Ascendancies (57 page)

Raf strolled along the rocky shoreline to the edge of the resort's dock. It was a nice dock, well-outfitted. The fiberglass speed launch was tied up to one rubber-padded edge of it, but the dock could have handled a minor cruise ship.

“Those women will be grateful. Here, we will admit they exist! They haven't even had
identities
. And this world is full of people like them. After ten years of civil war, they sell slaves openly now in the Sudan. Kurds are gassed like vermin by Iraqis and shot out of hand by Turks. The Sinhalese are killing Tamils. We can't forget East Timor. All over the planet, groups of little people are quietly vanishing. You can find them cowering, hiding all around the world, without papers, without legal identities.… The world's truly stateless people. My kind of people. But these are rich little islands—where there is room for thousands of them.”

“This is a serious new wrinkle to the scheme, man. Did you clear it with Petersburg?”

“This development does not require debate,” Raf said loftily. “It is a moral decision. People should not be killed in pogroms, by brutes who hate them merely because they are different. As a revolutionary idealist, I refuse to stomach such atrocities. These oppressed people need a great leader. A visionary. A savior. Me.”

“Kind of a personality-cult thing then.”

Raf shook his long-haired head in sorrow. “Oh you'd prefer them all quietly dead, I suppose! Like everyone else in the modern world who never lifts a hand to help them!”

“What if the locals complain?”

“I'll make the aliens into citizens. I'll have them out-vote all the locals. A warlord, justly voted into power by the will of the majority—wouldn't that be lovely? I'll raise a postmodern Statue of Liberty for the world's huddled masses. Not like that pious faker in New York Harbor. Refugees aren't vermin, even if the rich despise them. They're displaced human beings without a place to rally. Let them rally here with me! By the time I leave power—years from now, when I'm old and gray—they'll be accomplishing great works in these little islands.”

The hookers arrived on a fishing trawler. They looked very much like normal hookers from the world's fastest-growing hooker economy, Russia. They might have been women from the Baltic States. They looked like Slavic women at any rate. When they climbed from the trawler they looked rather seasick, but they seemed resolved. Not panicked, not aghast, not crushed by terror. Just like a group of fifteen more-or-less-young women, in microskirts and spandex, about to go through the hard work of having sex with strangers.

Starlitz was unsurprised to find Khoklov shepherding the hookers. Khoklov was accompanied by two brand-new bodyguards. The number of people aware of Raf's location was necessarily kept small.

“I hate working as a pimp,” Khoklov groaned. He had been drinking on the boat. “At times like these, I truly know I've become a criminal.”

“Raf says these girls are Bosnian slave labor. What's the scoop?”

Khoklov started in surprise. “What do you mean? What do you take me for? These girls are Estonian hookers. I brought them over from Tallinn myself.”

Leggy watched carefully as the bodyguards shepherded their charges toward the whooping brutes inside the sauna. “That sure sounds like Serbo-Croatian those girls are talking, ace.”

“Nonsense. That's Estonian. Don't pretend you can understand Estonian. Nobody understands that Finno-Ugric jabber.”

“Raf told me these women are Bosnians. Says he bought them and he's going to keep them. Why would he say that?”

“Raf was joking with you.”

“What do you mean, ‘joking'? He says they're victims from a rapists' gulag! There's nothing funny about that! There just isn't any way to make that funny.”

Khoklov gazed at Starlitz in mournful astonishment. “Lekhi, why do you want gulags to be ‘funny'? Gulags aren't funny. Pogroms aren't funny. War is not funny. Rape is never funny. Human life is very hard, you see. Men and women truly suffer in this world.”

“I know that, man.”

Khoklov looked him over, then slowly shook his head. “No, Lekhi, you
don't
know that. You just don't know it the way that a Russian knows it.”

Starlitz considered this. It seemed inescapably true. “Did you
ask
those girls if they were from Bosnia?”

“Why would I ask them that? You know the official Kremlin line on the Yugoslav conflict. Yeltsin says that our fellow Orthodox Slavs are incapable of such crimes. Those rape-camp stories are alarmist libels spread by Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims. Relax, Lekhi. These women here today, they are all Estonian professionals. You can have my word on that.”

