Accountants held a more important position in Russian businesses than in most Western companies. One token of this was the fact that they were the ones who tended to be arrested when the required permits or bribes weren’t paid. So it wasn’t surprising that when Lia mentioned Dean’s cover to the man they met in the front room, he bowed deeply, put up his hands, and practically ran to the back to get the big boss. Lia’s story was that they needed a helicopter. The boss protested that they were not in the business of selling aircraft — but then he proceeded to add that they did, as a matter of fact, have several available. He led Lia and Dean outside to a small jeeplike truck and drove them out through a yard filled with rusting tractor blades to a packed gravel yard filled with large pumps, pipes, and vehicles at least twenty years old. At the center of the field sat a thick cross of asphalt that obviously functioned as a helipad. Large plastic barrels sat at the far side, half-buried in the ground — obviously a fuel farm of some kind.
Lia pushed out her story, complaining that they needed a heavier helicopter than the Alouette the manager showed her. That led to two identical rather tired-looking machines parked at the farthest end of the large yard. They were squat, with two sets of rotors, one atop the other, and a double-fin tail. Dean could guess from looking at the machines that neither was what they were looking for, but Lia played through, checking the craft and even asking if one could be started up. The manager didn’t know how and the pilot wasn’t available. Perhaps they’d come back, Lia said.
As they were walking back to the truck, she stopped to tie her shoe. The manager began talking to Dean in English about the difficulties of doing business here. Dean simply shrugged. He worried that he might have to eventually say something about Australia and decided he would divert the manager with a story about being educated in America — he could bullshit plausibly about that, he thought. But Lia caught back up with them and it wasn’t necessary to say anything else.
“We have more stops,” she said, taking the manager’s card. “We will be in touch.”
“Those were Helixes we looked at?” Dean asked as they got back in their truck.
“Kamov KA-27s,” she said. “Match the pictures the Art Room gave me.”
“How do you know the Art Room’s right about what kind of chopper it was?”
“You really are a Luddite, aren’t you?”
“No. I just don’t trust everything I’m told.”
“They’re the right kind of helicopters.”
“So civilians have military helicopters?”
“Well, civilians
“If they don’t sell helicopters,” said Dean, though he knew he was being stubborn, “why do they have so many?”
“Oh, they always say that,” said Lia. “See, if they sold helicopters, they would need certain licenses. We might be from Moscow instead of spies.”
She laughed and started the engine.
By the time they reached their next site, the morning had turned almost balmy, which brought the bugs out in full force. A swarm seemed to attach itself to them as they drove into a small town. Several rows of fairly large houses sat in a staggered semicircle next to the main road; beyond them were oil fields. The town gave way to a tall fence, which at first seemed to contain empty land. Nearly a half-mile from the start of the fence it veered toward the road. A hundred feet farther down it crossed at a gated cul-de-sac. A large building sat at what would have been the middle of the road had it continued. There were other buildings behind it; the complex seemed to stretch a fair distance. A guard stood in the middle of the road; there were others beyond him. All had AK-74s, and there was at least one machine-gun post inside the gate.
“I think it’s time to turn around,” said Dean.
“Yup,” said Lia, who nonetheless drove right up to the guard and started talking to him. He didn’t buy whatever she tried to sell. He gestured sharply for them to turn around and finally showed his anger by raising his gun. Still chattering, Lia put the truck in reverse and backed down the road.
“Not much for chitchat,” she said after they had gone back through the town to the main highway.
“What’d you say to him?”
“I asked if he knew someone who wanted to get laid.”
“What’d you really say to him?”
She laughed. “Why don’t you think that’s what I said?”
“What’d you really say to him?”
“I told him I was looking for my brother. Didn’t even break the ice.”
“This has got to be the place.”
“You think, Charlie? But what if the Art Room agrees? Then what? They can’t be right.”
They refilled the truck’s gas tanks. Lia consulted the map on her handheld, then got back on the highway, heading to another town about five miles farther south. As they drove, Dean took the binoculars and looked back at the area, trying to see something beyond the forest of oil pumps and fences.
“It’s some sort of school,” said Lia. “They used to send KGB officers there for what we’d call SWAT training. That was fifteen years ago.”
“Now what do they do there?”
“I don’t know yet,” said Lia. “We’ll ask when we check in. In the meantime let’s go see what’s behind door number three.”
29
Foreigners throwing around wads of cash attracted several different types of attention in Russia. The most dangerous was the fawning, sell-my-brother-for-a-ruble attention; Karr realized that anyone being overly nice to his face was more than likely calling a
The corruption pained Karr, even as he took advantage of it to do his job. The price for the jet fuel and the two large drums to transport it was so low that the fuel was either watered down or stolen.
Fashona swore it wasn’t watered down, and since they pumped it themselves, they got reasonably close to the amount they had paid for. They rolled the barrels up the single wooden plank into the back of the ancient Zil they’d hired, and moved out of the airfield. Karr fingered his pistol as they passed the guards, but he could tell from the men’s faces they were too depressed to even bother stopping them to ask their business.
His mother had come from Russia as a young girl, the daughter of a refusenik. Though she loved America, she still talked fondly of Russia and often spoke of going back to visit now that the country was a democracy.
He wanted to tell her about the country, but security concerns absolutely forbade him to. It probably wouldn’t have done much good; she wouldn’t believe what he’d tell her. At best, she would blame the woes on the Communists.
Karr wouldn’t completely dismiss that. But it seemed to him that the problem had more to do with greed — a disease imported from the West. As Russia tried to catch up to America, it had lost something of its nobility.
Most people had a depth and warmth that hardship only enhanced. But others were deeply infected with greed and cynicism. It was if it were one of the mosquito-borne viruses plaguing the new oil fields.
Heading back toward Sitjla, the driver of the truck became somewhat talkative. In his early thirties, he owned the truck with his brother, who was riding in the back and carried a small pistol concealed — or at least intended to be concealed — on his calf.
