Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

Vassili slapped the table, laughing. “So, we now need to know who is dragging my country’s good name through the mud. Yes?”

“Yeah.” He thought for a moment. “You said it was Mikoyan who informed your government. Didn’t Mutizen approach the Russian Defence Ministry with its generator data?”

“No. I did not realize we owned a kombinate.”

“Only thirty-two per cent. But, yeah, it’s as good as outright ownership.”

“If the government has a controlling stake, they would have made sure the generator data was used to their advantage. It would never be offered to Event Horizon.” Vassili stood up and took the cups back to the samovar. “I don’t like this, Gregory. The briefing officer they sent over explained some of the possible defence applications of atomic structuring. There will be a terrible scramble to acquire it. All or nothing, Gregory. What country could afford to be without it? A shield which can protect whole cities against nuclear weapons and electron compression warheads. The citizens of the world would demand nothing less from their leaders. And I would venture that offensive capabilities will soon follow. People are so very good at that kind of thing. And now you tell me there are unknown players on the field seeking a monopoly. No, this is not good, and not just for Julia Evans.”

Greg ran a hand across his forehead. Last night he had been too exhausted to give atomic structuring much thought. But Vassili’s comments were opening his mind up to possibilities, few of them good. “You think it’ll mean a new arms race?”

Vassili refilled the cups and returned to the table. “Arms race, economic upheaval.” He gave Greg a sad smile. “And just when we were getting over the worse of the Warming.”

“Yeah. England’s a good place to live in again, Vassili. You wouldn’t know it was the same country that suffered under the PSP.”

“Do you have the names of the Russian export companies Jason Whitehurst was trading with?”

“Sure.” Greg pulled his cybofax out, and called up the data. He handed it over to Vassili. “Mean anything to you?”

“Perhaps.” Vassili walked over to his desk and activated his terminal. Greg saw him squirt the export companies’ profiles into the key.

“I have a scrambled link with the military intelligence cores in Moscow,” Vassili said. “And through that I can access the Federal Crime Directorate memory cores. This won’t take a minute.” He sat behind the desk.

The shiny artillery shells prevented Greg from seeing what data was in the cubes. He drank some tea.

Vassili suddenly let out a contemptuous grunt.

“What?” Greg asked.

“I’m surprised at you, Gregory. Mindstar gave you intelligence data-correlation training, did they not?”

“Three months of lectures and exercises, yeah. Why?”

“Shame on you, then. Do you not recognize that you are in familiar territory with this so-called Russian dealer? Have you no sense of deja vu?”

“Familiar, how?”

“Private organizations that form a powerful national cartel, influencing government departments. Who do you know that duplicates that pattern, Gregory?”

“Shit. Julia. Do you mean we’re up against the Russian equivalent of Julia Evans?”

Vassili sighed, and switched off his terminal. “No, Gregory. Russia envies Julia Evans and Event Horizon. How could we not? A woman who devotes her wealth and power to nurturing her own country. Who does not abuse her position. An honourable person. No, Gregory, we have no equivalent of Julia Evans. Instead, this is something Russians are ashamed of. The other side of democracy’s coin.”

“What is it?”

Vassili came back to the table, and sat heavily. “Dolgoprudnensky,” he spat.

“Never heard of it. Whatever it is.”

“Bah, of that I am pleased. I would like you to have the good memories of Russia only. But they exist. They are our Mafia, our Yakuza, our Triads. Organized crime, Gregory. These fifteen export companies are all owned by known Dolgoprudnensky members. Every one of them. What was it you were always saying in Turkey? There is no such thing as coincidence.”

“Right. And this Dolgoprudnensky is powerful enough to influence your government?”

“Influence is a strong word. They would not be able to buy our parliamentary cabinet members, not outright. But then, does Julia Evans actually hand over cash to make the New Conservatives do her bidding?”

“Point taken.”

“They are everywhere, Gregory, our bureaucracy is rotten with them. It is only natural, they are the Communist Party’s successors. They grew up in the party’s shadows in the eighties and nineties. There were eight or nine of them in Moscow alone in those days, the Podolsk, Chechen, Solntsevo, others, but the Dolgoprudnensky was the largest even then. It was inevitable they would absorb the rest. Now there is only Dolgoprudnensky, stretching right across the republic. There had been criminals in the Soviet Union before them, but never so well organized, nor so brazen. Afghanistan was the start, the youths who returned from it were a breed the authorities had never dealt with before. The Afganrsi. They had no respect, no morals, no conscience. The war had burnt it out of them, they could see they were fighting for nothing, and worse, for a lie. Not all of them, of course, but enough, a hard core that turned to crime. Then the Communists fell, and the gangs began to fill the vacuum they left behind. The corruption, Gregory, the sheer misuse of power. Westerners still have little conception of how the Communists ransacked our country to maintain their personal status. Dolgoprudnensky doesn’t have their stature, but it is just as insidious, with its rackets and syntho vats, and prostitutes; its legitimate companies defrauding factories and farmers, and the bought officials sanctioning both. We fight them through the police and Justice Ministry, Gregory, fight and fight, until buildings burn and blood is spilt, but the best we can do is hold what ground we have.”

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“No, it is I who am shamed. It is a terrible thing to tell someone this is the land I am sworn to defend, the kind of people I will die for.”

“We all have organized crime, Vassili. The number of people involved is so small you can’t even call them a minority.”

Vassili handed Greg’s cybofax back. “But the trouble and misery they cause is vast. See what they’ve done to this old man, made him unable to look his friend in the face.”

“Can we help?” Greg asked. “Hand over what we’ve got to the Russian Justice Ministry?”

“What have you got, Gregory? Fifteen companies traded with someone whose airship you say was attacked by tekmercs. Kombinates are jockeying for advantage over a new technology. How can this help us?”

Greg toyed with his empty cup, feeling stupid. “Yeah, right.” For Victor Tyo it would’ve been enough, for a tekmerc it would’ve been enough. Circumstantial proof which condemned for all of time. How strange that illegality could accept what the law couldn’t.

“I tell you this, Gregory, if you ever meet any of the Dolgoprudnensky face to face, then you shoot. That is the best help you can give us. Shoot. Shoot them down like rabid animals.”

“Is there a name?” he asked. “A leader? I like to have a name for what I’m up against. I can form a picture that way.”

“Kirilov. Pavel Kirilov. The bastard, he lives like a merchant from the decadent imperial days, he flaunts his wealth and luxuries, he has many young girls to amuse him. But he is smart, cunning. Nothing ever holds against him in the courts, he laughs at the very best our prosecutors can do.”

Greg climbed to his feet. The sun was completely above the horizon now, casting long shadows. A thick blanket of mist had risen, glowing pink in the sunlight; it swirled gently above the cultivated land, filling Nova Kirov’s broad streets. People and horses looked like they were wading through it.