The Outer Circle (The Counterpoint Trilogy Book 3) (18 page)

Los Angeles, USA

“Will she or won’t she?”

“Who? What?” David looked at Oleg.

“Jennifer Kron, who else? Will she meet with us?”

“Oh.” David went back to his computer screen.

Oleg shook his head, turned to Alejandro, “Come on, let’s go somewhere! We’ve been here for over a month and spent pretty much all of our time here, in this house, in this room.”

“Oleg, Alejandro is worried about our safety,” said Maggie.

“Yeah, I know but it’s already dark outside. I’ll even wear a mask if needed.”

Alejandro laughed, “You, my friend, are having a cabin fever. And it’s not true that I kept you here locked up. We’ve gone places a few times. Just have to be careful. You, my friends, are fugitives.”

“You promised to show us your warehouse,” said Oleg.

Alejandro shook his head, “You are restless. OK, fine, let’s go. Remember the precautions to take.”

He laughed again as Maggie and Oleg jumped up. David, on the other hand, did not move.

“David, are you coming?” asked Maggie.

“No. Still working on some of the stuff that Brobak sent. Have to have it ready for the meeting with Jennifer.”

“Haven’t even met her and already on the first name basis? But I’m glad you think she’ll come.”

He just looked back at Maggie and she nodded.
Yes, have to believe in something.

There was a new car in the garage. Alejandro proudly patted it:

“Lexus 570A. ‘A’ stands for autonomous. This baby drives itself everywhere, not just on freeways.”

Oleg hemmed. He did not like self-driving cars.

“Come on, Oleg, get into the driver’s seat.”

But Oleg demonstratively went into the back seat.

Alejandro opened the garage door, carefully pronounced the address, and the car gently eased into the street. It was starting to rain outside, a rarity for LA.

The car took them north through stop-and-go traffic, under the Santa Monica Freeway. Signs and billboards switched from English to Spanish and Korean. Streets were full of people, dark-skinned Mexicans, mini-skirted Korean girls, gawking Anglos. Umbrellas came out in the falling rain. Beggars of various nationalities occupied street corners. Neon lights gave the place a “Blade Runner”-ish feel.

“Koreatown is doing well,” explained Alejandro. “They should probably rename it into Mexican-Korean-town.”

“Why is that?” asked Oleg from the back seat.

“Why is what? It doing well or it should be renamed?”

“Both.”

“Despite the name, there are more Mexicans than Koreans living here now. Many urban areas, especially ethnic ones, made it through the crisis OK. People here live closely together, they could fall on family and neighborhood support when needed. And there is a subway station is nearby, so transportation is relatively cheap. Suburbs have been faring much worse. Well, here we are.”

The car parallel-parked itself next to a non-descript one-story building on the edge of downtown. “New American Apparel Warehouse” read the sign.

“Are you in the apparel business too?” asked Maggie.

“Sort of.”

Security guard let them inside and turned on the lights. They walked by rows of pants, shirts and dresses when Alejandro parted two racks of suits and stopped in front of a collection of jeans. He picked a pair, rubbed the material between his thumb and index fingers.

“Try it. Does it feel different?”

“Feels a bit sandy?” offered Maggie.

“Hmm... sandy... interesting. The material has a thin film of graphene inside.”

“Gra-what?” asked Oleg.

“Graphene. It shields people from terahertz imaging. You know, the machines they have in the airports that look through your clothing? Now police have cameras with terahertz imaging. Some folks don’t like that. That’s our clothing market.”

“So you help people to hide guns from the police?”

“I’d like to think we are defending their right to privacy. Sometimes they have something to hide, but in most cases they just don’t want cops seeing through their clothing. Technology empowers the government. We bring in technology that empowers the people.”

“Is it expensive?”

“It’s not cheap. It’s not illegal to wear, but it’s illegal to make, which keeps prices high. Good markup for us.” Alejandro smiled, “I am a private person. Most of my wardrobe has graphene in it.”

He came to what looked like a corrugated metal wall, touched his palm against it and the wall opened. There was another, smaller warehouse inside, with rows of shelves.

Alejandro walked amongst them, commenting in each section:

“Spectrum analyzers – sweep and monitor transmissions in your home, raise the alarm for anything suspicious. Image distortion devices – they detect the presence of cameras and send a pulse of light back at them. Robots, modified to not send out any private information. Jailbroken watches and phones that can be turned off completely and not disclose your location. TVs and computers configured for privacy. Microwave ovens. Printers…”

“Microwave ovens?” interrupted Oleg.

