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Trade Secrets

by John Douglas

252 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #00-0111; ISBN 1-55212-445-2; US$26.50, C$30.50, EUR22.00, £15.50

A young woman finds herself caught in a web of intrigue and industrial espionage that stretches from the Silicon Valley to Russia. She must use all her ingenuity and martial arts skills to survive - and manage to find romance along the way.

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about the book      about the author      sample chapter      catalogue info

About the Book Trade Secrets plunges the reader into the high-stakes world of venture capital, competitive science, and international intrigue ina fast-paced adventure that moves from the glitter of California's Silicon Valley to the dangerous back streets of Saint Petersburg and Moscow.

About the Author J.H. Douglas is an award-winning writer whose subjects have ranged from technological breakthroughs in Silicon Valley to health issues in Russia, China, Japan and the Middle East.

Sample Chapter - Chapter One

"The New Russia is like your American Wild West - sudden riches for those who are young and strong, and a sudden end for those who get in their way."

Aging and frail, Academician Yuri Kovalenko smiled indulgently at the tanned young woman leaning forward impatiently in the chair on the other side of his desk. Behind him, wind-whipped snow beat horizontally against the triple-paned window of Saint Petersburg University's oldest building. At last he shrugged.

"And I do not wish to get in the way."

Through the window, a late February storm swept inland from the Bay of Finland, first blurring, then extinguishing the silhouette of Saint Isaac's Cathedral on the far side of the Neva River. Gina watched impatiently as encroaching darkness signaled the end of another frustrating day. The thin, silver-haired professor continued his lecture unhurried.

"If you will permit an old man to say so, you have no idea what you're getting into. Europe and Russia have been seducing each other since Peter the Great. Communism was just the latest seduction - Western utopianism used to disguise yet another phase of timeless Russian repression. And now that it too has crumbled" . . . he sifted imaginary sand through trembling fingers . . . "America and Japan want to take their turn at us - offering venture capital in return for a chance to plunder decades of state-sponsored research."

"But this money would come directly to you," Gina replied, unwilling to give up so quickly after having come so far. "It could allow you to retire."

There was a snort of disgust, and Professor Kovalenko lifted the lower fringe of his worn sweater to reach into the front pocket of his gray gabardine slacks. Pulling out a roll of currency, he pealed a faded note off the top and placed it on the desk in front of Gina.

"Six years ago, this would have been worth more than a hundred dollar bill. How much would you give me for it now?"

Gina had just spent a week trying to figure out what she was paying for things. After working back from the price of bottled water, she finally replied:

"About fifteen cents, I guess."

"Close enough." The pale hand retrieved the note and replaced it carefully back onto the roll. "Now, can you imagine what is left of my life savings?"

For the first time, the old man with his rheumy eyes became 'animated. Gina shifted uncomfortably on the stiff-backed chair.

"And can you imagine what ten thousand dollars in hard currency would mean to me just now?" He choked slightly and paused. Then, recovering the dignified demeanor forged from a lifetime in the classroom, he concluded forcefully, "But not for twenty year's work!"

Taken aback by this emotional outburst, Gina moved forward toward the edge of the chair and began to backtrack defensively.

"Matt Colby particularly asked me to see you. He admires your work very much and wants to set up some joint research projects. Just think of the ten thousand as a kind of down payment. My visit was only meant to be exploratory. I meant no offense."

Yuri Alexeyavitch Kovalenko spread his hands and smiled benevolently.

"No offense is taken. I know you mean well. It's just . . . ." He paused, and suddenly his lined face seemed to sag and make him look even older than his nearly seventy years. "It's just that there are other forces at play. The decision is not entirely my own."

Kovalenko leaned forward and folded his hands on the antiquated wooden desk.

"You have a Russia surname, Miss Stasov. Do you know the word prosloyka?"

"No, I'm sorry, my Russian is very poor. I just know how to cuss." Gina chuckled. "My father was born in a village outside Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border, but my mother was San Francisco Italian. About the only Russian I heard was when dad was swearing at the men in his carpentry shop.

