“So, then, you must be familiar with the particular details of this deal?”
Kozlovsky shook his head at my game. “You are really something. Nu. Talk already, Comrade…Brink.”
“At this moment, in Conference Room 14A, we are choosing a shipper for the Varandey oil project. Mr. Kablukov and his team are insisting on a company with no experience, and that will charge the project—and us—seventeen million more a year.”
“And you, Comrade Brink, you have come here to ask me for the reason.”
“Not at all.” I tried to sound lighthearted. “It doesn’t matter to me what the reason is. Whatever it is, we will sign with whatever shipper you want. Only…it’s a question of risks and…let’s say, rewards. In this industry we are, by nature, in the business of assuming risk. Sometimes you don’t know what kind of risk you are underwriting, or”—I turned my palm out—“if you are necessarily sharing in the rewards.”
I looked at the map above his head. A few of the blue pennants were in the middle of the sea, near the Arctic. Offshore. The future.
“You are proposing something to me?”
I snapped to. Kozlovsky had the face of a traffic cop I’d erred in trying to bribe. He’d misunderstood me. This was not at all what I had hoped would happen.
“Of course, I am not talking about our side,” I said rapidly. “What matters to Continental is a continued collaboration with L-Pet….” But this too had the wrong sound to it: bootlicking and asinine.
“Yet you’ve troubled yourself to come here on behalf of Continental….”
“No, only on behalf of myself,” I corrected. “I have a son here, as your Mr. Kablukov well knows. My son is trying to make his own way in the world. I respectfully request that he be free to do his business, without interference, and L-Pet will be free to do theirs.”
Kozlovsky blinked a few times. Something was quietly registering in him. He was an organization man who liked to do his work cleanly. No doubt he was aware of Kablukov’s tactics, and tolerated them. But he also hated to be made to answer for Kablukov’s gluttony, the messes he left. I was now sure he hated Kablukov no less than Bykov had hated Antonov.
He stood up, indicating that our time was over. I kept sitting. I wasn’t going to leave this room without a guarantee. Kozlovsky studied me silently, moving his pale eyes from my face to my shoulders to my hands, as though deciding whether or not to fling me out of his plate-glass window. “You don’t need to worry yourself over this anymore,” he said finally. He consulted the pass hanging from my neck. “Dzhuli-yan, we verify everything here.”
—
EVERYBODY WAS ASSEMBLED AROUND the Olympic-sized conference table. I apologized and took my seat near Tom and a seat away from Kablukov. They had been drinking coffee from the dispensers set up along the back wall, but now both their cups were empty. In his shades, Kablukov nodded at me in a gesture of seriousness that seemed somehow ludicrous.
“Gentlemen, I think we can begin now,” Tom said, looking displeased with me.
I busied myself removing my laptop from its case. It seemed to be stuck between some papers, and I realized with a shock that I had accidentally stuffed my bag not with L-Pet documents but pages of my mother’s files! And then the absurdity of my predicament became clear to me. I had just performed an act of foolishness rivaling any of my mother’s, and why? To protect Lenny? To take down the Boot? Or was my suicide mission, in the end, done for that same childish principle for which my mother had lost so much blood—the hopeless cause of Fairness?
At last I extricated my laptop from the wrinkled pages of Florence’s file, taking care not to let any of them slip out. I had no idea what to do next. I felt a pedant’s urge to draw up the spreadsheet on which I’d been logging the faults and virtues of the charter candidates, though I knew it now to be inane and worthless.
It was at that moment that the door opened and Anton Kozlovsky walked in.
Mukhov gazed at Serdyuk, as though he of all people was likely to know the cause for this unexpected visitation. I gazed at Kablukov. “Anton Yevgenevich…” Kablukov rose slightly out of his chair, followed by Mukhov. “We weren’t expecting you today.”
“My trip to Ufa was moved.”
Kozlovsky did not introduce himself. He let his underlings at L-Pet do the honors.
I prepared myself for the imminent scenario in which Kozlovsky would announce that I had gone to see him. Was it regret I felt? No, not regret. My mind was blank. What I was experiencing was a sense of inescapability, the Nietzschean feeling that all this had happened before and would happen again. In a matter of minutes Tom would know I had broken ranks. The process would go on as predestined. The fruit of my work would be irreparably separated from its labor, never again to be brought under my control. My suicide mission was complete. I was already dead, I just hadn’t been informed of it yet.
Kozlovsky did not look at me. He said merely, “Please, sit,” to the others. Between me and Kablukov was an empty chair, and here was where Kozlovsky planted himself. “Please, friends, continue as you were. I won’t be disturbing you. I know your work here is almost over. I only wish to sit in and hear the merits of our various contenders for this important charter.”
I did not glance in Tom’s direction—though I could feel him looking at me. I was certain he was waiting for me to take some action now. This would be my valiant moment of self-abasement. Before things got out of hand, I was to make my announcement and inform Kablukov, and now Kozlovsky, that all of the bids had been carefully weighed in the past several days and that our contractor—Sausen Petroleum—had been selected. This morning, we were only going to dispense with the formalities of paperwork.
But how could I say any of this after what I had done? Over my shoulder I could smell the aroma of a freshly smoked cigarette still lingering on Kozlovsky’s suit. I could not will myself to begin. I would sound like a psychopath.
“Nu?” Kozlovsky addressed me impatiently.
I touched my closed laptop. “We have a matrix,” I said limply.
Focused on me, his pale irises had the effect of a cattle prod. I am here. Now what do you have to show me? those eyes said.
And so that he wouldn’t utter another word, I opened my Dell and drew up the spreadsheet.
—
KOZLOVSKY HANDLED HIMSELF BEAUTIFULLY. For much of the discussion he sat politely in the background, listening to our brief account of the merits of the top three choices—Jessem, Sovcomflot, and the Geneva-based Sausen Petroleum. Mukhov did much of the talking, making such smooth transitions that it was difficult, at times even for me, to distinguish which company he was talking about. But Kozlovsky seemed to assimilate all this knowledge instantly, keeping one eye on my screen while pausing to ask questions heavy with common sense.
“What do our Americans think?” he said at last.