“Whom else can you trust, Mikhail Eduardovich? The Rodina faces possible destruction, the Party leadership has gone mad, and I don’t even have full control of the KGB. Don’t you see: we have lost! We must now save what we can.” “But we still hold enemy territory—” “Yesterday does not matter. Today does not matter. What matters is one week from today. What will our Defense Minister do when it becomes obvious even to him that we have failed? Have you considered that? When desperate men realize they have failed—and those desperate men have control of atomic weapons, then what?”
