would most certainly have been led by the brilliant but dead Mikhallo Masorin, declared autonomy from Moscow, and elected to go their own way. Russia would be virtually powerless. You can't fight a modern war in a place that big. And anyway Russia does not have the resources for that kind of operation.
'Siberia could shut down the oil for a while, and get along just fine. Moscow, and Russia with it, would perish. You still wonder why Mr. Masorin is no longer alive?'
'I sure as hell don't. In fact it's a bloody miracle he lasted so long.'
'Considering the mind-set of his enemies, that is exactly so,' said Lenny. 'Moscow could easily negotiate a better deal for Siberia and make everyone happy. But the Russian government is no good at that. They see a problem and instantly try to smash it. Kicking down the door, even if it's unlocked.'
'And what will happen now?'
'Who knows? But I imagine there is seething anger in Siberia. They will have guessed what happened to their leader, and I imagine they will begin to level huge demands on Moscow. Always with the unspoken threat…
'They will surely point out that all the other independent states from the old communist block are thriving, why not us?
'Jesus. Moscow will not love that,' said Jimmy, unnecessarily.
'No, Jimmy, they will not. They most certainly will not.'
The two men continued their slow walk around the memorial garden, in silence. Eventually Lenny said, 'Have you finished with me? We just took delivery of some surveillance film from the White House. There was a camera on that dinner and we might just see who delivered the fateful attack on Mr. Masorin.'
'Probably just one of their goons,' said Jimmy. 'And it's dollars to doughnuts he's safely tucked up in bed in Moscow by now.'
'I agree. But we may recognize him. Or I may. And we'll slip his name into one of our little black books, hah?'
'Yeah, I guess so. But thanks, Lenny, for the geopolitical lesson. It's bloody unbelievable how much trouble the oil industry causes, eh?'
'Especially since it's mostly owned by despots, hooligans, and villains…'
Jimmy chuckled, and then, almost miraculously, his guide from the Russian desk arrived to walk him back to the parking lot.
'Bye, Lenny, stay in touch.'
And Jimmy watched the double agent from Bucharest, on little spring-heeled steps, still smiling as he made his way back into one of the most secretive buildings on Earth.
Winter had arrived early on the great marshy plains above the oil fields. And the road up to Noyabrsk was already becoming treacherous. Two hours out of the industrial oil town of Surgut, heading north, a mere four hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle, the huge articulated truck from the OJSC oil giant had its windshield wipers flailing against the vicious snow flurries that would soon turn the ice-bound landscape milk white.
Temperatures had crashed during the night and the great wheels of the truck thundered over ice crystals already forming on the highway. In the passenger seat, Jaan Valuev, President of the OJSC Surgutneftegas Corporation, sat grimly staring into the desolate emptiness ahead, clutching his arctic mittens.
Jaan was a Siberian by birth, a billionaire by choice, from Surgut way back south on the banks of the Ob, the fourth largest river in the world. His mission today was secret, and he traveled in the truck to preserve his anonymity. Out here in the purpose-built dormitory towns that surround the oil rigs, the icicles have ears and the clapboard walls have eyes.
Jaan Valuev wanted no one to know of his presence in Noyabrsk. So far only the driver knew he was on his way, except for Boris and Sergei. And the big truck kept going, fast, the speedometer hovering at 120 kilometers, great tracks of pine and birch forest occasionally flashing past, but mostly just bleak white flatland, bereft of human life, the icy wilderness of the West Siberian Basin.
They came rolling into Noyabrsk shortly before nine a.m. The weather, if anything, had worsened. The sky was the darkest shade of gray, with lowering thunderheads. The temperature was–1 °C, and malicious snow flurries sliced down the streets. The locals call them
They say there is no cold on this earth quite like that of Siberia, and those gusts, 50 mph straight off the northern ice cap, howling in off the Kara Sea, shrieked down the estuary of the Ob River and straight into downtown Noyabrsk. That's cold.
In the wild lands beyond the town, men were already struggling with the drilling pipes, manhandling the writhing hydraulics, trying to control them, heavy boots striving to grip the frozen steel of the screw-drill rig, forcing the pipe into the steel teeth of the connector mechanism that joins it to the next segment, lancing two miles down, into the earth. Jaan's corporation alone, OJSC, drills ninety of these wells every year and accounts for 13 percent of all Russian oil production.
The fifty-two-year-old Siberian oil boss disembarked from the truck and nodded his thanks curtly to the driver, who had brought the massive vehicle to a halt outside the main doorway of a three-storey wooden office building on a side street right off the main throughway of the town.
Jaan hurried inside, brushing the snow off his fur coat as he entered the warm corridor. He walked briskly upstairs to the first floor, where a large wooden door bore the lettering SIBNEFT, the Russian name for the gigantic Siberian Oil Company, whose refineries in the city of Omsk, down near the Kazakhstan border, and in Moscow, produce 500,000 barrels of oil product every day.
Inside, behind a large desk, in front of a roaring log fire, sat Sergei Pobozhiy, the fabled Chairman of SIBNEFT. Neither man had been to this oil frontier town for at least two years, and they gave each other great bear hugs of recognition. Sergei had arrived by helicopter from the city of Yekaterinburg, which stands, in its infamy, in the foothills of the Urals.
The next visitor, who arrived at 9:30, had traveled up from the same city, also by helicopter. The mission was too secret for the men to travel together. Like Sergei, Boris Nuriyev, first Vice President of Finance at the colossal, restructured LUKOIL Corporation, had traveled alone in the corporate helicopter.
Boris Nuriyev was a stranger to Jaan and Sergei, but all three of them were Siberian-born, and all three of them had been close friends with the late Mikhallo Masorin. They shook hands formally and sat down with black coffee to await the arrival of the fourth and final member of the meeting.
He came through the door at 9:40, direct from the rough little Noyabrsk airport, having landed in a private corporate jet directly into the teeth of the wind, and was almost blown off the runway. The government car that picked him up was a black Mercedes limousine, with chains already fitted to the tires. The automobile was a gift from the Chinese government.
Roman Rekuts, a big man well over six feet three, issued no bear hugs, mainly because he might have crushed the spines of the other men. But Jaan, Sergei, and Boris each shook hands warmly with the last arrival, welcoming the new head of the Urals Federal District, the man who had replaced Mikhallo Masorin. A Siberian-born politician, he had served under Masorin for four years.
Sergei Pobozhiy motioned for Roman to remove his coat and to sit in the big chair behind the desk. The SIBNEFT boss poured coffee for them all, and suggested that the new Urals Minister begin proceedings. Nothing written down, just an informal chat among four of the most influential men in Siberia.
'Well,' he began, 'I understand we are unanimous that Moscow agents assassinated Mikhallo Masorin. The American newspapers confirm the findings of the autopsy, and the coroner in Washington is expected to deliver a verdict that he was murdered by person or persons unknown.
'I imagine the Russian security contingent that traveled to the United States with the President will maintain the Americans must have done it. But of course no one is going to believe that. At least the Americans won't, and neither will we.
