December by James Steel Read Free Book Online Page A

country? The fuck I do!’
    Sergey was suddenly disturbed by how carried away he had got, and poured out two small teas to calm himself down. He did this with a thin stream of liquid from a height above the cups, and then neatly snapped off the stream with a flick of his wrist. He put the ornate pot down and continued.
    ‘So, we are what you call a one-trick pony. Over half of all government revenue comes from oil taxes but they make money only when the price is over seventy bucks a barrel. When prices hit one forty-seven we were laughing, but nowthey’ve crashed we’re screwed. We didn’t share out the proceeds of the wealth when we did have it, so bastards like me are rich, but if you look at the provinces and the working class, they are desperately poor. I mean, the population is actually shrinking by seven hundred thousand people a year because of alcoholism, suicide, drugs and AIDS. We’ll lose a third of our population in the next fifty years. That’s not a healthy country! And those stupid fucking sheep signed all their freedoms away in the good times!’
    Alex frowned, unsure whom Sergey was talking about.
    ‘I mean the Russian people. Don’t get me wrong, I’m one of them, but Russians have never had much respect for democracy. They call it shit-ocracy!’
    Alex recognised the Russian pun on the words demokratia and dermokratia .
    ‘So, they effectively signed a non-participation pact with the government that said: “You let us enjoy the material benefits of the oil price boom, and we’ll turn a blind eye to whatever political violence you want to use.” It’s exactly like that thing about “When they came for the Jews, I did not protest because I was not a Jew”, blah-blah-blah.’ Sergey waved a hand to indicate the rest. ‘So now that times are hard, there’s no one left to protest for them.
    ‘Now Krymov has spent all the Stabilisation Fund on rearmament so we have twenty per cent inflation—that has really pissed a lot of ordinary people off!’
    Sergey was nearing the end of his tea ceremony now, adding salt in little dashes to the cups. He stopped to jab the tiny spoon at Alex.
    ‘And the final issue that will help our operation the most is the way that they have driven out foreign companies. Those are the guys that actually do know how to run a factory, a refinery, whatever.’
    He grinned lopsidedly. ‘Have you heard my joke about foreign investment in Russia?’
    Alex shook his head.
    Sergey smiled. ‘Well, at the beginning of the process the foreigners have all the money and the experience and the Russians have nothing.’ He paused and looked at Alex with a twinkle in his eye. ‘But by the end of the process the Russians have all the money and the foreigners have had an experience.’
    Alex couldn’t help grinning as Sergey bobbed his head about happily.
    ‘It’s good, yeah? So the siloviki get greedy and drive out ExxonMobil, Total, BP—all of them—so now there is no one left to run the oil refineries and we can’t even produce enough petrol for ourselves, in the largest oil-producing country on Earth!’ He was laughing now. ‘I mean, it would be funny but…’
    ‘You know, the same thing happened in Iran. We both had to introduce petrol rationing. Krymov used the OMON to suppress the riots when it was introduced but, believe me, with rationing and inflation, there are a lot of fucked-off ordinary people out there who want to see Krymov dead.’
    He finished making the tea and put the spoon down.
    ‘So, comrade, in answer to your question—do we have a chance of overthrowing Krymov? It will be tough, but yes, we do.’
    He picked up a small cup of tea and stretched out his arm to give it to Alex.
    Alex looked at him warily, thinking over what he had said and calculating the odds in his head. It tallied with what he had read in the papers and with what Harrington had said in his briefing.
    He reached out, took the cup from Sergey and sipped the bitter tea.
    Sergey