Albedo Castle

“That you can stick a plug with remote into!” Christopher chimed in.

Richard felt like they were mocking him.

“Like I said, a security hole,” the woman shrugged as she turned away.

He brought the glass up to his lips, Rose was, unhurried, making her way towards them.

“She’s coming!” Christopher lamented, whispering, in theatrical panic. “O the automobile God! She’s headed here, that’s your chance!”

Richard choked on his swallow, the wine burned his throat, he coughed, instantly red, he felt awkward – seemingly for the first time in his life.

When Rose Weiss came near, he was blinking rapidly and staring at her oddly.

“Let’s go, I’ve got something to tell you,” she said, reaching out and taking him by the elbow.

Christopher and the woman with pink hair raised one eyebrow in a twin gesture and watched him, already walking, place the empty glass back on the table.

He wanted to say goodbye, but his tongue wouldn’t budge. Richard put his hand over Rose’s, only briefly looking back.

The woman and the man blorted with laughter.

8. King of Beasts

[Japan, Tokyo, Chuo City]

The odd dream came to Richard on the night from Thursday to Friday, but only on Sunday did he understand its meaning.

He really did once live under the identity of Richard Weiss, on a mission dubbed the Station, working at the German Federal Foreign Office, and his partner – and, according to the script, his wife – was agent Rose Weiss. They came to the Station four years ago, the automobile party was a year and a half after the start of the operation … Another year and a half later Richard and Rose had to flee Berlin, covering their tracks, they nearly failed the mission – and barely averted a catastrophe – because they were compromised.

A year ago, Rose Weiss, who then already worked in counterintelligence and conducted internal investigations, was looking for the mole. Richard didn’t like to remember the devious scheme that framed him as the mole if he could help it … A year ago, during the manhunt, Alexandra shot Rose Weiss when they were fleeing from Moscow to London – since they had no other choice.

The woman with pink hair from the dream was Alexandra, the man with the goatee – their common friend Christopher, a former Circus agent who fabricated his own death to get away from MI6 and start his own craft. Why it was that Richard’s imagination opted to put them in the setting of the Station, he had no idea – until he turned on the hotel room TV.

Nothing happened over the past days. He was looking for signs, racking his brain about who might benefit from intimidating him and what reaction was expected of him – but made no move.

Richard couldn’t stand burying his head in the sand or lying low – but for now the time at the hotel looked like an attempt to hide from the problem.

Dario reported events from the paddock to him, Richard watched the news and broadcasts of the free practice and qualifying rounds on local TV. Now, representatives of the corporation Nonoda8, which supplied power units for Rote Stier race cars, were speaking live from Fuji channel, as usual describing the magnificent prospects of the technologies of the future that became reality in the present. The president and the head of the Innovative Research Excellence department were answering questions about the new standards for Formula One power units according to regulations set to take effect in three years, as decided by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile.

Nonoda abolished maintenance of their own racing team – but was actively involved in the racing life with the technologies they developed. Rote Stier and Nonoda had a partnership, they joined forces and divided the area of operation, though in overlapping fields they were, undoubtedly, competitors.

The day after, the next one after the race, there was a tour planned for the Rote Stier team to Nonoda’s headquarters in Minato City, the district of Tokyo skyscrapers – where the chiefs would once again shake hands and employees will get entertained – by making it into entertainment.

Richard was eating ramen out of a plastic bowl, sitting on the bed, Alexandra was blow-drying her hair in the bathroom. They had already managed to visit the Hama-rikyu Gardens, a three-quarters-of-an-hour walk away – getting there by taxi – and pick up food on the way back.

The race was set to start at 2 PM local time, Nonoda’s presentation was coming to an end. The automobile corporation showcased not merely car manufacturing achievements, but also artificial intelligence, based on their own internal projects for monitoring, analysis, and assistance. Yusuke Kuma, head of the Innovative Research Excellence department in the center of Research and Development, talked about projects involving an accelerator based on the Nonoda Research Institute in Silicon Valley, about proprietary developments, the system Cooperative Intelligence, a neural network self-learning from user behavior with a name that grated the ears.

