Executive Orders (1996), a Jack Ryan Novel by Tom Clancy: summary

“It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to became conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, JR, an American Jurist (1902-1932)

“Eventually a corrupt system was itself corrupted, and the logic of terror reached its logical conclusion: a humble rabbit, cornered by fox, has nothing to lose by striking out, and rabbits have teeth, and sometimes the rabbit get lucky.” (p.193, the Executive Order, Tom Clancy)

  

An old friend has sent me this book as a Christmas gift in 2007 and I had tried to read the book for months. Back then, to be honest, I will say I did not enjoy the book so much, I had a hard time focusing on it and understanding what I was reading. It was not just a long book to me, but at that time I was not interested about espionage and political fiction at all. 

Years passed. Then I’ve read three books of Clancy: the Hunt for Red October, Op-Center, and Threat Vector, so I now get familiar with the characters and their issues. Despite inspiring, most of Clancy’s books are simplistic, details, realistic, and informative. The first President had resign in disgrace, the second was dead. Jack Ryan sat on the office and it was unpredictable to everyone. He never had campaign, even he was not a politician. A historian, a National Security Advisor, had become new President on the day after a 747 Boeing kamikaze hit the Capitol Building. His life had never be the same since then, he was POTUS.

The book give us information about the White House and Capitol Building, the job description of POTUS, FLOTUS, Secret Service, the White House Protocol Office, Diplomatic Activities, and also the boringness as a POTUS. The deadly Ebola Zaire virus in Congo linked to an Iranian physician, and the Iraqi President killed linked to Iranian spy, and espionage ring to kill POTUS. Daryaei was the man who sent the virus, the man who attack president's child, and the man who sent his army on a mission of conquest that turned into a mission of death. 

The book is very lengthy one, it contains 1358 pages. The original edition published in 1996, and this is Berkley Books edition printed in 1997.

Executive Orders (1996), a Jack Ryan Novel by Tom Clancy: summary

A Japan Airlines (JAL) 747 Kamikaze at Capitol Building

The end of the Capitol building was devastated. One could recognized the steps, but the columns and roof were gone, and the House chamber, lip of stones, their white color scorched and blackened with soot. To the north, the dome was down, sections of it recognizable, for it had been built of wrought iron during the Civil War. But the real story of the scene was the collection of ambulances, several knots of them, their paramedic crews standing with bitterness idleness, folding stretchers before them, the skilled crews with nothing to do but look at the red crane painted on it, also blackened from the fire, but still hatefully recognizable. The war with Japan had ended. The scattered property belonged to Japan Airlines. The tail of the 747 was remarkably intact. 

Too late to stop the fire in time. Too save the lives they were sworn to rescue. Too late to make much of a difference at all. The President was dead, John Patrick Ryan was the new President. Special Agent Price also informed Ryan, Mrs. Durling, the First Lady, was dead too.

Sister M. Jean Baptiste in Congo

She was over sixty, her small framed bowed down by years of selfless work, made all the worse because there were so few young ones to give her rest. Her sister, every bit as religious as she, had chosen the most common of the vocations and was now a grandmother, and Sister M. Jean Baptiste wondered what that was like. She had made her choice long time ago, in a youth she could remember. In her distance youth she could seeing the German occupation troops nod politely to their passing, for even though it was widely suspected that the nuns aided Allied airmen, and maybe even Jews trying to escape.

Sister Jean Baptiste was a skilled and experienced nurse. She had come to this place when it had still belonged to her parent country, stayed after its status had changed. In the time she had done her job same way, with the same skill, despite the tornadic political changes that had gone around her, no matter that her patients were African or European.  Christianity had been trying to establish itself here for centuries. Fully a third of the patients in hospital had AIDS.

The boy was only eight, too young to be sexually active. A handsome boy, well- formed and bright, he had been an honor student at nearby Catholic school. African customs allowed priests to marry, a secret that was not widely known through the rest of the world.

Jack Ryan

Jack Ryan was not a politician. He has no political background or experience. He was a national security specialist in an age when national security was not the issue it once was. He was a serious student of history. He didn’t The Secret Service, smaller than FBI, with fewer resources, did have some superb investigators, and some of the finest technical experts around. NTSB knew more about airplane crashes than anyone in the world. But the Bureau had to lead agency for the investigation.

Ryan had come to White House a thousand times, to visit, to deliver briefings, for meeting important and otherwise, and most recently to work in his own office as National Security Advisor. He now was a president, didn’t need to show ID and walk through the metal detectors. White House was now his house, here Kennedy had faced down Khrushchev, and nobody had cared that doing so had covered a multitude blunder. But it was not this house. He was a historian. From the moment the aircraft had struck the Capitol building, he was President. His daily life would have no privacy, and even in death he would not be safe from scrutiny by people who had no idea what it was like merely to walk into this oversized dwelling-office museum and know that it was your prison into all eternity.

Arnold van Damm, chief of staff to two Presidents, he would now set an all-time record as chief of staff to a third. His first President had resigned in disgrace. His second was dead. The Protocol Office had arranged a state funeral to plan for Roger and Anne Durling. Banks, stock markets, all federals offices were closed. They had a bunch of ambassadors in chamber. The Secret Service was empowered to protect him from physical danger. The housekeeping staff would feed him, iron his shirts, and fetch coffee. But none of them would allow him to run away, either from his place and his duties. It was a prison. He was now President, the giver of orders, which they could carry out; the man who made the speeches which others would analyze for nuance and correctness; the man who decided what USA would do.

He was surrounded by others now. There was an FBI contingent, another from Secret Service, the D.C. Metropolitan Police, NTSB, the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and his own fire investigators, all looking for someone to be in charge so that they could claim command themselves. They found the body of pilot. His name was Sato. NTSB had the flight recorder. They just recovered over two hundred bodies. The aircraft flew out of Vancouver International. They filed a false flight plan for London Heathrow, they D.C. After that he bluffed his way through air-traffic control.

It was a Japanese airlines, and in fact a government owned carrier. The Japanese Prime Minister Koga. Sato was very experienced command pilot. The Japanese police have gotten a pile data on US.  The co-pilot was murdered. He was stabbed, and it appeared as though that took place prior to take-off. Sate acted alone. The lab had already determined the weapon used a thin-bladed steak knife with serrated edge, of the sort used on the airline. Sato was an international pilot. His friends was his colleagues. He lived quietly in a modest house near Narita Airport. But his brother was senior officer in Maritime self-Defense Force, and his son was a fighter pilot. Both died during the hostilities.

Marine Corps, Major Canon, the watch officer in Signal, had reported to Ryan with high confidence that the President of Iraq was assassinated about ten minutes ago. The Source was both Kuwait and Saudi. The initial word was a pistol right in the head, at close range. The Iraqi President just killed.

Mahmoud Haji Daryaei

It was also a good news for Mahmoud Haji Daryaei had met Ryan before. He was seventy two, Iranian. The overall mission had been his idea, not nearly dramatic enough for the “professionals” worming in his intelligence service. Largely leftovers from the Shah’s Savak-trained by the Israelis in the 1960s and 1970s-they were effective, but they were mercenaries at heart however much they might protest their religious fervor, and their loyalty to the new regime.  

One man, operating alone, one faithful man who would do whatever was necessary to accomplish his mission. Eleven such men had dispatched into Iraq for this specific purpose, told to go deep under cover, trained to forget everything they had ever been, and all the records of their existence destroyed so that even an Iraqi spy in his own agencies could not discover the mission without a name. Daryaei didn’t hate Saudis and the others on the far side of Persian Gulf. They were believers, and despite their differences with him and his country, they never be denied to Mecca. But their way wasn’t the Way, and that couldn’t be helped.  They had grown fat and rich and corrupt, and that had to be changed. Daryaei had to control Mecca in order to reform Islam. To do that meant acquiring worldly power.  It meant making enemies. He had just won his first major battle.

