Sicilian Defense

by Andrey Vasilyev

  “Of course.” Azov’s words lost their smell of gun oil. “It’s a person.”

  Very funny. I’m about to pee myself laughing.

  “Oh, in that case, I’ll have him tied up and brought here with a nice bow on top in an hour or two,” I reassured Azov. “Why didn’t you say that at the beginning? With intel like that–”

  “Okay, stop it with the back-and-forth,” Zimin cut in. “Ilya, give us the details; Kif, listen, don’t interrupt, and remember what he tells you.”

  Azov didn’t get into how Raidion had crossed paths with the Consortium, though I picked up from a few small tidbits that the root of the conflict stretched back into ancient history. The company bosses hated each other with the kind of undying passion you only see in school girlfriends and businessmen. The kind of feeling where you shake someone’s hand and picture a bullseye drawn on their face.

  Formally, the two mega corporations were neutral toward each other, though that was just the smooth surface under which bubbled corporate espionage, HR departments poaching employees, and hackers hired to hit the other side with fun adventures like system fails. The previous year had seen some lower-ranking employees roughed up to show how serious the demands were for some sort of unperformed or intercepted tenders and contracts (“That’s what happens to pawns,” Valyaev said with a shrug. “Lose one here, take one out there.”). In short, it was all the usual corporate conflicts that come along with doing business in Russia.

  “So where do the two of you intersect? I wouldn’t think it’s in the gaming business, since I would have heard of them,” I said with surprise. “I did quite a bit of digging this past summer.”

  “Games aren’t all Raidion does—we have other areas of interest, too,” Zimin said, clasping his hands. “Fayroll is our main project, far and away, really, though we are involved in some tangentially related areas. Everything in this life is related, after all. Anyway, we make a lot of money in those areas, too, and that’s where our interests cross. They really aren’t big fans of Fayroll, either, though they don’t quite have the chops to try and swallow it. Their principles keep them from coming at us head-on, as well.”

  “So what’s the Consortium’s problem then? They aren’t into online games, so they can’t squeeze you out of your main business, and everything else is negotiable—this isn’t the good old 90s. What’s the deal?” I really didn’t understand what was going on.

  Zimin exchanged glances with Valyaev, and caught a glimpse of him subtly shaking his head.

  “Kif, the more you know…well, you get it.” Zimin snapped his fingers. “You don’t need to know the whole picture, or even part of the picture of our great war with the Consortium. I can assure you, you’d be better off never finding out, though I’m personally sure you’ll have to one day.”

  I was intrigued to hear what was going on, but the issue wasn’t worth pushing back on. “Whatever you say. But is there anything you can tell me about the four at the paper? What worries me most is how you guys don’t even know who the rat is.”

  Azov shook his head in frustration.

  “That was my oversight. Well, not even oversight, really—it was my mistake, plain and simple. I got caught up in the circumstances, and Urentsev had an excellent plan in place.”

  “Who?” It was a day of discoveries for me.

  “Peter Urentsev, the head of security and active operations at the Consortium. And that title isn’t just him giving himself airs; they actually have a position called that. He has an enormous amount of experience. The things he did way back when in Egypt, they still remember him there. And in the rest of Africa…”

  Azov shook his head again, this time showing me that you can and should respect your adversaries. Then he went back to the story.

  “Everything came down to one point. We sent out a request to the university for three people, though, when we got the papers back for the specialists they recommended, there were four of them. And nobody could say where that fourth candidate came from. We went back through our correspondence and interrogated everyone involved, but all we could come up with was that we’d requested three people—but they’d gotten a request for four. Nobody was lying, either. I talked with all of them myself, and I can see when people are lying.”

  “If Azov says they aren’t lying, it means they aren’t lying,” Valyaev said, clearly with some knowledge I didn’t have of the man.

