The news hit Rajendra like a physical blow. KGB. The letters carried a weight that transcended mere danger. It was the spectre of the invisible state, the endless, faceless bureaucracy of fear that could make a person disappear into the Siberian permafrost without a ripple. And their pipeline, his beautiful, clever pipeline, had a KGB man standing at its terminus, holding the welcome sign.
For a full minute, he just stood in the mill office, the hum of the city outside sounding suddenly very distant. Panic was a luxury he couldn't afford. He needed to think like a merchant whose entire shipment was about to be seized by the most notorious tax collectors in history.
He called Ricky back on the encrypted line. "Don't spook him. Answer his questions with boring, corporate nonsense. Tell him Ascendant is a family trust, directors are based in Zurich, you're just a logistics contractor. Be dull."
"What about the ship, boss? It's two days out!"
"Let it sail. On schedule. Do nothing different."
He hung up. His mind raced. Aborting meant scuttling the ship, or ordering it to a different port. That would burn the Northern Star's captain, cost a fortune, and most critically, break trust with Anya. She had delivered the magnets. She was waiting for her jeans and, more importantly, the strategic materials he'd promised in return. To fail now was to show weakness. In the shadow world, weakness was a death sentence.
But proceeding was walking into a trap.
He needed Anya. He needed her ground truth. The dead-drop via sailor would take weeks. He had hours. He remembered a contingency she'd mentioned—a shortwave radio frequency, a window of time, and a simple numeric code. It was for emergencies only. This qualified.
That night, in a rented room in a cheap lodge near the docks, Ganesh manned a bulky shortwave set. At the precise minute, he transmitted a five-number sequence. It meant: Urgent. Compromised. Await instructions.
They waited for twenty-four agonizing hours.
The reply crackled through the static the next night. A series of numbers. Ganesh decoded them swiftly, his face a mask of concentration. The message was brief. He wrote it down and handed the paper to Rajendra.
"Uninvited guests expected. Let them host. Change the menu at the last minute. Instruct your ship: divert to secondary port Leningrad, not Murmansk. Use attached clearance codes. Our guests in Helsinki will be waiting for a ship that changes its mind."
Below were a series of alphanumeric codes—Soviet naval port authority clearances for Leningrad.
Rajendra stared. It was a move of breathtaking audacity. She wasn't suggesting they hide. She was suggesting they hijack their own shipment from under the KGB's nose, using the Soviet military as the hijackers. The "uninvited guests" were expected. She had assumed the KGB would be watching. This wasn't a flaw in the plan; it was a layer of it.
Her plan was a political gambit. By using forged military codes to divert the ship to Leningrad, the cargo would be received by her side—the military logistics corps, likely answerable to General Krylov. The KGB, a rival organ of the state, would be left fuming on a Helsinki dock, unable to publicly challenge a military port order. It would create friction, but plausible deniability. The military was inspecting a suspicious cultural shipment. Standard procedure.
It was brilliant. And insanely risky.
He immediately sent the new coordinates and clearance codes to the Northern Star's captain via a secure marine channel. The message was clear: Proceed to Helsinki as planned. Twenty-four hours from port, broadcast mechanical failure and divert to Leningrad using attached Soviet authority codes. Triple bonus upon safe delivery in Leningrad.
The captain's terse confirmation came back: "Understood. For triple pay, I have never been more mechanically unsound."
In Helsinki, a man named Arto Vilen sat in a modest dockside office, drinking terrible coffee. He was a Finn with a forgettable face and perfect Russian. He had, as Ricky suspected, a long and fruitful relationship with the First Chief Directorate of the KGB. The arrival of a container full of "archival film" from Singapore, paid for by a shadowy company, destined for a shell cultural society, had tickled his professional curiosity. His reports to his handler had been routine. But he was waiting, watching the harbour schedule.
The MV Northern Star was due at 0800 hours. At 0600, he received a telex from the shipping line.
"REGret INFORM MV NORTHERN STAR EXPERIENCING CRITICAL ENGINE BEARING FAILURE. DIVERTING TO NEAREST AVAILABLE REPAIR FACILITY. PORT OF LENINGRAD. ESTIMATED DELAY 14 DAYS. APOLOGIES FOR INCONVENIENCE."
