One Damn Thing After Another

by Dan Latus

  At least it was a better place to live now that it wasn’t covered in smoke from the blast furnaces and the forges, the coke ovens and the steam engines. People lived in better houses, as well, and were better fed and more healthy. Full time employment and prosperity? Well, you can’t have everything, can you?

  We turned off the A19 just past Billingham, close to the Newport Bridge, and ran along north of the river, through the old industrial villages of Haverton Hill, High Clarence and Port Clarence. We went to the edge of the modern industrial area of Seal Sands, where the petrochemical industries have let rip. Miles and miles of weird looking metal structures, stretching over the marshes and the area alongside the River Tees that in pre-industrial days was called Samphire Batts.

  ‘Are we going to see if there’s any seals around?’ I asked him facetiously, puzzled by our route, and curious about our destination.

  ‘I’m told there are still a few near the mouth of the river.’

  ‘It’s true,’ I admitted. ‘There’s a nature reserve there they seem to like, and they still come up Greatham Creek. But what do you want to show me?’

  Leon just smiled, infuriatingly.

  We slowed to turn off the main road and then drove a hundred yards down an access lane and through a gate in a high security fence that the driver opened with an electronic pass. We parked outside a two-storey red brick building that had a lot of darkened, one way glass in the windows.

  ‘What’s this?’ I asked suspiciously.

  ‘You’ll see,’ Leon said with a chuckle.

  I was growing tired of his little mysteries. I was close to wanting to get done and get away home.

  ‘For chrissake, Leon! Where the hell are we?’

  ‘This is my IT headquarters,’ he said with a chuckle.

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘Come on! Let’s look around. I haven’t been here before, either.’

  He strode off towards the front door. Mystified and disgruntled, if admittedly more curious than ever now, I followed.

  Olga was alongside me, smiling happily at my display of impatience. ‘Frank!’ she chided gently. ‘This is not like you.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ I grunted sourly. ‘But I don’t like being kept in the dark. I don’t work that way.’

  ‘Please be patient with us.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said with a scowl.

  At the entrance, I paused and looked back. Whatever the place was, I was impressed with the security I’d seen. Professionally speaking, someone had done a good job here.

  The perimeter fence was more than it looked at first glance, a lot more. Just inside the high outer fence of strong steel-mesh, there was a low fence of heavy-duty steel girders set on steel posts embedded in concrete. That was not unlike my proposal for The Chesters, although I was proposing less visually intrusive heavy timber instead of steel, in deference to the rural environment and aesthetic considerations.

  Inside the low fence stood another high fence, this one consisting of fancy-looking metalwork that was thick with sensors, cameras and lights. I didn’t have that in mind for The Chesters, but it was good security all the same.

  So you might be able to smash through the outer fence in a heavy vehicle but then the vehicle would be stopped by the steel girders. If you climbed over them and tried to tackle the inner fence on foot, your every move would be illuminated and recorded. For all I knew, you might be fried, as well, by the current that was undoubtedly running through the metal work. And you would probably bring a squad of security personnel along at the double.

  Better to come in by helicopter, then. Except, when I glanced skywards, I could see the network of criss-crossing wires that would prevent it. I wondered if they could be retracted for an authorized landing.

  I shook my head. ‘Some security you’ve got here, Leon.’

  ‘Not me. Martha. This is her baby, although she was following Olga’s instructions.’

  That name again!

  ‘Martha?’

  He just grinned and waved his electronic pass at the front door. With a hiss, the heavy steel door opened. I followed him inside, wondering more than ever who the hell Martha was.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  IT FELT LIKE WE were entering a space capsule. The outer door hissed shut behind us, trapping us in a vestibule. Then Leon held up his pass again to get us through an inner door. I couldn’t imagine the White House war room having better security than this. Leon didn’t really need advice on home security from the likes of me.