“Raf just gave me his word in a form that was highly otherwise.”

Khoklov looked him in the eye. “Lekhi, who do you believe: some hippie terrorist, or a seasoned KGB officer and member in good standing of the Russian mafia?”

Starlitz gazed down at the flower-strewn Åland turf. “Okay, Pulat Romanevich.… For a moment there, I was actually considering taking some kind of, you know, action.… Well, never mind. Lemme get to the point. Our bank deal is falling apart.”

Khoklov was truly shocked. “What do you mean? You can't be serious. We're doing wonderfully. Petersburg loves us.”

“I mean that the old lady can't be bought. She's just too far away to touch. The deal is dead meat, ace. I don't know just how the momentum died, but I can sure smell the decay. This situation is not sustainable, man. I think it's time you and me got the hell out of here.”

“You couldn't get your merchandising deal? That's a pity, Lekhi. But never mind that. I'm sure we can find some other capitalization scheme that's just as quick and just as cheap. There's always dope and weapons.”

“No, the whole set-up stinks. It was the video thing that tipped me off. Pulat, did I ever tell you about the fact that I, personally, never show up on video?”

“What's that, Lekhi?”

“At least, I didn't used to. Back in the eighties, if you pointed a video camera at me it would crack, or split, or the chip would blow. I just never registered on videotape.”

Slowly, Khoklov removed a silver flask from within his suit jacket. He had a long contemplative glug, then shuddered violently. He focused his eyes on Starlitz with weary deliberation. “I beg your pardon. Would you repeat that, please?”

“It's that whole video thing, man. That's why I got into the online business in the first place. Originally, I was a very analog kind of guy. But the video surveillance was seriously getting me down. I couldn't even walk down to the corner store for a pack of cigs without setting off half a dozen goddamn videos. But then—I discovered online anonymity. Online encryption. Online pseudonymity. That really helped my personal situation. Now I had a way to stay underground, stay totally unknown, even when I was being observed and monitored twenty-four hours a day. I found a way that I could go on being myself.”

“Lekhi, are you drunk?”

“Nyet. Pay attention, ace. I'm leveling with you here.”

“Did Raf give you something to drink?”

“Sure. We had a coffee earlier.”

“Lekhi, you're on drugs. Do you have a gun? Give it to me now.”

“Raf gave all the guns to the Suomi kids. They're keeping the guns till the mercs sober up. Simple precaution.”

“Maybe you're still jetlagged. It's hard to sleep properly when the sun never sets. You should go lie down.”

“Look, ace, I'm not the kind of fucking wimp who doesn't know when he's on acid. Normal people's rules just don't apply to me, that's all. I'm not a normal guy. I'm Leggy Starlitz, I'm a very, very strange guy. That's why I tend to end up in situations like this.” Starlitz ran his hand over his sweating scalp. “Lemme put it this way. You remember that mafia chick you were banging back in Azerbaijan?”

Khoklov took a moment to access the memory. “You mean the charming and lovely Tamara Akhmedovna?”

“That's right. The wife of the Party Secretary. I leveled with Tamara in a situation like this. I told her straight-out that her little scene was coming apart. I couldn't tell her why, but I just knew it. At the time, she didn't believe me, either. Just like you're not believing me, now. You know where Tamara Akhmedovna is, right now? She's selling used cars in Los Angeles.”

Khoklov had gone pale. “All right,” he said. He whipped the cellular from an inner pocket of his jacket. “Don't tell me any more. I can see you have a bad feeling. Let me make some phone calls.”

“You want Tamara's phone number?”

“No. Don't go away. And don't do anything crazy. All I ask is—just let me make a few contacts.” Khoklov began punching digits.

Starlitz walked by the sauna. Four slobbering, buck-naked drunks dashed out and staggered down the trail in front of him. Their pale sweating hides were covered with crumpled green birch leaves from Finnish sauna whisks. They plunged into the chilly sea with ecstatic grunts of ambiguous pain.

Somewhere inside, the New World Order comrades were singing Auld Lang Syne. The Russians were having a hard time finding the beat.

Raf was enjoying a snooze in the curvilinear Aalto barcalounger when Khoklov and Starlitz woke him.

“We've been betrayed,” Khoklov announced.

