Oil & Corruption

by Gareth Flood

  ‘How long till we go?’ asked one of the men in Russian, as he slammed a fully loaded clip into an automatic rifle and checked the sights.

  ‘About an hour.’ another answered, as he checked his watch and then began handing balaclavas out.

  ‘Everyone practiced yelling their Arabic insults?’ The group leader asked, ‘They need to be convincing if we’re to get this blamed on the Muslims.’

  All the men nodded.

  Amongst the clicking of metal, catches and clips being engaged as they started to quickly assemble their weaponry; one of them turned on the television.

  MTV Russia flicked onto the screen, showing the music video All the things she said by the Russian pop duo T.A.T.U. The assembling of weapons was genetically overridden as all the men stopped what they were doing to watch the two girls dressed as schoolgirls kissing each other in the rain.

  ‘Lesbian schoolgirls grinding against each other on national television - what was the argument for going back to communism again?’ One of the men said.

  ‘Enough!’ the leader of the group said, ‘put on the news channel and finish setting up.’

  The channel was swiftly changed so they were watching live news footage of the conference centre on television. An attractive female reporter was standing outside, describing the meeting that was to take place that day between Viktor Maslov, the Vice President of the Russian Federation, and Hoot Mitchell, American CEO of the largest oil company in the world.

  ‘An unusual meeting for a Saturday,’ the reporter was saying into her microphone,

  ‘but this was dictated by the heavy schedules of both men and the wish to use the result of the meeting in the keynote address to close the seminar on Monday. Many are hoping that their meeting will result in an agreement that allows a level of oil and gas development that the Russian Government and the oil company are happy with, but that also limits areas for drilling in many parts of the country and in former Soviet states due to environmental considerations.’

  In another part of the building, the security chiefs of Hoot Mitchell and Viktor Maslov were standing side by side, watching the television that had been set up in the corner of the room. Behind them, the doors were closed where their bosses were meeting.

  They were in an anteroom adjoining the main meeting room. Their men were posted all along the main hall outside and on the floors above and below. The secret service, as well as the local police had also provided security. These were scattered all around the lower floors of the hotel, the lobby and entrances.

  All were adamant in having the security detail done their way. This meant there were effectively four security operations going on. The biggest threat was probably a misunderstanding between different security personnel where one overzealous graduate pulled a gun out too soon and other forces reacted.

  ‘All units – report!’ the American security officer said into his sleeve. He then held his finger to his right ear to listen to his positions being checked off as ‘Clear!’

  So far everything was going well. The two security men had closed the door to the main meeting room themselves. The meeting was scheduled to go on for another twenty minutes. The door behind them clicked open and they both quickly turned.

  The phone in the room the assassins were in was halfway through one shrill ring before it was picked up. The man in the balaclava who picked it up listened for ten seconds, and then replaced the receiver without saying a word.

  The other nine men in the room were all looking at him. Their white caterers uniforms had been removed and were in a pile in the corner. They were now all dressed head to toe in black – even their faces being covered by balaclavas.

  Each man had one main automatic rifle next to him and an array of weaponry on his person.

  ‘We go in thirty minutes.’ said the man who had picked up the phone.

  He was looking at the television on the opposite side of the room. The female reporter was back outside the convention centre with her microphone.

  ‘We are getting reports from inside the centre that the meeting even finished early,’ the reporter was saying on the screen, ‘with common objectives being agreed. No details of what has been agreed yet, but initial reports from representatives indicate the meeting went very well. The details are being left to the respective press secretaries for the rest of the afternoon. We have been told that they will issue statements on Monday morning.’

  At the very same time across town, a man in a grey trench coat emerged from a stairwell onto the roof of a three story building on the southwest corner of Pushkin Square. The man was carrying a standard business briefcase and if challenged, could claim he was a surveyor for a billionaire investor, who was interested in the building he was on. Property was always hot in this part of Moscow.

  The man walked to the edge of the roof and fixed his gaze on a white, three-storey building across the road on Tverskoy Boulevard. The building he was on was unique in that it was one of the few in the area that was not covered in the plague of neon signs that seemed to have taken hold all over the city.

  When it was dark in a few hours, no-one would be able to see him up here, as they would be blinded by a tunnel of neon that the street became once the sun took its last rays off the land. The man hunched down and clipped open the briefcase. He pulled out a high-powered rifle scope and stood up; while fixing the scope to his right eye to look through a window in the building over the road.

  He adjusted the lens to focus the cross-hairs on a wooden chair behind a table, that was draped in freshly pressed white linen.

  ‘The chair Clinton sat in.’ the man said quietly to himself, ‘How predictable.’

  He hunched down again to quickly and efficiently begin attaching together a black high-calibre sniper rifle. After slotting all the parts together to form the weapon; the final touch was to slide and clip the scope into place. It went in with a neat click.

  Everything was set up and ready to go.

  He gently placed the rifle against the wall, took his coat off and placed it over the top of the long barrel to cover it up. Looking at his watch, the man noted that he had just under an hour to wait. His gaze turned north over the bronze statue of the poet Alexander Pushkin in the centre of Pushkin Square.