CIA concluded Iranian did it with religion motivation. Iraqi was a majority Shia Muslim country ruled by a Sunni minority through the Ba’ath political party. The issue was of course, oil. Saddam Hussein, like a Mafia don, had thought about little more than money and political power that money generated. Iran was somewhat  more farsighted. All the nations around the Gulf were Islamic, most of them very strictly so. There were the exceptions of Bahrain and Iraq. The dual border with Kuwait and the Kingdom was one of mere politics, not religion.

Ebola Zaire Case Dr. Mohammed Moudi was an Iranian national working with the WHO.  He wanted Baptiste to be the last Ebola case in that hospital. Ebola Zaire had a mortality rate of roughly eighty percent. It appeared and disappeared, like some of malignant spirit. Africa was still primitive. The structure of the virus somewhat understood and it symptoms recognized, but the mechanism was still mystery. Patient Zero, Benedict Mkusa was dead, his body incinerated by gasoline, the virus dead with him. Dr. Moudi had a small blood sample. He thought about it for a moment, then lifted the phone call the Iranian embassy in Kinshasa.

FlOTUS, Professor Caroline Ryan, was a physician, an eye surgeon. The America news media said that she was continuing to work at her profession despite her official duties and their children. The Ebola Zaire Mayinga case was an issue at John Hopkins, the institution where Dr. Ryan worked. Somewhat worse with AIDS, but that agent gave you ten years. Ebola only gave the victim maybe in ten days.

Vice President Edward J. Kealty had not slept all night, but no one would have known it from looking at him. He strode into CNN building with his wife and aides, there he met by producer who whisked him into an elevator for the trip upstairs. He claimed John Ryan had filled his post as interim Vice President. His TV statement covered the issue. Ryan was never Vice President, because he never resigned. The New York Times shouted first Vice President Edward Kealty claimed that he was the President.

In his interview Ryan stated that the resignation happened when the officer holder conveyed the instrument of resignation – a letter suffices- to the proper official. But the man who accepted the instrument was dead. Secretary State probably called the President to inform him of the resignation. That was politics, not law. So long as President Durling was President, Kealty had to leave because of the sexual harassment investigation. Kealty resigned his position at the request of President Durling. He was under investigation by the FBI for sexual misconduct while he was a senator. The investigation was in the matter of a sexual assault- rape of one of his Senate aid. Ryan chose to place the interests of country first than personal animosity did.

Ali Badrayn, Iraq His real name was Ali Badrayn, and while he had lived and worked under several others name, he had finally returned to own because it was Iraqi in origin. His family had left Iraq for the supposed economic opportunity in Jordan, but then been caught up like everyone else in region’s turmoil, a situation not exactly helped by their son’s decision to become part of the movement which would put an end to Israel. The life of a terrorist paled with the accumulating years, and though he was one of the best in that line of work, especially gathering information. Clearly the other man that was with him, the general, had not slept since the death of his president. This general had a family and children in addition to his mistress. It was a dangerous job, being intelligence chief for a dictator, and one which made many enemies.

Monkey Experiment in Tehran, Iran The 707 landed, finally, at Tehran-Mehrabad International Airport, well after night. The airport is also the site of Iranian military and air force headquarters. The aircraft was well and truly stuffed with cages, and short of climbing out the windows. Soldiers did unloading, a process made all the more difficult by the fact that no one had warned their commander to issues gloves, as the Africans had done. The procedure was noisy. It was barely fifty degrees in Tehran that night, far below what the monkeys were accustomed to. The monkeys headed north. The farm was state-owned, used as an experiment station to test new corps and fertilizer.

Ali Badrayn aka the Movie Star aka Dieter Klob He liked the sobriquet “Movie Star,” and having learned of it fifteen years before, he had also learned to make it work for him. The mission was reconnaissance, and the weapon was charm. He had a choice of accents in his repertoire. Since he had German travel documents, he affected the speeches of a person from Frankfurt to go along with German clothing, complete to shoes and wallet, all purchased with money that came from whatever sponsor Ali Badrayn had recently found. Movie Star liked he saw. Though the danger to him was greater, the risk was balanced. There was one house close enough with an attached garage that actually faced the day care center. Probably the Secret Service had made an arrangement with the owners. It was an ideal, fifty meters from demi-school, facing in the right direction.

With a smile of a confusion and embarrassment, he walked to the counter asking for the maps. He said he was new in that area. His name was Dieter Kolb, a German citizen from Frankfurt, a teacher of English, currently out of the country. There was a community college on a hill nearby. It was just a matter of finding a good spot. The same was true of the preschool itself. Kolb lifted a pair of compact binoculars and scanned. He watched the children cavort on the playground.

General Bondarenko didn’t believe in coincidences. The southern part of the country once known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) held little charm for him. His time in Afghanistan and a frantic night in Tajikistan had seen to that. Bondarenko had learned the possibility that Iran was making a bid for superpower status. In uniting with Iraq, they increased their oil wealth by something like forty percent. That would give the contagious borders with Kuwait and Saudi. The conquest those nations would redouble their wealth. Iran wished to move to north also, he named them: Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. That would triple their population, add a significant resource base to their United Islamic Republic.

The Soviet Union had operated on the principle of fear. Fear of KGB had kept the citizens in line, and fear of what the Red Army could and would do to any systematic rebellion. But what happened when the fear went away? The Soviet failure to pacify Afghanistan, that despite the most brutal measures imaginable, had been a signal to the Muslim republics that their fear was misplaced. Now Soviet Union was gone, and what remained was a mere shadow. Russia didn’t have the power she needed. The classical formula was first to cripple the strong, then crush the weak, and then later confront the strong again in one’s own problems. Bondarenko could do nothing about it. He was the weak one. He had his own problems. His nations could not count on friends, only the enemies she had labored so long and so hard to create. 

   

Sohaila was ill, but she stabilized. Dr. Ian MacGregor, the WHO doctor, one of British visitors, based in Khartoum. Dr. MacGregor thought jet lag at first, until there had been blood in her vomit and stool. The young girl was from Iraq, too, just as Patient Saleh was. Saleh had Ebola. Sohaila showed symptoms of flu. Same disease, same time. Two different outcomes.

Agent Domingo Chavez and teams had identified a business jet that brought Sister Jean Baptiste and Sister Maria Magdalena. They were both nurses at a Catholic hospital in Congo. The jet supposedly crashed into sea after taking off after refueling stop in Libya. Domingo and Clark had accompanied Secretary Adler to Tehran a week before.

Two hundred files meant two hundred birth certificates, two hundred driver’s licenses, houses or apartments, set of credit cards, and all manner of other permutations to be checked out. It was inevitable that one such investigation started,  Special Agent Aref Raman would garner special attention from the three hundred FBI agents assigned to the case. Three agents were on the Details turned out to be immigrants. The two agents were clear, but that left “Jeff” Raman as an agent with some missing documentation, which was reasonably explained by his parents’ reported refugee status. 

It was on record that he had been born in Iran and had come to America when his parents had fled the country with the fall of the Shah’s regime. Every indicator since showed that he had fully adapted to his new country. He was always one to enjoy a beer with his colleagues. He had developed outstanding service reputation as a field agent. He was unmarried. It was certain that he had no contacts at all with other Iranian-born citizens or aliens, that he was not the least bit religious, that he had never once brought up Islam in a conversation, except to say, as he had told the President once, that religion had caused his family so much grief that it was a subject he was just as happy to leave alone.

Aref Raman was a little neat for a single man living alone. There was a photo of his parents, both dead. He owned a digital recording system, and again there was a punch code programmed in by the manufacturer. Raman had forgotten to erase the messages from before. The fed found a name of rug dealer: Sloan and Alahad.

There was a quiet to the streets in Tehran. Agent John Clark didn’t remember them that way from 1979-80. Being journalists, they acted like journalist. Their first day had been both a waste and part of their cover. Their Russian colleagues would arrive tomorrow. The first order of business was to check out the name of Sloan and Alahad.    