The distinguished scientist replied with a hearty laugh, further easing the tension between them, then continued in his impeccable, though highly accented English.

"Prosloyka means something insignificant, like the thin layer of frosting between the pieces of a cake. That's what we intellectuals were under Communism - the social icing caught between the layers of proletarians. Workers and peasants, they were the ones who were supposed to matter. But all that really mattered was the idiots at Party headquarters."

He spun around to an ancient filing cabinet and managed to open the bottom drawer with only three jerks and a shove to the top right-hand corner of the cabinet - an awkward movement of splayed limbs that he executed with practiced agility. Pulling out a worn map and spreading it over the desk, he swept across the center area with his hand.

"Rye!" I said. "Plant my pest-resistant rye here, and you won't have to worry about meeting your quotas. But no! They wanted wheat. That's what the Party said was needed by the State, so that's what they planted. And once the powdery mildew had done it's work, the harvest of a thousand hectares couldn't have kept a peasant family in bread for the winter! With such geniuses at work, why should the Party listen to prosloyka like us?"

Gina was too tired to appreciate the significance of the map. After wading through the names in Cyrillic characters of unfamiliar villages, rivers and mountains, she merely nodded sympathetically.

"I'll try. I really will," she assured the senior professor sincerely, looking at his anachronistic, bushy mustache and thinking of her father's Motherland friends in the Russian neighborhood out Geary Boulevard. "I'm not here to negotiate, just explore."

Kovalenko smiled at her as he stood and began to take his coat.

"Exploring . . . casting around . . . experimenting with life. Yes, that's the New Russia, too. And perhaps you're young enough and strong enough for it. I'm too old for such exploration."

He came around the desk and helped Gina on with her coat with accustomed formality.

"No. I want to be able to retire on what I've already earned through a lifetime of research. But is a fair market price too much to ask?" Suddenly he scowled. "Not just what someone thinks they can get out of an old State employee who hasn't been paid for three months!"

Gina began to reply, but saw the futility and only shook her head silently. He motioned toward the door.

"I'll walk you to the Metro. Even Saint Petersburg isn't safe anymore, and Moscow is like a Chicago gangster movie."

"I can take care of myself. I grew up in a tough neighborhood and have studied martial arts since college. Besides, what mugger would come out on a night like this?"

"A desperate Russian one," the stooped professor replied, walking insistently down the dimly lit hall beside her. "Also, I must catch a train in the opposite direction from the same station."

. . . . .

As they emerged from the baroque, 18th century building with its painted stucco and ornate white trim, the snow had abated and lights from the Admiralty Embankment glowed gently across the river.

"Peter the Great had this old treasure built by an Italian architect for Russia's first Academy of Science," Kovalenko said loudly as they turned their backs to the wind howling up from the Neva and walked northward. "Now it's used mainly for university administration and biology. The Academy, like every other institution of power, was snatched away to Moscow long ago."

"My father always used to talk about the beauty of Saint Petersburg" Gina replied. "I've wanted to come here for years. I don't know much about my Russian heritage and thought this trip would be a good way to learn more about it."

Amid the bustling crowd of workers heading briskly for home, Gina noticed a solitary figure lounging purposefully against the wall of a building across the street. Dressed in a long, black leather coat and fur hat, he alone appeared unconcerned by the biting wind, as he intently watched the old man and young woman trudging carefully through the three inches of fresh snow that covered an underlayer of ice on the untended sidewalk. Gina considered mentioning the suspicious stranger to the professor, but he strode forward in full voice, belaboring Russian history since Tsar Peter.

"'Ryba gniyot s golovy - a fish rots from its head,' as the saying goes. That's what happened to the Romanovs. That's what happened to the Party. Mr. Khrushchev was an illiterate peasant, but at least he cared! Mr. Brezhnev never cared, even before he became senile. Can you imagine your Mr. Reagan remaining president for another ten years, after his Alzheimer's Disease was diagnosed? Eventually, there was no head of the rotting Soviet fish - only bureaucratic puppets pulling back on the strings to keep the mindless puppeteer from falling on his face."

