The Leveling

“Of course. State was trying to get the Turkmen to deny transit rights.”


“So that’s why you were there. To help stop the pipeline.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You couldn’t just let that pipeline go? After all that happened?”

The scars on Daria’s face were partially a result of a fight over that pipeline.

Personally, Mark didn’t care whether that oil pipeline from Iran to China got built. Iran had oil that China wanted to buy. So what? Oil was a global commodity. If China bought more from Iran, then they’d buy less from the Saudis, or the Sudanese. There’d still be the same amount of oil on the planet for everyone to fight over. And fight they would. Nothing would ever change that.

Daria’s eyes narrowed. “That thing gets built, the mullahs get a steady stream of cash for the next thirty years. Say good-bye to any dream of a free Iran.”

Mark wanted to say something to the effect that maybe it wasn’t her battle to fight, that maybe whether Iran ever became free was up to the people living inside the country, not her, but they’d already had that conversation, and it hadn’t ended well.

“I admire your idealism,” he said.

“Oh, please.”

“So anyway, Holtz was in Turkmenistan helping State. I’m listening.”

Daria stared him down for a moment, then said, “Having an opportunity to help stop that pipeline from getting built was a large part of why I took the job. But Holtz hadn’t been hired just to get the Turkmen to deny transit rights on the pipeline. The bigger focus was stopping the Chinese from cutting deals to lock up Turkmenistan’s natural gas reserves. The problem was the Chinese were playing dirty.”

“I’m shocked.”

“State had only been negotiating for two weeks when inflation in Turkmenistan started going crazy. Like, in a few days the price of everything doubled. Which meant all of a sudden Turkmenistan had a serious cash problem. The government needed money for subsidies, and quick, so people didn’t starve or revolt because they couldn’t buy food.”

“So Turkmenistan starts looking around for a big pile of cash to solve their problems.”

“Long-term you could say we were offering a better package deal—”

“But the Chinese were offering more up front. For the natural gas and transit rights for the pipeline.”

Mark had seen this movie before. In Angola, Sudan, Myanmar…throwing money at sketchy third world governments was often the way China got deals done.

“Yeah,” said Daria. “A lot more cash. And with everyone suddenly going crazy over inflation, Turkmenistan needed cash to keep people from rioting.”

“So’d you figure out how China rigged the inflation spike?”

“By buying up massive amounts of black market US dollars with Turkmen manats.”

Mark considered the implications of such a move. “That would only cause inflation if the manats being used to buy up dollars were new to the system—like if the government was printing money.” You print a lot of money, you dilute your currency, the value of the currency goes down, inflation goes up.

“Or if someone else was printing counterfeit money.”

Daria leaned toward Mark from across the table. Her face was animated now, in a way that reminded Mark of how she used to be, when she was just a young, overly enthusiastic operations officer.

“I didn’t know it at the time,” she said, “but it turns out that’s exactly what was happening. Anyway, around three weeks ago, when inflation really started to run wild, I told Holtz that I suspected the Chinese were behind it. I didn’t have any real evidence yet, but the fact that inflation was mysteriously spiking just as the Chinese were preparing their cash offer was too much of a coincidence. The thing is, Holtz had just seen some intel suggesting that it was the Russians.”

“The currency scam is too sophisticated for the Russians,” said Mark, trying to make sense of it all. “They go more for straight-up bullying. Send your damn gas and oil north through Russia or else.”

“That’s what I thought. Holtz didn’t see it that way, though. Since we hadn’t really been getting along anyway, I quit.”

“Huh. Just like that.”

“Well, I figured if Holtz wasn’t going to look into it, I’d look into it on my own.”

“Here? In Almaty?”

“Chinese intelligence uses this city as a hub—their diplomats are always flying back and forth between here and their Central Asia stations. They usually stay at the InterContinental.”

“What’s your end game, Daria?” Mark wasn’t sure what Daria was up to, but he was certain she was up to something. “I mean, say you get incriminating intel on the Chinese and leak it to the Turkmen. Worst-case scenario, they just have to throw more money at the problem to smooth things over.”

Between the Chinese and the Turkmen and the currency scam and now Daria, Mark’s head was starting to spin.