Alejandro laughed, “They shield your home from cameras, make it invisible. Just kidding! Not everything here is privacy or security oriented. Some of our customers don’t want to use credit cards or order things online where their transactions are traced. They don’t have to. They place orders through us using D-coin wallets on their phones or computers. Many large retailers under government’s pressure don’t accept D-coin, so we convert cryptocurrency into dollars, get their stuff, our gardener crews deliver. We buy things in bulk so we make a bit of margin but not much. Mostly, it’s a part of the package, we want to be a one-stop ‘drop out’ shop where our customers get most of the convenience of a regular commerce but in privacy.”

He stopped, “Look, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

Alejandro took them to Guelaguetza, an orange-painted Mexican restaurant in the middle of Koreatown.

“After two years in Mexico, you’ll appreciate this. The best Oaxacan restaurant in LA. Probably in the country!” promised Alejandro. “You must try their enmoladas and chilaquiles. And let’s get some grilled cactus and sautéed grasshoppers.”

A jazz band was going full throttle on a small stage. Alejandro ordered four different versions of mescal, Oaxaca’s agave liquor, for them to try. His hand was firmly planted on Maggie’s jean-covered leg, working its way to her inner thigh.

Alejandro stood up and unsteadily started making his way to the restroom.

“It’s a good thing his is a self-driving car,” said Maggie.

“Ugh.”

Maggie looked at Oleg. He was studying the ground under the table.

“Oleg, what’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter?” he slowly repeated. “David is what’s the matter! He might be blind because he’s got his nose in the numbers, but I am not!”

Oleg looked at her, breathing heavily, nose crinkled, lips pressed together with corners facing down.

Maggie leaned back in her chair, looking at the hands in her lap, not saying anything. Then she looked up, enunciated carefully:

“You must understand, I will do anything to protect David. Anything.”

Oleg sat there staring at her, his mouth relaxed, eyes sad.

“Hey, what’s the matter, why so serious?” Alejandro stumbled back to the table.

“Nothing,” Oleg avoided Alejandro’s eyes.

Waiter brought in an electronic payment tablet. Without checking, Alejandro waved his phone over it. The tablet beeped twice.

“I am sorry, Sir, we don’t accept D-coin,” apologized the waiter.

“Agrrh,” Alejandro angrily punched index finger against the phone, waved the device again. This time the tablet played a short happy tune. “It’s about time your restaurant got on with the program and saved me half a percent in conversion fee.”

New York, USA

“I don’t have to tell you how unpredictable and dangerous the situation has become,” said a man standing by the window. He looked like a nicely aged movie star: silvery, carefully brushed hair, well-toned figure sheathed in a casually expensive suit, open collar blue shirt, polished fingernails. He would have looked early 50s but the stretched skin of his face, evident of plastic surgery, gave away that he was likely quite a bit older. “With all the money we poured into him, Tice is now a distant third.”

“Yeah, well, weren’t you, Jim, the one telling us eight months ago that if we increase our contributions, Tice was a shoo-in?” retorted a tall elderly man in jeans and cowboy boots. “In the last budget we got Congress to agree to increase the individual contribution limit to two million. There are six of us in this room and, I reckon, between direct and indirect contributions we must have poured close to fifty million into your guy. Or should I say ‘your loser’?”

“Be careful how you talk to me, Bryce, you’re not in Texas anymore.” Jim the ‘movie star’ bared his teeth.

“Calm down, you two!” a red-faced heavy-breathing man with two chins slapped his hand against the table. “The six of us have a net worth of over two hundred billion; let’s not squabble over a few pennies. The question is, what are we going to do now?”

“Yes, this is the question.” A slightly static-y voice came from a holographic 3-D image of a younger man in the corner. “Sorry I couldn’t be there with you in person, but my hedge fund activities required my physical presence in London.”

“My hedge fund activities, oh boy,” mimicked him a swarthy man in a pin-striped suit. “But you’re not the only one; Sheila here is also present electronically,” he pointed to a second holographic figure in the room, that of a thin blonde in her late 40s.

“Well, you’ll have to excuse me, gentlemen,” Sheila drawled in a southern accent. “I would have rather been there with you in person but that boring business, you know...”

“Let’s skip the pleasantries,” interrupted her the heavy breather. “The point is, Tice is not going to win this election. It’s Dimon or Kron. And we have two hundred billion dollars to protect.”

“We can’t let Kron win!” shouted the cowboy. “Didn’t you see his interview? He is a God-damn commie!”