Supervisor Special Agent Hazel Loomis finally found Mrs. Joseph Sloan. She was over sixty, dressed neatly. His husband died last year. She didn’t have any rug, and was allergic to wool. 

The number calling was overseas, code 44, which made it from the U.K. Fed dialed headquarters, and gave them the U.K. number for a quick check. Alahad wasn’t doing anything. Bugs planted in his house had determined that he was watching TV. Another called from Mr. Alahad. Mohammed Alahad was under arrest, when he went into the store to buy a quart of milk, and from there he walked directly back home. He had to use a key to enter his apartment house, and was surprised to find a man and a woman inside. A conspiracy murder the POTUS. He sold rug to a dead man. Joseph Sloan died a year before. They had broken an Iranian espionage ring. Raman’s body collapsed in on itself. He dropped the pistol to the rug with the Seal of the President ton it and fell to his knees.

In the last twenty-four hours, American soldier had killed at least ten thousand soldier of the UIR. Clark and Chavez left Mahmoud Haji Daryaei’s house. Daryaei was the man who attack their country with disease, the man who attacked the president’s child, the man who tried to attack President Ryan, and the man who sent his army on a mission of conquest that turned into a mission of death. The noise was awful. The echoes were punctuated by the tinkle of glass from half a mile around.

*****

July 16, 2017

Sekapur Sirih

Karya pertama dari Tom Clancy yang saya nikmati, dan merupakan hadiah Natal di tahun 2007 lalu kenangan dari seorang kawan lama, seseorang dari komunitas gereja. Awalnya sampai heran juga ketika dihadiahi buku politik dan espionase setebal 1358 halaman tapi tapi saya berterima kasih pada sang kawan karena akhirnya mengenal karya Clancy. Benar-benar fiksi sulit dicerna bagi saya, banyaknya plot dan tokoh yang dihadirkan bersamaan, ditambah lagi kurang meminati tema politik keras. Sudah sempat dibaca selama berbulan-bulan kala itu, namun tidak begitu menikmati dan sudah banyak terlupa, sehingga dibaca ulang kembali untuk yang ke dua kalinya.

Tiga karya Clancy yang telah saya baca (telah dipost-kan pada blog ini) akhirnya sangat membantu memahami karya ini. Presiden baru terlantik Ryan langsung dihadapkan serangkaian masalah serius: upaya pembunuhan pada anaknya, penyebaran virus Ebola sebagai serangan senjata biologi yang mematikan ribuan penduduk AS, upaya pembunuhan dirinya. Pemimpin UIR (Republik Islam Serikat), Daryaei, dengan ambisinya ingin menguasai Timur Tengah bahkan negara-negara di wilayah utarabekas Uni Soviet untuk menambah kekuatan baik penduduk dan kekayaan minyaknya. Setelah membunuh Presidedn Irak, ia juga ingin menghabisi negara adidaya tersebut dengan mengirimkan virus.  

Novel ini memuat sejarah, protokol kepresidenan, politik luar negeri, espionase, dan kondisi politik global dikaitkan dengan penyebaran virus Ebola yang mematikan dia akhir tahun 90’an, tahun di mana buku ini ditulis. Buku ini tepat bagi mereka yang belajar atau peminat politik, hubungan internasional berikut dengan persenjataan, Gedung Putih, dan sejarah perpolitikan dunia di antaranya Timur Tengah, dan Afrika, serta pemaparan virus Ebola.

Terjemahan dalam Bahasa Indonesia: Executive Orders (1996), Tom Clancy 

Serangan kamikaze baru saja menghantam gedung Capitol Hill di Washington DC. Menewaskan ratusan orang, dan di antaranya adalah Presiden Roger Durling dan istrinya. Sebuah Boieng 704 bertuliskan JAL, Japan Airlines, menabrakkan diri membuat gempar. Sang pilot adalah pilot senior internasional asal Jepang membalas kematian keluarganya pada PD II. Saat sang presiden dinyatakan tewas, maka saat itu pula Jack Ryan dilantik resmi menjadi presiden Amerika Serikat yang baru.

Doktor sejarawan, pengajar, dan penasehat kepresidenan tersebut tidak menyangkan dirinya akan menjabat sebagai POTUS. Tetapi tidak banyak yang mengetahui bahwa ia adalah agen rahasia dan handal dalam perburuan kapal selam (sub marine) Red October. Baru saja ia diangkat menjadi wapres mendadak, wapres sebelumnya bermasalah hukum, skandal seks. Bagi orang-orang partai dan rumah tangga kepresidenan Ryan dikenal sebagai orang cerdas dan baik hati. Dia bukan seorang politisi, tidak seperti presiden pendahulunya. Sifat lembut dan sekaligus menjadi kelemahannya terbaca oleh negara-negara kerabat saat ia berpidato pada penguburan Presiden Durling yang juga sudah seperti teman baginya. Ucapan duka pada ke dua anak-anak mendiang presiden yang sangat menyentuh, Presiden Ryan sendiri memiliki dua anak yang masih belia.

Belum lama dilantik, serangan dari mantan Wapres Edward Kealty menyeruak di media. Dia mengklaim dirinya adalah presiden, Jack Ryan hanya berperan sebagai pelaksana tugas, dia mengaku tidak pernah menyerahkan surat pengunduran diri. Dalam wawancaranya di TV, Presiden Ryan mengungkap selama Presiden Durling berkuasa Wapres Kealty dipaksa mundur. Kealty tengah dalam penyidikan FBI dalam kasus pelecehan seks; pemerkosaan asisten semasa ia menjabat sebagai Senator. Pengunduran diri diminta bukan secara hukum, namun ini masalah politik. Presiden Ryan pun menegaskan jika ia hanya akan fokus pada masalah kepentingan negara daripada masalah pribadi.

Ryan sedang menghadapi sejumlah masalah serius, di mana ada serangan pembunuhan anaknya yang masih belia di sekolah. Walau sebelum menjadi presiden ia dan keluarganya juga pernah diserang, namun kali ini ia sangat geram. 

Daryaei lelaki berusia tujuh puluhan, pemimpin negara UIR, Republik Islam Serikat, berambisi menguasai Timur Tengah hingga ke bagian Utara yakni negara-negara bekas jajahan Uni Soviet. Ia baru saja berhasil dalam sebuah misi yang menggemparkan. Intelijen Amerika pun mencium, tidak terhindarkan, ada kaitannya dengan kabar terbunuhnya Presiden Irak.

Presiden Ryan juga menerima laporan serius virus Ebola Zaire yang menyebar secara pandemik di beberapa wilayah dan kota Amerika. Kebetulan Ibu negara, Profesor Caroline M. Ryan, adalah seorang ahli bedah mata juga pengajar Rumah Sakit John  Hopkins, sehingga keahliannya sangat membantu, terutama dalam menjelaskan virus Ebola pada sang presiden. Ryan pun melakukan tindakan cepat termasuk travel warning, menutup layanan pemerintahan, penutupan fasilitas umum dan sekolah-sekolah. Masyarakat diminta berdiam diri di rumah dalam batas waktu tertentu.

Awalnya puluhan jatuh sakit dan meninggal akibat serangan virus Ebola. Oleh pihak federal dan ilmuwan mendeteksi bahwa ini serangan perang biologi. Dari korban dan keluarga tidak pernah bepergian ke Afrika atau kontak dengan pasien Ebola. Saat itu virus baru saja ditemukan. Namun ada kesamaan semua korban menghadiri sebuah pameran otomotif di kotanya masing-masing.

Pimpinan Republik Islam Serikat (UIR), Mahmoud Haji Daryaei, memanfaatkan orang-orang seperti Ali Badrayn, mantan pilot peneyrang, untuk mencapai keinginanya. Pemimpin Republik Islam Serikat tidak cukup baginya, ia ingin menguasai Saudi Arabia dan Kuwait. Berniat menyatukan semua negara Arab di bawah kekuasaannya, selain jumlah warga negara yang berlipat-ganda dan sumber kekayaan minyak melimpah, ia ingin melakukan reformasi besar-besaran dalam agama.

