by Keith Short
A swell was developing and the trawler started to roll. She could feel the soft thumps as the boat’s bow penetrated each wave. Tears in her eyes, she looked down at the sleeping child. The maternal love she felt for her own children at that age, she felt for Abram now. He was so peaceful, blissfully ignorant of both the life ahead and the life he was leaving behind. She’d chosen to abandon her own babies and, as she lay down next to him, she began to wonder whether all this was about Abram replacing them. There’s no going back now, little man.
CHAPTER 10
Malkin stood alone in his darkened office. Only the soft blue emergency lighting illuminated the cavernous room; he found it relaxing, it helped him to think.
The nanny had disappeared off the radar with Chekhov’s son, as he’d predicted. His intuition told him she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to hand over the baby and, although it was a huge gamble, he’d judged her reaction well – beaten Chekhov at his own game. He’d even managed to convince Chekhov that the failure to track her down wasn’t his fault. He’d have to extend his private searches, of course – make sure there’d be no comeback. And he’d have to replace the scapegoats within his organisation. He paced the floor of the old pakhan’s office. I’m going to get away with this.
Slomensky would never know that he’d been indirectly acting on his behalf and he found that satisfying. His selection of the retired Slomensky to manage the kidnapping plot was a stroke of genius, the choice inspired by Chekhov’s own astute decision to get rid of his most successful brigadier and move his organisation in a different direction. Slomensky was no longer an issue; he’d been put away where no one would ever find him. But what about his three aides who were still on the run? How much were they aware of the seeds that he and Lidia Leonova covertly planted?
Oh, Lidia, what have you done? He shook his head in sorrow. She was meant to disappear with a chunk of the money he’d made available for bribing the nanny. She must have succumbed to temptation, become greedy and stayed on for the ransom money – the jackpot. And what about the two who’d been hospitalised by the bodyguards? If they showed signs of recovery, how would he deal with that? He shuddered at the thought of their brutal treatment – that hadn’t been his intention. There’s no way I could have them killed.
With luck, Chekhov would soon stand down their resource-sapping search for his son and leave matters in the hands of the police; then he could return to the task in hand. There was much to be done but he was satisfied that the bratva was on the right track, progressively ridding itself of the extreme violence associated with the mafiya. Those he’d laid off should offer no threat if they decided to go it alone. Let them squabble among the rest of the low life.
Above all, Abram Chekhov was gone. He’d never see the inside of this room, Malkin thought, as he sat down. Chekhov’s son no longer offered a potential future threat to his momentous plans. He, the humble bookkeeper, would be the one who developed this bratva into an organisation worth many billions, with most of the money going into his own bank accounts. He’d be the one who sat at its head and he’d be untouchable.
The tiny red LEDs lit up and performed their dance. Malkin raised the terminal and leaned back, smug in his pakhan’s chair. I’m the one in charge now.
PART 2 – EUROPE 2020
Rising Star
CHAPTER 11
The bedside alarm warbled at 6 a.m. Magda stirred but didn’t wake. She seemed immune to this particular tone, so Leon always selected it when she stayed overnight. Careful not to disturb her, Leon slid out of bed, pulled on his dressing gown and sneaked into the kitchen to order himself a coffee. Rubbing the sleep away with his free hand, he walked barefooted into the lounge and looked down from the window of his Krakow apartment to the swirling grey river below. Time flows like that. He pondered the aggressive Russian takeover of the research facility; difficult to believe that was almost two years ago. He’d never forget the dazed looks around the site the day the collaborating institutes from the United States and Japan made the announcement and the shock that followed as the new owners ruthlessly culled the research team within their first month – careers swept away like leaves with a broom. He’d been one of the lucky ones. A theoretical physics postdoc on secondment, he was amazed when they asked him to head up their technical programme. He still shook his head in disbelief whenever he thought of it.
Today should be routine, he told himself as he set down his empty mug, dropped back on to his leather couch and glanced at his watch. His watch alarm signalled six thirty and he spoke out to the empty space that surrounded him.
‘Leon.’
‘Good morning, Leon,’ said the Melomet in its soothing female voice. ‘You have one call waiting.’
The wall in front of him came to life and the young man sitting behind the desk smiled at him. ‘Good morning, Dr Dabrowski.’
‘On time, as always, Dr Schroeder.’ He rubbed his eyes once more as he greeted his project manager. ‘What news?’ he asked with a suppressed yawn.
‘Very good news, Leon. The stellerator behaved like a dream last night. No glitches, no breaks, no faulty starts. We achieved max plasma density on the first run with a temperature over one-twenty million.’
‘Great stuff, Gunther.’ He sat up and moved forward in his seat. ‘How many more runs did you manage?’
