Chasing Ivan (16 page)

“Good question. I was curious to see that myself. I put my first survivor back on the riverbank, along with a fresh pile of alfalfa. It ran for the tall grass as if I’d lit its tail on fire. That rabbit had learned life’s most important lesson.”

“What’s that?”

“Doesn’t matter where you are. Doesn’t matter if you’re a crocodile or a rabbit. You best look around, because you’re never safe. Now, what have you brought me, Grigori?”

Grigori breathed deeply, forcing reptiles from his mind. He tried to picture a pristine tropical beach, where the warm sun kissed his back while the clear waves tickled his toes. Then he said, “I brought you a plan, Mister President.”

Korovin used his left hand to gesture toward a chair at the square discussion table centered before and abutting his desk. Like the desk, it was handcrafted of highly polished hardwood, probably by a French craftsman now centuries dead. Inlaid on its gleaming surface, using the same lighter wood that formed grape leaves on the master desk, was a regulation chessboard.

Korovin took the opposing chair and pulled a chess clock from his drawer. Setting it on the table, he pressed the button that set Grigori's timer in motion, and said, “Give me the three-minute version.”

Grigori wasn’t a competitive chess player, but like any Russian who had risen through government ranks, he was familiar with the sport. Chess clocks have two timers controlled by seesawing buttons. When one’s up, the other’s down, and vice versa. After each move, a player slaps his button, stopping his timer and setting his opponent’s in motion. If a timer runs out, a little red plastic flag drops, and that player loses. Game over. There’s the door. Thank you for playing.

Grigori planted his elbows on the table, leaned forward, and made his opening move. “While my business is oil and gas, my hobby is investing in startups. The heads of Russia’s major research centers all know I’m a so-called
angel investor
, so they send me their best early-stage projects. I get everything from social media software, to solar power projects, to electric cars. A few years ago, I met a couple of brilliant biomedical researchers out of Kazan State Medical University. They had applied modern analytical tools to the data collected from tens of thousands of medical experiments performed on political prisoners during Stalin’s reign. They were looking for factors that accelerated the human metabolism — and they found them. Long story short, a hundred million rubles later I’ve got a drug compound whose strategic potential I think you’ll appreciate.”
 

Grigori slapped his button, pausing his timer and setting the president’s clock in motion. It was a risky move. If Korovin wasn’t intrigued, Grigori wouldn’t get to finish his pitch. But Grigori was confident that his old roommate was hooked. Now he would have to admit as much if he wanted to hear the rest.

The right side of the president’s mouth contracted back a couple millimeters. A crocodile smile. He said, “Go on,” and then slapped the clock.

“The human metabolism converts food and drink into the fuel and building-blocks our bodies require. It’s an exceptionally complex process that varies greatly from individual to individual, and within individuals over time. Metabolic differences mean some people naturally burn more fat, build more muscle, enjoy more energy, and think more clearly than others. This is obvious from the locker room to the boardroom to the battlefield. The doctors in Kazan focused on the mental aspects of metabolism, on factors that improved clarity of thought.”

Korovin interrupted. “Are you implying that my metabolism impacts my IQ?”

“Sounds a little funny at first, I know, but think about your own experience. Don’t you think better after coffee than after vodka? After salad than french fries? After a jog and a hot shower than an afternoon at a desk? All those actions impact the mental horsepower you enjoy at any given moment. What my doctors did was figure out what the body needs to optimize cognitive function.”

“Something other than healthy food and sufficient rest?”

Perceptive comment
, Grigori thought. “Picture your metabolism like a funnel, with raw materials such as food and rest going in the top, cognitive power coming out the bottom, and dozens of complex metabolic processes in between.”

“Okay,” Korovin said, eager as ever to engage in a battle of wits.

“Rather than following in the footsteps of others by attempting to modify one of the many metabolic processes, they took an entirely different approach, a brilliant approach. They figured out how to widen the narrow end of the funnel.”

“So, bottom line, the brain gets more fuel?”

“Generally speaking, yes.”

“With what result? Will every day be like my best day?”

“No,” Grigori said, relishing the moment. “Every day will be better than your best day.”

Korovin cocked his head. “How much better?”

Who’s the rabbit now?
“Twenty IQ points.”

“Twenty points?”

“Their tests show that’s the average gain, and that it applies across the scale, regardless of base IQ. But it’s most interesting at the high end.”

Another few millimeters of smile. “Why is the high end the most interesting?”

“Take a person with an IQ of 140. Give him Brillyanc — that’s the drug’s name — and he’ll score 160. May not sound like a big deal, but roughly speaking, those 20 points take his IQ from one in 200 to one in 20,000. Suddenly, instead of being the smartest guy in the room, he’s the smartest guy in his discipline.”

Korovin leaned forward. “Every ambitious scientist, executive, lawyer … and politician would give his left nut for that competitive advantage. Hell, his left and right.”

Grigori nodded.

“And it really works?”

“It really works.”

Korovin reached out and leveled the buttons, stopping both timers and pausing to think, his left hand still resting on the clock. “So your plan is to give Russians an intelligence edge over foreign competition? Kind of analogous to what you and I used to do, all those years ago.”
 

Grigori shook his head. “No, that’s not my plan.”

The edges of the cauliflower eyes contracted ever so slightly. “Why not?”

“Turns out that widening the funnel isn’t entirely beneficial. Using Brillyanc comes with side effects. Serious, long-term side effects.”

Korovin frowned and leaned back, taking a moment to digest this twist, while still staring at the chess board. “Why have you brought this to me, Grigori?”

“As I said, Mister President, I have a plan I think you’re going to like … ”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim began his career in Soviet Counterintelligence with the US Army Special Forces, the Green Berets. That was back in the Cold War days when, “We learned Russian so you didn't have to,” something he did at the Presidio of Monterey alongside Recon Marines and Navy SEALs.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tim switched from espionage to arbitrage. Armed with a Wharton MBA rather than a Colt M16, he moved to Moscow in the midst of Perestroika. There, he lead prominent multinational medical companies, worked with cosmonauts on the MIR Space Station (from Earth, alas), chaired the Association of International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, and helped write Russia’s first law on healthcare.

Moving to Brussels during the formation of the EU, Tim ran Europe, Middle East, and Africa for a Johnson & Johnson company and traveled like a character in a Robert Ludlum novel. He eventually landed in Silicon Valley, where he launched new medical technologies as a startup CEO.

In his free time, Tim has climbed the peaks of Mount Olympus, went hang gliding from the cliffs of Rio de Janeiro, and ballooned over Belgium. He earned scuba certification in Turkey, learned to ski in Slovenia, and ran the Serengeti with a Maasai warrior. He acted on stage in Portugal, taught negotiations in Germany, and chaired a healthcare conference in Holland. Tim studied psychology in France, radiology in England, and philosophy in Greece. He has enjoyed ballet at the Bolshoi, the opera on Lake Como, and the symphony in Vienna. He’s been a marathoner, paratrooper, triathlete, and yogi.
 

Intent on combining his creativity with his experience, Tim began writing thrillers in 1996 from an apartment overlooking Moscow’s Gorky Park. Twenty years later, his passion for creative writing continues to grow every day. His home office now overlooks a vineyard in Northern California, where he lives with his wife Elena and their two daughters.

Tim grew up in the Midwest, and graduated from Hanover College with a BA in Philosophy and Mathematics. After military service and work as a financial analyst and foreign-exchange trader, he earned an MBA in Finance and an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
 

Thank you for taking the time to read about the author. Tim is most grateful for his loyal fans, and loves to correspond with readers like you. You are welcome to reach him directly at
[email protected]
.