Free Vodka by Boris Starling

and brought out four small dossiers. “I’ve tried to tailor these to your individual strengths and experience, so if you’ve got a problem with them, I want to hear it now rather than in a month’s time.”
    She pushed the top two dossiers over to Bob. “Bob, you’re a banker, and you’ve also done a bit of recruitment in your time, am I right? So I want you to head up procedures and staffing. Procedures involves devising a workable auction system in as much detail as possible: finding and preparing an auction center here in Moscow, establishing communication links to the EBRD in London and the IMF in DC—and then pretending those links don’t work whenever they say something we don’t want to hear. Staffing means finding, hiring, training, paying … and firing when they’re not up to it; and some of them won’t be, you can count on that. Any questions?”
    “Thousands.”
    “I’ll hear them later.” The other two dossiers went across the table to Harry. “Harry, your responsibility is all legal and company work. You have to study the relevant corporate documents to ensure that everything’s aboveboard, arrange for incomplete or illegal documents to be rewritten and ensure that everyone understands what’s legal and what’s not.
And
you’ll need to go through Red October’s books with the finest-tooth comb you can find. Accounts, figures, prospects, viability, strengths and weaknesses. Shove a microscope up their ass.”
    “How come
I
get the shitty jobs?”
    “The shitty jobs?” Alice couldn’t tell whether Harry was joking or not.
    “Alice, no one here has the first clue what the law even
is
right now. How am I going to work out what’s legal and what’s not? And have you ever
seen
a set of Soviet accounts? My nephew’s ten months old, and he makes more sense than they do.”
    “Your charm will overcome all obstacles, I’ve no doubt.”
    “And while we slave at the coalface, what are
you
going to be doing?”
    “Oh, nothing much—just trying to stop the whole damn thing from sinking, that’s all. And kicking your butts when you start bitching. I’ll supervise the steering group, which will be in overall charge of the assignment, and will”—she made a show of checking her notes to get the phrasing correct—“‘obtain rapid and effective decisions on all aspects of the case,’ or so it says here. I’ll also look after PR; we have to promote and publicize this thing, and I’m prettier than either of you.”
    “Ain’t that the truth,” Bob said. The stubble around his goatee was like patches of blackened wheat. “I hate to sound negative, Alice, but—this could all go to shit, right?”
    They were both looking at Alice intently, and she saw the depth of their apprehension.
    “Yes,” she said eventually. “Yes, it could. Even if we work our buns off, it could all go to shit. But it
definitely
will if we don’t. Come on, guys. Be positive. It’s an
adventure
.”
    When they left the restaurant—barely after three, and already dark—a dozen or so vegetarian protesters had gathered outside, led by a young man wearing a fake silver beard and a padded coat. A placard around his neck read
Tolstoy says: “forget meat, stay with wheat.”
    “Tolstoy?” Alice said.
    “I am the great Lev Tolstoy himself, reincarnated.”
    “What’s your real name?”
    “I told you, I am the …”
    She skewered him with turquoise eyes until, shamefacedly, he muttered: “Vasily.”
    Above the beard, his skin was smooth. “How old are you, Vasily?” she asked.
    “Sixteen.” He offered her a veggie burger. “I’m a business student, you know.”
    The McDonald’s crowd ebbed and flowed around them with haughty indifference. Most Russians find even the idea of vegetarianism absolutely bewildering; it’s hard enough to find food as it is, let alone when you halve your options by refusing to eat meat. Vasily gestured disconsolately around him. “They don’t understand,” he said.