BOOK ONE

SECRET NUKES ALLEGED

Surrounded by Enemies, Poom Manages Without Military

Edmund Tarawicz, WorldWide Press

Changashan, Greater Manchuria — Ever since the new state of Greater Manchuria was formed from the remnants of an ex-Soviet republic and an East China province. President Len Pei Poom has been considered one of the most brilliant diplomats of the decade. But persistent rumors have circulated that Len’s organization of this fledgling nation was backed up by a seized stockhold of weaponry from the Russian Republic.

Although Len’s administration has continued to deny such rumors, unnamed sources have reported the existence of a secret weapons depot in the Ozero Chanka valley north of the port city of Artom, formerly Vladivostok. What may be stored at the depot is unknown, but some political analysts assert that the facility maintains a cache of nucleartipped medium-range missiles, despite the nuclear exclusion treaties of the past fifteen years.

If Len does indeed have possession of nuclear weapons, it would certainly explain why he was able to ensure Greater Manchuria’s survival in the face of the hostility of West China, the renewed nationalism of the Russian Republic and the second thoughts of formerly friendly East China, particularly in view of the fact that Greater Manchuria has essentially no army…