Red Winter White Snow is a fictional account of an attempt to destroy the United States by hard-line KGB officials in the Russia who have not accepted the outcome of events that led to the dissolving of the USSR following the war in Afghanistan and the end of the cold war. Glasnost and Peristroika were unacceptable to them, and one in particular was driven to this plan when he suffered losses in his family caused by the illegal drug trade that began flourishing during the Afghan war.

When Yuri Chezenckos son was killed in Afghanistan while he was investigating the drug problem, and his relationship to Yuri, the deputy director of the KGB was discovered, a cover-up was initiated which resulted in the

reassignment of Alexi Yanoff, the KGB Lieutenant Colonel who had been in charge of the investigation and later we learn, involved the drug trade as well. Yanoff was sent to Cuba in a lower position, which he resented.

Adding to the plot is Rubio LaRosa, a wealthy South American banker who hungers for something more than money, the accumulation of power, and sees bringing the KGB and Cartels together as his ticket to becoming as powerful as the Cartels.

The central character of the story is John McClure, a Navy SEAL, who loses the members of his team while he is away on a lone assignment to bring Yanoff out of Cuba after he has offered to trade information for asylum. McClures team is killed during one of the joint KGB/Cartel operations designed to defeat the rather strong and effective blockade being carried out by the United States which has been very effective in reducing the flow of drugs which had been creating conditions that were intolerable. The American President authorized the blockade, which employed U.S. military forces and equipment in large quantities.

When the KGB/Cartel combination begins defeating the blockade, the CIA and the President use McClures efforts to find out what happened to his team to help solve the problem of why the blockade has begun to fail. Deep cover KGB agents, one working in the CIA itself, become involved and the CIA agent begins an adversarial relationship with McClure. Karl Gavrilov, or Carl Garvey as the CIA knows him, lets his ego drive him to confront McClure face to face to prove he can better him.

As the events begin to cascade, Garvey loses his nerve and asks for asylum himself, and in a fateful twist, McClure is sent to retrieve him. In the end, McClure has learned that it was Garvey that facilitated the events that killed his team, and exacts his revenge. The KGB/Cartel link is broken but there is a lingering suggestion that the drug problem in the United States will not end.

Michael J. Pisani