The Manganese Dilemma

by Ian Miller

Jason was about to answer, but Burrowes gave him a warning look. "We came here to investigate such a purchase," he said as politely as he could, "but for another American."

  "And why does this American wish to buy such a company?"

  "Apart from the possibility of making money, I don't know."

  "Well, the company you sought to buy today has a major shareholder who is rather upset at your efforts. Guess who that might be?"

  "I don't know," Burrowes said. "We never got around to that detail. In fact, we didn't get around to –"

  "The man is Saveliy Kapralov. You know of him?"

  Burrowes realized this position was not good. "Yes," he replied.

  "I bet you do. You stole from him, right?" The man seemed strangely calm. Probably a sociopath, Burrowes thought.

  "Borrowed might be a better term, but it was not either of us. The people I work for –"

  "The fact you returned it means you walk out of here alive," the man said calmly. He stared at Burrowes, then he said, "You also tried a second time."

  At that moment, Burrowes would have strangled Dennis had he been able to get his hands on him. The question was, now what? He took a deep breath. "Somebody might have tried," Burrowes said evenly, "but it wasn't me."

  "But you know who?"

  "I don't know anyone did –"

  The small man banged a gun down on the table, barrel pointing at Burrowes. "Then guess who did!"

  "I only know his first name," Burrowes said as he did his best to sound thoroughly scared. "He was called Dennis."

  "So, what should I do with you, then?"

  Burrowes looked evenly at him, but said nothing, on the grounds that it was unlikely there was anything he could say that would improve the situation.

  One of the men said something, presumably the Russian equivalent of "Boss." There was a further exchange in Russian.

  "Let me give you some advice," the man said. "Get out of Russia and don't come back." With that, he got up, put the gun out of view inside his jacket, and with a threatening gesture he and his men strode towards the door. Two Russian uniformed police stared at them. The men walked impassively past and must have said something because one of the policemen visibly blanched. The men then made their way leisurely towards a distant exit.

  "We should get out of here," Jason suggested.

  "I don't think so. We might as well eat."

  "But those men . . .?"

  "May well be waiting outside," Burrowes said, "but eventually those police will go out, and I'm hoping those men don't want to be around when they do."

  "They didn't look that concerned about the police," Jason said.

  "No, and I suppose that's a worry, but they did leave, which means they did not want to make a scene in front of them."

  "So what happens next?"

  "We take the first flight out of Russia tomorrow morning," Burrowes said. "It's true they didn't do anything now, but I'm not sure how long we could stay without seeing them again."

  "Then I just hope we make it out to the airport," Jason said. He was clearly frightened.

  "I'll phone the Embassy and get one of their drivers to take us," Burrowes said. "I really doubt they would attack a diplomatic car."

  "You think they'll care about diplomacy?"

  "Probably not," Burrowes said, "but the FSB tends to follow diplomatic cars and they'll know that. Starting an embarrassing diplomatic incident in front of the FSB is almost certainly not a good idea, unless the FSB orders it, in which case something bad would have already happened to us. So, don't let this get you down. Let's order. Here comes the waiter."

  "I suppose." Jason did not look as though he was looking forward to the meal.

  "There's a bright side," Burrowes said, in an effort to cheer him up.

  "And that is?"

  "If Goldfinch wants you to come back, you have the prefect excuse to decline. Nobody in their right mind would challenge the Russian mobsters in Moscow."

  Chapter 32

  "So, how did you like Moscow?" Svetlana asked. Burrowes thought that she seemed just a little tense, as if she did not really want to hear her mother country be disparaged

  "It had its moments," Burrowes said. "That paint company you nominated for me out of Moscow was, well . . ."

  "Go on!"

  "I think we were viewed with outright suspicion. I think they suspected we were the Russian tax department in disguise, but whatever, unless they engaged in massive illegal activity in some respect, they made no sense at all."

  "Well, you did say you didn't want to buy it anyway," Svetlana said with a shrug. "At least you saw some of the countryside."

  "I did indeed, and I even took some pickies on the way back. I'll show you later, if you like."

  "Later? Not even at once?" Not surprisingly, she seemed curious to see them.

  "Miss your motherland?" Burrowes asked.

  "Well, I can't help but think of it sometimes," she said. "After all, I spent most of my life there, and . . ."

  "And?"

  "And I'd like to see your photos," she said, pulling herself back from her somewhat dreamy state. "Can't you just show me some?"

  "No, I'm afraid we may have to do some more research on the last company we went to. You see, we were turned away, allegedly by orders of the Russian military."

  "Allegedly?" Svetlana gave a frown, as if someone should know whether it was a soldier or a bureaucrat.

  "I have no idea who's really running the place. That evening we were set upon by three Russian mobsters who gave the impression they were working for Kapralov."

  "Really?" Now Svetlana was clearly surprised. "Why would Kapralov put mobsters onto you?"

  "In a word, Dennis."

  "Dennis?"

  "Apparently somehow they found out I was working for Rutherford, and they knew that Dennis had lifted a lot of Kapralov's money."

  "So what happened?"

