The Manganese Dilemma

by Ian Miller

  "That's good," Dennis said.

  Rutherford noted that Dennis seemed genuinely relieved. Rutherford was convinced that Dennis had no part in that gunfight, but that was not why he had come. He stared at Dennis, a cold and bitter stare. Dennis suddenly suspected that Rutherford was blaming him for that invasion, and the reason he had not been at work was because he knew what was going to happen.

  Rutherford noticed Dennis' looks, and decided that it was time to put some pressure on him for why he had really come this evening. "You haven't been at work today, or yesterday, and here you are, quivering like a lost jelly on the subway. Why is that?"

  "I haven't been feeling good today," Dennis mumbled.

  "Presumably because your conscience is bothering you, perhaps?"

  Dennis said nothing, and Rutherford shook his head, almost in despair, as he said, "Dennis, I know you tried your hand at that land upstate, and I know Irving burned you. Now, that was naughty. Had you asked me to help you get ahead, I would have gladly helped. I like a guy with ambition. What I don't like is you going behind my back because you could have wrecked what I was trying to do."

  Dennis sat there, almost paralysed as he started to imagine what was coming next.

  "So, what have you got to say for yourself?"

  "Look, I knew you didn't want that land, and –"

  "You knew nothing of the sort," Rutherford spat. "I suspect you need a lesson."

  "I'm sorry," Dennis muttered.

  "You could say that louder," Rutherford said, although now he had something of a slight smile on his face. He was enjoying Dennis' misfortune, but his expression suggested he was not intending to be cruel.

  "I'm sorry I did that."

  "Good. Now I understand you're broke, in fact so broke you owe, and not to the right sort of person."

  Dennis gave a miserable nod of agreement.

  "So, you have two choices. The first is to repay that debt within twenty-eight days. I have bought it, at something of a discount, I might add, so you will repay me, and in full. The second is you can commit Irving Goldfinch into doing something very silly, and he has to do it within that time-scale. I do not want to know what you are going to do. You wanted to be on your own then, so you are on your own now. Take the second choice and succeed, then I shall forgive your debt, and maybe even help you with your future. Stuff up, and everyone will be after you. I hope you understand this. You may use any information obtained from those files, or from work, but you do this without my official knowledge. So, Dennis, now it is time for you to decide whether you really want to be a player or a victim."

  "Twenty-eight days isn't enough," Dennis said. "If you want me to foul up Goldfinch, I need more time."

  "And why should I give you that?"

  "Because you will need Irving to make a very big loss, or get very embarrassed, and that means he has to admit it and take it. Any operation has to have time for Goldfinch to stop trying to escape it, and he will play for time." Dennis paused, then found a little courage as he added, "You've been trying for about a year, and so far you've got nowhere."

  Rutherford looked at him and gave a slight chuckle. "So, you've found some spirit, have you? Very good, but you owe me, so why should I care either way? Why shouldn't I just want my pound of flesh?"

  "Because you want Goldfinch."

  "While you have a chance to run? Come on, Dennis, I didn't –"

  "OK, how about this? That's not a huge debt –"

  "So pay it!"

  "I'm coming to that. I own a somewhat run-down property on some very prime land on the upper reaches of Delaware Bay. I will sign the rights over to you in the event that I am not present for more than a week. I can't take that land with me."

  Rutherford seemed unsure of what to do.

  "Look," Dennis said. "If I wanted to run, twenty-eight days is easily enough time."

  "OK," Rutherford said. "Get to work tomorrow and there'll be a lawyer there. If he tells me that the deal makes sense, you can have whatever time you like, unless I decide the whole thing is a waste of time, in which case it is back to twenty-eight days from then. But as long as you keep turning up at work, I shall assume you are working on one of the two options. Agree?"

  "Agreed. But I am going to try to get Irving, because otherwise I have to sell that land, and I am rather attached to it."

  "Good. I can understand that. Now, you may use the facilities at work, since they aren't mine anyway, and you will draw less attention to yourself if you turn up from time to time, but again, you are strictly on your own and can do what you like."

  With that, Rutherford got up and walked towards the door. He turned and with a smile, said, "No need to see me out. You should start thinking."

  Dennis almost collapsed as the door slammed shut. He had to do something, but what? The simplest answer was to flee. The trouble with that was, what could he do? His only expertise was in financial analysis and investments, and it would be very hard to stay undetected and do that again. It was not an activity that could be carried out without drawing attention to himself, and he had no doubt Rutherford would be looking for him. The question was, could he find some way to recover from the present? He seemed to have three options besides fleeing. The first was to do what Rutherford wanted and find a way to fork Goldfinch. That would not be easy, because Goldfinch had so much money, but it was an option. The second was to fork Rutherford and ensure he was taken out of play. There was a third option that was only very vaguely present at the back of his mind. He had heard about this torpedo. He had to find out more. Yes, Burrowes and Svetlana seemed to know something about that.

  Chapter 25

  Middleton seemed pleased as he entered Goldfinch's office. "I've got some answers, boss."

  "And?" Goldfinch at least was interested.