Gina glanced around and saw that the thick-set man had begun to keep pace with them. As they waited to cross the broad, congested expanse of Bolshoi Prospect, he came to their side of the street and stood a few paces behind them. Now it was too late to alert the professor discretely and Gina felt the skin begin to tingle on the back of her neck. She tried to urge her companion into a faster pace when they had crossed the boulevard, but he continued walking deliberately, gesticulating with his arms.

"I was ten years old during the siege of Leningrad. When there was no longer enough flour to go around, they added sawdust to our bread. But every night my mother made me study three hours, even when there was no school, saying, 'You must see that Russia never starves again!' I have remembered those words every day in the laboratory."

"Don't you have any concerns that your most recent cloning work might be misused?" Gina interrupted finally, hoping to provoke an argument that might bring the transported old man back to the present.

The trick worked instantly - but in just the opposite way she had intended. The incensed academician stopped so suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk that the trailing figure almost ran into them. With a menacing glare directed at Gina from his deep-set black eyes, the broad-faced man in his forties paused momentarily, then hurried past. Blissfully unaware, the professor stood with his arms raised and started an impassioned defense of his research.

"It is an ethical necessity!" he stormed. "If your body couldn't produce some vital hormone, wouldn't you be glad enough for me to clone a human gene to produce the hormone in a goat and then clone the goat to make enough to treat you?"

Gina's only reply was to grab his sleeve and begin to jostle him through the crowd toward the Vasileostrovskaya Metro station.

While offering no physical resistance, the incensed scientist nevertheless sustained his vigorous verbal defense.

"People babble about cloning Einstein. 'Create a race of geniuses,' they say. What rubbish! They're more likely to get his flat feet than another relativity theory. But animal clones are the only way we can save many human lives . . . ."

Looking around for the dark figure, Gina no longer heard what Kovalenko was saying but pushed him urgently onto the swiftly moving escalator that plunged them underground.

On the platform, the proud senior scientist once again regained his formal bearing.

"That will be your train," he said pointing toward the track ahead of them. "Just one stop to Primorskaya station. Do you know the way from there?"

"Of course." Gina replied, still surveying the crowd for sight of the tall figure with his expensive fur hat. "It's just a few blocks from the hotel."

Very cold blocks, facing into the wind, she added silently to herself, dreading the prospect.

They began to shake hands perfunctorily, but then Kovalenko placed his other hand on top of hers and held it tightly as a pleading look came to his eyes.

"Please do not misunderstand if I have been hesitant," he said finally. "Life is full of disappointments now for Russians of my generation. Finally I can speak the truth. Finally I can hope for a decent reward after years of sacrifice. But this is also a time to be cautious. Do you understand?"

Gina nodded.

"I'll try my best. My company is most interested in helping bring your discoveries into production for a world market. Besides," she smiled, "it would give me more opportunities to explore Saint Petersburg."

Then, thankful at least that the malevolent figure was nowhere in sight, she waved good-bye and raced to join the crowd already pushing its way onto a packed subway train.

. . . . .

Kovalenko watched Gina with reflective amusement and some admiration as she blended into the crowd, her California tan and long, raven Italian hair easily spotted through the sea of pale humanity. It was hard to see the Russian in her, he mused, at least in appearance. But her stubborn determination he chose to recognize proudly as Slavic. Perhaps she would be able to make things work out for the best, after all. Then, turning to catch his own train on the opposite side of the platform, he sighed with resignation. No, what could she do? As always, in Russia, larger forces were at work.

At the last moment before the subway doors closed, a dark figure emerged from behind one of the massive platform arches and elbowed his way through the stoic commuters who had decided to wait for the next train. Entering the car through the door adjacent to the one Kovalenko had used, he kept the professor in view without being close enough to attract attention. But the latter was lost in his own thoughts and never looked up as the train gathered speed for its long run under the Neva.

