Читать книгу The Ball. Volume#1. “Kuluangwa” - Michael Ouzikov - Страница 10

«This damned place! What in the world attracted you here, tell me? We could be sitting right now in a sauna! You won’t even get yourself cleaned properly! Always showers and showers! It’s not humanlike. People tried with their souls, heated it, cut an ice-hole. It’s winter, damn it!»

«In my opinion, it’s spring! And it’s very beautiful here! Look at how the wind walks, and such waves! Maybe we’ll shoot down something? Who roams here now?»

«We can take a fox. But not with this weather – too much damn wind.»

The two men were walking slowly, in measuring steps, along the coast of the Chukchi Sea. One of them, an authoritative figure, listened attentively to what the other was explaining. The «boss» had an expensive-looking shotgun hanging over his shoulder. On the melting snow, rolling through the snow dunes, two vehicles slowly followed the men: a black Toyota Land Cruiser and a Russian-made all-terrain army vehicle, GAZ-34039. Three other men in dark jackets journeyed at a distance along the same course, scanning the desolate, forbidding surroundings.

The discussion turned to setting up a repeater station in this area to ensure continued telephone and internet connection for the few towns and villages. The nearest such station was in Pevek and had a service range of several hundred kilometers. This was clearly not enough for the needs of the villages, geological stations, settlements of reindeer herders and hunters, and for the increasing shipping traffic on the Northern Sea Route. Moscow was keenly interested in developing this area and openly hinted to the private sector that it would be nice to not use state funds, but «other» financial resources instead. As they say, there was little choice.

«Andrei Andreyevich, you have to understand that if we set the station here, people will be sent here as if to the pole for exile. Even animals haven’t walked these lands in years. It’s a dead place!» loudly voiced the elderly man in a fur cap pulled down over his head and hustling and waving his short arms.

«Don’t worry, Nikolai Alekseyevich, everything will be fine.» It was evident that the tall young man with a red week-old beard, a bare head and in dark glasses, and in a short, light and, apparently, very warm jacket, turned to his companion with an elaborate yet condescending politeness. «If necessary, I’ll send a good work force here. Bachelors and experienced explorers. There have to be three people per shift. It’ll be warm under the roof, with constant connection… much better than toiling on a rig or on a rocker. We’ll build a helicopter pad, warehouses, and so on… stock up on vodka. Speaking of which, how about some, Nikolai Alekseyevich? Maybe you’ll sign up for a season or two?» Along with words, white vapor came from his mouth. He walked, wistfully looking at the bleak hills, the unfriendly Chukchi Sea, and thought: What the fuck am I doing here? There wasn’t any need to choose the site myself, or to even fly out here. Everything could be done by experts. Look at me – a communications expert, idiot! Signalman-millionaire! Wherever you want, that’s where you put these damn repeaters. Come to London! No, better you come with us to Kolyma… How I’ve had it with these social responsibilities, fat bitches…

The fresh breeze from the sea touched the young man’s red hair. He was a naturally handsome persona, built like a middle-weight boxer, pale-skinned like Lord Byron and with blue eyes set deep in the shadows of his brows. His name was Andrei Andreyevich Romanov. He was forty-one years old. He was worth three billion dollars and had the broadest of ties «at the top.» These ties allowed him to engage in speculation, securities, state property, the «official» removal of competitors, and other matters, always bringing him a profit. A considerable profit.

This inexplicable pull to come and «enjoy» the beauty of the Arctic Circle came to fruition only a few weeks ago to this Russian nouveau riche, who rose from small business in the early nineties to a billion-dollar empire today. He was driving in Moscow to a Union of Industrialists meeting when he halted in a traffic jam on Tverskaya Street. No emergency or security vehicles and not even signal-flashing state limos could unglue the cars stuck like sprats in a can on both sides of the street. Out of nowhere, a dirty gypsy, some Tajik kid, ran up to the car and began to rub a sticky cloth on the tinted glass on the passenger side of the black Bentley. The boy’s eyes were completely empty and seemed like huge eyeballs. He was furiously trying to push the cloth on the glass directly in Romanov’s face, as if to wipe his nose. Out flew the bodyguards, trying to pull the boy away – however, he grabbed a door handle, so that even two heavies couldn’t do anything. He even managed to free for a few moments, pulling a stub of corn cob out of his inner jacket pocket and forcefully rubbing it onto the window. Yellow kernels scattered on the sides, and the spot of impact on the glass blurred like a sun in children’s drawings. «Ton guha,» cried the boy passionately, «Ton guha!»

Finally, the security tore the boy off the car and kicked him onto the sidewalk, where onlookers were already enjoying the little spectacle. «Ton guha! Ton guha…» the little dark-skinned kid continued screaming until one of the guards feigned a threatening movement, supposedly trying to catch the offender of the peace. The kid disappeared down an alleyway, sticking his tongue out at the heavy.