  "The guy who rescued Lamont and, well, stopped Lamont from paying that –"

  "Yes, I'm aware of what happened then," Goldfinch snarled. "You're wasting my time. Get on with it."

  "Well, his name is Frederick Rutherford, or at least that's what he's calling himself. I have this photo of him."

  "Well? Are you going to stand there, or are you going to show me?"

  "Oh yes, of course," Middleton stuttered. The boss was seemingly in a worse mood than usual. He opened his briefcase, took out a photograph and handed it over.

  Goldfinch took the photograph and stared at the man who was seemingly trying to make life miserable for him. Something about the image seemed vaguely familiar, yet he was sure he had never met this man before. "I wonder why he's doing this?" he said, shaking his head.

  "Whatever the reason, he sent Lamont up to buy the land, but Lamont failed," Middleton offered. He needed to give Goldfinch his explanation, then get out. "There was another guy who worked for Rutherford, and he decided to go solo and beat both Lamont and me."

  "So why didn't he pay?"

  "Because he intended to pay with stolen money," Middleton said, and shook his head sadly, "but when push came to shove, he couldn't steal it."

  "What a master criminal," Goldfinch said, as he shook his head in despair. "Anything else?"

  "Yes. Rutherford has two people there working, but apparently they are really working for the CIA or something. Here are some more photos." He handed them over, and while Goldfinch was looking at them, he added, "These two have also been around to Lamont and Ellison's office."

  "If they're CIA, what are they doing there?" Goldfinch was now very concerned. It was one thing to have some unknown guy with a grudge against him, but a completely different matter if something like the CIA was after him. But why would they be? They were forbidden to operate within the US. But that might be why they were working in that oddly placed piece of industrial real estate.

  "I could make a guess," Middleton offered.

  "Well?"

  "What this turkey told me was that these two were hacking into computers belonging to a Russian oligarch, and hacking his bank account."

  "Bank acc
ount? That doesn't seem right," Goldfinch muttered.

  "I'm reasonably sure that's right," Middleton said as he gave a laugh. "That's what this turkey was going to steal from, but the accounts emptied before he got around to it. Probably the CIA emptied them."

  "Probably the Russians found out what was going on and warned the oligarch," Goldfinch snorted. "The oligarch would have moved it somewhere else fairly quickly where, presumably, our master criminal couldn't . . . Hey! How did he hack into the account in the first place?"

  "He copied the process used by this CIA, or whatever, guy, but some of what he did to find the accounts was missing and the exact process wouldn't work elsewhere, and he had no idea how to adapt it."

  "That makes a certain degree of sense." Goldfinch thought for a few moments, then frowned as he said, "That leaves the problem of now what?"

  Middleton said nothing.

  Goldfinch looked up, and with an air of urgency said, "This guy Rutherford? Is he CIA?"

  "According to the guy we interrogated, no."

  "You believe him?"

  "Yes, because until those two turned up, all Rutherford was interested in was making money, and he wasn't too concerned about the niceties of the legal system."

  Goldfinch nodded. No surprise there. Rutherford sounded a little like he was, particularly earlier in his financial career, except for some reason Rutherford seemed to be determined to undermine him. Why, he had no idea. But the presence of two CIA agents certainly complicated his problem, if they were CIA. Were they? Not that it mattered if they were belonging to a different agency. If he were going to hurt this Rutherford, it was imperative he did not hurt the government agents, even accidentally. The last thing he needed was that organization all over him, even if they weren't supposed to operate within the US.

  Then again, if those two government agents were placed there for one operation, they would not stay there. Maybe he should wait until they left before he went after this Rutherford. Could he afford that? There was no way of knowing how long that would be.

  Should he do something? Should he wait?

  Middleton watched Goldfinch enter into some sort of internal struggle. He assumed Goldfinch no longer needed him, so he inched slowly towards the door, and since there was no callback, he inched out and closed the door as quietly as he could. As he returned to his office, he was only too aware that something was going wrong, but no matter how he looked at it, he could not see what he should do. It was reasonably clear that this man Rutherford had it in for his boss, and he also knew his associates were smarting after what had happened to them. Yes, they would like to get their own back, but he could not just let them loose. Even they would see the sense in keeping clear of federal agents. If they had the opportunity, most likely something bad would happen, and they would leave clues, and when they were caught, it would get back to him. No, they had to hold off until an appropriate situation could be generated.

  He was starting to feel that while Goldfinch should create the circumstance, Goldfinch seemed to be losing his touch.

  Chapter 26

  Once again, Ruth Telfar and Bernard Lawton were summoned, and this time the original White House woman was there. No smile graced her face that day. There was not even a friendly "Good afternoon." This was not going to be a pleasant meeting.

  "Bernard's suggestion has left us in the same position," the woman said in a flat tone. "Our satellites don't have the radar necessary to test the premise so we are back to square one. So, Bernard, how's progress from your hacking attempts?"

  "Nothing definitive," he replied. "We've tracked shipments from that building in the woods near Ufa to a paint manufacturer, and that manufacturer supplied paint to the Russian Aircraft Corporation. The trouble is, we don't know whether that paint has any of the material from that Ufa site, and the Corporation also supplies all the Russian aircraft manufacturers."

