A Shadow Intelligence

by Oliver Harris

  ‘Is it safe here?’ I asked. ‘Expats had any issues? That’s what a lot of my clients ask.’

  ‘Mostly safe, yes.’ He hesitated. Something made him check his phone. He put it away, glanced around. ‘There’s ten men for every woman here. Are you up for moving on?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Ever been to Chocolate?’

  The Chocolate Room was a nightclub by the river, tucked into the base of the Radisson hotel. I drove us there, parked a few metres away from the luxury cars outside the club itself. There was a commotion going on when we got there: the side window of a Porsche had been smashed. I caught a glimpse of figures running across the street, bouncers giving chase while on radios. We were inside before I had a chance to see any more.

  The place was large and conspicuously expensive, with a stage and a dancefloor, booths around the side. On the stage, topless women sat in giant gold picture frames that swung on chains. People on the dancefloor paid them little attention – daughters of oligarchs dancing with practised moves as if they were auditioning for a part. Bryant asked for a table in the corner. For the price of a bottle of champagne and six shots we got a red velvet booth from which you could watch the show and talk undisturbed. He waved away some escorts.

  ‘See that outside?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Get much of that?’

  Bryant shrugged, sipped his Cristal.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This country has a problem: it’s called forty-dollar barrels. The price of oil has sunk. That means the sweetener’s running out, economic brakes slammed on. Which is fine for those strapped in.’ He gestured at the dancefloor. ‘But the people outside … People start to care about democracy when they can’t buy what they want.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘The government needs a deal from somewhere.’

  ‘There must be room for more outside energy investment.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  ‘What tech exactly do you do for the oil industry?’

  He kept his eyes on the dancefloor as if the question was mildly distasteful.

  ‘Collect data and process it. Data from magic technology.’

  ‘Satellites?’

  ‘Satellites, drones. Sometimes even guys on the ground.’

  ‘For Chevron?’

  He smiled. ‘Not a bad guess. I’m with one of the littler guys though. Saracen. Know them?’

  ‘They’re in Vietnam, right?’

  ‘They’ve got fields in ’Nam, Mexico. They buy them up, flip them, sell them to the majors for a quick profit. But Kazakhstan’s got under their skin.’

  ‘Should I invest in Saracen?’

  He hesitated, the smile on his face turning more enigmatic.

  ‘You could do worse,’ he said. Then he shook his head ruefully. ‘Seriously, I’d be killed for talking about this stuff.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘High stakes. And not the most gentle crowd.’

  ‘People get hurt?’

  ‘Can do. Will do, no doubt. Why?’

  ‘Just feeling out the landscape.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you: you’re going to need a stomach for risk doing any business around here.’

  ‘This place has plenty of oil still to come, right?’

  ‘Sure, oil’s oil. But times are changing. The President’s not going to live for ever. He’s walked a fine line: tight with Russia, but giving us crumbs – oil crumbs, investment crumbs. That arrangement’s not going to last for ever. He’s, what, getting on for eighty? There’s no succession plan. He’s kept it that way deliberately.’

  ‘Where do you think the trouble will come from? Islamists?’

  Bryant laughed. ‘These guys wouldn’t know a Koran from a JC Penney catalogue. The trouble will come from the big guys next door.’ He tilted his bottle. ‘China, Russia.’

  ‘A guy I met yesterday was talking about container traffic from China being on the up.’

  ‘Doubled last year. Only danger is the Chinese don’t know when to stop. They’re buying agricultural land, housing, you name it. People aren’t happy.’

  ‘Better than Russians getting it?’

  ‘They like the Russians here. There’s an old Kazakh proverb: “To be the captive of the Chinese is a tight noose — with the Russians, it is a wide, open road.”’

  ‘Sounds like a Russian proverb,’ I said.

  ‘Every country needs protection. You have the US. No one wants to be independent without being strong. Anyway, the Kazakhs aren’t so worried about infrastructure. They don’t like losing land.’

  ‘They’ve got enough of it.’

  ‘But it’s how they identify. You’ve got to understand psychology. There’s so much of it, it’s everything. That’s Kazakhstan.’

  Another girl came over and he started chatting to her. She looked Indonesian. I went to the toilets where there was crushed ice in the urinals and a guy wearing a tuxedo rapping Kazakh into his phone. The escort had gone when I returned and Bryant was staring into space.

  ‘Why’s there ice in the urinals?’ I said.

  ‘Why is anything?’ He shook his head, then tried to drink from an empty glass. I topped him up. He was drunk now. He asked if I wanted to do a line and I said I was okay. While he was in the toilets, I watched the topless women swinging in their picture frames, skin dusted with glitter. I sipped champagne and imagined being Bryant, stuck out here, living the routine as Joanna had figured it. Every expat is an exile of sorts, looking for something to grip onto. You’re free to remake yourself, try things out, which means you end up confronted with who you are. Then you start drinking. I was drawn to these men and women, all on the run from something, not only because my job depended on exploiting their vulnerability. Bound in with their dreams of self-enrichment – bound in, even, with a hunger to see the world – was always a desire to disappear, and I knew how that felt.

