1636 The Kremlin Games (14 page)

At which point, by prior arrangement, Uriel excused himself and it was Francisco’s turn.

“The reason I invited myself to your meeting was that I wanted to talk to you about where you think the alliance between Sweden and Russia is headed. Also what role you see the New U.S. playing in those relations.”

At first Vladimir demurred, pointing out that primarily his mission had to do with information that was mostly free for the asking, from the National Library and the Research Center.

Nasi grinned. “That is true enough, but incomplete. Yes, your shop is getting most of its information from legal sources, but you are also involved in what the up-timers call ‘industrial espionage.’ For instance, the sewing machine that went to Moscow with Bernie Zeppi was accompanied by rather copious notes on how it was made and what machines would be needed to make more. And your tour of the power plant was unusually focused on their new steam engines.”

Vladimir smiled. “The twins were more than happy to explain how it was done. It isn’t like I broke into their factory in the middle of the night and stole the designs. And as for the tour of the power plant, that was all perfectly legal.”

“And Fedor Ivanovich Trotsky? Is he also staying within the bounds of law?” Nasi laughed at Vladimir’s expression.

“Never mind. Trotsky is competent but unimaginative. We aren’t that worried about him. However, I’m not here to threaten or browbeat you. I have an offer to make. I can provide you with information that Trotsky would find difficult to gather and all I want in return is the same consideration. Please consider my offer. There are things I won’t tell you, but I won’t lie to you unless absolutely necessary. All I ask from you is the same courtesy.”

“I think I understand,” Vladimir said. “However, I’m just a part-time spy. Little more than an apprentice. You’ll have to be more explicit.”

“Because of its situation, Grantville has a large group of spies working here. When you combine that with the ease of transferring information provided by the phones and computers, you get a situation ripe for counterespionage. The fact is that spies tend to know a lot about what their employers have in mind, both because you tell something every time you ask a question and because if a spy lacked curiosity he’d probably have gone into another line of work. Put it all together and you have a whole other reason to come to Grantville to spy. Information is our stock in trade. We trade it amongst ourselves. So a spy for Monsieur Gaston and one of Cardinal Richelieu’s
intendants
, while not fond of each other, might trade information about the actions of Spain and Sweden. And each benefits by being able to inform their employer both bits of information.”

Vladimir nodded sagely and Don Francisco grinned at him.

“All of which puts you in a most enviable position,” Don Francisco said.

“Ah, how?” was all Vladimir could come up with.

“Because with only a few exceptions, nobody cares what Russia knows about anything,” Don Francisco said bluntly. “Poland, certainly. England, if it has to do with trade. Sweden, if it’s to do with the grain Russia sells to the king of Sweden every year at very low prices. Other than that? No. If you should learn Spain’s military dispositions for the next two years the king of Spain would lose not a wink of sleep over it. Cardinal Richelieu’s upset would be strictly a matter of principle and what the cardinal doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Ferdinand II, under other circumstances perhaps. But between the Lion of the North and the Turk to the south?” Nasi shook his head. “Russia barely makes a blip on the radar.”

None of which was very complimentary but all of which Vladimir had to acknowledge was true. He nodded reluctantly. “And this situation is enviable how?”

“Because as a spy who must report back to the embassy bureau you have every reason to be asking the sorts of questions that will make you look good to Moscow and there is very little reason for people to be unwilling to answer them. I, on the other hand, am all too well known as an associate of Mike Stearns.” Nasi gave a histrionic sigh. “No one wants to talk to me.”

Vladimir barked a laugh. “So you want me to gather information and give it to you instead of my government.”

“Oh, not at all. In addition to, not instead of,” Nasi said. Which was precisely what Vladimir thought he was going to say.

“And for providing you with a carbon copy of the information, you will provide me what?”

“Why, carbon copies of the information I gather about places like Poland and England. And occasionally I’ll be able to direct you to people who won’t talk to me, but will talk to you.”

“I see a problem,” Vladimir said. “No one is going to be all that surprised that you happened to be visiting your cousin while I came seeing about a loan . . . once. But if we keep meeting like this, what will it do to my reputation as a titled nonentity? People might stop talking to me. That would be a disaster for me and inconvenient for you.”