Arto Vilen frowned. Engine trouble? A day from port? And diverting to a Soviet military port for repairs, not a neutral Finnish or Swedish one? That was unusual. He sent a quick coded message to his handler: "Ship diverted Leningrad. Suspect intentional. Military port."
The reply was swift: "Observe. Do not engage. Leningrad is not our garden."
In Leningrad, the sky was the colour of wet cement. The Northern Star, looking perfectly seaworthy, nudged against a restricted military quay. The air was sharp with cold and the smell of diesel and rust. Armed naval infantry stood at discreet intervals.
Captain Anya Petrova, in her full winter uniform, greatcoat buttoned tight, stood on the dock with a clipboard. Beside her was a senior port authority officer, a man who looked at the codes she presented and asked no questions. The codes, though forged, were perfect. They came from the office of General Krylov himself.
The container was offloaded under Anya's direct supervision. She identified the 110 special canisters—she knew the markings—and directed her soldiers to load them onto a waiting GAZ-66 military truck with a tarp cover. The remaining 390 film canisters were left in a secure dock shed.
"These," she told the port officer, "are the cultural archives. They will be forwarded to Helsinki by rail after our inspection is complete. Standard procedure for materials entering sensitive port areas."
The officer saluted. No one questioned the "inspection" of movie reels. The military did what it wanted.
Within an hour, the truck was gone, winding its way through Leningrad's bleak streets to a secure military warehouse Anya controlled. The blue jeans, Walkmans, and precious strategic materials were safe. The KGB in Helsinki was left with nothing but a shipping delay notice and a vague sense of having been outmaneuvered by their own military.
A week later, the dead-drop letter arrived in Mumbai. Anya's handwriting was crisp, but the tone had a new, electric energy.
"Menu successfully changed. Guests left hungry. The kitchen, however, is now of greater interest to other chefs. Future deliveries must be more creative.
The medicine is urgently needed. Hospital reports are grim. What is your capacity?
General Krylov sends his... appreciation."
The "appreciation" arrived separately, through a channel that made Rajendra's blood run cold before he understood its safety. A sealed diplomatic pouch from the Soviet Embassy in Delhi was delivered by a bored courier to the Ministry of External Affairs, addressed to a mid-level bureaucrat. That bureaucrat, a man on Ganesh's discreet payroll, intercepted it and delivered it to the mill. Inside the Soviet pouch, within an inner velvet bag, were twenty rough, uncut emeralds of stunning size and clarity. Soviet emeralds, from the Ural mines. Untraceable, incredibly valuable, and a message far more eloquent than words: We have treasures. We trust you with them. More is possible.
The bonus was staggering. The trust, even more so.
Pixel-Lord, blissfully unaware of the drama, received his 390 film canisters via rail from Leningrad to Helsinki and then to his dimensional drop-point. His payment of 150 Void-Coins came through, along with a gushing message about "primitive narrative preservation."
Rajendra now had capital, trust, and a ticking clock on the most urgent request: antibiotics.
He couldn't ship pallets of penicillin. The scale would be impossible to hide, and the Soviet medical bureaucracy would seize it for distribution, not necessarily to Krylov's hospitals. He needed a sustainable solution. He turned to the only entity that dealt in solutions beyond Earth's limits.
He contacted the Mad Scientist.
Rajendra (Earth-Prime): I require a broad-spectrum antibiotic formula. Tier-0 compatible. Must be producible with late-20th-century terrestrial pharmaceutical technology (fermentation, basic chemical synthesis). Efficacy must be high against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. I am purchasing the intellectual blueprint.
Mad Scientist: An unusual request. Most hosts request finished medicines. You seek the seed, not the harvest. Why?
*Rajendra (Earth-Prime): Sustainability. And deniability.
Mad Scientist: *Logic accepted. I have a stabilized, simplified derivative of a tetracycline-class compound. It is resistant to common bacterial resistance mechanisms of your era. I designate it Formula K-7. The synthesis pathway is within your capabilities. Price: 80 Void-Coins.*
It was a fortune. But it was a permanent asset. He paid.
