by Mitch Silver
“I thought you said you were okay.”
“I am, mostly. I’ll get back to you first chance I get.”
She put down the phone, not at all reassured by the call. The worst part of it was, there was nothing she could do.
Chapter 45
Milky-white bubbles threatened to flow over the top of the tub. The scent of chemical blossoms was now overwhelming. She turned off the water, shivers from Lev’s close call still running up and down her spine, and lowered herself in. Keeping her hands out of the water, Lara summoned up the messages on her phone.
Pavel’s calls were lined up in voicemail like planes at Sheremetyevo waiting to take off. He’d phoned her when she and Gerasimov were driving out to the dacha, and was going on about their next lunch not being so swanky.
His second message was different. “Larashka, I’m worried about what I got you into. I know you’re up there at Gerasimov’s place, with him and his kid. He’s a bad guy, that Nikki.
“There’s something else. Someone I know here at the Broadcast Center, someone who does, did, the weather—look, it’s complicated. This isn’t about me, it’s bigger than that. I’ll explain everything when I see you. Just this once, call me back.”
Pavel’s third voicemail was an angry outburst. “Did I embarrass you at the restaurant? Is that what this is? Are my hopes and dreams so pathetic that … Anyway, I told you this isn’t about me: I’m sending you a text. If your parents’ pain and suffering mean anything to you …”
Now she was alarmed. What did her mother and father have to do with anything? Pavel’s fourth message, in its entirety, read: itms://ax.itunes.apple.ru/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/ViewVidPodcast?id=120315179&ign-mscache=1.
She got up out of the water, wiped her wet hands on a towel, and picked up the phone. Carrying it across the bedroom and dripping on the carpet, she put it down and got her iPad from her bag. The she laboriously typed the entire text message from her relic of a phone into the iPad’s Google search box. Almost immediately, the iTunes icon in the dock at the bottom of the screen activated itself and started bouncing up and down. Could Pavel possibly have wanted her to hear a song?
Lara carried the little computer into the bathroom, setting it down where the phone had been. Slipping back into the still warm bath and touching the Play arrow—the advantage of having Wi-Fi all over the flat—Lara was startled to see a woman’s face fill the entire screen. Stranger still, wasn’t that Tatiana Ivanova, the woman from the flirt party?
“The following vodcast has been prepared for those members of the regional committees of the United Russia Party who have already indicated your support. If you are not a committee member, turn this video off and delete this file now. Unauthorized individuals will suffer the prescribed consequences.”
The picture went to black and the word Background briefly came on before dissolving off again to reveal Tatiana, if that was her real name, standing in front of a map of the world.
“The European oil and natural gas ‘monopoly’ we currently enjoy drives our national economy. At the same time, unlike the West or the other large ‘emerging’ economies—those of China, India, Korea, etc.—we produce virtually no consumer goods that foreigners (i.e., Americans) wish to buy.”
As she moved in front of the large map, the camera followed her over to China. “Without export-quality flat-screen televisions, mobile phones, or cheap shirts and shoes, Russia’s balance of trade and our economic well-being depend overwhelmingly upon this energy dominance.”
The tall, confident woman now walked slowly east across the Pacific Ocean and the United States, stopping at the eastern seaboard. “And, because global energy markets are traded in dollars, events here on Wall Street and in Washington have enormous consequences in Moscow.” The camera pushed in slightly on her. She held up a dollar bill and started to ball it up in her fist. “When the American dollar weakens, the way it did in the middle of the last decade, the price of oil goes up. From $55 a barrel back in 2006, it reached nearly $150 in 2008, tripling the value of Russia’s vast oil reserves.”
Like the TV weatherperson she was, Tatiana Ivanova gestured back at the American Midwest as if she were discussing a cold front. “Then, thanks to the American home mortgage debacle that raced across the country, it took only five months for the price of oil to plummet to under $35. Hedge fund traders who had ‘parked’ their dollars in energy raised cash by selling off their leveraged positions. That selloff weakened our central bank’s ability to secure international credit lines.
“Thirty months later, the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings of 2011 and the continuing conflicts in Libya, Egypt, and Syria increased instability in the region and enabled oil to recoup some of its losses.” She paused and looked straight into the camera. “In hindsight, though, it is evident that no national economic planning can proceed when a country’s assets are constantly in flux.”
Lara was confused. What could this possibly have to do with anything? Her frustration with these Russians who don’t or won’t explain themselves made her want to scream.
Tatiana Ivanova started walking again, this time across the Atlantic and into Europe. “With energy so volatile, the Americans and their friends are making aggressive efforts to conserve and to find new/alternative energy sources. Consider: if every automobile on the world’s roads had one of today’s new induction engines, fuel consumption would come down by thirty-eight percent.”
She pointed back the way she’d come. “On the other hand, the enormous quantity of new natural gas produced by fracking and wastewater disposal has led to more than 2,100 earthquakes in the midwestern state of Oklahoma alone. American environmentalists are fighting hard to end the practice. Still, the math is working against us here in Russia.”