  Bryant returned and we leered over the dancers, discussing which we found most attractive.

  ‘Are you dating?’ I asked.

  He pulled a face. ‘It’s tough. When they hear you work in energy, it’s two-hundred-dollar meals for a blowjob. Kazakh women just want to marry you. They want a ring and a visa before you get their number. Funnily enough, the one woman I clicked with was an eco-activist.’ He looked at me to check my amusement, and maybe something more, sensing he was on uncertain territory.

  ‘Nice. Maybe she was spying on you,’ I said. He nodded philosophically.

  ‘We’d had a few drinks together. You know, I thought maybe she found it kinky. Then she stops returning my calls. Perhaps that was, like, revenge for me working for the oil industry. Maybe that was a protest.’

  ‘Was she Kazakh?’

  ‘English.’

  ‘English? Working over here?’

  ‘Making a documentary.’

  ‘Did she film you?’

  ‘A tiny bit. But she wanted Kazakhstan. I think she had a romantic idea of the place: dudes riding across the steppe, eagles on their wrists. She asked me about oil companies and human rights. You know, liberal. I was the baddie. I fuck up the planet.’

  ‘Isn’t it risky doing that kind of campaigning over here?’

  ‘Depends how you go about it. I’m still trying to get my head around this place. There’s tensions, around oil especially: workers’ rights, people getting moved for new drill sites. I chatted to one old Saracen character about communities they were displacing and he said: “I thought they were nomads.”’ Bryant gripped my arm. ‘Can you believe that? “I thought they were nomads, why can’t they just move?” Jesus Christ. Stick around, Toby. It’s about to get interesting.’

  I helped him finish the Cristal. He had that early-stage alcoholism where inebriation hits sudden and profound. When he leaned in to speak our stubble rubbed and his hand found my knee. The coke didn’t seem to have sharpened him.

  ‘You shouldn’t drive,’ he said. �
�We can share a cab.’

  It was an interesting proposition.

  We got a cab back to his. At a new development behind the governmental district, Bryant told the driver to stop. He clambered out, sank to his knees in the snow, the driver shaking his head as he waited for his fare. I paid, helped Bryant up and got him into the right block and to his door. The flat itself was plush, impersonal, with a lot of grey and white. He sat on the sofa and watched me, a slow, seedy smile spreading as if he’d realised something, then fell asleep in his suit. I searched the place, then searched his phone. ‘Vanessa Campaigner’. I scrolled back to their earliest exchanges. She had sent the first message.

  It’s Vanessa. You were great. I don’t know what you were worrying about. I owe you that drink.

  To which Bryant replied:

  Glad I didn’t embarrass myself. Things are crazy at moment. Next week?

  I can wait ; )

  I had never known Joanna to use an emoji. But then she’d never formally asked me out for a drink. From what I could tell, Bryant wasn’t chasing any other women in Astana or anywhere else.

  You never know with people. That was what I’d learned in fifteen years manipulating their souls. The closer you look, the more things come apart. One of the big shocks is how readily people will remake themselves for you, shape themselves to your own desires. The power could go to your head.

  I saw his dilated pupils in the light of the Chocolate Room. You’re going to need a stomach for risk. He’d run a long way from Idaho, that was for sure. I took a photo of his door keys, left him snoring.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I got a cab back to the club to pick my car up. I didn’t want to leave it there overnight. And I was still wide awake with champagne and adrenalin.

  My Hyundai was where I’d left it, windows intact. I pushed the snow off the windscreen and got in.

  A car screeched to a stop in front of me as soon as I pulled out, blocking my way. It gave a brief flash of police lights. I turned my engine off as a man clambered out. He was uniformed. No backup vehicles. One man remained in the police car.

  They must have seen me coming. Which was okay, I told myself: letting me get to the car suggested a scam rather than a hit. They’d been loitering where the rich might get caught, expats especially. I didn’t know the alcohol limit here but I’d be well over. If that was the worst of my problems I could handle it. I wound my window down.

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘This is your car?’ The officer spoke Russian, voice hoarse, eyes heavy-lidded. A functioning alcoholic, forty-something, tall enough that he had to stoop to the window. There was a faded gravity to his jaundiced eyes. A moustache among the stubble seemed like the remnant of a frayed uniform. I spoke Russian back, badly.

  ‘Ya ne ponimayu. I don’t understand.’

  ‘Your car?’ he said in English.

  ‘Hire car.’

  ‘You’ve been drinking.’

  ‘One beer.’

  ‘You are not in good condition to drive.’ He wasn’t in good condition to police. His breath was flammable. ‘Papers. And keys.’

  He took the paperwork and car keys to his vehicle and came back with an old breathalyser, then made a show of tutting when I blew. I went along with this. They hadn’t radioed in to base. Whatever performance going on was restricted, which suited me.

  ‘Step out of the car. Come with me.’ His English was proficient. The reasonable English spoken by people who needed to fleece English-speakers.

  ‘We can arrange something,’ I said.

  ‘Come.’

  I followed him to his car, got in the back seat with him. There was a younger officer up front. The car was filled with cigarette smoke.

  ‘Where are you from?’ the older officer said.

  ‘The UK.’