  "They gave me points for returning it, then they took them away again because they said I tried again."

  "How would they know all this?" she frowned.

  "My guess is Kapralov has some very sophisticated computer hackers of his own."

  "Or this manganese thing you're chasing is real," she suggested. "If it were, then presumably the Russian security services would be protecting it, and if Kapralov has ownership of the factory, they'd be monitoring him as well."

  "Maybe, except why would they want to protect someone who's shifting money out of Russia?" Burrowes asked.

  "That's a point. I've no idea." She paused, then added, "So, you were threatened. What happened next?"

  "Who knows what would have happened but for two policemen."

  "Ha. Saved by the Russian police. The Russian workers' tax roubles working for you." She was now giving a smug smile. "So what happened next? Were these villains arrested? Roughed up?"

  "Actually, no. I guess the police inhibited the mobsters, but as the mobsters were leaving, they were quite disrespectful. I almost expected one of them to knock off one of the policeman's caps, and meanwhile the police must have expected something like that because they looked quite fearful. I am afraid the spirit of Iron Felix would be turning in his grave at that demonstration."

  "It is true that Felix Dzerzhinsky would have had little tolerance for mobsters," Svetlana agreed, "but you never know. Maybe these mobsters will be apprehended."

  "Interestingly, we're in the same boat," Burrowes said with a grin. "You can't go back to Russia because the law, aka the FSB will be after you, and I can't go back because the lawless, aka the mobsters will be after me."

  "Then we'd better not rock the boat," Svetlana countered. "So, what are you going to do?"

  "We have to find out if there's anything we can find out about that company," Burrowes said.

  "It sounds as if you've found out already that there's something there," Svetlana said with a shrug.

  "Yes, but I've got a bad feeling about it. There was something nervous about the manager that turn
ed us away."

  "You said there were two armed policemen there. Maybe he would be nervous under those circumstances."

  "I thought they were different from the ordinary police," Burrowes said, "but I get your point. All the same, we have to try to find something."

  "What? And more to the point, how?"

  "I have no idea," Burrowes said, and sat dejectedly in front of his computer. "I suppose when in doubt, flail around."

  "Great policy," Svetlana teased. "Then I suppose we'd better start flailing. Any location in mind?"

  "Connections between Ufa and Moscow, and I know, that will be horrible, but we need to see if there could be any reasonable transfers between that building in the forest and the paint company."

  "Good luck with that."

  "I know," Burrowes sighed, "but really I can't think of anything better."

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Lawton had to brief Ruth Telfar and the woman from the White House. He presented them with Burrowes' and Lamont's separate written reports and sat back while they read them.

  "Making allowances that these were written by two different people with quite different backgrounds, and that Lamont especially was probably rather nervous once he saw the armed whatevers, these are fairly consistent," Telfar said. "The question is, what does it mean?"

  "The obvious conclusion is that the Russian military gets paint made there for their use," the woman said.

  "We knew that," Lawton said.

  "Yes, but this time we know the Russians have a paint they want to keep secret."

  "Or they don't want Americans doing something to their military paint," Lawton pointed out. "That's not exactly surprising."

  "Which means," the White House woman said tartly, "this expedition was always going to fail."

  "Not always," Lawton said.

  "However there is a serious downside," Ruth Telfar warned. "We have given notice that we are interested in their paint."

  "If they knew what Antonov had in that briefcase, they'll know already," the woman said as she stared implacably at the two of them, as if daring anyone to contradict her.

  "True," Telfar conceded, "but now they will know we have made the connection to that paint company."

  "Again, not a great leap," the woman challenged. "We know it is a paint, we know it went on a flanker, and we know this is the company that supplies Sukhoi with their paint. The question now is, can we get a sample?"

  "There are two questions," Lawton said. "The first is, can we get someone to steal samples from a company the military is guarding, and the second is, just supposing we can get inside, how does anyone know what the right paint is?"

  "That second one is not trivial," Telfar said. "The tins are more likely to be marked with batch numbers, and maybe, aircraft paint. There will be lots of paint that is not what we want."

  "Even supposing this special paint is real," Lawton cautioned.

  "You think it's not real? After all the trouble those two had, coupled with everything else we know?"

  "Honestly," Lawton sighed, "I don't know. I know it looks like it, but Burrowes is not so convinced."

  "Why not?"

  "He had a hunch that –"

  "He had a hunch!" The woman almost exploded. "We're going to put the future of our country in the hands of a nobody's hunch?"

  This was greeted with a sullen silence.

  "Ms Telfar, the President has ordered me to say that if this situation arose, it is imperative that we send in a team to somehow acquire a tin of that paint, or learn the formulation."

  "With all that security?"

  "There must be a way. Get on with it."

  "With respect," Lawton said, "until we know they will be making the paint, there's no point. We don't really want to risk all those lives when all we can expect is a tin or so of anticorrosive paint."

  "And how do we know when that will be?"

  "We have to intercept a request for the special paint, and we have to know there's a shipment from that building near Ufa."

  "There must be a recipe," the woman said tartly. "You're just trying to put off the day."