“Oh?” said Raf. “Where? Who is the traitor?”

“Our superiors, unfortunately.”

Raf considered this, rubbing his eyelids. “Why do you say that?”

“They liked our idea very much,” Khoklov said. “So they stole it from us.”

“Intellectual piracy, man,” Starlitz said. “It's a bad scene.”

“The Ålands deal is over,” Khoklov said. “The Organizatsiya's Higher Circles have decided that we have too much initiative. They want much closer institutional control of such a wonderful idea. Our Finnish hacker kids have jumped ship and joined them. They re-routed all the Suns to Kaliningrad.”

“What is Kaliningrad?” Raf said.

“It's this weird little leftover piece of Russia on the far side of all three independent Baltic nations,” Starlitz said helpfully. “They say they're going to make Kaliningrad into a new Russian Hong Kong. The old Hong Kong is about to be metabolized by the Chinese, so the mafia figures it's time for Russia to sprout one. They'll make this little Kaliningrad outpost into a Baltic duty-free zone cum European micro-buffer state. And they're paying our Finn hacker kids three times what we pay, plus air fare.”

“The World Bank is helping them with development loans,” Khoklov said. “The World Bank loves their Kaliningrad idea.”

“Plus the European Union, man. Euros love duty-free zones.”

“And the Finns too,” Khoklov said. “That's the very worst of it. The Finns have bought us out. Russia used to owe every Finn two hundred dollars. Now, Russia owes every Finn one hundred and ninety dollars. In return for a rotten little fifty million dollar write-off, my bosses sold us all to the Finns. They told the Finns about our plans, and they sold us just as if we were some lousy division of leftover tanks. The Finnish Special Weapons and Tactics team is flying over here right now to annihilate us.”

Raf's round and meaty face grew dark with fury. “So you've betrayed us, Khoklov?”

“It's my bosses who let us down,” Khoklov said sturdily. “Essentially, I've been purged. They have cut me out of the Organizatsiya. They liked the idea much more than they like me. So I'm expendable. I'm dead meat.”

Raf turned to Starlitz. “I'll have to shoot Pulat Romanevich for this. You realize that, I hope.”

Starlitz raised his brows. “You got a gun, man?”

“Aino has the guns.” Raf hopped up from his lounger and left.

Khoklov and Starlitz hastily followed him. “You're going to let him shoot me?” Khoklov said sidelong.

“Look man, the guy has kept us
his
end. He always delivered on time and within specs.”

They found Aino alone in the basement. She had her elk rifle.

“Where's the arsenal?” Raf demanded.

“I had Matti and Jorma take all the weapons from this property. Your mercenaries are terrible beasts, Raf.”

“Of course they're beasts,” Raf said. “That's why they follow a Jackal. Lend me your rifle for a moment, my dear. I have to shoot this Russian.”

Aino slammed a thumb-sized cartridge into the breech and stood up. “This is my favorite rifle. I don't give it to anyone.”

“Shoot him yourself, then,” Raf said, backing up half a step with a deft little hop. “His mafia people have blown the Movement's program. They've betrayed us to the Finnish oppressors.”

“Police are coming from the mainland,” Starlitz told her. “It's over. Time to split, girl. Let's get out of here.”

Aino ignored him. “I told you that Russians could never be trusted,” she said to Raf. Her face was pale, but composed. “What did American mercenaries have to do with Finland? We could have done this easily, if you were not so ambitious.”

“A man has to dream,” Raf said. “Everybody needs a big dream.”

Aino centered her rifle on Khoklov's chest. “Should I shoot you?” she asked him, in halting Russian.

“I'm not a cop,” Khoklov offered hopefully.

Aino thought about it. The rifle did not waver. “What will you do, if I don't shoot you?”

“I have no idea what I'll do,” Khoklov said, surprised. “What do you plan to do, Raf?”

“Me?” said Raf. “Why, I could kill you with these hands alone.” He held out his plump, dimpled hands in karate position.

“Lot of good that'll do you against a chopper full of angry Finnish SWAT team,” Starlitz said.

Raf squared his shoulders. “I'd love to take a final armed stand on this territory! Battle those Finnish oppressors to the death! However, unfortunately, I have no arsenal.”