  The smells of the street came wafting up to him – a curious mix of pollution tainted with fast food.

  Pushkin Square was a popular meeting place in the city. All around the statue of the poet was a mix of people mingling: the young and old, lovers meeting for evening engagements and businessmen going between underground stations.

  The man’s eyes were drawn to the golden arches beaming over the underground station of Tverskaya Ulitsa,

  What the hell, he thought, may as well go and get a McDonalds.

  He left everything as it was and headed back toward the stairwell.

  5

  Moscow

  Viktor Maslov’s head of security clinked some ice into a crystal tumbler at the bar and took it over to the Russian Vice President, who was reclining on the largest sofa in his suite. The security officer did not have to take the man water, it was not part of his job, but he did not mind.

  Maslov was an honest man, ducking and weaving as best he could in a pit of striking snakes - trying his utmost to accomplish something worthwhile. Maslov smiled as he took the glass and poured mineral water into it from a bottle on the table in front of him.

  ‘You know,’ Maslov said as he brought the glass to his lips and took a sip, ‘I think we might have done it. Actually co-ordinated a deal amongst all the morons and the devils. I’m so tired now I can’t be bothered to hold my gut in.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  Maslov indicated for his security officer to sit down on the adjoining sofa and relax a little. The man hesitated as he was still on duty. There were five other agents in the room and two outside the door. The drapes where closed and they had blackout material behind them. It was still light outside, but inside the men had gotten used to livi
ng by artificial light. The security man sat down.

  He immediately stood up again. He had heard a noise outside the main door to the hotel room.

  ‘Anyone stupid enough to order room service or a hooker while I’m here?’ he asked to all the men in the room.

  One of the men sheepishly started to raise a hand.

  The head of security simultaneously reached for the small radio in his inside jacket pocket and motioned for one of his men to go and check the door. As he clicked the button on his radio to speak into it - the lights went out.

  ‘BREACH!’ he yelled, as he drew his gun and fumbled in the darkness to grab some part of the Vice President’s clothing to get hold of him. He knew what his men were doing. By now each one had his weapon in hand and was pulling out and putting on night vision goggles. His own goggles were in a pack behind the bar. He knew he would never get there in time.

  He grabbed a handful of Maslov’s jacket and started pulling the Vice President on his hands and knees across the floor, to where he knew the main bedroom was situated to the rear.

  A sliver of light pierced the room as the front door opened slightly, followed by a burst of multiple voices yelling in Arabic.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Infidel lovers!’ a single voice yelled in English from the other side of the door as a small container sailed into the room.

  A cacophony of deafening gunfire erupted and orange bursts of flame were being spat around the room as Chekhov’s men opened fire on the door in the darkness.

  There was a small pumpf noise as the container exploded in the air and splattered the room with what looked like green goo.

  ‘Ah! It’s some kind of goo!’ yelled one of the men.

  ‘Argh! The goo burns!’ yelled another.

  ‘Get it off me!’

  ‘Fuck the goo!’ the head of security yelled, ‘keep firing!’

  ‘Don’t let them kill me with goo!’ Maslov yelled in terror.

  Something no bigger than an aerosol can rolled into the room by the bottom of the front door. The room erupted in an explosion of white light as a phosphorous flare ignited. All the Russians in the room screamed and clawed at their heads maniacally. The white light, intensified a hundred times through the night vision goggles, seared their retinas - they were all momentarily blind.

  The front door burst open and men clad head to toe in black charged in with automatic weapons firing. The flare was still burning so everything glowed in incandescent white light. The assassins were wearing wraparound sunglasses under their balaclavas to offset the brightness of the flare. Bullets tore into the security men, felling half of them. The rest hit the floor and rolled to the nearest piece of furniture for cover. The men charged with protecting Viktor Maslov started returning fire by sticking their hands above couches and tables and firing blindly.

  The assassins were moving quickly through the room. They wore full Kevlar body armour under their black clothes, so those that were hit by the wild shots of their prey were only momentarily halted. They were still picking Maslov’s men off easily; firing bursts of fully automatic, yelling ‘die Western goat fuckers!’ as they did so.

  In the chaos of light, smoke and the smell of cordite, the head of security had made it the bedroom door and was shoving Maslov through it. Splinters rained down on him as the firefight raged.

  The flare, thanks to his lack of goggles, had not affected him as badly.

  Maslov was almost through when the security chief’s peripheral vision picked up movement. He turned to his left to see one of his men, Yuri, crouched behind a sofa. Yuri was looking at him and not firing at the assassins – then he gave him the finger!

  What the hell’s the matter with him? He thought as he turned back to give Maslov one final shove to get him through the door.

  The security chief’s chest exploded in pain as a bullet hit the centre of his chest.

  Yuri! his brain screamed. From the angle, he instantly knew the bullet came from Yuri’s position. He turned in time to see Yuri fire at him again.

  One of his own agents helping them! Double-crossing swine!

  The security chief collapsed flat onto the floor.

  All the firing stopped.

  The security chief’s vision was blurred from the pain - darkness began to close in on his mind. He knew he was going to black out.