“Funny,” Alexandra chuckled, Richard looked up at her from the ramen bowl. “A year ago, some student sold them his artificial intelligence development that he’d worked out with the funds from Imperial College London. An excellent move: use the reputation of a government institution to develop their own startup that draws attention with its progressiveness – just like D’Angelo’s prototype.”

Giuseppe D’Angelo was a character from the book ‘Cats Don’t Drink Wine’ – a detective novel about a murder on Italian vineyards – that brought Alexandra popularity. A talented strategist and businessman who created his own Barolo empire by resurrecting ancient legends about the wine of the blood of kings and alchemy … Richard knew that story, he remembered the man the character was based on – and he just shook his head.

“… by popularizing science. As Henry Ford said, whatever we undertake, there has always been and will always be a gap between the mass consumer and the creator of innovation,” spoke Kuma from the podium. “As there has been and will continue to be an eternal struggle between classes, each member of which considers himself the bearer of true wisdom – scientific, intellectual, or folk – and will strive to keep the exclusivity and narrowness of their own circle, not accepting changes that come in force in the new age of technology.”

“Actually, Gedeon Richter said that,” Richard objected with his mouth full.

Alexandra smirked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“But that doesn’t stop us from advancing ideas and engaging in educational activities, blurring the boundaries, making the impossible possible,” the speaker continued. “That is the mission of any activist – to step over the line, pulling the valuable across, show it to the world and share it. I, too, once didn’t understand the point of popularizing science – thinking that that way, science is devalued, its supposed simplicity is shown – as if anybody can launch a rocket into space and make a discovery. But the truth is that the only thing stopping a layman from launching rockets and making discoveries is closed-mindedness – the belief that there is some difference between classes.”

“Actually,” Alexandra drawled. “Neither Ford nor Richter said that.”

“Hm?”

Yusuke Kuma was a thin, middle-aged Japanese man – the sort of person by whose appearance it was impossible to tell their real age – he spoke English well – though with typical Japanese articulation, and he conducted himself wonderfully on stage. Decades of development of Nonoda’s innovative technologies passed under his leadership, a couple of years ago he had been in a serious car accident and went through lengthy rehabilitation – to later step back on the rails with renewed energy.

“My Grandmaster Rublev said that – and I even remember that it was in his kitchen, over tea with his partron Hermann,” Alexandra explained. “And they were discussing his postgraduate who hated popularizers of science – who devalue the work of scientists, displaying their work like a piece of cake. And the point of the quote was not the normality of class division, but the ignorance of both sides of the argument.”

The hand holding the ramen by chopsticks froze over the bowl, the ramen slipped back into the broth. The fact that the quote belonged to Richter, a Hungarian pharmacist, Richard remembered from the speech of Baer whom he faced on the Station. At the very automobile party – when Richard met him – he’d been saying the same thing as Kuma was, right now, from the podium. The only difference was the language – Baer spoke German, the Japanese man on the television screen – English.

“They could have been quoting Richter,” Richard replied.

“No chance.”

“Could Richter and Ford have known Rublev and his partron?”

“Possibly.”

“Alchemists again,” Richard sighed.

For Poets, alchemists, there was no concept of time or space, Poets and alchemists knew each other even across centuries, communicated through art – passing knowledge and experience generation to generation. Ford and Richter were contemporaries, Rublev – the next generation, after him came Alexandra and Richard.

Partrons – partners and patrons – were co-players on the path of the Great Work, collaborative creations altered reality. Richard was no longer surprised that all alchemists are interconnected – and that through his partron Christopher he was connected to Christopher’s former partron, through knowing other Poets he can talk to Dante, Milton, Richard III, Goethe …

Was it a coincidence, then, that Baer quoted the words of a Poet – or could Baer have been an alchemist? Richard felt uneasy at the thought. Memories of Moritz Baer were unpleasant – because Baer became something of a personal enemy for him.

It seemed he wouldn’t forget this goddamn Station anytime soon.