Moudi kerap melakukan telepon ke Iran, dan membohongi dua suster yang merawat Benedict Mkusa, pasien pertama Ebola. Kedua suster dan sampel darah pasien dibawa ke Tehran. Moudi rupanya menjadi bagian dari proyek Daryei. Oleh agen Ali Badrayn alias Movie Star alias Dieter Kolb, berhasil menyebarkan virus itu ke Amerika pada acara pameran otomotif di berbagai kota di negara itu. Kunjungannya berikutnya ia dalam penyamaran seorang guru Jerman untuk misi pembunuhan anak presiden.

Setelah berhasil membunuh Presiden Irak, misi berikut menghancurkan Amerika dengan serangan virus Ebola (bio-attack), dan telah menewaskan ribuan korban tak bersalah dan menyisakan penyintas Ebola Zaire, sebelumnya serangan terhadap anak-anak Presiden di sekolah, namun gagal tetapi menewaskan personel paspamprea.

Daryaei, seorang mantan intelijen, lihai menempatkan mata-mata terbaik dalam misinya, seorang pengaman presiden bergabung dalam tim the Detail, berdarah Iran bernama Aref “Jeff” Raman. Dari dua ratus agen yang berstatus imigran, dokumen Raman agak ganjil. Apartemennya pun dalam pemantauan, ditemukan rekaman suara yang belum sempat ia hapus pada mesin digital teleponnya. Ia berkomunikasi dengan seorang penjual karpet dengan dua nama, dari nama itu jaringan konspirasi terungkap. Namun sebelum berhasil membunuh POTUS, lingkaran espionase terbongkar, hingga menangkap mata-mata Daryaei yang bertugas di Inggris. Lelaki berusia tujuh puluh tahunan itu juga sempat membujuk perdama Menteri India agar sepaham dengannya. Russia juga sudah membaca pergerakan Daryaei dan bekerjasama dengan Amerika, karena pada dasarnya negara itu tengah lemah dalam diplomasi.

Agen John Clark dan Domingo Chavez menyamar menjadi jurnalis Rusia, melakukan penyerangan balik ke Iran, meledakkan kediaman Daryaei. Presiden mengumumkan dalam dua puluh empat jam, tentara Amerika telah menaklukkan puluhan ribu tentara UIR. Para ahli tengah dalam perjalanan ke Tehran untuk memfasilitasi penetralan virus.      

 *****

 Minggu, 16 Juli, 2017

Edge of Eternity (2014), a Novel by Ken Follett: summary

The book starts out in Germany in 1961, where Rebecca Hoffmann finds herself manipulated by her husband, a Stasi (unofficial name for the secret police) officer. Hans married her just to spy on her and it was the orders of the Stasi. She was at the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. The Communism and American troops living in a shaky cohabitation of Germany of the Cold War.

The 1112-page bestseller is book three of the Century Trilogy published by Signet (Penguin Group) International edition, an imprint of New American Library, New York in July 2015. The author is a British novelist. However, there are too many names mentioned in the book that I had difficult time remembering who was who. Overall, it is interesting, entertaining, informative and inspiring.

The author brings numerous big names in history into fiction characters such as: JFK, Nikita Khrushchev, RFK, Martin Luther King, and Mikhail Gorbachev. In Moscow Dimka is an aide to First Secretary Khurschev; in USA George Jakes Peskhov is an aide to Bobby Kennedy and also having some conversations to Martin Luther King. 

I found myself more enjoyable at Berlin and Moscow part. Dimka’s character is memorable one though he is not a hero. There is no specific antagonist in the story, most of characters are the victim of the regime. Like the Franks in East Berlin are the victim of the East Germany regime and Dimka’s family (his twin Tanya and Lev Peshkov) and Vasili in Moscow also have the same struggling, the Communism. Meanwhile George Jakes, a young black American, was a freedom fighter. A white American, Alan Shepard, can orbit the earth, but a black American can’t enter a restroom. At the end of the book, everyone is happy. The Berlin Wall has fallen, the Iron Curtain has torn down, and Obama has won the election.

Edge of Eternity (2014), a Novel by Ken Follett: summary

The Franks, Berlin in 1961

East Germany was a Communist tyranny now, and Rebecca saw no point in engaging in politics. So she channeled her idealism into teaching, and hoped that the next generation would be less dogmatic, more compassionate, smarter. Her subject was Russian, but she also had to teach an English class. She did not speak English, though she had picked up a smattering from her British grandmother, Maud, still feisty at seventy.

The school was desperately short of teachers because half the staff had emigrated to West Germany, where salaries were higher and people were free. The story was the same in most schools in East Germany. And it was not just teachers. Doctors could double their earning by moving west. Bern Held was probably Rebecca’s best friend outside her family. He was a slim, dark-haired man of forty, with a livid scar he got while he was at war. He taught physics and a divorced man with no children.

Rebecca’s father, Werner, had a factory making television sets. But her mother was determined to stay in the East. The house they lived in had been in her family for generations. Her mother Carla, was well-known Social Democrat. Her grandmother, Maud, was the sister of an English Earl. Rebecca was adopted, her real parents were killed at the end of the war. She got the letter from a Stasi official, and it ordered her to present herself at the headquarter office for questioning. Everyone knew about the letters and everyone dreaded receiving one. Her family was deeply suspect. After the interrogating, she just found her husband was a Stasi man.

Her husband had been marrying her in order to spy her and her family. The deception worked too well. She was in rage. Her twelve-year old sister was doing her homework while she got home. She could hear the grand piano in drawing room. Her brother, Walli, was playing a blues.

George Jakes in Maryland

He was about to graduate from Harvard Law School. Now he has was here at his mother’s modest suburban home in Prince George’s County, Maryland, outside Washington, DC. Jacky Jakes had never been actress. Her career had ended up before it began when, at age of sixteen, she had become pregnant with George. She had gained that careworn face raising him alone for first six years of his life, working as a waitress and living in a tiny house at the back of Union Station, and drilling him in the need for hard work and education and respectability. George and her mother had shared books. Her father had been a literature professor at a Negro college, and she had been a reader from childhood.

Senator Greg Peshkov, George’s father, had got him a vacation job as a law clerk at the firm, and as they both had hoped, the temporary post had led to the offer of a full-time job after graduation. He knew she was at the University of Chicago Law School, and like him was about to graduate. He had met her a couple of times before he liked her. They met her in a bus, when the Freedom Riders stroke.

Walli’s sister, Lili, was almost three years younger. After the war, when their parents had been desperately working hours to feed the family, Rebecca had often been left in charge of Walli and Lili. She was like a second mother. And every school in East Germany is short of teachers, because so many have moved to the West.

East Berliners who worked in the West for higher wages paid in valuable deutschmarks. Walli’s father was a Grenzganger, though he worked for profits, not wages. Walli himself crossed over at least once a week, usually to go with his friends to West Berlin cinemas, which showed sexy, violent American films that were more exciting than the preachy fables in Communist fables in Communist movie houses.

In practice the Vopos (East Germany Cops) stopped anyone who caught their eye. Entire families crossing together, parents, and children, were almost certain to be challenged on suspicion of trying to leave the East permanently, especially if they had luggage. He made crossing for singing contest this time. While he was waiting his turn, getting impatient, he was approached by a pretty girl. She was going to enter the contest with his brother playing guitar.

Maryland, USA

Martin Luther King was head of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, one of the more important civil rights group. He was one of the options to George, but he preferred Bobby Kennedy for his career. Maria Summers was very smart. George was half in love with her. He was desperate for opportunity to be alone with her, but the people in whose homes the Freedom Riders stayed was solid, respectable black citizens, many of them devout Christians, who would not have allowed their guest rooms to be used for smooching. The Riders were served politely in the white restaurants while the rally was. But George felt sure that as they left each town the signs would return; and the Freedom Ride would have been a waste of time.

