NOTE: This is part of a continuing online novel. Here is the Table of Contents.

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The announcement from Moscow, like the previous one from Beijing, was low key, untelevised, mere words in magnetic ink.

"President Putin announced that, in an effort to foster greater pan-European cooperation, that Russian oil companies would begin accepting payments for oil in Euros only starting December 1." Requests from clarification, from both Russian and American reporters, were ignored.

The statement, reporters were told, was routine and spoke for itself.

Meanwhile, at the Chambers Country Club golf course in Anahuac, an exurb of Houston where temperatures were still warm and the greens still firm, a cell phone rang.

"This is the President," said George W. Bush, who had been in the process of removing a five iron from a golf bag in the cart of his father, the former President. "PootyPoot did what? That sumbitch! OK, I'll be there ASAP. Get me a decision and we go."

The elder man, who was behind the wheel of the cart, just smiled. "Duty?" he asked.

"That SON-OF-A-BITCH!" his son cried out, tossing first the five iron and then the cell phone toward the water hazard on the blue course. A second cart appeared as if by magic, driven by a dark-suited Secret Service agent. A second agent ran off to retrieve the club and the phone.

Left alone unexpectedly, George H.W. Bush pulled the cell phone his wife had bought him at his last birthday from a shirt pocket. He flipped the case, held it across from him, took his own picture and then pressed two buttons.

"Baker Public Policy Center," said the warm voice from 60 miles away, behind a desk at Rice University in Houston. "Good morning, Mr. President. You're looking well." His phone had sent the snapshot as an MMS to a mobile number by the secretary's desk, alerting her to who was calling. "You need Jim? One moment."

Within seconds, a second ringing tone greeted the President, this time a snatch of "Hail to the Chief." It was a ringtone used on the cellphone of former Secretary of State James A. Baker, the senior Bush's consigliere in his White House years and now director emeritus of the school's policy center. He had helped fund it and it had his name on the door. The song played only when the elder Bush called.

"H'lo, friend" came a cheerful voice, from the center of a host of young voices.

"Jim, where are you?" the former President asked.

"I felt good. Nothing special to do, had this day mapped out for fighting Democrats. Figured I would have lunch with the kids."

"Baker College?" Bush had once taught at Rice and knew the school's college system quite well. Baker College, the school's oldest dorm, was in fact named for Baker's grandfather, who had helped found the school by solving the murder of its namesake in 1900.

"Excuse me, kids." The cacaphony died away as Baker stepped outside the dining hall. "Sorry, George. What's up?"

"Putin. Euros. Solution?" Bush assumed his friend was always up on everything, and so often spoke in shorthand. It was usually a good assumption.

"Why not give him something he wants, like some Company technology that finds and kills Chechens. Aren't that many Euros. He could back off saying that."

"That's what I thought. Cooperation, not confrontation. Kill as few as you can so you don't have to kill more later."

"Any chance the President will listen?"

The elder man sighed heavily. "I doubt it. He's been acting like he just took Paris. No one can tell him anything."

"That's when you make mistakes. Look, I'll try to get a word in through the back door."

But as the senior Bush's driver navigated rush hour traffic on I-10, heading for he and Bar's little retirement home on Memorial, the radio was all over what his son had already decided. Defiance, intimations that Russia was meddling in Iraq, even the words Communist Dictator, which the old man hadn't heard applied to anyone but Fidel Castro in years.

The old man frowned. Despite what Baker had for a ringtone, it wasn't his call anymore.