By this time, Lara’s bath was lukewarm. She paused the—what had Tatiana called it? … the vodcast—so she could pull out the stopper and let some of the water drain away. The plug came out with a wet plop. After thirty seconds, when the water level had gone down far enough, she put the stopper back in and turned on the hot tap. She dried her hands on the towel hanging down from the bar, all the while wondering if Pavel had written down the wrong URL.
Deciding to suspend her disbelief, she turned off the faucet and, reaching over, un-paused the image. Almost immediately, a new title came on the screen: “The Current Geoclimatic Situation and the Opening it Presents.”
Tatiana was back. “While the Americans (Al Gore in his movie, etc.) bemoan global warming or deny it, our best scientists predict that current worldwide warming trends will continue and even accelerate.” The camera pulled back to show that she was now in front of a blow-up of Russia’s northern frontier. “The receding polar ice has already—and will continue to—open sea lanes into and across the Arctic that have not been navigable for ten thousand years, giving us access to untapped energy resources under the Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi Seas, along with the ability to ship the oil and gas we recover to any existing pipeline.”
What was that signature phrase of hers, from the forecasts she used to do on Channel One? Ah yes: “Let’s set the map in motion.” Tatiana was setting the Arctic in motion so it spun 360º around the Pole, showing the various countries bordering the Arctic Circle. She was saying, “Naturally, the same warming trend exists for the Canadians, the Americans in Alaska, the Danes in Greenland, and the other Scandanavians. They too will have freer access to their own previously ice-locked energy resources when they awaken to the possibilities. In all, we estimate as much as forty-five percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves lie under the polar ice, making the Arctic ‘the next Saudi Arabia.’ The nation that controls that oil will dominate the world’s economy through the rest of the twenty-first century.
“Under existing law, The International Seabed Authority of the United Nations permits drilling for oil only within each nation’s coastal waters, unless it can be shown that a submerged geological feature extends past the ‘320-kil
ometer line.’
“It is our scientists’ belief that the Lomonosov Ridge”—she now used some kind of light pen to draw a large shape on the blue Arctic area—“extending from our waters into the Arctic Circle all the way to the North Pole, is precisely such a geological feature. If the ISA concurred, all natural resources (oil, gas, manganese nodules) lying under the ice between Russia and the Pole would be ours to exploit, denying the same resources to our Western competitors and guaranteeing our economic (and political) future.
“Sadly, despite the scientific and legal merits of our case, the Americans, the British, and their Canadian partners have opposed any Russian effort to claim the Arctic Ocean for ourselves.” Her smile was rather cunning for a weatherperson. “We hesitate to use the term Cold War when discussing the Arctic, but when the next appeal is heard a year from now, the West can ask the International Seabed Authority to deny our application yet again. And they have the votes to do it.”
This time, when the title “Political Implications” came on, they didn’t bother freezing the frame. The presenter was looking in the camera lens and saying, “Fortunately for us, the Americans now have a president who doesn’t concede that global warming exists. Even better, he wishes to appear to the American people as the hero who, by unleashing ‘free market forces,’ single-handedly guarantees America’s energy independence from foreign oil. Including our oil. His first act as president was to open a tract of wilderness in Alaska to commercial drilling. Eight months later, the oil—if it’s there—is still in the ground.”
She smiled. “I said it was fortunate for us that America has such a president. Even more fortunately, our own leader understands the challenge—and the opportunity—this new attitude presents.
“So, through back channels, he has made the US president the following offer in exchange for a reversal of their Seabed vote: With the help of our associates at Lukoil, we will covertly furnish the Americans, at no cost, with enough of our surplus petroleum to support the idea that they have found the largest oil field in history under their own Alaskan permafrost. We will paint a fleet of our oil tankers in American colors and dispatch it to Prudhoe Bay, ready to start pumping the oil into their pipeline. We will promise to continue to secretly ship the crude oil across Arctic waters to the Americans, gratis, through his four-year term in office, his reelection campaign and his second term … after which we will turn the faucet off.”
The camera moved in as she lowered her voice. “And there’s this dividend: once their oil ‘discovery’ lowers world prices for fossil fuels, there will be less incentive for Americans to conserve energy; and it will be harder for alternative sources of energy—wind, biofuels, geothermal—trying to compete. That in turn will increase the US reliance on burning their own oil and coal, providing jobs for the president’s blue-collar base but befouling the air over American cities, where his opponents live. So our offer will effectively reinforce the partisan divide that already exists in the United States while it forecloses their ability to become truly energy-independent for decades, if not the entire century.
“In effect, we would be buying the American’s reelection … so that we may control the supply the moment he’s gone and dictate economic terms long into the future.”
Lara pressed the Pause button once more. Well, the woman sure wasn’t working for Garry Kasparov, that much was certain. As Lara understood it, the Russians were proposing a classic sacrifice of material. Give up enough oil now—a knight or bishop’s worth—to reap a King’s ransom later: in other words, win the whole energy game.
She unfroze the screen. Tatiana’s brow furrowed. “Ah, you say, what if the American President takes our free oil and then, a year from now, reneges on the deal at the UN? Not to worry: we are in the process of acquiring an ‘insurance policy.’ Should we obtain it—and we are confident we will—its release to the media would turn our people permanently against America and the West … as well as the pro-democracy types here at home, whom the Americans are so eager to back.”