“That’s what makes Grantville such a nice place with its phones and computers.”

“Even I know the phone system has been penetrated,” Vladimir said. “If you start calling me a lot or I start calling you a lot, someone will notice.”

“That’s where the computers come into play. You know that the local nodes of the internet came through. There is in Grantville a local area network that covers the town and several outlying areas. You can post encrypted information to various sites and no one will the wiser about who is posting what. There’s also an encryption program that is called
Pretty Good Privacy
that came though the Ring of Fire. Apparently it was free for anyone up-time. I understand you bought a computer?”

“Yes.” That was one reason that Vladimir had needed the loan. He knew that they were only going to get more expensive for the foreseeable future.

Nasi passed him one of the compact disks. It was unlabeled in its jewel case. “On that disk is a copy of the program
Pretty Good Privacy
including the source code and one of my public keys.”

“What’s a public key?”

“The thing that makes this such a good system is that it has two keys. One key encodes and the other decodes. What you encode with the public key can only be read with the private key. What is encoded by the private key can only be read with the matching public key. I would suggest that after you’ve had the program checked you make yourself some keys and post a key to one of the message boards listed on the CD. Encode it using the public key I included on the CD and only I will be able to read it, so you know that any message using that key is from me.”

They talked about processes and procedures, which mostly came down to neither seeking each other out nor avoiding each other. They would use the local area internet in Grantville to transfer data. For the foreseeable future if anyone wanted to transfer information without anyone else knowing they were doing it, Grantville was the place to be. In effect, each became a part of the other’s spy network. For Nasi it was one more tiny link in an increasingly extensive network. For Vladimir, even with the filtering that he was sure Francisco Nasi would do, it represented a doubling of his capabilities or more. It was not a bargain he could afford to pass up.

*     *     *

When Vladimir got home he found mail had arrived from Moscow and the Dacha. There were several letters, requests for specific information for him, packages of goods for trade, mostly furs and pearls. There were also a set of letters and packages, to be delivered to Brandy Bates, some from his sister and some from Bernie. Vladimir thought for a moment about delivering them himself. He was a bit curious about what they might contain. But the truth was he simply didn’t have time. He was snowed under trying to find answers to the questions sent to him. He sent his man Gregorii.

Chapter 24

Brandy Bates woke up the morning after her mom had read her the riot act about getting her G.E.D. rather less sure of herself than she had been the night before. Yes, it would be a lot of work and what would it actually get her? It wasn’t like she was going to go to the library and find a way that the down-timers could make microwave ovens or washing machines. She was sitting at the kitchen table half-trying to work up her nerve to go see Mrs. Whitney about getting her G.E.D. and half-trying to come up with an excuse for her mom as to why she hadn’t. Brandy’s procrastinating was interrupted by the doorbell.

“Yes, can I help you?” Brandy asked the rather dangerous-looking bearded man at her door. He was carrying several packages.

“Have . . .” He paused looking for the next word. Then apparently gave it up as a bad job. “Stuff. Have stuff for Brandy Bates.” The accent was almost unintelligible and it wasn’t German. Something eastern-European.

“What sort of stuff and from who?”

He pointed at the packages. “From Berna Zeppa, from Kazrina Natalia, from Czarina.”

Oddly enough it was the word “Czarina” that clarified things. The stuff was from Bernie and Natasha. And apparently something from the czarina.

She let in the man, who muttered his name. Gregorii something, she thought he said. He stacked the stuff on the coffee table in the living room and went on his way. Then Brandy started sorting through the stuff. The packages were from Natasha and the czarina of all the Russias. Apparently she, Brandy Bates of Grantville, was now pen pals with one of the crowned heads of Europe. Maybe if she’d graduated high school she could show them all up at the ten-year reunion. Then she stopped and thought. No, probably not. Her classmates, the ones who were caught in the Ring of Fire . . . Well, a lot of them would probably know crowned heads of Europe by the time the ten-year reunion came around. It would be “which crowned heads do you know?” and Russia would be near the bottom of the list.