When he emerged from the Metro at the next station, Kovalenko began to walk down the still-bustling Nevsky Prospect. Another snow squall had been guided ashore by the funnel-shaped bay, and traffic on the wide boulevard was hopelessly snarled. In the middle of the intersection ahead, a truck had broadsided a car that had apparently attempted an ill-advised left turn. A Toyota four-wheel-drive vehicle with "GAI" painted on its side and a flashing blue light on the roof was also in the middle of the intersection, only adding to the confusion. One policeman was talking to the two principals in the accident, while another was making vigorous, though ineffective signals to other drivers. It seemed to Kovalenko that the policeman's arm swinging was aimed as much at keeping warm as directing traffic.

Hunching his shoulders even further into his coat, the frail professor turned his back to the wind as he entered a nearly deserted side street skirting the edge of Griboyedov Canal. He shuffled through the snow with the careful gait of elderly Russians who have seen enough of winter and of life to know better than to hurry through either, and did not look up again until entering the small square that flanked the Church of the Resurrection. Even a spotty facade of snow could not entirely dim the luster of brightly colored tiles shining from its face.

Never a religious man, much less a closet royalist, Kovalenko nevertheless considered this the most sacred spot in Saint Petersburg. The ornate "Church-on-the-Blood," as it was popularly known, proudly boasted a style that was already archaic when it was built to commemorate the spot where Tsar Alexander II had been assassinated in 1881. Reflecting more the exuberant tradition of Slavic Renaissance architecture than the Westward-looking classicism of the city Peter had created on Neva swampland, the church had always appealed to Kovalenko's sense of historical irony.

Gazing up to where he knew the flame-shaped cupolas glowed quietly beyond an impenetrable curtain of blowing snow, Kovalenko paused and never heard the steps approaching behind him. Only when the knife had penetrated the lower quadrant of his right lung did he try to turn. But a strong hand grasped his arm and began to drag him toward the balustrade along the edge of the canal.

The stab had been expertly placed. Descending rapidly into shock and breathing only with choking gasps as the blood began to rise into his throat, the old man was still conscious and could be forced to walk. Through dimming vision he even tried to look around for some passerby who might help, but saw only immobile shadows. In a last desperate burst of strength he tried to call out, but the effort led to uncontrollable choking.

When they reached the balustrade, the powerful man in the black coat threw Kovalenko onto the iron railing, folding him over it like a loosely filled sack of grain. One more knife thrust, this time into the heart, and the figure hung limp. It was then an easy matter to lift the slight man's legs and send his body tumbling into the canal, where it partially broke through the crust of ice, but did not sink.

The broad-faced man wiped his knife blade mechanically on a cheap handkerchief, which he tossed into the wind over the canal and then glanced around quickly to see if there were any witnesses. There was no movement except for the bare limbs of a giant tree that dominated the square. He turned back for a moment to look at the body, still floating on the broken ice. Swearing under his breath, he whipped off his heavy coat and climbed over the rail. Clinging to the bottom iron support of the balustrade, he lowered himself toward the ice and tried to kick at the body, but even his long legs would not quite reach.

Again he swore, more loudly this time. Hauling himself over the rail, he shivered and put on his coat. Then, as swiftly as the snow and ice would allow, he ran to the construction site used for continuing restoration of the church. With considerable effort he finally loosened one metal pole from the scaffolding and returned to the edge of the canal. Awkwardly he poked at the body, trying to push it under the surface, but the unwieldy metal kept sliding in his hands.

"Ai! Tiy!"

The voice came from across the canal, and even through the snow the man in the leather coat could see the outlines of a uniform. As the figure began to sprint toward a bridge just beyond the church, Black Coat dropped the metal pole into the canal and lumbered across the square, quickly losing himself in the warren of streets on the other side.

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