“There you go,” said Alexandra with mock displeasure. “Now I won’t calm down until I remember the name of that postgraduate … I’m even curious. Because he’s involved in this, too – he was one of Rublev and Hermann’s talented students.”

Richard placed the bowl on the bedside drawer, thinking. In his mind, he went back to Berlin, to the Asia and the Pacific department of the German Federal Foreign Office.

Being an undercover agent in a foreign country is a role that one must play twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for an indefinite period until other instructions from superiors are received. Espionage – political, industrial – is work punishable by torture and death: if not from enemy’s retaliatory forces then from the hands of own colleagues – if extracting a spy from the country proves impossible.

Richard and Rose lived in Berlin under false names, pretending to be a married couple – Richard and Rose Weiss. They gathered and, with specified periodicity, transmitted information about the Office’s activities to MI6. Their positions didn’t attract attention, many sections in the internal system were closed to them, but they were at the ground zero of the events, in the political hive, at crossroads of communication paths.

The Weisses agents were the link between foreign ambassadors and political actors, key figures of world significance – even if the ambassadors, actors and figures didn’t know about it. Matters regarding other countries – examined in the context of Germany’s external affairs – were of more interest to MI6 than the affairs of a single country. Rumors and secrets, overheard and spilled at nightly get-togethers of diplomats and their high-as-a-kite buddies were even more useful.

Temptations were plenty. Richard used to think that he was sent to the Station because he fits the description of a young German diplomat, happily married to a German colleague, that he has the required knowledge and skills, that he’s responsible, incorruptible, and reliable … It turned out he was merely easy on the eye and had to be the one to dive to the bottom, into the depraved world of Berlin’s entertainment establishments, while Rose Weiss acted on the surface.

They made a good team, Richard was glad that it was Weiss specifically he was on a mission with. She was cold and demanding, she never made mistakes and, just like Richard, respected subordination and work ethic.

For a year and a half they lived in separate rooms and only kissed when the circumstances demanded it. Richard could recall only one time when he saw Weiss in her underwear, and even that was a ruse – when they had just settled into the Federal Foreign Office, and he had to visit Weiss in her office – in the Public International Law division – to once and for all settle his reputation as a lustful macho.

They were discovered by design – and Weiss’s bra was white, boned, but with no lace. The panties, as far as he could tell, were also without lace – because he couldn’t feel them under the dress pants.

Richard didn’t even think about making intentional romantic overtures towards agent Weiss – because he always had places to stick his cock, even when he didn’t want to.

During the Station he often, though only in his mind, cursed his plight of a sex machine, a doll in the front window that shakes its ass and always attracts attention. He had the appearance of a broad-shouldered bad-boy actor, blue and black shirts suited him, people found him even more attractive when he was unshaven and with unwashed hair than when he was an office dandy.

And, as Alexandra noted in his dream, people oft wanted to stick something up his ass.

Weiss introduced him to Baer at that party, Baer had a wide social circle, Richard considered Baer’s connections valuable – and made it known to Baer that he, too, could be useful … Sticking close to the German benefactor, they, like hunting dogs, brought fresh truffles to the Circus.

Then they found out that Baer is not merely a philanthropist and a thought leader, a co-founder of a pharmaceutical corporation, but a Russian spy.

They thought it was a genius idea to leak false intel directly to Russian intelligence through Baer. For six months they had their fun, delighting the Circus with a feeling of impunity and omnipotence – until Baer figured out what was happening.

He was a true professional, he would have left them no chance – if not for a pure stroke of luck that allowed them to flee. They paid a high toll – and failed to save their people, two more undercover agents …

Richard had to kill them – because if Baer got to them, the mission would have failed. They couldn’t have gotten everyone out at the same time – not while covering their tracks.

Moritz Baer was just like them, even stronger – he simply had a different master. Only a year ago did Richard understand the reason of Baer’s fury – he’d lost everything in an instant because of two British spies who got in his way, who wrecked the mechanisms that’d been working, running smoothly for years.