The data packet that arrived was dense with chemical formulae, fermentation parameters, and purification processes. To a 1980s Indian pharma chemist, it would look like a revolutionary but plausible breakthrough.
Rajendra called in Shanti. "We're funding a humanitarian medical initiative. I want to buy a controlling stake in a small, clean, but struggling pharmaceutical company. One with a decent lab and hungry, smart chemists."
Shanti, now wary of his "humanitarian" projects, sighed. "Which one? And what are we 'developing'?"
"A new antibiotic. For the world's poor." He handed her a simplified version of the K-7 proposal. "It could be huge. And it's the right thing to do."
She read the summary, her business mind engaging despite her suspicion. "The chemistry looks... elegant. If this works, it's not just charity, it's a license to print money. But the R&D timeline is impossibly fast."
"We got lucky. The foundational research was done overseas. We're buying the IP and adapting it." He was weaving lies within truths. "The first production run is earmarked for disaster relief in Eastern Europe. A partnership with an international aid agency." He didn't specify that the "aid agency" was a Soviet Army logistics captain.
Shanti looked at him for a long moment. "This is the antibiotic for your 'partners who can't get jeans,' isn't it?"
He met her gaze. "Yes. Sometimes the most valuable thing you can trade isn't a gem or a metal. It's a life. This keeps our partners alive, and loyal. It's the ultimate strategic good."
She closed the folder, her expression resigned but understanding. "I'll find a suitable company. And I'll create a separate research foundation. The books will be… creative. Just, for God's sake, Rajendra, ensure we don't end up trading a life for ours in some gulag."
The pharmaceutical company, "Medi-Pharm Ltd," was acquired within a week. Its chief chemist, a brilliant but disillusioned man named Dr. Chaudhary, was presented with Formula K-7. He studied it for two days, emerging from his lab with red-rimmed eyes and a look of awe. "Where did you get this? This is… it's years ahead. The stabilization alone…"
"Can you make it?" Rajendra asked.
"With the right equipment, yes. In six months, we could have trial batches."
"You have three weeks. Budget is no object. Hire who you need. Work in shifts."
Dr. Chaudhary, seeing salvation for his life's work and a mountain of funding, simply nodded.
As the antibiotic project lurched into frantic motion, a new communication arrived. It wasn't via dead-drop, shortwave, or System. It was a telex to the office of Ascendant Pte Ltd in Singapore, forwarded to Ricky, who brought it to Mumbai in person, his usual bravado replaced by unease.
The telex was from a commercial entity in East Berlin.
"TO: ASCENDANT PTE LTD
RE: CULTURAL EXCHANGE FOLLOW-UP
THE PRINCIPAL CHEF WAS IMPRESSED BY THE RESOURCEFULNESS OF THE RECENT MENU CHANGE. HE BELIEVES A FACE-TO-FACE MEETING TO DISCUSS FUTURE MENU PLANNING WOULD BE BENEFICIAL. A NEUTRAL KITCHEN IS SUGGESTED. BERLIN. ONE MONTH FROM RECEIPT. PLEASE CONFIRM AVAILABILITY.
SIGNED: K."
Ricky pointed a trembling finger at the initial. "K. That's not a company, boss. That's a person. The person."
Rajendra stared at the stark, bureaucratic words. The principal chef. A neutral kitchen. Berlin.
General Yevgeny Krylov wanted a summit.
The shadow partner was stepping into the dim light. No more letters, no more proxies. A meeting, in a city split in half by the Cold War, one month from now.
The emeralds sat heavy in his desk drawer. The antibiotic formula whirred in a lab across town. The blue jeans were probably already on the teenagers of Leningrad's elite officers.
He had built a bridge of deniable commerce across the Iron Curtain. And now, the general on the other side wanted to shake the hand of the architect.
Rajendra folded the telex neatly. The game had just become terrifyingly, intimately real. He had one month to prepare to look into the eyes of a man who commanded armies and was dismantling a superstate. And he had to decide what face to wear: the humble merchant, the daring smuggler, or something else entirely.