  I paused to gaze around once we were through the second door. We were in a big, open-plan room containing more computer screens than I had ever seen in one place. The screens were all alive. Not with pictures, but with text and numbers. Half a dozen young people moved between the screens and worked at keyboards. Somebody laughed. Laughter? Here? It seemed totally incongruous.

  Leon wore an infuriating smile, and was obviously enjoying himself.

  ‘OK, big shot,’ I growled. ‘You win. What’s going on here? Is this where you calculate your wages bill, and work out your profits?’

  ‘In part,’ he said with a chuckle.

  Then he pointed at a glittering hi-tech sign on one wall: LEONOMICS.

  ‘LEONOMICS?’ I said, feeling faint.

  He just grinned again.

  ‘This way, gentlemen,’ Olga said, bustling past us.

  ‘Come,’ Leon said, taking pity on me. ‘Let’s hear what Olga has to tell us.’

  We followed her up a staircase to an office that had a desk with a computer screen, of course, and some easy chairs set around a coffee table. The interior wall was full-length glass, giving a good view of what was happening down in the main room. A man emerged from a room down there, carrying a bundle of computer printout. He looked up, saw us and raised a hand in salute. Olga waved back.

  ‘Is that Josef?’ Leon asked.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘He’s good?’

  ‘Very good. The best,’ Olga added.

  Leon nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘Sit down, please,’ Olga said.

  We did. Olga pressed an intercom button and said, ‘Josef, can you have someone bring us some coffee, please? Thank you.’

  Leon leant back in his chair, laced his fingers behind his head and smiled at me. Big shot!

  ‘And all this is yours?’ I said at last, trying hard not to sound impressed.

  He nodded with evident satisfaction. ‘All of it.’

  ‘So what is LEONOMICS?’

  ‘It’s an online financial analysis company, with a global subscription service. We deal with inquiries from around the world relating to economies and markets – price movements, currency fluctuations, forecasts, and a lot of other things as well.

  ‘People pay a standard subscription fee, for which they get a certain level of information and analysis. If they want more, such as custom-built reports, they pay extra.’

  Well, he’d told me when we first met that he had global business interests. Now I could hear the ching-ching of coins dropping into the cash register. Every minute of every day, all around the world. The little hotel in Prague was no more than a hobby.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ I said reluctantly. Then another thought came to me. ‘But you said you’d never been here before.’

  ‘It’s true. I haven’t.’

  He waited a moment, seemingly enjoying watching me trying to cope with that one as well.

  ‘Tell him, Olga,’ he said, feeling sorry for me.

  Smiling, Olga said, ‘The business, the company, has been in existence for a few years, Frank, but this building complex is new. I helped with the design, and we moved in just a few months ago.’

  ‘Olga is our IT expert,’ Leon said firmly. ‘She knew what was needed.’

  I nodded. ‘So where was the business located before?’

  Leon sighed ruefully and said, ‘We have moved several times, and we may well need to move again at some point.’

  I took a wild guess. ‘Becaus
e of Bobrik?’

  He nodded. ‘Him, and others.’

  ‘They want the business?’

  ‘Not really. They just want to destroy it.’

  I must have looked puzzled again because he said, ‘Tell him, Olga. Tell him the rest of it.’

  ‘The LEONOMICS business is not all we do here,’ Olga said. ‘In some ways it’s not even the most important thing we do here.’

  She broke off to take delivery of a tray of coffee mugs from a young woman. I waited, more or less patiently, wondering what on earth was going to come next.

  ‘Cream?’ Olga asked, looking up at me.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Sugar?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  She poured sugar into Leon’s coffee as if it were a highly desirable novelty, or something very rarely seen. Then she stirred it vigorously before passing the mug to him.

  ‘So what else do you do here?’ I asked.

  ‘Hm? Oh, yes. We run an online newspaper for Russian readers.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Is that it, I was thinking. Another online newspaper. What’s all the fuss about?

  ‘Does Bobrik want that, too?’

  Leon snorted and shook his head.

  ‘No?’

  ‘The man in the Kremlin doesn’t like it,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Ah! So they want it shut down?’