On the fifth day of the Ride one of their number had been jailed for insisting on his right to a shoeshine. The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had been the first man in space, less than a month ago. Alan Shepard was the first American in space. A white American can orbit the earth, but a black American can’t enter a restroom.

Moscow

It was summer in Moscow, Tanya just arrived in time from Yakutsk, Siberia. She shared a flat with her mother, Anya, and twin brother, Dmitri, always called Dimka. They lived at a Government House, an apartment building for Moscow’s privileged elite. Tanya’s mother said it was spacious only by Soviet standards: the Berlin apartment she had lived in as a child, when Grandfather Grigori had been a diplomat, had been much more grand. She worked for TASS, the Soviet news agency. She was a rising star, able to produce lively and interesting articles. Her late father had been a colonel in the KGB, the secret police; and her uncle Volodya was a general in Red Army Intelligence.

Tanya admired him for a completely different set of reasons: because he was bright, brave, and a world-class writer. Vasili was thirty but he liked girls. He worked as a radio script editor and was a naturally untidy man. Vasili and Tanya worked together produced an illegal news sheet called Dissidence. They reported on censorship, demonstration, trials, and political prisoners.

Dimka was an aid to Nikita Khrushchev, first secretary and chairman of the Presidium, but all he felt he should not be here. General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev was a reformer. His program included a limited degree of cultural tolerance, and so far no action had been taken against the poetry reading. Khrushchev’s hold on power was not strong. He was a Communist heart and soul, but he was also a reformer who saw failings in the Soviet system and wanted to implement new ideas. But the old Stalinist and Kremlin were not yet defeated. They were alert for any opportunity to weaken Khrushchev and rolled back his reforms.

The recent report said American President, JFK, had authorized a crackpot CIA plan for an invasion in Cuba at a place called the Bay Pigs. Khrushchev had failed to achieve the main foreign policy objective: a permanent resolution of the Berlin situation. East Germany was their frontier post in Europe. Its border secure the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia. Busy on Cuba issue, the first secretary was concerned about the arrest of leading Tanya Dvorkin and Vasili Yenkov. Dimka’s father was in KGB, died last year. His grandfather Grigori Peskhov in the October Revolution, his uncle, Vladimir (Vollodya) Peshkov, was a general.

George Jakes in USA

Verena Marquand was graduating from English Department. However, there were a few people of color at Harvard that all knew one another. She was an ardent civil rights campaigner, and was going to work for Martin Luther King in Atlanta after graduation. Her parents were a tall, well-dressed black man and a white woman with an elaborate blond coiffure.  Percy Marquand, was famous movie star. Babe Lee was a theater actress.

George’s grandparents were Russian immigrants. His grandfather, Lev Peshkov, had started out running bars and nightclubs, and now owned a Hollywood studio. People said he was a ruthless businessman with little respect for the law. On the other hand, he had been kind to his black grandson, giving him a generous allowance as well as paying his tuition. Lev Peshkov was widely believed to have been a criminal himself, a bootlegger in days of Prohibition. George’s grandmother, Marga was his second wife. He also had a wife, Olga, in Buffalo, and a daughter, Daisy, who was married to an Englishman and lived in London. So George had English cousins he had never met.

Washington DC

George was trying to forget Maria Summers. He was dating a girl, a history graduate who worked as a secretary in at National Museum of American History. She was attractive and intelligent, but it was not working: he still thought about Maria all the time. Perhaps Verena might be more effective cure. The Department of Justice was housed in a grand classical building across the street from the White House. His mother recalled him: there were a thousand smart young men willing to work for Martin Luther King. But there was only one Negro sitting in the office next to Bobby Kennedy. George had seen only one interracial couple in the ballroom: Percy Marquand and Babe Lee.

 

Rebecca in East Berlin

She was under investigation as a social parasite. Her friend from school named Bernd Held, was under investigation for ideological unreliability. After a year of fake marriage it was good to know that someone genuinely found her desirable, even lovable. The East German regime had done what everyone said could not be done: they had built a wall across the middle of Berlin. Rebecca was on the wrong side.

Washington DC in 1961-1962

The East German regime was close to collapse. George was thrilled to find Maria Summers was originally turned down for a job in the White House. Her grandfather was a preacher. Maria’s father had gone to a Negro college and law school. In 1930, in the Depression, he had opened a storefront law firm in the South Side neighborhood, where no one could afford a postage, stamp. His clients had paid him in kind: homemade cakes, eggs from their backyard hens, a free haircut, some carpentry around his office. Maria knew her mother would disapprove of her daughter going swim with married man if he were anyone other than the president. 

The Bureau had important information about Martin Luther King. The FBI director J. Edgar Hoover hated Martin Luther King. Not a single FBI agent was black. He also hated Bobby Kennedy. George dropped at the FBI headquarter. The office was on another floor of the Justice Department building.  Dr. King sometimes telephones a New York attorney and got advice on tax and publishing matters from a Communist.

Maria Summers

She still called him Mr. President most of the time. She loved him. Maria had learned not to torture herself with thoughts of her lover’s wife. Maria knew she was cruelly betraying a decent woman, and it grieved her, so she did not think about it. President’s wife was out of town again.

Dr. King

Martin Luther King was a handsome man of thirty-three, with a mustache and prematurely receding black hair. King and George had met before on the Freedom Right. King explained Stanley Levison was not a Communist. On the other hand, if it was bad news George wanted to hear first. Perhaps the FBI had caught King out in an extramarital affair, or something that kind.

The audience and consisted of sanitation workers and their family and their supporters. Looking their worn shoes and their old coats and hats, Jasper Murray, the journalist, realized that there were some of the poorest people in America. They were ill-educated and they did dirty jobs and they lived in the city that called them second-class citizens, nigras, boys. But they had the spirit, they believed in a better life. They had a dream.

King’s voice shook with feeling, and Jasper recalled from that in the Bible, Moses had never reached Canaan. He encouraged his audience they would get to the Promised Land.  The next day, at the end of afternoon Jasper would try to arrange interview with King. Jasper had once already interview with King on the speech ‘I have a dream’ speech, when he was a student in 1963. Jasper spotted the white Cadillac that he knew, was loaned to King, along with a chauffeur, by a black-owned Memphis funeral home. King was tucking his shirt in, as if dressing after a shower. He was probably getting ready to go out for dinner, Jasper thought.

A shot rang out. King staggered back, threw up his arms like a man on a cross, hit the wall behind him, and fell. King’s aides took cover around the white Cadillac. Then there was no second shot. He had no hope. That night, the inner cities of the United States exploded. There were riots in one hundred ten cities. In Washington, twenty thousand people overwhelmed the police and set fire to the buildings.

   

The Williams and the Dewars in London

Dave’s father, Lloyd Williams was an M. P. Dave Williams was thirteen years old. Ursula Dewar, known as Beep, was also thirteen, but she seemed older than Dave.  His mother, Daisy, was an American. Dave’s grandmother’s, Eth Leckwith, was to be introduced to the House of Lords. The two families, Dewar and Williams, were assembling in the hall. Woody Dewar was a photographer on a one year assignment in London, had brought his wife, and his children, Cameron and Beep. All American seemed fascinated by the pantomime of British public life, so Dewars were joining the celebration. 

   

Young family friend Jasper Murray was there too. He was eighteen and a Viking, tall and broad with blond hair. Jasper’s mother, had been refugee from Nazi Germany, and Dave’s mother, Daisy, had taken her in, with characteristic generosity. Jasper studied French and German in one of the larger colleges of London University. He wrote for the student newspaper and wanted to be a journalist.

Cameron Dewar was fifteen years old and in love for the first time. Evie never give attention to him. She was in love with Jasper Murray. Evie Williams was the center of attention, she was the star of the evening. She was good actor on the stage.

Rebecca and Bernd in West Berlin

They had living together three months in the old town house in Berlin. Hans Hoffman did not want to be divorced, he wanted to start again. Rebecca and Bernd escaped to West Berlin, they almost got caught. Bernd fell like a stone to get West Germany. Three days later Bern opened his eyes, he had undergone several operation. He was now a teacher in a wheelchair.