  “Obviously, it wasn’t an accident that the fourth person showed up,” Azov continued. “At the time, I knew two things. First, the Consortium had tried to shove one of their own people into the paper back at the start, but they were in a big hurry and muffed the operation. Plus, back in those days, we weren’t even sure it would work, not to mention them. Remember?”

  Zimin and Valyaev nodded in synchrony.

  “The second thing was that Peter himself got involved and picked out the spy, which shows how seriously they took round two—I know that much, as well. Kif, I’m not sure if their target is the paper and the information that comes with it or you. My source isn’t that high up over there, so he doesn’t have a view of what’s going on.”

  “Not a lot to go on,” I replied. “We can’t do much with that. Did you dig into the four people, at least?”

  “Obviously.” It looked like Azov was a bit offended that I even thought he might not have. “Straight through to their very last dimple and mole.”

  “Nothing?” I asked quickly.

  “Whatsoever,” Azov replied. “They were born, they studied, they drank, they had fun, they got together with the opposite sex…they’ve lived normal lives, in other words. And none of them have had any contact with the Consortium. None whatsoever. We even went through all their partners and everyone they’ve ever lived with—nothing. Parents, schoolmates, university mates, army friends—nothing again.”

  “The cute one, Shelestova, she worked at the White Sign for a while,” I noted.

  “I’m aware.” Azov nodded, letting me know he appreciated my efforts. “She was the first person I looked at, and we went through everything about her with a fine-tooth comb. Nothing. She was a junior assistant to the senior caretaker over there, tasked with gofer jobs. She picked up some smarts, did really good work, and could have had herself a nice career, but the CEO’s right-hand man tried to get her to sleep with him. They only care about what you can do on the business side there, but people are still just animals when it comes down to it. And she’s enough to drive any man crazy. She turned him down, gave him up to the board of directors, and left. It was her own call, too. They offered her a job even though she wouldn’t sleep with that guy, and they even kicked him out immediately, but she turned out to be quite the principled little lady. You may not think it to look at her, but she is. Believe it or not, she doesn’t even have a boyfriend right now. She’s no nun, though—you should hear about some of her escapades several years back. She could have married somebody high up a hundred times over, and her dad is a little more than well-off himself. When she left Entrepreneur, he offered to buy her a paper or magazine to have fun with, but she refused. I’m not sure if she’s trying to prove something to herself or impress him or what. She even bought herself a car, a Mercedes, and a used one. She didn’t have to—all she had to do was say the word and her dad would’ve had a new car driven round to the house.”

  “A Mercedes?” I asked, thinking back to that morning in the parking lot. “Silver?”

  Azov nodded. “Yep. An older model.”

  I decided there was no sense sharing that piece of information with Vika.

  “And what about the rest?” I continued.

  “The rest? The rest are as transparent as you could ask for, which makes things tricky.” Azov cracked his knuckles. “Zhilin, for example, is a former marine who signed up when he got unlucky in love…”

  “What’s that about?” asked Valyaev.

  “Simple. He was with a girl, she left him for his friend, he left for the army. The usual.”


  “Idiots.” Valyaev circled a finger around his temple. “Trading a year and a half of your life for a girl, with plenty more of them out there. And there isn’t much difference between them: girls differ, but they all feel the same.”

  “We all have our idiosyncrasies,” Azov replied diplomatically before continuing. “He got back from the army, went back to school, studied hard, and caught the eye of our headhunters. That’s it. He doesn’t have many hobbies, really just working out, airsoft, and scuba diving. Oh, and he specialized in forest survival and hand-to-hand combat, even winning some competitions. No debts, no obligations, completely clean. He lives alone, hasn’t touched a girl since that whole mess.”

  “Hm,” I said, scratching my head. “I’ll have to be careful I don’t call him an idiot or just a body like the rest of them. Working out, survival…geez, he’s some kind of commando!”

  “That’s the first thing I thought about him. But it turns out that he’s as gentle as a lamb—everyone says that about him,” Azov replied quickly. “He avoids conflicts like the plague, always stays in his lane.”

  “And the other two?” Zimin was all business.