  This time Leon nodded.

  ‘And they’re using Bobrik to do it?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  We were getting somewhere at last. It was politics.

  Olga chimed in then. ‘What we do is important, important for Russia. In the long run, the country will be a democracy. We are trying to help that day come sooner rather than later.’

  That set me thinking. How long was the long run? Longer than we would be alive, probably. Especially if the Kremlin wanted it shut down. The people in power in Moscow don’t like political opposition, and they don’t mess about. They never have done, not since Tsarist times.

  ‘LEONOMICS pays for the newspaper,’ Olga said. ‘So the business is important, too. But the newspaper, the bulletin, is what we are really all about here. It offers people the right of free speech – dissidents, opposition figures, people who disagree with them, and people who disagree with everyone.

  ‘In elections we take sides. We say who we support, and who we want to win. So, as well as a commitment to free speech, we make a stand. The people who read what we have to say like that. They appreciate it, and want more of it.’

  And the Kremlin will hate it, I couldn’t help thinking, and won’t want any more of it. Might even move heaven and earth to put a stop to it. In fact, they were well down that road already.

  ‘So, this place,’ I said, waving an arm around. ‘Here, in this area that was once called Samphire Batts. Maybe it’s not permanent?’

  ‘Probably not, no,’ Leon agreed with a shrug. ‘But then we will move somewhere else. We have contingency plans. Samphire Batts, though?’ he added thoughtfully. ‘I like that. We can use the name.’

  ‘Good luck!’ I paused before saying, ‘Now I think I’ll just go home. Don’t come to the door, Leon. I can find my own way from here.’

  He looked disappointed.

  ‘Leon,’ I said gently, ‘you can’t take on a whole state, not that one anyway. They’ll kill the whole bloody lot of us!’

  ‘Well, they haven’t yet,’ he said with the old grin back in place.

  ‘It is not so simple,’ Olga said. ‘The Kremlin doesn’t have a single voice, however it appears from outside. It’s a Tower of Babel. We give those who don’t like what is going on hope, hope for the future.

  ‘At present, there are people there – sons and daughters of the old KGB – who are using Bobrik to try to destroy us. So far they have not succeeded. We may close down somewhere, but then we pop up again, like … like …’

  ‘In this country,’ I said, seeing her uncertain frown, ‘we say like dandelions.’

  ‘Thank you, Frank,’ she said without a hint of irony. ‘Like dandelions. What are they?’ she added with a frown.

  I couldn’t see that that had got us very far. Wordplay, when what the other side was using was swordplay.

  ‘Frank,’ Leon said, ‘If we stop Bobrik, we take away their main weapon against us.’

  ‘Stop Bobrik? You mean that?’

  ‘I do,’ he said grimly. ‘It is our best chance. Maybe not for you, though. You were right. This is your chance to walk away from us and get on with your own life.’

  It was true. Now he’d levelled with me at last, now I knew what was going on, and what the stakes were, I could take a sensible decision.

  I thought about it. The money was one thing. Leon would pay me what I asked. I knew that. He already had, in fact. But this wasn’t only about money. There was danger, and risk, too.

  Probably more than I had ever encountered. Compared to the opposition, Leon was a pygmy warrior, and I was a grain of sand in the shoe. We were nothing, infantrymen – at best – standing up to tanks and battleships. Talk about a one-sided contest!

  ‘In or out, Frank?’ Leon pressed quietly.

  There was an atmosphere in the room now that hadn’t been there before. It wasn’t a good one, either. They thought they knew what my answer was going to be. I was back on home soil now, and I owed them nothing. More than that, I was aware now of the scale of their undertaking. It didn’t make sense. No good could come of what they were doing. It wasn’t sustainable. Disaster was a certainty.

  ‘Frank?’ Leon said, sharply now. ‘In or out?’