  ‘Here on business.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oil.’ He smiled.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘You get in trouble here, as a foreigner, it is very bad. Kazakhstan is not England. You would find the prisons very dangerous.’

  ‘Prison?’ I fumbled with my wallet and made sure he saw money. ‘Tell you what, we can forget this, can’t we? My company would kill me if I got in trouble.’

  ‘Four hundred thousand tenge. I give you paper, no more problems.’

  Four hundred thousand was ridiculous, the better part of a grand, but who could blame him. This conman was growing on me. There was an air of seniority amidst the vice, a conflict that told a story. I imagined a whole portfolio of petty corruption under his control, which opened more doors than those engaged in it usually realised. He’d have connections above and below, colleagues sheltering him, taking their own skim from nicer offices. I had always been drawn to people with ethical voids at their centre: they were more open to suggestion.

  I counted out a few hundred pounds’ worth of notes.

  ‘Officer …?’

  ‘Shomko.’

  ‘Officer Shomko, I’ve got a business proposal. You seem a helpful guy. I was just out looking for somewhere I might get a drink, meet some Kazakh ladies. I don’t know this city and I don’t want any more dealings with police. How about another few tenge, you show me somewhere I can get what I need.’

  I showed more notes. The two men consulted one another, Shomko saying I was his, the young man negotiating his cut. Shomko took the money off me and thrust a handful of tenge at his colleague, who got out of the car with a final glance of disdain in my direction.

  We drove to a place with a ‘24 hour’ sign blinking by a small door into the back of what looked like an office block. There was no indication of what was available around the clock, but a vent beside it poured an inverted waterfall of scented steam into the night air.

  ‘You are married?’ he said, as we waited for someone to let us in.

  ‘Divorced. You?’

  ‘Divorced. You like Kazakh women?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Do not marry a Kazakh woman.’

  ‘Okay.’

  We were buzzed in, hit by the smell of menthol and eucalyptus. A second door led to the front desk of a sauna and massage parlour. A girl lay sleeping on a sofa at the side under a coat. Four men played cards in a side room. A middle-aged woman sat behind the desk watching a Russian reality show. Shomko spoke to her about entry fees.

  ‘What does he want?’ the woman asked.

  ‘What do you think he wants?’

  ‘What’s so special he gets a police escort?’

  They haggled over his cut. Shomko quoted me a price.

  ‘You trust this place?’ I said.

  ‘It is the best.’

  ‘Are you sticking around? How do I know I don’t get busted coming out?’

  He said he’d wait, folding the money into his pocket. I told him to get a girl himself, paid for both of us. The woman rolled her eyes and told Shomko to shower. She gave us towels and keys for the lockers.

  Eyes in the steam watched us pass. There were dead branches in a basket by the door, leaves on the floor. I heard the rustle of birch branches against skin as men swiped themselves.

  ‘Go steam. Your girl will collect you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Shomko got changed into a towel and disappeared. I went towards the steam then doubled back to the changing room and prised open Shomko’s locker.

  His wallet contained some kind of prayer card, Viagra and ID for the National Security Committee, which made my heart sing. Lt Aslan Shomko from the regional department of the NSC, essentially the old KGB with new insignia and less ideology, so it covered a lot of policing, border control, drugs. There were betting slips and numbered tickets: Bolim Lombard. Lombard was Russian for pawn shop.

  I put his belongings back, feeling hopeful. Midlife crises were where I stepped in. They came at just the right moment, when an employee was well connected and utterly desperate – you wonder what you have put those years in for, kissing arse. You stumble into me. I’m the
pleasure you’ve been denied. I respect you.

  In the end I declined my massage and went for a swim, keeping an eye out for Shomko. When I saw him return I joined him in the changing rooms.

  ‘She give you good service?’ he asked.

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘Sometimes they are—’ He made a hand-chopping gesture. Efficiency? Violence? I wouldn’t have drawn out an erotic encounter with Lieutenant Shomko. ‘Still, I got you a bargain. Usually, Westerners, they make you pay more.’

  ‘Money’s not a problem.’ I turned back to my things, letting the statement hang in the steamy air. ‘So maybe you can help me again some time.’

  ‘Give me your phone.’ He punched his number in. ‘You get in trouble, you have my number. Shomko.’ He patted his chest. We shook hands.

  He’d entered his name in my contacts as ‘Helping man’.

  In my hotel room I considered how best to use him. I thought back through the day, checked for a message from Joanna. Nothing. Just confirmation from Stefan that he was on his way, and the one from Tom Marsh: they’re looking for you. It wouldn’t be long before they found me. I needed to know how my own country’s intelligence service fitted into this.

  I shut my eyes and saw the Mega Astana exchange. You get a few bytes of data, travelling through the air like an infection. Shows you something you can’t unsee, and turns you into a threat.

  Two people in a room in the Triumph of Astana. What could be so dangerous? Was it me or him?

  TWENTY-TWO

  I tried unsuccessfully to sleep. I was averaging four hours a night. In my shallow dreams, when they did come, I was either in the room in the Triumph of Astana or in my hotel room, Joanna sitting by the bed, waiting for me to wake up.