Baer built his empire wisely – but with the resources of Russian intelligence, who would take both his status and his life as punishment for a mistake. Richard didn’t know what became of him afterward – and didn’t want to know …

“There, I found it!” Alexandra exclaimed, showing Richard the phone screen, and he was yanked out of the whirlpool of memories. “‘The Word as an Instrument of Hermann Hesse’s Musical Self-Expression,’” she read aloud. “An article from God knows what shaggy year, PhD in Philology Vadim Rublev, with Boris Medvedev as the co-author, Moscow State University, the department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics.”

He didn’t even notice her sit down next to him on the bed, he didn’t know how long she was researching the postgraduate … The TV was already broadcasting the countdown, everyone except team representatives and mechanics left the starting grid, one pair of red lights had gone out.

“Medvedev9 … and Kuma is also a bear in Japanese,” Alexandra smirked. “The Russian king of beasts.”

Richard stared at her as if he’d seen a spook.

Baer10, too, was a bear.

9. Dreamer

[Japan, Suzuka, Suzuka International Racing Course][Japan, Tokyo, Chiyoda City]

Dario was trying to sleep, his forehead leaned against the window of the bus on the Suzuka track parking lot, waiting for the Rote Stier team to assemble – to depart for Tokyo in the early morning. They had spent the night in the motorhome, the sun was only just rising on the horizon, painting the sky in coral stripes and shades of orange – like their dark blue uniform with bright logo patches.

Another weekend had come to an end, a two-week break lay ahead. Max and Sergio were once again in the lead of the race, once again the Bulls made waves, the fans are pissing boiling water, the haters and the enviers are claiming it was the new technology for the carbon body coating of the race car which no longer retained tyre soot, significantly improving the aerodynamic characteristics – a development that had no equal in other teams.

The engine hummed, the bus hadn’t started shaking yet – and Dario decided not to move until the vehicle does. A neighbor’s shoulder would be a much more comfortable place to drop his head – because the resonance from the glass will be noticeable even through the baseball cap.

He’s learned to sleep wherever and however – but he knew precisely how it is better to sleep in order to wake up feeling refreshed. He’s stopped worrying about what people would think of him; when the minutes came when he could read something, he’s started putting on his glasses – with thick round lenses – which he had stopped wearing as soon as he finished school. He always had bad eyesight – but he opted to squint and pretend that everything was fine.

He had no idea how he got into MI6 – and he hoped that it wasn’t just because he had told the ophthalmologist the family recipe for biscotti.

Dario tried to join a police academy, but they wouldn’t have him – not after high school, when he was still ungainly, struggled with pull-ups and push-ups, lost his breath during runs, nor when he had bulked and prettied up and stopped looking like a bookworm. Until he came of age, he kept working at the family grocery store and bakery in Canterbury, helping his father behind the counter, but he never left hope of fulfilling his dream. Just a year ago, he couldn’t have imagined travelling the world as a part of a champion racing team, undertaking secret missions and meeting so many interesting people.

Dario Fisher – who used to not be Fisher at all – had always been a dreamer … He chose not to give up on his nature – since he knew it was impossible to change one’s ways – only to improve them. He was raised on adventure novels, detective stories, and science fiction, he believes in goodness and something more than a trouble-free routine life. He understood perfectly well that life was far from the poets’ idealistic images – but didn’t want to deprive himself of the pleasure of believing in an absolute and having a benchmark, something to measure up to.

The bus purred, Dario shuddered in the seat, lay on his other side, making himself comfortable on the shoulder of the team’s physiotherapist Brad – who, upon hearing the story of how Richard escaped the hospital to get to Tokyo on his own, was genuinely horrified. He was somewhat similar to Dr. Bradshaw, who was unwittingly dragged into spy games.

Adam Bradshaw, as far as Dario understood, decided to stay in Tokyo – if he, as it turned out, ended up in Japan completely legally … Richard seemed like a wizard to Dario, pulling documents and visas out from under the counter, arranging private planes and solving any problem as if he used magic, akin to the character from the novel ‘Cats Don’t Drink Wine.’