There was a new background to the video, a still shot of one of the opposition rallies in Red Square complete with all manner of signs and banners denouncing the Russian strongman. “Why are we going to such lengths to explain all this? Because, the minute the Americans announce their Alaskan ‘discovery,’ the law of supply and demand will drive down the price of oil on world markets and depress the Russian economy with it. This is the unavoidable cost of playing the long game—appear to lose now in order to win much more later. And, due to the confidential nature of our leader’s plan, it means our internal enemies will be emboldened to try to bring down the government without our being able to respond publicly. You must not allow this to happen.”
The image behind her changed once again, this time to the classic photograph of the president of the Russian Federation on horseback, shirtless and smiling.
“When and if it becomes necessary to ensure public order by imposing martial law, your supporting votes in the Presidium—in the face of what may prove to be strong, if uninformed opposition—will be crucial to bringing Russia back to the forefront of nations.
“Your consent to the entire plan we’ve just outlined is implicit in viewing this vodcast. Now, delete this file.”
Lara lay there in a rapidly cooling tub, wreathed in white Lily-of-the-Valley bubbles as the video’s implications sank in: The US and Russian leaders were planning to con the rest of the world into thinking they’d found new oil in Alaska? One of them was ready to sell his country’s future to stay in power while the other was planning to ensure his continuance in office by using the state oil company Lukoil … while the Lukoil Professor of Geohistory stood idly by?
She rose so abruptly it set off a small tidal wave of soapy water that would have engulfed her iPad if she hadn’t hurriedly snatched it up with slippery fingers and set it down almost as quickly in the sink.
She kept repeating the same four words to herself: “Over my dead body.”
Chapter 46
Lara, her still-wet hair wrapped in a towel, sat down at the desk in her bedroom and tried to get past her anger so she could think. A fairly unsavory stranger hands her a half-dozen Dictaphone recordings and tells her there are clues in there that will lead her to a valuable book. Then a woman comes up to her and says she’ll pay double for it.
The same woman, obviously working for the party in power, describes an under-the-table deal with the Americans, whose head of state is in town at this very moment—the man Lara will be sitting beside in twenty-four hours.
And the “insurance policy” that would turn the Russian people against the U.S. if their leader reneged on his end of the bargain? Might it not concern a hoax hidden in a four-hundred-year-old book? A hoax perpetrated on Hitler … that had the effect of devastating Russia instead of Britain and, possibly, America?
Then and there, Lara determined to do everything in her power to find the Bible, and put it in the right hands. Once she figured out whose hands those were.
This was a job for Larissa Mendelova Klimt, the online Sherlock Holmes. Picking up her iPad, she began by searching the German government’s wartime archive with the keywords “prophecy” and “Nostradamus,” and got exactly what she expected: nothing.
Lara tried again, using “Hitler + Bible.” A half-dozen links all led to the same wrong thing, a crazy sort of replacement Bible the Nazis distributed during the war. “Honor thy Führer and master” was Commandment Number One. Not at all what Lara was after.
The archives of the various Allied powers came up blank, as well as more general searches on Google and Bing. By now it was late afternoon, her stomach was rumbling from a lack of food, and going through all the crackpot postings about Nostradamus on the Internet could take the rest of the day.
She leaned back in her chair and let her mind go blank. Himmler gives Hitler a heavy, leather-bound Bible swept up during the war by the Nazi art thieves. The Führer, occultist that he is, believes something written in
it four centuries earlier is all about him, and that it foresees his coming triumph in the East. Does he toss it aside when he’s read it? Or send it to some warehouse to be stacked with a thousand other tomes?
No. He keeps it nearby, possibly to open it and reassure himself of the prophecy whenever times get tough, like after Stalingrad. She looked over at the goldfish, Mr. Russky, swimming in his bowl, and asked him, “So why didn’t the official sites, when they catalogued everything else they captured at war’s end, have any record of it?”
Whatever the goldfish had to say was lost in her eureka moment: grandfather’s German helmet on the other side of the fishbowl! The official archives weren’t the whole story; private soldiers the world over picked up stuff and took it home.
Quickly she scrolled through the major military memorabilia sites. There were thousands of listings on germanmilitaria.ru, ww2collectibles.com, and the others, including hundreds of books. Some of them were Bibles carried in the war by various soldiers, but nothing remotely like what she was looking for. An hour of that and she was almost ready to quit again.
But Lara had one or two more tricks up her sleeve, Russian search engines that sometimes got stuff the others overlooked. Lara typed in her query on Yandex.ru, hit Return, and scanned the results. Nada. She did the same with Rambler.ru.
Halfway down the page came her first real hit. It was a link to eBay.de, the German-language auction site. When she clicked on http://cgi.ebay.de/ HitlerBibel, the slow-loading connection showed just the website’s header at first. In German it said, “Great Deals on Hitler’s Bible on eBay!”
The fully loaded page was better, exciting, but still a disappointment. It read, “Hitler’s Personal Bible, item #Z280377684250. This listing has ended.”