  “Marietta Soloveva is from Kimry, she won a gold medal at school, she earned a diploma with honors at university, and she climbs the career ladder like a sailor up a rope—without a backward glance. No complexes, no principles, and no talent, though she’ll outwork anyone, and that’s what everybody says first about her. Everything she has, she bets on her career. She practically lived at the university office trying to make sure our headhunter saw her, and ever since then she’s been gunning for a job in Raidion’s press department.”

  “No principles, no complexes, anxious for a job in Raidion,” I said thoughtfully. “Why couldn’t it be her?”

  “Impossible,” Valyaev replied with a furrowed brow. “Nobody’d have anything to do with her—she isn’t reliable. The minute she thought the other side was offering a better deal, she’d hop the fence without a second thought.”

  “Quite. Plus, three years ago we had a very different relationship with the Consortium.” Azov swung a leg back and forth. “And finally, Natasha Zvyagintseva, or just Tasha. She prefers Tasha to Natasha. Born and raised in Moscow. She’s original and extravagant, she can’t stand mediocrity, she’s incredibly talented, and she’s completely unstable.”

  “What do you mean?” Valyaev asked. “Unstable?”

  “Just that. She only does things as long as she’s interested in them. Once she loses interest, she either gives up or makes a huge fuss about it. But the key is that when she’s engaged, she comes up with all kinds of ideas that are just about always fantastic. When she’s not, you don’t get anything from her.”

  “Anything else on her?” Zimin rubbed his chin.

  “She likes Korea, even speaks the language; she’s analytical and her personal life… Well, it’s what you’d expect from a girl her age, even if she does dress oddly. Although, kids these days wear anything and everything as it is. The picture of sophistication, all of them.”

  “And one of them’s a rat,” I said, rolling my eyes. “But who? They’re all dark horses, and we already know everything there is to know about them.”

  The Raidion trio looked at me amiable. I wiggled in my chair and looked away.

  “Well, I mean, you have your methods, tools, ways of doing things. Drugs, even…”

  “Sure,” Azov said evenly. “Of course, we do. Methods, tools, the whole nine yards. Psychotropic toys, the works. We’d find the truth, though maybe not right away—not in five minutes, but certainly in a couple hours. But here’s the thing: we don’t really need that. We’ll only find out part of the mole’s assignment. Sure, we’d find out, for example, that he was supposed to get close to you, but we still won’t know why—and that part is much more important. We wouldn’t know what the Consortium wants from you, either. Of course, that’s if you’re the mole’s target.”

  “What if I’m not?”

  “That’s certainly a possibility,” Azov replied. “They could have him in there as a sleeper agent, for example. In a year or two he’d migrate over to the second floor here in the main building, and then he’d just keep climbing. We don’t know, and we have to find out.”

  “Or rather, you need to find out,” Zimin said, looking me in the eye. “Keep an eye out, think, evaluate, compare, draw your conclusions. And wait. I’m sure the mole will approach you eventually—he needs you. Sooner or later someone from the Consortium will come after you, probably someone meaningless, and then we’ll see where to go and who to drown. Metaphorically, I mean, obviously. So we’ll be waiting for the moment of truth.”

  “What truth?” I asked, my voice betraying the dread I felt.

  “The final truth,” Valyaev answered placidly. “They’ll try to pull you over, and they’ll try to get you there of your own free will—that’s how they do things, and they have just as much to offer as we do. That’s when we’ll see how loyal you really are.”

  “I still don’t understand why they need me. What, do they think I’m some analyst or your secret-keeper? I’m just another employee, and even outside the circle since I don’t work in the main building,” I replied, feeling sorry for myself.

  “Oh, sure.” Valyaev matched my tone. “I mean, every once in a while you throw back some cognac with the two people closest to the Old Man, you go visit their dachas, and they come visit you. What would you call that?”

  “They know a lot over there. Not everything, of course, but a lot. And they know that you’re a favorite of ours, and that’s already enough to start working you over,” Zimin said sharply. “That’s just a fact.”