Dimka

He met a woman named Nina. Dimka spent most weekends with her. Dimka’s mother, Anya, wanted to meet Nina. He felt disloyal to Nina when he admired Natalya Smotrov. Natalya was a married woman who worked for the Defense Ministry. The Defense Ministry was so slow in sending arms to Soviet’s comrades in Cuba. In fact, Cuba was the only revolutionary state in the American continent. It was proof that Marxism applied all over the world, not just in the East. Communism was supposed to be joyous crusade to make better world. Sometimes the Soviet Union was more like a medieval monastery where everyone had taken vows of poverty and obedience.

Nikita Khrushchev shipped the missiles secretly. They put them in boxes labelled ‘drainage pipes’. Even the ships’s captains would not know what was inside. Khrushchev signed Dimka in charge in the project. So far, Dimka’s strategy was working. It seemed no one suspected what the Soviet Union was up to in Cuba.

President JFK already knew Khrushchev deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba. If one missile landed on a medium-size American city, six hundred thousand people would die. In 1968, news also came from Vietnam. At a road junction in Saigon a Buddhist monk called Thich Quang Duc, doused in five gallons of gasoline, had calmly struck a match and set him alight. His suicide was a protest at the persecution of the Buddhist majority by the American-sponsored President Ngo Dinh Diem, who was a Catholic. There was no end to the travails of President Kennedy.  

  

Tanya had a suspicion, never voiced, that Nina had manipulated Dimka into the marriage. The Dvorkins were an elite family, and Nina was ambitious.

Vasili Yenkov was script editor and sentenced two years in labor camp for possessing a leaflet about Ustin Bodian, the dissident singer. Vasili was an electrician in a power station in Siberia.

Dimka in Vietnam, 1965

Dimka Dvorkin flew to Vietnam in 1965 along with large group of Foreign Ministry official and aides including Natalya Smotrov. It was his first trip outside the Soviet Union. But he was even more excited about being with Natalya. They were far away from Moscow, out of range his wife and Natalya’s husband. Dimka was feeling more optimistic in general. Kosygin, his boss since the fall of Nikita Khrushchev, understood that the Soviet Union was losing the Cold War because of its economy. Soviet industry was inefficient, and Soviet citizens were poor. Kosygin’s aim was to make the USSR more productive. They had to compete with the Americans in prosperity, not just in tanks and missiles.

Part of economic problem was that so much of the national income was spent on the military. In hope of reducing this crippling expense, Khrushchev had come up with the policy of peaceful coexistence, living side by side with the capitalist without fighting wars. Khrushchev had done much implement the idea: his quarrels in Berlin and Cuba had required more military expenditure, not less.

Hanoi was the ancient capital of ancient country, long oppressed by foreigners, first the Chinese, the French, then the Americans. Vietnam was more crowded and was also split in two.  

Vietnam leader Ho Chi Minh had defeated France in anticolonial war of fifties. Americans refused to accept his authority, he was undemocratic Communist. The unelected Saigon regime was tyrannical and unpopular, and under attack by resistance fighters called Vietcong. The South Vietnamese army was so weak in 1965, it had to be propped up by twenty three thousand Am

erican troops.

The Americans were pretending that South Vietnam was a separate country, just as the Soviet Union pretended that East Germany was a country. To Dimka, Vietnam was a mirror image of Germany.

Moscow

Konstantin Chernenko died in Moscow. Dimka and Natalya, were at home, eating bean forsupper with thei daughter, Katya, a schoolgirl of fifteen, and Dimka’s son , Grisha, a university student of twenty one. Chernenko was dead. He suffered from cirrhosis and emphysema. All Moscow was waiting impatiently for him to expire. The succession will be decided in the next few hours, Dimka said to his wife Natalya, they have to act.

Mikhail Gorbachev was second secretary, and therefore officially deputy to the late leader. Gorbachev had won that race by only one vote.

Tanya and Vasili had been more and less living together, unofficially for two years. They were not married: once they became a legal couple they would never be allowed to leave the USSR together. Tanya continued to write reports for TASS that followed the party line slavishly. Vasili was now lead writer on a television show.

A radio commentator was describing a visit by Gorbachev and his wife to a jeans factory in Leningrad. Previous Soviet leader had visited steel mills and shipyards. Gorbachev celebrated consumer goods. She took his wife with him. She was attractive and well-dressed, like American first lady. She was intelligent, too, she had worked as a university lecturer until her husband became first secretary.

The Soviet economy was getting worse and worse, and Gorbachev was going to stop subsidizing all the East European states. Dimka had big office in Kremlin now, he was the one who declared the freedom of the East European. After forty years of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was coming to an end. The Iron Curtain was coming down. Suddenly people were allowed to walk over the border and into the West, that could be change even more momentous than free election.

East German government would continue to allow people to go to Hungary. By November there were demonstrations every week in major towns in East Germany. The numbers grew larger and the crowds grew bolder. Thousands of Berliners were gathering on both sides of infamous Wall, demanding to exercise their brand-new right to cross over, while the government did nothing—and the armed guards grew increasingly nervous. A new generation of leaders came to power, most importantly Gorbachev. Rebecca remembered that day in August 1961, when she was thirty, and she had left home to walk to West Berlin and found all the crossing points blocked by barbed wire.

The barrier had now been there for half her life time. The Berlin Wall has fallen down, Mr. Gorbachev tore down the wall. The first person Rebecca saw was her father. Everyone was shouting. There was George, Maria Summer’s husband for the last twelve years, now white-haired at seventy-two. Jack, a lawyer, George’s son with Verena, at age twenty-eight, with his wife and their daughter. They were all watching TV. Onstage was the first African American president with his wife and their girls. It was election night, and Barack Obama had won. Maria knew why her husband was crying. Her husband was crying for Bobby, Martin, and Jack. For all the freedom fighters, dead and alive.

******

June 16, 2017

  

Sekapur Sirih

Buku fiksi yang sangat panjang, terdiri dari 1112 halaman dicetak oleh Signet, merupakan buku ketiga dari Century Trilogy, diterbitkan tahun 2015, terbitan pertamanya sendiri pada tahun 2014. Ken Follett adalah novelis berkebangsaan Inggris. Walau tidak membaca buku pertama dan keduanya, namun fiksi dapat diikuti tanpa mengalami kesulitan. Banyaknya tokoh sempat membuat bingung, namun karena penulis sering menyebutkannya, sangat membantu memahaminya. Sejumlah tokoh muncul dan terputus terkadang sedikit mengurangi kenyamanan, tapi karena memuat narasi dan percakapan berkelas dan penuturan sejarah actual maka cerita ini tetap menarik dinikmati

Ada empat latar negara dalam novel ini: Jerman (Berlin Timur dan Berlin Barat), Uni Soviet, Amerika Serikat, dan Inggris. Kisah sejarah perang dingin pada tahun enam puluhan, di mana Uni Soviet mengontrol Berlin Timur (Jerman Timur) setelah Jerman lepas dari Hitler. Sementara Jerman Barat bersekutu dengan Amerika Serikat.

Sejarah, politik, espionase internasional, akhir runtuhnya komunis di Jerman, perang Vietnam, ancaman penyerangan ke negara Cuba, penyebaran paham komunis oleh USSR di berbagai belahan dunia, isu ras di Amerika, peluncuran satelit, dan prestasi Yuri Gagarin dibumbui dengan kisah dramatis keluarga, percintaan, pengkhianatan, perpisahan, kesuksesan, pembunuhan, kehancuran dan semua tokoh berakhir pada kebahagiaan.