  There were no more lines of defence for the Vice President. He knew he had failed. He dimly saw black legs stepping over him and the bedroom door being kicked open. He heard Maslov’s voice yelling, followed by accusations of goat rape and then rapid bursts of automatic gunfire - then silence.

  Maslov was gone.

  They had been betrayed.

  The last thing the security chief saw were the black legs stepping over him again. The last thought before the world faded to nothingness was, ‘Mother Russia, what has happened to your sons?’

  At the same time across the city, the crowd in Café Pushkin was just beginning to build. The atmosphere, like much in the new Russia, was wholly artificial. The restaurant was sprawled across three levels. Guests were greeted on the ground floor by walking into a psychotically decorated pharmacy with a bar installed behind the counter. The grand restaurant was on the middle floor; this was decorated in the pre-Revolutionary up market style: stuccoed sophistication covered the floors and walls and bookshelves of unread books snaked around decorated columns. It was designed to make guests feel like they were in the Tsar’s private library in the eighteenth century. The only difference being there was a classical string quartet in the corner.

  On the roof, guests could look over the Moscow skyline in summer, from the repose of a beautiful Mediterranean Terrazzo.

  Café Pushkin was one of the most famous restaurants in Moscow. Most of the locals and westerners lucky enough to get a table and happy enough to pay the exorbitant prices, were clearly on the verge of death by excitement once they were in there.

  The air was always heavy with endorphins throughout the twenty-four hour opening time.

  The menu was pure haute-russe cuisine with splashes of French flavours.

  The experience of eating there apparently stayed with you all your life.

  Two streets up from the restaurant, an unmarked limousine was passing Pushkin Square. The famous eatery was its destination.

  ‘Wow. Look at all the neon.’ said Mitchell’s head of security; his face almost pressing against the blacked out, bullet proof glass.

  Hoot Mitchell sat opposite, looking distinctly unimpressed.

  ‘Naa,’ Mitchell said, ‘the lights in Vegas are way better. Hey, did you organise me a girl?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Good. I heard about this place we’re going to. This Caf Poochkin. I wanna sit in the chair that Clinton sat in.’

  ‘Yes, Sir. I thought so, Sir. It’s arranged.’

  The car pulled up outside the restaurant and the entourage of Hoot Mitchell swept inside.

  ‘Dang!’ Mitchell exclaimed, as he looked sideways at the alcohol bottles mixed in amongst apothecary vessels in the pharmacy bar. He did not get long to take things in though, as his security officer and two bodyguards shuffled him upstairs.

  On the second floor, the restaurant manager was already behind a waiting chair at a table for two. Sitting in the second chair, was a ridiculously gorgeous blond, with outrageously long legs that stretched out from beneath a classic little black dress.

  ‘I am Fedyev, Manager of Café Pushkin.’ ingratiated the host standing behind the chair.

  ‘And this-’ Fedyev said, motioning to the showcase of Russian genetics tightly wrapped in black fabric, ‘- is Svetlana.’

  Svetlana demurely lowered her eyelids half a centimetre. Hoot Mitchell almost came in his pants in the centre of the restaurant. He had been with the finest strippers in Houston, as well as the surgically enhanced crowd pleasers of Los Angeles - this girl wasted all of them.

  ‘And this,’ Fedyev said, motioning to the chair in front of him, ‘is the chair P
resident Bill Clinton of USA sat in, when he ate here.’ Fedyev stepped back and pulled the chair out for Mitchell to be seated.

  ‘This is awesome.’ exclaimed Mitchell, as the chair was pushed in behind him.

  ‘Take a hike.’ Mitchell said to his security as he settled in. He jerked his thumb toward the exit to emphasize the point.

  ‘Uh, yes Sir.’ the security man replied.

  The security officer made a hand signal to the two bodyguards and they all melted into the background of the room.

  ‘So, Monica.’ Hoot Mitchell began, ‘Do you mind if I call you Monica?’

  ‘You ken call me votever you like.’ Svetlana purred.

  ‘Excellent! I bet they sell cigars here and everything. I want a sixty-year-old cigar! This is going to be the best ever! What’s good to eat here?’ Mitchell asked.

  ‘Borshch very good.’ Svetlana said.

  ‘Huh?’ grunted Mitchell.

  ‘Russian soup.’ Svetlana explained.

  ‘Yeah, foreign soup, I like soup. Hey Feddie!’ Mitchell yelled to the manager, who was a few tables away. ‘Get us two of the Bosch!’

  The manager winced, but nodded his head. A waiter in a white jacket was dispatched to the kitchen.

  A few minutes later, two steaming bowls of soup materialised in front of the couple. Hoot Mitchell picked up his spoon and looked deep into Svetlana’s cleavage.

  ‘Well Monica, here’s to the Bosch.’ Mitchell said, as he dipped the spoon into the bowl of steaming red beet soup. As he raised a full spoon for the first taste, his mobile phone rang in his inner jacket pocket.

  ‘Darnit. Who in the heck is that?’ Mitchell dropped the spoon and fumbled around in his jacket, eventually fishing out a slim, silver phone that was intermittently emitting light and noise. He flipped it open and brought it to his ear.