new one might be smarter. That was the problem with criminals. There was a Darwinian process at work. The police caught some—even many—but they only caught the dumb ones, while the smart ones just kept getting smarter, and it seemed that the police were always trying to catch up, because those who broke the law always had the initiative.
“Ah, yes, and so, who else imports drugs?”
“I do not know who it is. There are rumors, of course, and I know some of the street vendors, but who actually organizes it, that I do not know.”
“Find out,” Shablikov ordered coldly. “It ought not to tax your abilities.”
“I will do what I can,” the informant promised.
“And you will do it quickly, Pavel Petrovich. You will also find out for me who takes over Rasputin’s empire.”
“Yes, Comrade Polkovnik Leytnant.” The usual nod of submission.
There was power in being a senior policeman, Shablikov thought. Real human power, which you could impose on other men, and that made it pleasurable. In this case, he’d told a mid-level criminal what he had to do, and it would be done, lest his informant be arrested and find his source of income interrupted. The other side of the coin was protection of a sort. So long as this criminal didn’t stray too far from what the senior cop found to be acceptable violations, he was safe from the law. It was the same over most of the world, Lieutenant Colonel Yefim Konstantinovich Shablikov of the Moscow Militia was sure. How else could the police collect the information they needed on people who did stray too far? No police agency in the world had the time to investigate everything, and thus using criminals against criminals was the easiest and least expensive method of intelligence-gathering.
The one thing to remember was that the informants were criminals, and hence unreliable in many things, too given to lying, exaggeration, to making up what they thought their master wanted to hear. And so Shablikov had to be careful believing anything this criminal said.
For his part, Pavel Petrovich Klusov had his own doubts, dealing as he did with this corrupted police colonel. Shablikov was not a former KGB officer, but rather a career policeman, and therefore not as smart as he believed himself to be, but more accustomed to bribes and informal arrangements with those he pursued. That was probably how he had achieved his fairly high rank. He knew how to get information by making deals with people like himself, Klusov thought. The informant wondered if the colonel had a hard-currency account somewhere. It would be interesting to find out where he lived, what sort of private car he or his wife drove. But he’d do what he was told, because his own “commercial” activities thrived under Shablikov’s protection, and later that night he’d go out drinking with Irina Aganovna, maybe take her to bed later, and along the way find out how deeply mourned Avseyenko was by his ... former ... employees.
“Yes, Comrade Polkovnik Leytnant,” Klusov agreed. “It will be as you say. I will try to be back with you tomorrow.”
“You will not try. You will do it, Pasha,” Shablikov told him, like a schoolmaster demanding homework from an underachieving child.
It is already under way,” Zhang told his Premier.
“I trust this one will go more smoothly than its two predecessors,” the Premier replied dryly. The risks attached to this operation were incomparably greater. Both previous times, with Japan’s attempt to drastically alter the Pacific Rim equation, and Iran’s effort to create a new nation from the ashes of the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic had not done anything, just ... encouraged, behind the scenes. This venture, though, was different. Well, one could not really expect great things to happen on the cheap, could one?
“I—we have been unlucky.”
“Perhaps so.” A casual nod as he switched papers on his desk.
Zhang Han San’s blood went a little cold at that. The Premier of the People’s Republic was a man known for his detachment, but he’d always regarded his Minister Without Portfolio with a certain degree of warmth. Zhang was one of the few whose advice the Premier usually heeded. As indeed today the advice would be heeded, but without any feeling on the part of the senior official.
“We have exposed nothing and we have lost nothing,” Zhang went on.
The head didn’t come up. “Except that there is now an American ambassador in Taipei.” And now there was talk of a mutual-defense treaty whose only purpose