Ada tokoh George Jakes berkulit hitam berayahkan Rusia bekerja pada departemen Kehakiman di Gedung Putih, sebagai pembantu Robert Kennedy (saudara dari preisedn JFK) -- berjuang membela hak-hak kulit hitam; ada tokoh muda seniman/ artis terkenal bersaudara Evie dan Dave dari Inggris; tokoh wanita pemberani Rebecca dan keluarganya yang terberai oleh Tembok Berlin dan terintimidasi oleh rezim komunis Berlin Timur, dan adik adopsinya Walli, gitaris dan pencipta lagu ternama mendunia; tokoh kembar Dimka dan Tanya di Moskow dari keluarga elite, harus hidup berdamai walau tidak suka dengan rezim Stalinisme dan Kremlin.

Penulis sangat lihai dalam menghubungkan semua tokoh terpaut satu sama lain walau beda benua dan perjuangan hidup, dihubungkan dengan situasi politik yang berkecambuk saat itu dengan memasukkan tokoh-tokoh internasional ke dalam percakapan tokoh fiksi seperti JFK, RFK, Nikita Khrushchev, Michael Gorbachev, dan Martin Luther King yang berinteraksi langsung dengan para tokoh. Dan di akhir semuanya bahagia dan diakhiri pada usia tua, manakala sejumlah tokoh dikisahkan sejak berusia belasan.

Terjemahan Ringkasan dalam Bahasa Indonesia novel Edge of Eternity karya Ken Follet: summary

Berlin Timur

Tinggal di balik tembok Berlin wilayah Timur adalah mimpi buruk bagi Rebecca dan keluarganya. Perlakuan Stasi dan Polisi Jerman Timur(Vopos) perbatasan semakin semema-mena. Para Vopos akan selalu mencurigai keluarga atau warga yang hendak melintas ke Jerman Barat. Ayah Rebecca adalah seorang pengusaha pabrik pembuatan televisi di Jerman Barat, dan ia harus bolak-balik perbatasan menemui keluarganya. Rebecca adalah anak adopsi, gadis yatim piatu yang diangkat keluarga Frank. Kedua orang tua kandungnya telah tewas dalam perang. Rebecca memiliki dua saudara yakni anak-anak kandung dari Frank, mereka juga jauh lebih muda dari dirinya; Walli dan Lili. Bahkan ketika orang tuanya bekerja, Rebecca berperan sebagai ibu bagi mereka.

Di apartemen tua dan besar juga tinggal nenek Maud, berdarah  Inggris. Kakek Walli dulu seorang diplomat Jerman yang bertugas di London. Rebeca kini mengajar di sebuah sekolah dan ia telah menikah dengan seorang anggota Stasi (polisi Jerman Timur). Hans Hoffman, suaminya juga turut tinggal di rumah warisan ibu angkat Rebecca.

Ibu angkat Rebecca tidak mau meninggalkan rumahnya berpindah ke Jerman Barat, kediaman keluarganya yang sudah turun temurun. Sepucuk surat dari kantor Stasi mengelisahkan Rebecca, ia pun diinterogasi oleh pihak Stasi. Ia sangat kecewa dan marah ketika mendapati bahwa Hans menikahi dirinya untuk memata-matai keluarganya. Keduanya pun bercerai dan Rebecca membuka hatinya; jatuh cinta dengan teman sekerjanya juga seorang guru. Sudah tidak asing, jika seorang Stasi bertindak seenaknya. Dibakar cemburu Bernd, kekasih Rebecca yang baru, keduanya dituduh pengkhianat negara.

Keduanya pun memutuskan melarikan diri ke Jerman Barat. Nyaris tertangkap, Bernd harus pincang karena terjatuh dari atap ketika menyebrangi tembok. Kepincangan kaki Bernd tidak meluruhkan keinginan Rebecca menikahi pria di atas kursi roda itu. Keduanya pun menempati apartemen sederhana dan kembali bekerja sebagai pengajar. Walli, adik lelaki Rebecca, rutin berkunjung ke Jerman Barat. Umumnya anak-anak muda senang dengan fashion, musik dan film Amerika yang bisa dinikmati di Jerman Barat. Remaja itu gemar bermain musik; piano dan gitar.

Ayahnya sendiri kecewa dengan keinginan Walli menjadi musisi, pewaris yang  diandalkan untuk melanjutkan pabrik ayahnya di Jerman Barat. Walli mengikuti sebuah kontes di sebuah bar ketika bertemu Karolin yang juga turut audisi ketika itu. Keduanya jatuh cinta, gadis sekolahan itu pun hamil. Ayah Karolin seorang PNS yang takut kehilangan pekerjaannya, dan diancamoleh Stasi. Jika ia merestui pernikahan putrinya dengan Walli, ia terancam kehilangan pekerjaan. Keluarga Walli sedang dalam pengawasan Stasi, sejak pelarian Rebecca dan Bernd.

Kini Walli dan Karolin pun diincar. Keduanya nekat ingin kawin lari ke Berlin Barat. Walli menabrak seorang anggota Stasi dan dituduh menjadi seorang pembunuh, padahal ketika itu dalam pengejaran; ia tidak sengaja menabrak sang petugas. Walli pun berlabel DPO. Remaja enam belas tahun itu tidak berani pulang ke Berlin Timur, dan Karolin yang tengah hamil pun jelas sudah dipersulit pada perbatasan. Walli akhirnya terbang ke London ke rumah sepupunya Dave Williams, masih keluarga nenek Maud.

Moscow

Seorang wanita muda, seorang jurnalis yang sedang naik daun, Tanya Dvorkin, baru saja kembali dari Siberia selesaikan riset tulisan artikelnya tentang para tahanan politik di daerah dingin itu. Tanya, kembarannya Dimka, ibunya Anya, dan kakek neneknya dari pihak ibunya tinggal di sebuah apartemen mewah milik pemerintah yang dihuni oleh para elite politik. Kakek, paman, dan mendiang ayah Tanya adalah jendral besar. Kembaran Tanya Dimka, kini menjadi pembantu Jendral Nikita Khrushchev, jendral reformator dan pesohor. Mereka membidangi pengawasan kebudayaan dan seni. Simalakama, ketika Tanya dan rekannya seorang penyiar radio dan juga penulis berkelas internasional, Vasili, masuk dalam daftar penangkapan departemen pertahanan. Dimka dengan upaya mengamankan saudari kembarnya Tanya ke proyek peluncuran misil di Cuba. Dimka mendapat kepercayaan dan tugas dalam mengirimkan misil dan nuklir ke Cuba untuk mengancam Amerika Serikat, yang mereka duga akan menyerang Cuba.

Sebenarnya perintahan USSR separuh hati menolong Cuba, namun karena motivasi keberlangsungan paham komunis di wilayah daratan Amerika, setelah mereka sukses menyebarkan pahamnya di Benua Timur. Itupun Amerika menghadang komunis di Vietnam. Tapi tidak dengan Vasili, lelaki tampan itu, harus ditahan di Siberia sebagai pengkhianat negara. Ia dan Tanya secara sembunyi-sembunyi menerbitkan tulisan yang anti-komunis -- secara jujur memberitakan keadaan Moskow dan USSR yang sebenarnya.

London

Sepupu Dave Williams, seumuran dengan Walli, keduanya memiliki minat yang sama yakni musik. Keduanya pun giat mengikuti audisi dan sering menyanyi di panggung-panggung tempat hiburan di London, hingga akhirnya manajer musik melirik mereka. Walau tidak mudah keduanya pun terkenal hingga pada akhirnya tinggal di Amerika. Walli tidak pernah pulang bahkan putrinya Alice sudah berusia tiga tahun ia belum pernah melihatnya sekalipun. Kehidupan glamour Hollywood membuat Walli terjerumus dalam narkoba, sekaligus mengubahnya. Cinta dan kesetiaanya pada Karolin membuatnya bertahan tidak menikah.

Sebuah surat yang dititipkan lewat Rebecca di Jerman Barat menghancurkan hatinya, Karolin menikah dengan seorang pendeta. Walli semakin terpukul mendalam dalam menceburkan diri dalam narkoba. Dave Williams memiliki tunangan yang hampir dinikahinya juga diambil Walli. Grup musik mereka pecah dan jalan sendiri-sendiri.