  "Yes, but first it might not be in the factory, and second, if it is, whoever gets in, assuming they do, might not recognize it." He paused, then added, "There's a third problem. Even if by some miracle they see the recipe, if might be something like, To sixty parts standard aircraft stock paint, add forty parts of pigment 18374. That tells us nothing. It could still be standard aircraft paint."

  "They just read the heading." The woman stared at him, as if challenging him to get out of this one.

  "Which might say, paint formulation 17386, and it uses a whole lot of ingredients, each with a shelf address in the store room." Lawton stared back at her, challenging her to get out of that one.

  "They must label their paints for the consumer," the woman said, although now she had backed off the aggression, thus conceding the point.

  "Yes, and the paint will be put into such tins once it is made," Lawton said, "although there is no guarantee there will be a user friendly label for the military stuff. A standard batch label should be enough for Sukhoi, as after all they are a high tech company. But at least if we had an order number we might be a little ahead."

  "Then we need to trap someone who works at the paint factory. Someone there must be susceptible to bribes."

  "That may be true," Ruth Telfar said. "For what it is worth, I have had a couple of agents tracking various prospects."

  "And?"

  "I still think Bernie's right," Ruth said. "To ask a stranger outright with no connecting reason would be just plain stupid, but it might be easier to slip something into the conversation if we knew there was possibly heightened security at the time."

  "The guards would be obvious," the woman said, "but I take your point."

  "The guards are not necessarily obvious. The guards are more likely to be inside, making sure the workers are not up to no good. Further, they are more likely to guard at night."

  "What about blackmailing someone who works there?"

  "In theory that could work well enough," Ruth replied, "but the risks are high, so the extortion has to be dependent on the person's need to hide something fairly terrible. I've got agents looking for such material, but . . ."

  "But?"

  "But so far nothing of sufficient substance. The problem is, if the person goes to the FSB and they catch the agent, Russia is not the place where someone can run the threat after arrest. And there's probably a big reward for helping catch a spy."

  "So, you plan?" The question was left hanging, but the tone was such that doing nothing was not going to be an option.

  "As usual, I would prefer to leave whoever's on the ground select the tactics. I also think the weakest link in this chain is between Ufa and that factory, and probably well before reaching Moscow."

  "You're not thinking of hijacking a truck? That would be an invitation to go to war."

  "No," Telfar sighed, "although it is probably better than trying to break into a highly guarded factory. There might be an opportunity to steal something from it, though. Ufa is a long way from Moscow. The drivers have to have their comfort stops and meal breaks, and if we knew which truck . . ."

  "Good," the woman said. "I don't care how you do it, but get it done." With that she picked up her briefcase and stormed out of the door before there could be any argument.

  "I'll do what I can to find out when anything is moving," Lawton promised, "but no guarantees. I have to assume they'll be maintaining security at a high level."

  "I don't like this," Telfar replied.

  "Neither do I, but it looks like we're a bit short on choices."

  "I know," she sighed. "God help the agents, because nobody else will."

  * * *

  "Well, we have been given orders," Burrowes said. Since returning from Russia, he had spent over three weeks doing nothing. "They lack a certain amount of practicality, but . . ."

  "Administrator
s tend to be good at giving out impractical orders," Svetlana noted, "at least they were in Russia."

  "Not much different here," Burrowes admitted, "and probably the same everywhere. Anyway, our job is to try to work out when a load of stuff is going from that building in Ufa to Moscow, and when Sukhoi want more of that paint."

  "That all?"

  "Isn't that enough?" Burrowes gave a laugh.

  "It depends on whether you want to succeed at something," Svetlana said tartly. "Russian security isn't going to let you get away with that."

  "That's my opinion too," Burrowes said, as he gave a shrug and shook his head slightly, almost in despair, "but orders are orders."

  "Well, good luck with that."

  "You're not going to help?"

  "Of course I'll help," Svetlana answered. "I'll even have time to do other things assuming we are permitted to use machine assistance."

  "Of course," Burrowes said. "We just have to set up some automatic monitoring. The trouble is . . ."

  "The Russians will see what you are monitoring and use something else," Svetlana said, to complete his sentence.

  "That's true, but it would happen anyway, whether it is automated or we had someone sitting here."

  "Indeed, so let's get started."

  * * *

  Three weeks passed, during which time Burrowes had found a way of monitoring emails and web orders for the Russian paint company. As he remarked to Lawton one evening, when he had been requested to make a progress statement, that company had an awful lot of web traffic, and but for Svetlana, they would be lost.

  "So, what do they all mean?"

  "Not much," Burrowes said with a laugh. "Basically they are either orders for paint, or requests for supplies of things like pigments. It seems to be a reasonably well run company too."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Hardly any complaints for poor quality product or even late deliveries. Goldfinch would have made a reasonable purchase, had be thought to buy it cheaply." He paused a little, then added, "But for the fact it wasn't for sale, of course."

  "Any military orders?"

  "Quite a few, actually. Apparently the navy has a fairly large appetite for a certain grey paint with anticorrosive properties."