The owl and the rooster were welcomed at Robert's house by the Wolf and the goat. Robert and the Goose had gone off to make contact with the Leviathan and were thus unaware of the news of Solomon being accused of rape. The Wolf and the goat were following the events surrounding Ryan closely and were eager to get the owl and the rooster's take on it.
"That's the cat, right?" The Wolf asked the owl.
"Yes, the Raven sent her to do a job that only she could do and she did it flawlessly, like she always does."
"What's going to happen to him now?" The goat asked.
"I don't know, the cat and the Raven wouldn't have left behind anything with which he could exculpate himself, really it depends on whether the cat decides to stop playing both sides," the rooster said.
"We're getting close to the end of things; who do you think is in better shape?" The Wolf asked.
"I don't know; the behemoth should be weaker because it was awakened with the energy of only five guardians, normally you have to have a minimum of six, but I've never known a creature that's hatched from the red egg to be this powerful before, so right now I would give the Raven a slight advantage," the rooster answered.
The other three guardians were in general agreement with the rooster, though there was one caveat that the owl was keen to add.
"Don't forget, the lion is still out there, it and it's adoptee haven't made their move yet."
It was in fact the case that Sonya, following the Russian PM's threat about 'consequences' in relation to the result of the REJOIN referendum, had decided that the time was fast approaching when she would have to make her move, an assessment with which the lion agreed. In the weeks following President Kolschonski's remarks about consequences there was a buzz throughout the buildings of the Russian Ministry of Defense as anticipation grew of an imminent directive from the president to prepare for an invasion of Ukraine. Sonya had by this time been elevated to a logistics position in the War Plans Division. Her background as the CEO of the largest weapons manufacturer in Russia made her the perfect person for the job, and being in War Plans afforded her the opportunity to network with high ranking military officials on a daily basis. Sonya had expected that she would have a hard time being accepted by the military establishment because she had no background in the military; to her surprise the military higher-ups all held her in high regard for the work that she had done in producing weapons that had modernized Russia's military and they were thrilled to have her on board at the Ministry of Defense. Sonya represented new blood and fresh thinking, this made her an important addition to the Ministry of Defense which had a history of promoting based on family connections which had fostered a culture of exclusion and rigidity of thought within the military. In her short time as a Ministry of Defense bureaucrat Sonya had not been afraid to point out areas where she believed improvements were needed and in every such case that she identified she had a detailed proposal for how those improvements might be made. Her willingness to point out institutional deficiencies rubbed some the wrong way but for the most part her candor was refreshing and her insights and attention to detail were appreciated and respected.
Her keen observations, meticulous attention to detail and deep knowledge about military hardware were the reasons why she rose up the ranks to War Plans in the space of just five months, garnering the recognition of many along the way. One man in particular was especially impressed by her, General Yevgevny Lobachenko, who was the Head of Strategic Planning in the War Plans division and had personally requested for Sonya to be promoted to War Plans. Sonya and the general spoke often and when they spoke it was with absolute frankness. General Lobachenko had been closely following the poll numbers in Ukraine on REJOIN and he had grown concerned by the recent trend in the poll numbers which showed REJOIN losing significant support, mostly due to Fyodor Milichenko spending more time cultivating his fame in America than on REJOIN. Opponents of REJOIN attacked Fyodor, saying that he had never actually cared about what was best for Ukraine, he had only become a REJOINer because of the opportunity that it afforded him to become a public figure. The attacks against Fyodor were resonating with Ukrainians, and the REJOIN poll numbers started to slip. General Lobachenko worried that the president had invested too much political capital in REJOIN and if the referendum failed he was going to have to do something to save face, most likely that meant an invasion of Ukraine to take by force what should have been delivered by the referendum.