  ‘In,’ I said. ‘Count me in.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  THERE WAS A SOMBRE atmosphere in the car on the way back to Northumberland. The driver, Dag, was pretty taciturn at the best of times, and now he really did take the opportunity to concentrate on the road. Leon was far away, no doubt concentrating on what he needed to do next. Olga was perhaps doing some complicated algorithm in her head. I had plenty to think about myself but I was still building a picture, and I needed to talk.

  ‘Leon, I’m guessing The Chesters is being prepared as a fallback position, in case the IT centre at Samphire Batts gets hit?’

  He pursed his lips and shrugged. ‘In part,’ he admitted. ‘We need to have contingency plans. But first came the house. We wanted a retreat, and Olga liked the idea of refurbishing the old house when she heard about it.’

  ‘Somebody told her about it?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Martha.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ he asked sharply.

  I let it go.

  A few minutes later I said, ‘You’ve probably been in this position before?’

  ‘Position?’ he said, looking puzzled.

  ‘Contingency planning: preparing for the worst, hoping for the best.’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ He chuckled. ‘If Samphire Batts – as you call it – goes down the tubes, we must be ready. Like we were on other occasions.’

  ‘Where were you based then?’

  ‘Prague was last. Before that, other places. Bobrik hit us hard. But we were ready. So we moved.’

  ‘To Teesside?’

  ‘Yes. It was necessary, and if it becomes necessary again we will move once more.’

  ‘Expensive business.’

  He shrugged and lapsed into silence. It didn’t last long.

  ‘You see, Frank, we lost a lot of good assets in Russia. Confiscations, compulsory purchases at ridiculous prices, and so on. The state gradually wore us down. Some assets we managed to retain, but many were lost. Whole industries – chrome mining, for example. Uranium mining. We needed something that wasn’t tied to a geographical location. We needed to be able to operate outside Russia with an asset they couldn’t take from us.’

  ‘Hence Leonomics?’

  ‘Exactly. They don’t even know about it. They know only about the online newspaper, Leon’s World.
’

  ‘But they suspected something?’

  ‘They knew I had to have a way of making money, although they didn’t know how I did it. So they enlisted Bobrik to find out. They gave him immunity from prosecution for things they knew about him if he cooperated, and they promised to make his business life in Russia easier. So he cooperated.

  ‘He found out some of what we were doing, but not all of it. And he suspects, rightly, that my dear sister, Olga, with her skills, is at the heart of it.’

  ‘So that’s why she was abducted?’

  ‘I think so. We were lucky to get her back.’

  I thought about what he had said and made a suggestion.

  ‘Leon, if they know about the newspaper, surely they will discover Leonomics before long? The names are too similar.’

  That worried him. I’d found a surprising blind spot in his thinking.

  ‘Change the name,’ I suggested. ‘It’s easy to do.’

  He nodded and looked relieved. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ he asked. ‘Frank, you are a genius!’

  ‘It’s true,’ I admitted. ‘The man in my shaving mirror tells me that every day.’

  Our laughter attracted Olga’s attention. She turned to us, smiled uncertainly and said, ‘The builders will arrive in three days.’

  ‘The house,’ Leon said with a grimace. ‘They may find that, too, eventually, but we will be ready to move once more. They will not defeat us, not Bobrik, not Putin himself. We are strong. We will prevail!’

  I didn’t know about that. I wasn’t so confident. But I certainly hoped he was right.

  Later, at The Chesters, Leon came to see me. ‘I’ll be leaving first thing tomorrow, Frank.’

  ‘So soon?’

  He yawned and added, ‘The business requires it. I could do with a rest, but….’

  ‘Where to this time?’

  He shrugged, as if to say that the least known, or said, the better. Again I let it go. Leon wasn’t confiding in me as much as he had at first, but I could understand that. His life was spent on the edge, and the edge right now was particularly sharp. He would have a lot on his mind. I went easy on him.

  ‘See to the security here, Frank. I trust your judgement on what is required. Talk to the builder. Get him to order anything you need. Pay top prices if necessary. Time, speed, is very important. Oh, and make sure Martha knows what you’re doing. OK?’