Romanov smiled and asked the driver, anxiously glancing at the clock, «Kostya, what is this „ton guha?“ Do you know, by chance?»

«Some damn black-speak probably, Andrei Andreyevich. «Give me money,» or something, I guess. I know that in Georgian, «give me money’ goes something like puli mamitschkhara… something like that, though I’m not sure… They’re everywhere!»

Being from Yaroslavl, Kostya was deeply concerned about the changing ethnic composition of the capital’s population. Meanwhile, Romanov’s heart suddenly felt pricked and he sighed with a slight groan, leaning back in his leather seat, and closing his eyes. He became deathly depressed, like once upon a time following the tragic death of his mother in a car accident. Kostya turned and looked worriedly at his boss, who just waved his hand and said, «Never mind, let’s go…» Indeed, the traffic surprisingly cleared up, as if it didn’t exist. Cars moved, picking up speed, snorting fumes at each other.

And now, in light of the occasion, and, of course, thanks to the availability of a good bottle of whiskey in the lonely room at the Intercontinental (Romanov didn’t want to drag himself back to his empty, remote home right after a meeting «at the top»), instead of spending «quality time» with his family in a cottage purchased three years ago in a small Belgian ski village, he quickly gathered his crew for a flight to Yakutsk the next day, for an «emergency trip.» He became so frightened that something very important was passing, something that will change his whole life, that he jumped out of bed in the middle of the night, awakened by a telephone call from his secretary and forced him to immediately take up this matter.

Romanov’s manic fear of becoming someone’s victim – of friends, of businessmen, of corporate raiders, or of omnipresent secret services – forced him to engage more in securities, stock markets, and resale of land, followed by the withdrawal of capital to quiet western markets, and less in the supply of hydrocarbons and metals. Having done some experiments with securities, he was convinced that they were a profitable activity. He continued to bribe public officials through whom he received ownership of national resources and treasures, but reselling securities became his main passion.

Still, at times Romanov was still attacked by unmanageable thoughts he was unable to escape from and failed to make logic of. At such moments he developed a tick. All the signs of neurosis were present. Instead of consulting doctors, he visited certain «mind expanders.» At such nagging moments, Romanov dreamt passionately that the Lord – yes, God himself – instructed him to an important task – the Mission – to receive information and so that he, Romanov, must humbly carry it from place to place. Yes, yes! He must become a messenger of God, the Chosen One. He wanted to rid himself of all this easy money that flooded his mind and life – money that prevented him from accepting and delivering the… let’s call it the stigmata. Yes, carry it from God to… someone else, just as high…

Romanov was brought back down to earth from his reflections by the cheerful voice of Nikolai Alekseyevich, who was marching through snow in long strides and moving his arms like a professional skier.

«Vodka will lure any fool to the station, Andrei Andreyevich,» joked the old man. He was a regional manager – a solid, serious man with graying temples and a huge black mustache that resembled a shoe brush. He was an adherent of a simple, soldier’s brand of humour and always knew how to support a conversation.

«Vodka-thirsty fools are exactly who we don’t need here. Either we place one station here for all three sectors, or we place three other ones – one for each sector to the south. These three other ones will cost me dimes, if not cents. Putting up IT geeks and hackers here… what do they care where they fuck their virtual babes, here or in Moscow? In the meantime, they’ll be busy enough looking after the system, so they won’t be biting their elbows from boredom.»

«That’s something! See, I’m an old man in my seventh decade, but I can’t tear away my granddaughter from that TV set, or whatever it’s called… a monitor!» Nikolai took a deep breath and continued, «All she does is babble over the Internet with her giggling girlfriends. And they live… two houses away from each other! In our town, there are just those two houses,» Nikolai laughed dryly, not letting the cigarette leave his mouth. «In the old days we ran to our friends without knocking on their door, but today’s youth doesn’t even leave their homes. Well, at least no one has to worry where they’re disappearing to!»

«Here, here. We’ll arrange in the right places the stations, and I’ll be able to locate you anywhere, brother, even from London. You won’t give me any excuses that there’s no connection…»

His boots crunching on razor-sharp ice-hummocks reaching towards the sun, Romanov sharply leaned away from a gust of wind and immediately bumped into Nikolai, almost tumbling him. Nikolai stood rock-still, eyes bulging, the cigarette hanging on his lower lip, trying to scorch his «walrus» mustache.

«Andrei Andreyevich, look! What is this mess, mother of God?»

The half-melted snow around the coastal black shapeless boulder exposed what at first sight looked like a pile of rags and paper. All of this miraculously hung on some carcass. A white carcass, treading through half-decayed tissue, upon closer inspection turned out to be the ribs of a decayed corpse, of human remains.

And here we’ve come… thought Romanov with an air of indifference. The anguish and chest pain, that was in him like a thorn for a week already, somehow left him all at once from the moment he arrived at these polar lands. He said aloud: «Well, Nikolai Andreyevich, this is where we’ll put the station… we’ll call it „At the Dead Mountaineer.“»