Increasing the general's belief in the inevitability of an invasion was the personnel that made up the president's inner circle. President Kolschonski had three senior advisers who collectively came to be known as his inner circle: General Sergei Sechin, the Russian Defense Minister; Igor Lavrov, head of the FSB and former KGB agent; and Bishop Yury Shoygu, patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. The three men were all considered foreign policy hardliners whose vision for Russia was for it to become an expansionist nation that stood in opposition to the West. The president's inner circle's vision for Russia was diametrically opposed to the vision of the oligarchs, whose vision for Russia was that the growth of the economy should be prioritized above all else and that an open relationship with the West based on cooperation in areas of mutual interest was the best way forward in that regard. Over the past few years, the influence of the oligarchs over the president had slowly shrank while the hardliners saw their influence increase. With the advent of REJOIN the hardliners saw their opportunity to consolidate their power and urged the president to use the tools at his disposal to support the REJOIN campaign in the most discreet manner possible. The oligarchs were against the idea, believing that if the country was caught engaging in election interference it would give them a black eye that would scare away foreign capital and hurt the economy. President Kolschonski chose not to listen to them and the oligarchs quickly found themselves pushed out of the sphere of influence around the president completely. The president was receiving advice exclusively from his triumvirate of hardliners, who advised him that a meeting with Fyodor Milichenko would send a message to the Ukrainian people that Russia was committed to making sure that reunification was smooth and as advantageous for Ukraine as possible. Instead he had painted himself into a corner by meeting with Fyodor and making his subsequent comments about 'consequences'. General Lobachenko's assessment of the situation was that if the referendum failed an invasion was inevitable, and his advice to Sonya was that she start thinking about what she would need to contribute to the planning and execution of such an invasion. Sonya asked Yevgevny to share with her what his honest thoughts were about Russia invading Ukraine, and, like her, he thought it was an awful idea.
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Sonya was a proud Russian and didn't want to see her country's image suffer the mortal wound that it would suffer if they launched an unjust war against a weaker nation for the sake of political face saving. The time had come for her to make her move. Feeling that she could trust him, Sonya invited Yevgevny to her apartment for dinner one night and had the lion speak to him. Yevgevny had always suspected that her lion was no ordinary lion and that it was with Sonya because there was something special about her, and now he had confirmation. The three of them sat and talked for over two hours about everything that was going on in the world and the role that the various guardians played in all of it. Were it not for the talking lion before him Yevgevny would have thought that Sonya was a raving lunatic, but everything that she had described fitted together perfectly, and being in possession of the power of the snake would explain why one meeting with Fyodor Milichenko had caused the president to suddenly start speaking the language of war. The impending war, as Sonya described it, was about more than just territorial expansion, it was one part of a much larger struggle for control of the destiny of the world, a struggle which they had to decide which side they were going to be on. Both were adamant that they were against the war and that it should be stopped if possible. Sonya asked Yevgevny what the sentiment was among high ranking officers regarding the prospect of an invasion and Yevgevny told her that mostly they were against it; it was only those that owed their careers to the personal intervention of the president that were for it.
"If that's true then we should have a chance at stopping this," Sonya said.
"I don't see how we do that without getting rid of the president."
"My plan is to get rid of the president."
"Get rid of him and replace him with who?"
"With me, of course."
Yevgevny could tell that she was serious but couldn't for the life of him understand how Sonya could be so confident about her chances of success. Sonya told him what her plan was and even if everything went perfectly there was still only a slim chance that it would actually work. Sonya was young and ambitious, and Yevgevny felt a responsibility to warn her of the danger of recklessly pursuing an extreme ambition.
"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine, all I need to know from you is whether you'll be able to carry out what your role would be in all of this."
"I've got good relationships with all of the people that we'd need to help us, we'd just have to make it worth their while."
Sonya had the means to make it worth their while financially and if what they desired was advancement then once she was president she could do that for them too. Sonya and Yevgevny agreed to move ahead with her plan, which left one thing for Sonya to do: meet with the Goose. The lion told her that it was important that she meet with the Goose so they could coordinate their strategies. Sonya agreed with the lion but the problem was that they had no idea where the Goose was.
She got an insight into where she might find the Goose in a dream she had. In the dream she was driving across a bridge over a river, on the other side of the river was New York City, and white feathers were falling from the sky above the city. The UN General Assembly was a week away, if she could get herself added to the Russian delegation attending the assembly then she could visit the Goose during the trip without raising any suspicions. To get herself added to the UN delegation she needed to pull some strings at the Foreign Ministry, where she had friends from her time running EDM Enterprises and doing business all over the world in countries that had important diplomatic links with Russia. She was going to get herself onto the delegation, that wasn't going to be a problem, her big concern was the possibility of REJOIN's poll numbers becoming so bad that the president decided that there was no point in waiting for the election and moved up his invasion plans before she and Yevgevny had the chance to act.