“I am not crazy about Kron, but Dimon scares the crap out of me,” drawled Sheila. “He talks like he’s ready to start a war with the Chinese and the Russians. Now, the war might be good for you, George, with your defense companies,” the figure pointed to the heavy breather, “but for many of us this is not a good business.”

“We can control Dimon!” retorted George. “I know his demagoguery is over the top at times, but that’s what it takes to get the sheep to follow. If we support him and get him to the top, he’ll work with us. Once he wins, he’ll tone down his rhetoric.”

“And you think we can’t control Kron?” asked the hedge-fund holograph. “I read his election pamphlets, some things he proposes make sense to me.”

“I don’t think so,” the ‘movie star’ shook his head. “Dimon is an opportunist, Kron an idealist. I know how to manage the former but not the latter. And frankly, I think that we, the people that know how to make real money, better know how to run the country than some wild-eyed idealist. Most people just want to be happy, fed and entertained; they don’t care about all the complex stuff that goes into running the country.”

“Yeah, I would agree with that,” nodded Bryce, the cowboy. “Dimon is a politician, while Kron... hell knows what Kron is...”

“I don’t know,” wondered the pin-striped man. “Dimon just seems to be so far out there...”

“It’s an act,” replied George. “I figure we can manage him, he’ll need us. But does anyone here think we can control Kron? Sheila, you’re scared of Dimon – but do you think that Kron will play along with us? Or will he try to take away our money?”

“I don’t think Kron will play along,” sighed Sheila’s image. “It’s just that Dimon is so, how to put it, unpredictable. But if you all think we can manage him, OK.”

“And what about you, hedge boy?” George turned to the other hologram.

“Don’t call me that! I’m like Sheila – uneasy about Dimon but I figure it’s rather Dimon than Kron.”

“Of course you’re like Sheila,” Bryce bared his teeth.

“Enough of this sparring,” waived Jim the ‘movie star.' “Is anybody here thinking that we should back Kron?”

He was greeted by silence.

“OK, Dimon it is. I’ll pledge ten million. You all in?”

Nods.

“Can’t we be more direct in our support?” asked Bryce. “We have millions of people working for us, can we push them to vote the right way?”

“No, we have to be careful,” disagreed Jim. “We have to maintain public’s belief in the process. Appearances matter. I’ll get in touch with Dimon and offer our support. We’ll make sure he knows who his friends are.”

St. Petersburg, Russia

Vitaly Mershov did not frighten easily, but he was scared for the past few days, ever since Slava and Petr, the two fellow
militzia
investigators, had been gunned down. The official story was that they were caught in a mob shootout. It just didn’t sound like them. Both had been known as careful and cautious. Slava used to say “I have a nose for bad situations and I avoid them like a plague; better to be cowardly and alive than brave and dead.” Vitaly wondered whether this had anything to do with them being on the scene of the murder of the Defense Minister Nedinsky. Had they talked to the wrong people? After their lunch in a beer bar near Kutuzov Embankment, Vitaly tried to run a check on Bogdan Zaychikov but the file was classified. Did Slava or Petr tell anyone that they shared the information with Vitaly?

Not willing to give in to his anxiety, he started checking e-mail that accumulated over the past few days. Most of it was advertising junk, he kept hitting “delete,” “delete.” Suddenly his brain registered that something was not quite right with the subject of the message he just deleted. Vitaly retrieved the message from the trash. The message was titled: “
Please donate to Shlisselburg’s Museum of Breaking the Leningrad Blockade
.”

Oleg Khmelco, his lost childhood friend. Oleg went to the United States some time ago. Back in 2022, Oleg disappeared without a trace, probably got involved in the underworld and paid for it. But they had an agreement: if one of them has to contact the other in secret, refer to the Shlisselburg’s Museum, the place that Vitaly’s grandfather made them go to every year on June 22
nd
, the anniversary of the German attack on Russia.

Vitaly looked at the message itself. The “From” field was not familiar and most likely meaningless. The text seemed like a typical, if somewhat long, request for money to be sent to a post-office box. Vitaly got up, went to the book shelf and retrieved “The Three Musketeers” by Alexander Dumas. The post-office box number was a guide to the place in the book to use as a one-time decoding pad.

It was a slow, manual process. The secret message within the solicitation directed Vitaly to an online data storage account, with a password and two words: “Be careful.” So Oleg was alive after all. And definitely involved in something dangerous.

Great, just what I need on top of Nedinsky’s murder
, thought Mershov. He got up to leave, to go to one of the libraries and check the online data storage account from there.