FTER SHAW LEFT FOR PARIS the Russians publicly announced that if they were so terrible the world would not, of course, condescend to use all their filthy oil, so they cut their exports in half. As the number two exporter of crude behind only Saudi Arabia, and the possessor of the globe’s largest proven natural gas reserves, this was not an empty gesture. Russia exported more oil than the next three countries—Norway, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates—combined. Global production had barely kept pace with demand when all export cylinders were firing. With the Russian black gold not totally available there was no way to make up the shortfall.

The world markets were hardly pleased. The price of crude hit $130 a barrel within hours of the announcement and stock markets around the globe suffered enormous, unprecedented losses even with automatic trading stops in place. Gas at the pump and airline ticket prices soared. And since many things people used every day were made with petroleum products, the cost of everything from toys to trucks shot up too.

OPEC, so long in the driver’s seat on the world’s economic stage, scrambled to try and at least make up some of the difference but they couldn’t come close. And rather than making the Arab world more untold riches with the price of oil so high, it was actually costing them billions because, unlike Russia, desert countries imported just about everything they needed. So while crude had skyrocketed forty percent, the cost of derivative products had doubled. Because of the price increase and Russia’s stockpile of cash and foreign investments and its proportionately low level of imports and per capita consumption, it was believed that Moscow could keep this position up for quite some time.

If that wasn’t enough for the world to absorb in a week’s time, the Russians had more up their sleeve. Their minister for foreign affairs announced that a Taliban-occupied sector of Afghanistan had been caught red-handed using Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to smuggle drugs into Russia, which promoted criminal activity and corrupted innocent Russian youth. Everyone knew that this was true, of course, but the Russians had never done much about it before. The Russians would not follow diplomatic channels in dealing with this serious problem, the minister stated. Afghanistan had allowed this activity for years and Moscow was tired of it.

And when the Russians made up their minds, they acted.

One day later five large cruise missiles fired from a Russian submarine hit a Taliban training compound that the Russian minister later said was instrumental in this drug trafficking. In seconds one thousand Taliban fighters were obliterated and their caches of weapons and equipment destroyed. The Russians warned every Arab country in the Middle East that if there was any retaliation by them against Russian interests they could expect the same treatment multiplied a hundredfold.

The Afghan president released an official statement denouncing this “unwarranted intrusion into a sovereign nation’s borders.” But in diplomatic circles this was seen as only perfunctory considering that the Taliban was doing its best to overthrow the Afghan government and had attempted to assassinate the current president twice. The Afghan leader therefore was probably doing cartwheels down his presidential corridor at the same time he was telling off Moscow.

Tehran fired off an angry response saying they were appalled by what they termed the Russians’ barbaric behavior, and then hastily turned to the UN for help.

The United States also immediately filed a protest against Russia with the United Nations and began withdrawing its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon announced that this was not connected to the attacks on the Taliban, but merely in keeping with previously stated administration policy. Insiders knew, along with probably most Americans, that this consolidation of troop strength had everything to do with the looming Russian threat. The Middle East was no longer that important. Generals from every NATO nation pulled out their old attack-and-defend plans against Soviet aggression.

One major newspaper succinctly if melodramatically stated it in a four-inch headline: “THE COLD WAR IS BACK.”

Privately, military and administration officials in the United States were rejoicing that with one stroke the Russians had wiped out a large measure of the Taliban’s terrorist capability. One four-star general complaining to his aide said, “If only we could do that shit and get away with it.”

When the first major American pullouts from Iraq began, Shiite and Sunni tribal and militia elements commenced probing attacks on each other in preparation for what many believed would be the long-feared all-out civil war. That story was relegated to the interior pages of most major newspapers, and was not the top story on any mainstream television news program. Iraq, as a newsworthy subject, was now very much second-tier. Islamic-based terrorism was listed in recent polls as the eleventh most important subject for citizens across the globe, falling right after too much sex and violence on TV.

Russia was the number one target of concern, and the reason was abundantly clear. Terrorists had little bombs; Russia possessed tons of real nukes and had apparently lost its collective mind.

The search for the forces behind Konstantin and all the rest took on a much greater urgency now. The world probably figured if they could at least get the Russians one target to crush, they might leave the rest of them alone.

Yet what if the force behind the Red Menace was the United States, many wondered with dread. The Russians had said it would be considered an act of war. Was this really the beginning of the end? Could the Americans have made such a colossal miscalculation? People across every nation on earth braced for the next crisis to happen.

They would not have long to wait.