‘Two more. One at a similar field strength to the first run. The old dear seems to enjoy running with the settings you’ve selected.’
Leon laughed. ‘And your final run?’
‘You’re not going to like this. We ignored the next two of your scheduled runs and went straight for Test 18.’
‘You did what?’ He jumped to his feet and started pacing in front of the couch. ‘What the hell were you playing at, Gunther? Without the parameter adjustments from those runs you skipped, you were taking a huge risk. You, more than anyone, know the damage you could have caused to the containment. You could have set the programme back two years. You could have—’
‘Steady on, Leon. We obviously didn’t damage the stellerator, did we? Do you think I’d be sitting here reporting results this morning if we did that? No, the final run last night was a resounding success. And guess what?’ He could see that Schroeder was speaking with an excitement he could no longer contain. ‘On Test 18, the plasma held steady for a full forty-five minutes before we decided to switch off. The heat we were dispersing would have incinerated the district.’
This was astonishing. Still in shock, Leon tried to force a laugh at the joke. The results were fantastic but Gunther’s gung-ho attitude in his absence was exasperating. And why, oh why, had he chosen this weekend to be absent from the Greifswald laboratory? After all those years of research and development, this was meant to be just another set of routine tests at the Wendelstein-7X − more terabytes of data for the theorists to analyse in the weeks to come, a couple of scientific papers maybe. There was no need for his presence as programme director. And now he’d missed a significant breakthrough. His eyes widened and he gave out a long hollow whistle. ‘But that means—’
‘Yes, it means we have the technology for a commercial fusion reactor. We could start the design tomorrow.’
‘I’ll call an urgent stakeholder meeting in London for the end of the week,’ Leon said. ‘That gives us two days to get our presentations together. It’s burning the midnight oil again, I’m afraid.’
‘No problem, Leon. I’ve already existed on four hours sleep a night for the past week. You know I’m an adrenalin junkie when it comes to this.’
‘See you there, Gunther. Leon out.’
The video-wall returned to its sleepy grey silence. Leon punched the air in delight. I’ll wake Magda and tell her the good news. On second thoughts, did he really fancy a theoretical grilling from one of Poland’s brightest mathematical talents at this time in the morning? Perhaps I’ll wait till we’ve finished making love.
They followed her to Fusion’s head office, striding past the reception desk without a challenge, and made their way to the conference centre. ‘Drs Dabrowski, Schroeder and Kaminsky,’ the receptionist announced as the men from the research site filed into the stately room and took up the three remaining places at the conference table. Leon found himself in the seat next to Roman Slavic, Fusion’s chief executive officer, who looked as if all his birthdays fell today. No wonder, Leon thought.
‘Welcome, gentlemen, welcome.’ Slavic shook Leon’s hand vigorously. ‘This is splendid news. Just wonderful. I won’t go around the table for introductions,’ he said, as he gesticulated towards the business delegates. ‘We basically have Mr Chekhov’s legal and financial representatives with us today. You may recognise some of their ugly faces?’ There was polite laughter from the suited assembly. ‘Mr Chekhov sends his apologies but once we have full agreement on the veracity of the costs, you and I will fly out to see him, Leon.’
Vladimir Chekhov’s absence was no surprise to Leon. It never ceased to amaze him how Chekhov could consider, almost at a whim, spending an almighty chunk of his fortune on a technical project he couldn’t possibly understand. And he hadn’t paid a single visit to the site since the takeover. Surely, he should have attended a meeting like this, even if he just joined them by video conference. Chekhov must be the supreme gambler. He must understand probability and risk as well as I do.
‘Are you ready with the first agenda item, Dr Dabrowski?’ Slavic said, impatiently tapping the table and still grinning.
What, no coffee? The scientific world had taken over half a century to get to this point. And look what we’ve got. This should have been nothing less than a three-day conference attended by the world’s leading figures in nuclear power generation. At least the chairman of the meeting was trying to introduce a modicum of formality into this momentous occasion. He had to be thankful for that.
‘Yes, we’re ready to go. I’m sure you all know my project manager, Dr Gunther Schroeder. Gunther was the test controller for the latest stellerator runs and he’s going to take us through the technical background.’
With his audience gripped in a tense silence, Schroeder ran through his presentation, assisted by the sonic screen that was set up to match his voice pattern. No complex physics, no equations – he presented the bare facts about the significance of the latest results from the Wendelstein-7X experimental reactor.
Gunther was communicating at precisely the level they’d agreed and Leon could see that the accountants were impressed with this part of his delegation’s presentation; there’d be money in this for them. The solicitors seemed to have dropped their usual superior attitude as well; he had to stop himself laughing when he spotted their little group nodding and shaking heads in unison as they tapped away at their wafer-boards. And the contrast in dress codes across the table was comical – suits versus casuals – he couldn’t prevent the impulsive little smile and shake of his own head.
