September 14, 1991, Saturday.
The morning sunlight leaked through the gaps of the sheer curtains, casting long, thin strips of light across the living room floor.
Satsuki was wrapped in a loose piece of loungewear, half-leaning and half-lying nestled in the sofa.
The television was on, with the volume turned down low. She had originally just turned it on casually as background noise, without even lifting her eyelids much.
Until the screen cut to Moscow.
"...According to the latest news coming from Moscow, Soviet Vice President Yanayev has announced the establishment of the State Committee on the State of Emergency, and claimed that Gorbachev is unable to continue performing his presidential duties due to health reasons."
"Currently, the military has entered downtown Moscow, and tank units have been spotted on major roads—"
The NHK anchor's speaking speed was much faster than usual. The caption bars rolled across the bottom of the screen and back, every line marked with "Emergency" and "Flash Report".
On the screen was footage of Soviet Vice President Yanayev reading a statement. He sat behind a long table with his hands placed on the surface, his fingers visibly shaking.
Satsuki pulled back her feet that had originally rested on the armrest.
She stared at the screen for about thirty seconds, matching the face in the video with her memories.
"Oh."
Satsuki blinked.
"It is finally here."
She slumped back onto the cushion, muttering gloomily.
"Late by another month..."
She reached out, fished the remote control off the coffee table, turned the volume up two notches, and finished watching the entire news summary.
Gorbachev was detained while vacationing in Crimea, the State Committee on the State of Emergency announced it was taking over power, and tanks entered downtown Moscow.
Subtitles constantly refreshed. Reports from correspondents stationed in Japan, expert analyses, reactions from European and American countries—everyone's mouths were moving, yet they were all saying much the same thing—no one knew what would happen next.
Satsuki, however, did know.
It is just that knowing this fact was not as useful as before anymore.
The timeline had deviated more than once. The Nikkei peak had deviated, the timing of securities blowing up had been delayed, and even the bullets on the night of June 27 were things that simply did not exist in history.
The coup itself would probably still fail, Yeltsin would still climb onto that tank, and the Soviet Union would still reach its end before the end of the year.
High probability.
But putting the words "high probability" on the power transition of a nuclear-armed state was not all that reassuring.
"Well, whatever." Satsuki tossed the remote control back onto the coffee table, "Forget it."
She rolled over and curled up facing the sofa back for a moment.
The sofa was still more comfortable...
But after about half a minute, she rolled back over anyway.
She stared for a moment at the ceiling between the dark wooden beams overhead.
The morning light wrapped around the edges of the curtains, illuminating the entire living room brightly.
"...I might as well take a look after all."
She raised one hand and beckoned to the person standing in the corner of the living room.
"Fujita, bring over the latest briefing from the Soviet side. SIS should have already compiled it by this morning."
Fujita turned around almost the moment her voice trailed off. Footsteps came from the hallway, and in less than two minutes, they returned.
A dark blue-covered folder was placed on the coffee table.
"Eldest Miss, this is the updated version from 4 a.m. today. There is also an additional analysis from New York, would you like to review it together?"
"Mm, just leave it there."
Satsuki's gaze followed the folder down onto the coffee table.
Just looking at it like that.
Her body still maintained a semi-recumbent posture, with her left hand cushioning her head and her right hand resting on her abdomen.
The two medical tapes on the side of her face had already been removed, leaving only traces slightly darker than the surrounding skin color.
The injuries on her chest and shoulders had long since ceased to hinder normal activities, but when the doctor signed off on her discharge, they still repeatedly urged her three times — "Do not push yourself."
Satsuki had agreed readily at the time.
In fact, she really had not pushed herself much these past few days.
Mainly because she really did not feel like moving much.
"Ah— I do not want to move..."
She buried her head into the cushion and muttered gloomily.
Fujita stood aside, his lips moving slightly without speaking, instead finding this state of the Eldest Miss quite interesting.
Chizuru walked over from the other side, holding a cup of freshly brewed gyokuro. She placed the tea on the coffee table next to the documents, stepped back half a step, and did not speak either.
Satsuki saw that cup of tea through the gap in the cushion. Heat rose from the rim of the cup, scattering crookedly into the air.
She squirmed again, shifting herself in another direction.
Now facing the coffee table, the documents were right thirty centimeters in front of her. The dark blue cover was stamped with the SIS insignia, and the upper right corner bore a red confidentiality level label.
The tea smelled fragrant.
The files were close.
She still did not get up.
"...As expected, if you have just recovered from an illness, are you super— duper resistant to work?"
The object of her question was unspecified. Fujita and Chizuru exchanged glances, neither picking up the conversation.
Another minute passed or so.
Perhaps two minutes.
Satsuki stared at the ceiling and zoned out for a while longer.
She could clearly feel that running part of her brain trying to drag her up from the sofa—for every hour delayed on the Soviet side, the situation could branch out into three more directions: resource allocation, currency hedging, oil and gas pipelines along the Black Sea coast, and those technical cooperation agreements that Saionji had not fully finalized in Leningrad—
But her waist seemed to have grown together with the sofa.
"Fine, fine, fine."
She said it three times in one breath, propping herself up on the sofa with both hands to sit up. Her hair scattered down from one side, and the collar of her loungewear crooked along with it.
"Yosh! Prep work!"
She slapped her cheeks twice with both hands.
The sound was quite loud. Chizuru's eyebrows twitched slightly before quickly returning to normal.
Satsuki took a deep breath, picked up the folder in front of her, and opened the cover.
