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keep my own wealth, thank you.” Luthor leaned back in the distinctly rustic and distinctly uncomfortable chair. “We’re both satisfied with our propaganda, General.” He was perfectly comfortable speaking in Russian, having become fluent in eleven different languages before he turned his genius to nonlinguistic pursuits.
    General Anatoly Ceridov folded his sausagelike fingers together. The two men were alone in the Siberian work camp’s headquarters—nothing more than a primitive hut, but it was the best meeting place the Soviet KGB officer could manage.
    Ceridov had ice-blue eyes, a squarish face, and rough skin, either from standing too long in the frigid Siberian wind or from using too harsh an aftershave. His reddish hair was carefully slicked back with a perfumed hair tonic. Considering that he lived in one of the most godforsaken areas on earth, his obvious vanity was both peculiar and incomprehensible.
    The general wore two obsidian—rather than gold—rank stars on a red epaulet, denoting that his rank carried both great power and great secrecy. No one outside the innermost levels of the KGB knew of Ceridov’s projects, or his existence. But Lex Luthor did.
    Ceridov extracted a silver cigarette case from a uniform pocket. He snapped the case open and extended it invitingly. “Cigarette, comrade Luthor? American tobacco is quite a luxury.”
    Luthor gave a withering answer. “I can always get American tobacco.”
    His cordial gift snubbed, the general snapped the case shut. “Ah, but you cannot get real Russian vodka.” He went to a corner of the wood-paneled room, where an empty diesel barrel had been filled with packed snow, in which rested an unmarked bottle of clear, oily liquid. Without bothering to ask, Ceridov poured two glasses and handed one to Luthor. “We have many plans to discuss, and vodka makes even weighty problems seem lighter.”
    Luthor took a sip and found the taste of the fiery alcohol rough and harsh. He despised wasting valuable time on social niceties, since he knew full well how much his time was worth. (He had, in fact, done the calculations himself.) “I’d prefer to get down to business. Immediately.”
    He had already taken incredible precautions to keep their meetings secret—a private jet with no filed flight plan, flying below radar so that even the Distant Early Warning–line guard stations did not detect him. Now he took control of the meeting. “General, as the weapons stockpiles increase on both sides, so does our power and influence. The USA and the Soviet Union must remain equally matched so that you and I can continue to build our respective arsenals. A cold war thrives on tension.”
    Ceridov drained his glass. “The very best kind of war: no shooting, but a great deal of money being spent on both sides.”
    Only Luthor understood the delicate balance he had to achieve. He was not just an important businessman, not just a wealthy man, he was also a smart man who played chess on a global scale. He owned a sprawling mansion in the swanky Lake District north of Metropolis and more secondary homes than he could remember. He could have a gorgeous woman on his arm whenever he pleased. He could buy the finest things anyone might imagine.
    But such triumphs and successes had begun to bore him. Instead, Lex Luthor craved things less tangible: power, obedience, and respect. Once he set his mind on those goals, he treated them like any other business proposition. He created a perceived need, then set out to become the only man who could fill it.
    Ceridov had a similar aim in the Soviet Union. While the pair might have seemed to be rivals, their shared focus made them convenient allies. Each man worked behind the scenes in his own hemisphere. LuthorCorp and its military-industrial subsidiaries reaped profits hand over fist, and the black-star KGB general became extraordinarily influential in the Communist Party.
    Luthor had recently completed the construction of a new