Pawel Kaminsky followed with a presentation on software protection and data security. The security of their data was vitally important to Chekhov, who’d even insisted on his own staff being involved in the functional design specification for the software. Kaminsky explained how he had personally transported the data from each experimental run on a wafer-zip and Chekhov’s refusal to use electronic means of data transfer in order to avoid hacking. The city bods were losing interest at this stage, but Slavic was still smiling and that was all that mattered.
It was Leon’s turn. This was why they were here, after all – to justify the financial funding and intellectual property control requirements for the next phase. Their eyes were glued to his sonic screen; don’t drop any pins, anybody. Ten minutes in, he could tell he was getting through to them – speaking their language. They were happy, but how would they react at the end of his presentation when he dropped the astronomical figures on them like an atomic bomb? He didn’t get that far.
He was in mid-sentence when the unexpected torpedo hit. The door to the conference room swung open and a short, rotund man with slicked-back grey hair and round-rimmed spectacles marched up to the table.
‘Mr Chekhov would like to speak with you via his private video link, Slavic. It’s urgent.’
That’s going to wipe the grin of Slavic’s face, Leon thought, pocketing his hands to prevent himself from decking this little idiot.
A nervous-looking Slavic rose from his chair like a schoolboy summoned to the headmaster’s office. ‘I do apologise, ladies and gentlemen. Please carry on without me. Miss Lermontov, would you be kind enough to take the chair until I return?’ He fumbled with the papers on the table in front of him and ended up with half of them on the floor.
Leon ruefully shook his head as he helped Slavic to retrieve his briefing notes. Slavic needed to get himself into the twenty-first century. He should have used a wafer-board. He looked across the room at the intruder responsible for wrecking his presentation. The man was staring at him, studying him as if he wanted to say ‘I know you, don’t I?’ But he was sure they hadn’t met. And now he’d finished disrupting this meeting – why didn’t he leave? This little joker could spell trouble.
Slavic finally shuffled his papers straight and, with no further acknowledgement of Leon or anyone else at the meeting, set off to face Chekhov. To Leon’s relief, the diminutive man turned away and followed him out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
‘Who was that?’ Leon asked, after they were gone.
‘That’s Oleg Malkin,’ one of the accountants said. ‘He’s the building’s facilities manager. Reports directly to Chekhov, I believe.’
‘Well, he’s a rude little man.’
Miss Lermontov placed her wafer-board on the table and put her head in her hands; she clearly had no desire to continue in Slavic’s absence. Stony-faced delegates looked across the table at each other like condemned criminals awaiting the gallows. The depressing silence around the table was only broken by the occasional nervous tapping of a pen. Had Chekhov decided to pull the plug? This shambolic apology for what should have been a world-changing scientific symposium was becoming soul destroying. Maybe Magda can get me a job as a theorist?
Slavic returned to the meeting after fifteen minutes. To Leon’s surprise, he was smiling.
‘My apologies, ladies and gentlemen. But I’m delighted to tell you that the break in our proceedings was good news for all of us. Our chairman, Vladimir Chekhov, has agreed a budget of one billion euros to design the world’s first commercial fusion reactor. He intends to franchise the design to the Chinese and the Koreans and following that – well, I’ll leave you to consider the possibilities yourselves. This is a major step into the worldwide introduction of nuclear fusion power.’
The delegates looked at each other in stunned bewilderment
. Slavic started to clap his hands slowly. One after the other, the rest of them followed his lead and joined in the applause. The clapping gathered pace and volume, smiles mushroomed on faces and laughter and cheering broke out like water from a burst dam. They’d won the super-lottery and the commercial world was at their mercy.
Amid the backslapping and the congratulatory handshakes, Leon was left wondering how this could have happened. How has Chekhov come up with exactly the same figure as my own?
Later that day, in the basement complex below Fusion’s headquarters, Alexei Rodin made a secret transatlantic video call from the security centre annexe.
‘It’s true, I tell you. They’ve had a massive breakthrough on the German research site. Chekhov has really hit the jackpot here.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘Through Malkin. He couldn’t contain himself. Chekhov will lose all interest in his brothel estate now and that will leave Malkin free to expand his Eight Over Nine project without Chekhov knowing what’s going on.’
‘This represents a fantastic opportunity for us. We could have access to Fusion’s data within days of them receiving it from Greifswald. We’d be back in the race and, personally, I’d be laughing at Chekhov behind his back. What a sucker he’s going to feel when he finds out we’re building our own plant using his design data.’