Brandy laughed out loud. “Gee, Brandy. Only pen pals with the czarina of all the Russias? You can’t win for losing, can you, girl? They do keep moving the goal posts, don’t they just!”

She read Natasha’s letter first. It was full of questions and observations that girls talk to girls about. It had requests for items that she might be able to send: plastic just about anything, aspirin, marijuana, medicines in general, pictures printed or photographed. It acknowledged that acquiring that sort of thing might be difficult and professed to understand if she was too busy to worry about them. A nice way of saying “we understand if you can’t afford such things.” Which, to be honest, Brandy mostly couldn’t.

The letter directed her to a couple of the packages. One contained forty matched pearls. Another contained, according to the letter, enough treated pelts of Russian mink to make a mink coat for winter. These were not payment but a simple thank you for the magazines and makeup.

The letter also introduced the czarina and her letter. The czarina’s letter was similar but different. There was a feel of condescension about it. Perhaps because she was the czarina or perhaps because she was a married woman. But mostly, it seemed to Brandy that the czarina was a bit nervous and a bit stilted. Both letters were written in seventeenth-century English with all its irregularities in spelling and differences in word usage. The czarina’s was probably written by a scribe, which might well be part of the slightly more distant feel that the czarina’s letter had. The czarina was a bit more upfront about payment and made it clear that she was interested in those things that were of interest to women and tended to make men uncomfortable. Her package also had pearls, as well as Chinese silk fabric.

Finally, around noon, Brandy got around to Bernie’s letter and almost wrote nasty letters to both Natasha and the czarina. There had been a plague outbreak in Moscow and all they wrote about were doodads and trinkets! She actually wrote the letter to Natasha and started the one to the czarina. It was in that one that she stopped and thought. She wrote, “What if it had been your kids?” And that was what had stopped Brandy from irrevocably putting her foot in her mouth. The czarina and her children had been in Moscow when the outbreak had happened this spring. She went back to Bernie’s letter, yes. It happened every year. Every year the czarina, the czar, and the czar’s children lived in the path of the disease, whatever it was. They didn’t write her about it because it was a part of life that you lived with, not something you could do anything about.

But Bernie wanted to do something about it. Football jerk Bernie, quiet drunk Bernie after the Ring of Fire. “Off to Moscow for the vodka and the hot and cold running servant girls” Bernie. What had happened to Bernie? Had something made the friendly but perpetually spoiled boy grow up? His letter sure read like it had.

Maybe it was time for Brandy to grow up, too. There were indeed people who were worse off than she was. In a way, the czarina of all the Russias was worse off than Brandy Bates. At least if Brandy got sick she could go to a doctor who wouldn’t bleed her to balance the humors.

She would send Natasha and the czarina everything she could. She’d get the czarina’s little girls plastic baby dolls if she had to sell the pearls and the mink to pay for them. She would send Natasha naughty underwear and strappy high-heels to help make her feel pretty. She would do those things, but first she was going to find out about the plumbing. And if she could, she was going to find out about the disease, too.

*     *     *

As it turned out, requests for help had already gone out to the doctors from Bernie and Natasha by way of Vladimir. The disease, the doctors were almost sure, was typhoid, spread by human waste in the water supply and curable with antibiotics. Of which there were not nearly enough to go around. The techniques to make the one they could produce down-time had been sent to the Dacha but it would be a while before the Russians could develop the tools to follow the recipe. How long a while was anyone’s guess.

Washing hands before preparing food, using antibacterial soap and only using water that had been boiled to wash foods were all essential to stopping the disease, or at least decreasing its spread. All this information had already been sent to the Dacha, though it might not have gotten there yet. Yes, plumbing was essential, too. If the waste didn’t get into the water supply and the cooks washed their hands, the disease couldn’t get to the victims. Absent antibiotics, the treatment was to fight the fever, replace electrolytes lost through diarrhea, and otherwise fight the symptoms while the patient fought the disease. That treatment would decrease the percentage of deaths, but it would still be the very young and the very old who were hit hardest.