September 18, 1911.
Private Board Room, H&A Holdings. Leadenhall Street, London.
Rain struck the office's smoked glass with the monotonous insistence of English autumn. Inside, there wasn't the ostentatious luxury of Russian palaces.
Valeri, the operative who had managed the Kiev cell, stood before a long oak table. His suit was dry, but he was sweating cold. He didn't look like an international spy; rather he looked like an insurance actuary who had just discovered an error that destroyed his planning for the following years.
Before him, three men reviewed an encrypted telegraphic report. They weren't Kings, nor Generals. They were something more dangerous: the Directors of the Risk Management division.
"The asset remains operational," said the man seated at the head, Lord MacMillan. He was a big-boned Scot with an icy gaze, representative of old British imperial banking. He closed the folder gently. "Bogrov shot at point-blank range. Twice. And Stolypin is still breathing and giving orders."
"The subject hit the target, milord," Valeri defended himself, his voice lacking emotion but tense. "The first shot was to the hand. The second to the center of the torso. According to standard ballistics of a Browning at three meters, Stolypin should be dead or incapacitated by massive hemorrhage."
"But he's not," intervened the second director, Monsieur Rochefort, a French industrialist with a monocle who managed a company's interests in the Ruhr. "Miracles of Russian Orthodox medicine?"
"Technology, sir," Valeri corrected.
He pulled a small object from his pocket, wrapped in a silk handkerchief, and placed it on the polished table. It was a fragment of deformed metal. A .38 caliber bullet, flattened like a mushroom, as if it had struck an anvil.
"This was received at the British embassy in Saint Petersburg; the ambassador himself sent it," Valeri explained. "The bullet didn't touch bone. It struck an intermediate layer under the uniform."
MacMillan took the bullet and examined it with a jeweler's loupe he pulled from his vest.
"There are residues on the lead tip," he murmured. He scraped a bit of the grayish dust with his nail. "It's dense."
"It's probably an alloy," Valeri said.
A heavy silence fell over the room, only broken by the rain's drumming.
"Impossible," Rochefort burst out, striking the table. "Tungsten is brittle. It can't be rolled into flexible plates for a concealed vest. Krupp has been trying for three years in Essen and they only get plates that crack at first impact. Vickers in Sheffield says it's metallurgically unfeasible."
"Russia did it," Valerian said simply. "A unicorn has been born in Russia; it's known as Neva Technical Solutions."
The third director, who had been silently looking at a map of Baltic trade routes, turned. He was a younger man, with the flat, direct accent of the American East Coast. His name was Sterling.
"This changes the threat assessment, gentlemen," Sterling said, walking toward the table. "We're not dealing with a lucky reformist government. If they can process this type of alloys for flexible personal armor, their metallurgy is five, maybe ten years ahead of ours. Assassination no longer works for us. If we kill Stolypin, they'll put in another, and the technology will remain."
"What do you suggest, Mr. Sterling?" MacMillan asked, cleaning his glasses. "An invasion?"
Sterling let out a short laugh. "Don't be archaic, MacMillan. Wars are expensive. We can't afford to do that. We're not the Rothschilds who like to support both sides of war. The President won't authorize open war yet."
The mention of the President made the room's temperature drop. None of them had seen H&A Holdings' majority owner. They only received instructions through cables from New York or Zurich. Sterling was, supposedly, the one closest to the summit, but even he was just a cog.
"The President wants results," Sterling continued. "And the result is to stop Russian industrial growth. Don't attack the man. Attack that Empire's production machine."
Sterling walked toward the Europe map and put his finger on Germany and Sweden. "Russia has many types of resources, geniuses, and now a nascent industrial production beyond what we thought. But they have deficiencies."
"What do you mean?" Rochefort asked.
"Bearings," Sterling said. "Steel balls. Ball bearings. For their new engines to work, they need perfect spheres. For their planes to fly, they need axles that spin at three thousand revolutions without melting."
Sterling looked at his colleagues with a predatory smile.
"Russia can't manufacture them. They don't have adequate precision lathes. They buy 90% of their bearings from Fischers (FAG) in Schweinfurt and SKF in Gothenburg (Göteborg)."
MacMillan understood the play instantly.
"Cut off the supply," the Scot murmured.
"Buy the total production," Sterling corrected. "Don't let a single steel ball cross the Russian border. Pay double if necessary. Tell SKF it's a strategic purchase for the Royal Navy or for Ford. Make up the excuse."
"That will cost millions," Rochefort warned. "And it will violate trade treaties."
"The President has authorized the expense," Sterling assured, pulling a folded telegram from his jacket. "We have green light for the Asphyxiation Protocol."
Sterling put the paper on the table. It was a short order, signed with a single initial.
"We're going to seize up the Russian Empire, gentlemen," the American said, looking at the tungsten bullet with contempt. "They can have bulletproof vests, but their trucks won't roll and their planes won't take off. We're going to return them to the Stone Age, where they belong."
MacMillan nodded slowly. He took a fountain pen.
"Draft the contracts with SKF and FAG. Total exclusivity for two years," MacMillan ordered. "And Valeri..."
"Yes, milord?"
"Disappear from London. Russian intelligence will be looking for heads. Go to Argentina Headquarters. And pray your Kiev friends don't talk more than they should."
Valeri nodded and left the room, knowing he had just saved his life by a hair.
In the room, the three directors remained looking at the map.
A/N: If you've enjoyed this story and want to read ahead, I have more chapters available on my patr eon.com/Nemryz. Your support helps me continue writing this novel and AU. Thank you for reading!