Seorang putra dari teman ibu Dave bernama Jasper Murray berambisi bekerja sebagai jurnalis di Amerika. Ia pun diterima dengan melalui perjalanan panjang hingga juga ikut perang dalam perang Vietnam, walau ia sendiri adalah warga Inggris. Ia pun akhirnya berpindah kewarganegaraan dan menjadi jurnalis terkenal di Amerika. Saudari perempuannya Anna Murray juga menjadi seorang publisher ternama di London. Evie Williams, kakak dari Dave menjadi aktris ternama bahkan hingga Hollywood. Gadis yang sempat jatuh cinta pada Jasper Murray.

George di Maryland, Amerika Serikat

Setelah Yuri Gagarin berhasil mencetak rekor sebagai manusia pertama sampai di angkasa luar, Amerika tidak mau kalah, mereka mengirimkan Alan Shepard. Walau telah ada warga Amerika berangkat ke ruang angkasa, tetapi masalah toilet masih isu berat di Amerika. Penduduk berkulit hitam tidak boleh menggunakan kamar mandi kulit putih. Dan tempat umum, perkantoran, tempat belanja, restoran, ada tanda untuk kulit hitam. Di bis pun mereka harus di belakang dan bertanda khusus. 

George salah satu anak muda yang turut dalam relli protes ‘Rider’ dan menuntut persamaan hak para Negro (istilah saat itu). Ibu George, Jacky Jakes, berkulit hitam, namun ayahnya seorang keturunan Rusia, yang tidak pernah menikahi ibunya. Greg Peshkov adalah seorang senator, sementara ayahnya Peshkov adalah imigran pelarian politik dari rezim komunis Soviet. Lelaki kaya berpenampilan necis itu berhasil membangun bisnis hingga memiliki studio di Hollywood. Nenek George dari ayahnya, Marga, juga wanita Rusia, adalah istri kedua dari kakeknya.

George mempunyai sepupu berkulit putih di London. Kakek George memiliki putri dari istri pertamanya, Olga. Bibi George bernama Daisy menikah dengan pria Inggris dan kini tinggal di London. Kakek-neneknya menyayangi George, walau mereka berbeda kulit. Kakeknya membiayai hidup dan kuliah George. Lelaki muda itu telah lulusan dari jurusan hukum dari Harvard, dan ayah George telah mencarikannya pekerjaan sementara pada kantor temannya.

Mahasiswa berkulit hitam masih sangat jarang di kampusnya, sehingga ia dengan mudah mengenali Verena Marquand, gadis kuit hitam yang sangat cantik di kampusnya. Putri seorang bintang Hollywood berkulit hitam dan beribukan pelakon panggung berkulit putih. Namun hati George sempat tertambat pada Maria Summers, teman seperjuangan pada pergerakan ‘Rider’. Namun sayang, ia tidak ketemu lagi dengan gadis itu. Cucu dari pendeta dan ayahnya seorang pengacara. Dengan tidak sulit, George akhirnya diterima pada Departemen Kehakiman dan bekerja sebagai pembantu Robert Kennedy, adik sang presiden.

Walli dan Dave

Lagu-lagu ciptaan Walli Frank dan Dave Williams mampu menarik minat penggemar musik dan mereka pun akhirnya tinggal di California. Dave yang sempat jatuh cinta pada Beep Dewar, gadis muda putri dari teman keluarganya, sempat dikenalnya ketika keluarga Dewar tinggal di London. Dave sudah tenar, gadis itupun dengan mudah menerima cintanya. Lain halnya, Walli masih setia pada Karolin di Berlin Timur. Evi Williams saudari dari Dave, tenar menjadi seorang aktris terkenal dan bahkan syuting di Hollywood. Dave sempat menemui ayah George selama di Amerika, bahkan kenalan keluarga Jasper Murray pun direkomendasikan menemui sepupunya George.

Moskow

Dimka akhirnya menikahi Nina, seorang janda tanpa anak, dikenalkan temannya. Mereka pun memilki seorang anak, namun ia kembali jatuh cinta pada rekan kerjanya Natalya, seorang wanita yang sudah bersuami. Pada saat cintanya goyah, tidak berselang lama sejak kelahiran anak mereka, Dimka mendapati istrinya berselingkuh dengan seorang pejabat militer yang tinggal bersebelahan dengan dacha (villa) mereka di luar kota. Situasi politik komunis merosot. Kembarannya Tanya sudah mengingatkannya, kalau si janda Nina, wanita ambisius itu hanya memanfaatkan Dimka agar bisa tinggal di apartemen elite, dan masuk dalam pergaulan elite.

Kehadiran Mikhael Gorbachev seorang reformis dan realis memiliki pandangan berbeda dengan pemimpin lainnya. Memang ia berjiwa komunis, tetapi ia lebih realitis akan situasi ekonomi negaranya. Bila pemimpin sebelumnya lebih senang mengunjung pabrik senjata, maka Gorbachev lebih suka mengunjungi pabrik jeans. Kemerosotan ekonomi dan kemiskinan, memicu Gorbachev memutuskan untuk melepas negara-negara jajahannya: Polandia, Chekoslovakia, juga Jerman Timur dari kekuasaan komunis Soviet.

Penembakan yang berujung pada kematian Presiden Kennedy dan kematian Martin Luther King banyak memengaruhi kebijakan dalam negeri dan luar negeri Amerika. Kematian Kennedy memukul perasaan Maria Summers, wanita gundik dari sang presiden. Perselingkuhan yang tercium oleh George, membuatnya cemburu karena ia menyukai gadis berkulit hitam cantik itu. Kematian Martin Luther King juga memukul Verena dan George secara pribadi karena keduanya secara emosional sangat dekat dengan sang pendeta, tergabung dalam gerakannya.

Kebebasan dan keruntuhan Tembok Berlin bukanlah hasil keras Kennedy, tetapi karya dari Gorbachev. Tidak hanya Jerman saja, negara-negara Uni Soviet pun mendapatkan kebebasannya. Di kota Berlin, banyak keluarga-keluarga yang terpisah selama berdekade akhirnya bersatu kembali. Walli telah sembuh dari ketergantungan narkoba, ia kurus-tirus hampir tidak dikenali ibu dan saudarinya.

Sang musisi tenar itu dan keluarganya akhirnya bisa berkumpul walau dalam usia tua, putrinya, Alicia, telah berumur belasan, pertama kali ia melihatnya. Karolin sudah menjanda, diceraikan suaminya yang ternyata seorang gay.

Tanya akhirnya hidup bersama dengan Vasili yang sudah bebas dari hukuman, novel-novelnya diterjemahkan dan diterbitakan menggunakan nama samaran di Inggris oleh Anna Murray, adik dari jurnalis terkenal Jasper Murray. Karir Dimka berkembang baik dalam masa Gorbachev, dan setelah bercerai dari Nina, ia menikahi Natalya. Nina akhirnya menikahi dengan lelaki menjadi sumber keretakan pernikahannya dengan Dimka.

Sebelum kematiannya, kakeknya membawa George pulang ke kampung halaman di  Moskow, diperkenalkan pada keluarga Peshkov lainnya yakni Tanya dan Dimka, walau mereka sempat heran mengetahui sepupu mereka berkulit hitam.

Setelah pengkhianatan istrinya Verena Marquand, George dan Maria akhirnya menikah pada usia yang tidak muda lagi. Mereka berumur panjang, menyaksikan jika pidato mimpi yang pernah dilontarkan oleh Martin Luther King kini terwujud nyata, keduanya menyaksikan terpilihnya Obama sebagai presiden. Maria sangat paham kenapa suaminya, George, meneteskan air mata ketika menyaksikan tayang TV di mana Obama dan keluarganya tampak di panggung. Kakek berambut putih itu menangis untuk Bobby, Martin, dan Jack. Bagi semua pejuang kemerdekaan hak, baik yang telah meninggal maupun yang masih hidup.

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