  “I wish I knew more about them,” I squirmed in concern. “Forewarned is forearmed. And that’s assuming there’s just one mole. What if it’s like one of those Asian action movies, and there are two or three of them? They’d all pull out pistols and we’d have ourselves a nice Mexican standoff.”

  “When they move on you, then you’ll find out—there’s no point imagining what might happen before that,” Zimin said to shut me down. “You don’t need to know too much—I thought we already discussed that. And if they don’t make a move on you, then there’s no point in you knowing anything to begin with.”

  I nodded, though I couldn’t help but think that I really should do a little digging. It wasn’t worth going overboard or making anything public, but it was worth some extra effort. What if they use more stick than carrot?

  “Okay, let’s drink.” Valyaev rubbed his hands and started smearing some caviar on a slice of bread. “Ilya, are you having some? Treat yourself to a little fun.”

  Azov checked his watch, pulled out a small walkie-talkie from his pocket, and pressed a button on it.

  “Seven, you’re in charge. I’ll be in Zimin’s office.”

  Then he waved at me, his way of telling me to pour him a glass.

  We all had a shot, with me drinking from the same oddly shaped glass, and then we had another one. A fiery wave ran through my veins, and I could feel the blood pumping in my temples. Ah, that feels good.

  “So what did you want to ask about the game?” Zimin said, turning to me as he snipped the tip off another cigar.

  “Oh, right.” I rolled my glass around the table. “Is there any way you can make life a little easier with this quest? We couldn’t with the last one, but maybe with this one…”

  “No, my impatient friend.” Valyaev grabbed the bottle, glanced at the liquid inside, and deftly poured exact quantities into our glasses before putting the empty bottle under the table. “Nope, it’s all you. The rules are the same: you go, beat all odds, fight all enemies. What are you so gloomy about?”

  “You’d know if you were in my shoes,” I replied, not even bothering to hide my disappointment. “You’re going to have me running all over the entire continent.”

  “And that’s not all,” Valyaev said with an evil grin. “You’ll even…eh, I won’t spoil the surprise.”


  “Kif, Kif, Kif,” Zimin said from inside his cloud of cigar smoke. “What are you whining about? Just a few months ago you were a naked and barefoot noob wielding a wooden stick. You were like Pithecanthropus, a caveman. And now you’re an experienced warrior, you have great connections both with players and in the NPC world, you’re in with a couple of royal families, and you have ties with a bunch of clans. Plus, you have money.”

  I feigned confusion.

  “Oh, come on, don’t make that face. You think we don’t know you sold off your set shield to…what was his name? The bug. So chin up, don’t complain, and march on. You have something to work for, and you have brains, so per aspera ad astra.”

  “Yes, something like that.” I exhaled and emptied my glass without waiting for a toast.

  “Ilya, have any of those four played Fayroll? Do they play now?” Valyaev asked unexpectedly.

  “Right now? I’m not sure,” Azov replied, biting into a lemon slice with relish. “Officially, Zvyagintseva and Zhilin bought capsules for themselves, though that was a few years ago. They registered accounts and logged into the system then, as well. Zvyagintseva played for a few months, and then her account went dead; Zhilin played for about half a year, and then he stopped playing, too. I don’t know if they sold their capsules, though I doubt it—like I said, nobody’s used them to log into the game. Shelestova’s dad bought her a capsule, though she didn’t register an account and nobody’s logged into the system from that capsule. And Soloveva’s never had a capsule or an account.”

  “I love the people we have working at a paper about a game,” Valyaev said as he stood up, reached into a cabinet built into the wall, and started rummaging through some bottles. “They’re out there talking about the game, and they’ve barely played it themselves.”

  “That’s the official version,” Azov continued, ignoring the interruption. “I may find out what’s actually the case in time. Plenty of people use fake accounts and capsules. We don’t read biometrics, though I’ve been saying we should for a long time now.”