The first page was a timeline compiled by the SIS Intelligence Analysis Department. Starting from the afternoon of September 13 Moscow time, it ran all the way to 6 a.m. today Tokyo time. Each entry was marked with its information source and credibility rating.
The second page was an overview of Saionji's current assets and personnel distribution within the Soviet Union. The optical instrument cooperation project in Leningrad, the financial channels in Moscow, several logistics routes transiting through Finland, and the current status of the batch of scientific research and technical personnel contacted successively over the past year.
Starting from the third page was the allegiance analysis of various factions.
Satsuki finished reading the third page and flipped to the fourth page.
The fourth page was an extension of the third page.
The fifth page was too.
The sixth page finally changed topics, but only shifted from "Who supports Yanayev" to "Which military districts might Yeltsin receive support from."
By the ninth page, the topic circled back to the economic level. The ruble exchange rate, external debt structure, independence tendencies of various constituent republics, the centrally planned economic system that had already de facto ceased operation, and how many enterprises and resources were being moved out of the country under various names.
Satsuki flipped through the twenty-three-page briefing from start to finish.
Then she slammed the folder face down onto the coffee table, throwing her head back against the sofa cushion.
"Spare me..."
She gazed at the ceiling.
"How about we just forget about this mess in the Soviet Union."
When she said these words, she was serious.
At least for those three seconds, she was serious.
Just internally, the Soviet Union country had fifteen constituent republics, dozens of autonomous entities, hundreds of interest groups, and thousands of people snatching things.
Who was in cahoots with whom in the Kremlin, which side each military district headquarters stood on, how the reformers and conservatives were each divided into factions, who commanded the Black Sea Fleet, who guarded the nuclear facilities in the Far East—
Just sorting out these relationships was already headache-inducing enough.
On top of that, she still had to judge which resources could be taken, through whom they should be taken, when to make a move, and which lines would be stepped on after making a move.
Furthermore, the reference value of that "past life memory" in her hands was increasingly discounting now.
The macro framework might still be right, but the details were already full of cracks everywhere. Any random variable deviation, and all the subsequent deductions would have to start over.
Just running through it once in her mind made her temples begin to throb faintly.
But—
The coup had begun.
Regardless of whether it ultimately lasted three or five days, after this window opened, the speed at which the Soviet Union headed toward disintegration would only get faster and faster.
From now until the end of the year, every week could see a new constituent republic declare independence. Each independence meant a new reallocation of assets, a new power vacuum, and new trading opportunities.
And this kind of window would not stay open forever.
Once order was re-established, whether it was Yeltsin's order or someone else's order, the opportunities that were everywhere right now would quickly be carved up and cleaned out.
By the time she wanted to enter then, the cost would be more than ten times today's.
Yet for this kind of judgment, the only person in the entire Saionji who could make it was her.
It is not that other people are not smart, though.
Kenjiro had become very capable, Endo was also a super useful nuclear-powered employee, and Shuichi managed the internal family affairs steadily.
But Soviet matters were different.
Which things were worth taking, which things looked tempting but would explode upon touching, who could be cooperated with, and who would be thrown out of the window tomorrow—these judgments required not only analytical ability, but also something only she possessed.
She sighed.
"Sigh, let us take it slow."
Saying that, she was about to sit up.
But as soon as her abdomen exerted force, her waist uncooperatively softened back down, and her whole body sank back into the sofa.
"...Well, forget it. Just like this."
She raised her right hand and waved it to the side.
Chizuru and Fujita stepped forward simultaneously.
"Note down my schedule for today."
Satsuki closed her eyes, her voice carrying a slight nasal tone.
"Later, have SIS send a copy of the real-time updates from Moscow to the study every two hours."
Chizuru took out a notebook from her waist, opening a blank page.
"Then confirm with New York and Europe, recalculate all settlement and exchange rate exposures related to the Soviet Union now."
"Lock up what can be converted into US dollars or yen first, and list the parts still under rubles separately; I will decide how to handle them after reading."
Fujita drew a pen from his suit inner pocket and began recording on his memo pad.
"Ask about that Finnish route, whether the transit warehouse in Helsinki can still be used normally now. Once trouble breaks out in the Soviet Union, things coming out of Leningrad might need to detour through Northern Europe, confirm with the locals in advance."
She paused for a moment, pressing her temples with the back of her hand.
"Before 2 p.m. this afternoon, I want to see an assessment of the independence process of each constituent republic. Focus on the Baltic states and Ukraine."
"Especially Ukraine—separately list the several industrial and scientific research projects contacted over the past half year there, along with those technical personnel who have already entered the list. If Kiev really starts cutting ties with Moscow, we need to adjust our docking window in advance."
"At four o'clock, arrange a teleconference with London. Someone on the hedge fund side wants to short the ruble using this coup, but they might underestimate the speed of the rebound."
"If the coup really ends within three days, the ruble will have a short-term trend of a sharp drop followed by a sharp pull. We can grab a section in the middle, but position control must be strict."
"Before dinner, confirm the latest status of that batch of technical personnel at the Leningrad Optical Research Institute. The director of the institute just retired last month, and I have not met the new person. If the coup causes personnel changes, the conditions we negotiated previously might be overturned."
"In addition—"
She paused for two seconds and added another sentence.
"Compile a copy of the White House's public statement for me as well. Whatever Bush said or did not say right now has meaning."
Only the sound of pens scratching across paper remained in the living room.
Satsuki finished saying the last item with her eyes closed, opening them after a moment.
"That is about it, queue it up and show it to me."