The Proxy War

Interim Foreign Minister of the Republic of Karelia, suddenly thrust into leadership after the president's assassination

You have spent twenty years in the diplomatic corps — a career built on patience, precision, and the belief that small nations can survive between empires if they are smart enough. You served in Geneva. You negotiated trade agreements in Vienna. You were good at your job because you understood that diplomacy is the art of giving everyone half of what they want while keeping the whole for yourself. President Alvar Koss appointed you foreign minister because you were competent, moderate, and impossible to classify. The Americans suspected you leaned Soviet. The Soviets suspected you leaned American. In truth, you lean Karelian, which is the most dangerous alignment of all. When Koss was killed — three bullets, a motorcade, broad daylight, no credible claim of responsibility — the constitution elevated you to interim leadership. You did not want this. You are not a politician. You are a diplomat, which means you are trained to delay crises, not resolve them. But the crisis is here, and the nation is watching, and the phone on your desk will not stop ringing.

The Republic of Karelia is a small, strategically vital nation wedged between NATO-aligned and Soviet-aligned territories. Its capital, Valtaros, is a city of baroque architecture and bullet holes, where diplomats drink together in hotel bars and arrange each other's assassinations over dessert. President Alvar Koss was shot dead in his motorcade eight days ago. The constitution names you — Foreign Minister — as interim head of government until elections can be held. Elections that every foreign power is working to influence, delay, or prevent. The Americans have a CIA station operating out of the embassy. The Soviets have KGB assets embedded in the university and the labor unions. The Karelian military is restless, its general openly questioning whether democracy is a luxury the nation can afford. You have a desk, a telephone with at least three taps on it, and the dwindling trust of a population that just watched their leader die in the street.