curtain intact.”

A chorus of murmurs rose from the rest of the class, back-and-forth whispers as each student claimed a side. Even as their voices grew louder, the arguments more contentious, Julian didn’t say a word. After a few more moments of his classmates’ quarreling, he raised his hand.

Professor Narendra inclined his chin. “Yes, Mr. Joyce-Young?”

At the sound of Julian’s name, his classmates suddenly went quiet. Julian grimaced, but persevered.

“It doesn’t matter who killed him,” he said. “Whatever trust there might have been was always doomed to fall apart. The assassin just sped up the inevitable. For the West to prosper, the Soviet Union would have to fall, and vice versa . . . a zero-sum game.”

A slow smile came across Professor Narendra’s face.

“Precisely,” he said. “In international relations theory, we refer to this concept as a security dilemma. States are inclined to distrust each other because any loss of power is another’s gain. And with each iteration of this game, the distrust grows. Cooperation is impossible in an anarchic system.”

Professor Narendra wrote the word anarchy on the board. The students hurriedly pulled out their tablets and began to take notes.

“That the world is an anarchic system is one of the basic principles of IR theory,” Professor Narendra said. “Among the others is the principle that the state is the fundamental unit of analysis. Domestic events are irrelevant to interstate relations. Think of each state as a black box.”

The students scrawled away furiously. Julian watched and waited.

“We will operate under these assumptions as we proceed through the course curriculum,” Professor Narendra went on. “And these are the rules by which our strategy simulations run.”

Finally. Julian sat up in his seat.

“These simulations form the core of the strategy discipline. We will undertake a new one every week. The class will be divided into factions—some real, some fictitious—and fight for control of the globe. Through these simulations, you will learn how to predict the course of war, and, eventually, how to steer it.”

The class was silent. Some students furrowed their brows anxiously; others looked eager.

“Today,” said Professor Narendra, “I will merely introduce you to the simulation technology. Please welcome Valeran’s number-one student, Klaudia Shimonova, to help me in this demonstration.”

All around the room there were gasps, and even scattered applause. The classroom door opened and Klaudia stepped in. Seeing her made Julian’s stomach hollow and his heart pound in his chest.

But as she crossed the room to where Professor Narendra stood, she didn’t even spare him a glance. She didn’t look anywhere but straight ahead, face as impassive and gaze as cold as ever.