Into a Raging Blaze Read Free

minor changes. She would send over her contribution to theUkraine desk officer, who would have a secretary in the unit make three copies of everything before running over to the minister’s office, so that the minister would have the file in the car the next morning, allowing him to look through it on the way to the airport.
    The foreign minister had a photographic memory. Everyone knew that he preferred statistics to reasoning, data rather than a desk officer’s fumbling analyses. He often liked incredibly technical details about nuclear power plants, Russian combat vehicles, and other things that a foreign minister apparently had a use for. According to those who worked closest to him, he read everything. The Foreign Service produced hundreds of reports every day. Apparently he read all embassy reports, all major news, blogs, research—everything. Carina couldn’t understand how it was possible, but that was what they said. Orders from the foreign minister’s office often came with a slightly condescending reminder to the desk officer not to include “the normal” embassy reports, just facts and “the most relevant things.”
    In her eight years at the Ministry, she had sat eye to eye with the foreign minister on four occasions. He was unquestionably brilliant, but basically uninterested in people who weren’t foreign ministers.
    It occurred to her that the minister might not even be in Stockholm. If not, she would be forced to send the whole file as an encrypted e-mail to Kiev, call them, and get someone to drive it down to the Crimea to hand it over personally.
    She dug out her phone from under the papers and called the minister’s press secretary, but that diverted to a cell-phone voicemail. She pulled up the electronic phone directory and found the extension for one of the assistants.
    Call forwarded. Then some scraping noises and a whispering voice that answered: “Marianne.”
    Carina introduced herself. She explained briefly that she was preparing the minister’s file for Ukraine. Was the foreign minister in Stockholm today?
    “I don’t actually know.”
    “Okay.”
    “He’s going to the Congo later this week—for the Dag Hammarskjöld ceremony. But I don’t know anything about Ukraine. Can I get back to you? Or maybe try Elisabeth?” the assistant whispered in a stressed tone.
    Carina hung up.
    Assistant number two didn’t answer. The foreign minister’s adviser, some young upstart straight out of the Young Conservatives, did pick up his cell. Wasn’t the minister in New York? He clearly had no idea. Carina ended the call quickly, leaned back in the chair, and thought through the options. He would be in Yalta within eighteen hours if he wasn’t there already. Then Africa, then New York and the UN.
    She really did need to know where the foreign minister was. Then the obvious solution occurred to her: check his blog. She went to the site and, naturally, he had already had time to blog in the morning. He was in parliament today—so still in Stockholm for at least another five hours.
    She wrote for half an hour uninterrupted. Her fingers rattled across the keyboard in a series of rapid movements. Points for a possible press conference: The Eastern partnership was of key importance to relations between the EU and Ukraine, she wrote, before adding a few sentences about the importance of a long-term relationship and about the country as part of Europe. General formulations. The EU had trading relations and aid as its two greatest weapons but it was the Russians who had true geopolitical power—they controlled access to oil and gas. It was vital that the message about the rule of law and human rights was clear, while not punching the Ukrainians in the nose and hurting their pride, which would make Yanukovych turn to Moscow. The Kremlin was already talking about discounted oil prices. In a few months it would be winter in Kiev and then political loyalty would be counted in dollars per barrel. She