  "Ruth, can we steal a sample of paint from the manufacturer?"

  "With some risk," she replied in a cold tone, which showed she had no enthusiasm for this suggestion at all. "The trouble is, all we would have is a sample of paint. It could be plain and simple paint."

  "Surely that to be used for aircraft would be labelled as such?"

  "We don't know," Telfar replied. "We've never had to worry about this before."

  "Now I think you're just being plain uncooperative and –"

  "Whatever is being used, it won't be labelled as 'Top secret special radar absorbing paint.'"

  "No, but it will presumably have some description on it so whoever handles it or uses it knows it isn't ship paint or house roof paint."

  "Yes, but I can't tell any agent how it will be labelled." She noticed the look of displeasure, so she added, "So far, the only aspect about military aircraft coatings that have been of interest has been the colour schemes, and we can see that by looking at their fighters when they are testing us. We've never bothered about how Russians label their paint."

  "To be fair," Lawton added to support Telfar, "nobody would normally have thought this sort of thing could happen."

  "As far as we know," the woman persisted, "all the Sukhoi warplanes are painted at a special place at Novosibirsk, and –"

  "I hope you're not asking me to send agents in to try and steal from a military airbase," Telfar said. "I am not going to risk my agent's lives on such a –"

  "Even if our military success in the air depends on it?" came the cutting interjection.

  Ruth Telfar took a deep breath and replied, "If that paint really does what is claimed of it, security will be extremely tight."

  "Then maybe you can check the site for security levels?" the woman suggested.

  "It might only be tight when the specific paint is being used," Lawton offered, in part to give his CIA associate time to think and calm down. "Russia also sells Sukhoi Flankers to other countries, but I doubt they would paint them with their special prize possession. And even supposing some paint could be stolen, the agent wouldn't know whether it was the special paint."

  "They also would not be painting warplanes every week," Telfar said. She was obviously trying to contain her frustration.

  "And constant surveillance of a military site would in itself draw attention to itself," Lawton reminded the woman.

  "Then we know the paint company that receives the packages from Ufa," the woman persisted. "What can we do there?"

  "Surely that will be well protected too," Lawton said, again to try to divert pressure from Telfar.

  "Well, we've got to do something," the woman snapped.

  "Do we, though?" Lawton asked. "What we have is one claim, but no real independent support."

  "Then what would you say about our agents being apprehended after visiting that building near Ufa? Why is a building hiding in a forest with such security? Surely that means something," the woman said.

  "It probably does mean that something is going on there that the Russians are trying to conceal, but that doesn't mean it is making something to make their warplanes invisible," Lawton countered.

  "Don't we want to know?" the woman asked.

  "I think Ruth's point is, not at expense of agents' lives," Lawton countered. "It's a big price to pay, and of course we in this room aren't the ones that make the payment."

  "Yes, and Miss Antonovna's father was shot trying to get this information to us," the White House woman spat. "Who's going to tell her that we're sitting on our backsides ignoring it? She might think her father's life was worth something."

  There was silence, then finally, Lawton said, "Yes, we have to do something, but not something that is suicide for our agents."

  "There must be something your agents can try?" the woman said as she turned to Telfar and gave her a withering stare.

  "I suppose we could try someone posing as a reporter wanting to do an article on the paint company," she said, "but we would have to wait a couple of months."

  "Why?" This was said harshly, as if the woman suspected this was a ploy
to delay things and hope the problem would go away.

  "Because the agent needs a cover story," Telfar countered coldly. "That needs a genuine published article that the agent can use as a reference, and preferably two."

  "Something like a glowing pro-Russian survey of the oil industry and its problems, including jabs at the perfidious Americans and their fracking would probably go a long way," Lawton suggested. "If the articles are clearly sound, anti-American, pro Putin, and informative, and the manager of the paint factory has seen them, then he is far more likely to open up."

  "I see," the woman conceded. "And how do we go about getting them published?"

  "That's why it will take time," Telfar said. "First, we have to write them, and they have to be of high quality. That means that someone here in the States has to write it, based on the interviews the agent gets."

  "And the someone has to know what it takes for an independent writer to get published in a Russian newspaper or magazine," Lawton added. "That's the hard part. Most magazines will take well-written articles of interest, but only occasionally. There may be a bit of luck here."

  "All right. I suppose it's a plan, but . . ."

  "One more thing," Lawton added. "You need to get one article published on the oil industry like I said. Then you need another one on the manganese industry."

  "What? Isn't that rather obscure?" the White House woman asked.

  "Yes, it is, and it will be the hardest to get published for that reason," Lawton said, "but if this plan has any chance, the agent has to have a reason to introduce manganese into a conversation with whoever he or she encounters at the paint factory, otherwise all we shall get is a long-winded discussion of do it yourself hints, which, of course, would make an excellent article, but we're not here to be helpful to Russians."

  "How would you go about introducing it into a conversation with a paint man?" Telfar asked curiously. Any help was clearly appreciated.

  "Simply show him the latest published article," Lawton said. "I'll get Burrowes to do a little searching to get the material for the article, and we can then arrange the way it is written so that there is an obvious way in."