The fact that the Russian writer was a Circus agent astonished Dario for the first hour. Then he accepted the incredible coincidences as a given – for with Richard Bateman accidents became deliberate, it was as if he was capable of predicting the future, constantly amazing with some trick or other.

Richard could easily predict who and at what moment would enter the box, would drop a plate at the food stand, or call the coordinator’s name … At the recent weekend in Monza he warned Dario when an Italian seagull was about to poop on him: simply asked him to switch to the adjacent chair of an outdoor café.

Richard explained why the stranger attacked him in Singapore, now the puzzle began to come together. Richard North is the name on the mission where he worked alongside Alexandra Stern; Richard North the actor often showed his face in the news and social media – and some old acquaintance recognized him and was threatening to expose him. Richard called the perpetrator Lion and Bear – Dario took note of that, too.

Richard said that he intends to attend the tour to Nonoda’s office along with the entire team, somehow he explained his suspicious behavior and disappearance to the superiors, and come noon he promised to arrive at the hotel where the Bulls – ones who don’t visit home during breaks – would be staying for a week and a half – until the time comes to fly to Qatar, to the new Grand Prix.

Richard said that the person who ordered the attack was connected to the head of the Innovative Research Excellence department, Yusuke Kuma – and, consequently, they’ll have to find a way to get closer to him. Until they find out whether Kuma is an ally or an enemy, they must remain unnoticed, and the role of a guest, a member of a Formula One racing team, is the perfect cover. They’re in team uniforms and baseball caps anyway, and if Lionbear knows that Richard works in Rote Stier, it will be an outright action.

The riddle lifted Dario’s spirits – because the task looked like a real detective investigation, with the search for an unknown criminal with the available clues and puzzle pieces. It would have been more effective if he also had the explanation of what specifically they’d have to look for.

When they arrived at the Imperial Hotel – ironically, with a heraldic lion emblem on the logo – after four hours on the road, Richard was already waiting on the first floor in the lobby. He had only a travel bag with him, he looked much better than on Thursday, when Dario saw him last. Colleagues, eagerly spilling from the bus, accompanied by typical chatter as they entered the hotel, greeted him and congratulated him on coming back, he was laughing off their concerns and insisted that had no intention of dying.

They had half an hour to settle into their rooms before the whole team was scheduled to go for lunch. A structured daily routine with a schedule – with no need to make decisions independently – took the load off the already packed workdays, the weeks between racing weekends flew by unnoticed.

Dario dropped his things right at the entrance of his room, showered and was knocking on Richard’s door a quarter of an hour later already. Richard opened almost instantly – because the stomping of his partner’s hurried footsteps could be heard from the far end of the corridor.

“What’s the plan?”

Richard let Dario in, closed the door and stepped back into the room.

“For starters, I’ll tell you everything. This time, everything.”

“Wonderful.”

“Then you’ll act in plain sight, and I’ll have to keep a low profile. Only I will report to the Circus.”

“Got it.”

“I sent you a brief on Kuma. What do you say about him?”

Dario curved his lips, shrugging.

“A typical Japanese guy, a workaholic, a hereditary engineer, no family or kids, but nephews and other relatives, a perfect reputation and big ambitions – for making the technologies of the future.”

“According to his social circle and the press,” Richard added.

“I haven’t found anything suspicious,” Dario hemmed. “He works to maintain his image and stays in it.”

“You’ll have to get more on him – who he is, what’s behind that image. As soon as we’re at Nonoda, we’ll come up with a plan to do that, on the spot.”

Dario nodded. Richard pulled a phone out of his pocket, a few moments later he was showing Dario the screen, open to a browser page with an article about the German benefactor Moritz Baer.

“And this one?”

“This one’s dead,” Dario chuckled. “Kidding. An opportunist, seen everywhere, been everywhere, and when he found out that he’s got throat cancer, he shot himself.”

Bear was lanky, dark-haired, with spirited features, he would have been forty-six by now.

“He didn’t die,” Richard retorted. “He was a Russian spy in Germany for all the fifteen years of his career, and two years ago, after he was compromised, he fled and now lives under a different name.”