Kingmaker (3 page)

“Good morning, Tin Man!” he announced enthusiastically through a thick Russian accent. “I am Bogdan! Welcome to America!”

Alexei sat up and pulled off his helmet. The queue he was in was stopped, but the lines parallel to him were still operating. The steel appendages
made minute adjustments on multiple axes as they applied their implements in perfect coordination. Various organs and entrails were carefully detached or gathered and spooled from wet red abdominal, chest, and cranial cavities, then placed in molded dishes which were conveyed along separate paths. The robotic instrument cluster to his right was being sterilized in a simmering vat as a fresh corpse was brought into position. There was a total of at least twenty working lines with caskets identical to his placed about two meters apart from one another, and although he couldn’t see what was beyond this room, he assumed the remains were bound for more discreet tissue, chemical, and genetic analysis. The air smelled of acidic and caustic vapor.

He climbed down and stood unsteadily on the concrete floor as the circulation returned to his legs. The man before him was short and heavy and seemed to be trying to augment his stature with a thick black bouffant. He had a bag hanging from one shoulder and a smug grin on his plump lips.

“A few more seconds and the Americans would have possessed the famous heart of the Lion.”

“Where are we?”

“South Carolina. Folly Beach. Home of the biggest insurgent processing plant in the country.”

“How did you stop the line?” Alexei asked him.

The fat man gestured behind him. “It was no problem. The kill switch is right on the wall.”

“How long do we have before someone notices?”

“I am told each line has fifteen minutes to repair itself before a technician is sent in.”

“Does anyone know you’re here?”

The fat man’s laugh rebounded off the high ceiling. “Not even my wife, Tin Man. She thinks I’m spending a week at the beach with some whores. Maybe there will still be time, no?”

“Did you bring water?”

“I have everything you requested,” Bogdan said, and then his smile faltered. “As long as you have the money.”

Alexei unzipped the top portion of his suit and removed a thick envelope. The fat man took it and thumbed through the notes.

“A private jet would have been a lot cheaper,” he said. “And a lot more comfortable.”

He took a brushed steel canister from the bag and handed it to Alexei. Alexei unhinged the top and tipped it back twice, pausing to breathe in between.

“Give me the protein.”

Bogdan handed Alexei a single white tube. Alexei ripped off the top and squeezed the paste into his mouth. When he’d swallowed it all, he finished the canister of water.

“Show me the rest.”

The fat man widened the top of the bag and began presenting its contents. “A twenty-five centimeter tungsten carbide tactical combat knife with serrated blade. A Gryazev-Shipunov 10mm pistol with four twenty-round magazines. Two packs of Sobranie black blend unfiltered cigarettes—very good, by the way—and, of course, a passport. Congratulations, Tin Man. You are an American now!”

Alexei took the passport and opened it. “Alexei
Drovosek
? Not very subtle.”

“You are the Woodcutter now, no?”

Alexei motioned for the bag and Bogdan passed it to him. He began verifying the contents for himself.

“With all due respect, Tin Man,” Bogdan said, “I think you are wasting your time and your talents here.”

Alexei did not look up. “What makes you say that?”

“Everything there is to own in America is already owned by someone. This is not the land of opportunity it once was. Do you know the Thirty-first Amendment?”

“What about it?”

“Every year it gets more and more support. Eventually it will be ratified and all the votes will go from the citizens to their employers. Once that happens, this place will be as bad as Russia. Maybe worse.”

“You’re thinking small, comrade,” Alexei said. “You’ve been away from the motherland too long. You think I came all this way to open a grocery store?”

Bogdan smiled. “Tell me. What did the great Tin Man come here to do?”

Alexei looked up from the bag. “No matter how much a man has, there are two things he can never get enough of: pleasure and protection. Just like in Russia, the wealthy here need weapons, drugs, and girls. Or boys, depending on the individual. Whoever can provide them safely, discreetly, and reliably can get access to the most powerful men in the country.”

The fat man’s smile broadened. “I like the way you think, Tin Man,” he said. “But you know what you are going to need?”

“Enlighten me.”

“A partner. Someone who knows people. Someone with connections.” He pointed at the bag in Alexei’s hands. “Someone who can get you what you need.”

Alexei slipped the passport back in the bag but he didn’t remove his hand.

“You’re right,” he said. “I do need all those things, and more. But you know what I need right now?”

“Tell me, my friend.”

“I need a body to fill that casket.”

Alexei took a step forward and the knife went into the fat man’s gut. He had planned to slide the blade up under the rib cage and into the man’s heart and wait for it to stop twitching as the muscle went into spasm, but he was suddenly concerned about the amount of blood it would leave on the floor. He withdrew the knife and Bogdan groaned as Alexei hoisted him up into the casket. The fat man’s fingers looked like raw bloody sausages as they pressed down over the wound. Alexei retrieved the bloody envelope from the man’s coat pocket and slipped it into the shoulder bag.

The fat man rolled back and forth in the casket. He tried to sit up but his movements were arrested by the pain in his gut. Despite the weight, the casket slid easily on its rails and Alexei heard the man pleading in Russian as he was positioned under the belly of the bristling steel beast. On his way out, the Tin Man punched the green button on the wall and the disassembly line came back to life.

Hyun Ki was sedated and blindfolded the last time she was moved. Nobody will tell her where she is, but she has figured out a few things about the penthouse apartment she shares with fifteen other girls. Where one would expect to find windows behind walls of sheer curtains there are only mirrors, so it’s impossible to know exactly how high up she is, but it’s high enough to detect an occasional minute sway in the structure which usually corresponds to the faint whistle of wind finding its way in through fissures in the building’s facade. By pressing her ear and cheek against the tile in the shower, she has frequently sensed the rumbling of an elevator. She suspects she is on the top floor of the tower since she has never heard anyone above her or felt vibrations in her feet as she presses them against the ceiling from her top bunk. But even at the penthouse level, the sounds from the streets below still manage to reach them, and the emergency sirens register as distant and gradual crescendos rather than the high-pitched bleating more common in Europe. She has never heard Japanese campaign slogans or silvery product jingles broadcast through PA systems mounted on the roofs of slowly moving vans, nor the persistent drone of Chinese or Korean government propaganda. She has never felt an earthquake, or heard the whine of a tsunami warning system being tested. When the women who care for the girls answer their handsets, they simply say “yes?” or “hello?” instead of
dígame
or
moshi moshi
or
da
or
allo
, and she has never seen anyone kneel down and press a forehead to the floor in prayer. Those around her with dark skin are not so dark as to be
of pure African bloodlines, but rather all have some trace of Caucasian in their ancestral pasts. The food is rich in protein and poor in flavor and spice, and the sense of not just money, but of profound and imperishable wealth, is undeniably pervasive.

Ki’s best guess is that she lives in Manhattan.

She has been here for ninety-two days, and she has never been mistreated. All sixteen girls are weighed and scanned daily, at which point their schedules and menus are determined by formulas in the house moms’ handsets. The amount and type of food they are to eat, the vitamins and supplements they are to take, and the amount of time they are to spend using various pieces of exercise equipment in the adjoining gym are posted on a sheet of plasma glass in the common room. Once a week, two women are brought in who divide the work of giving every girl both a manicure and a pedicure—processes which involve hours of meticulous clipping, filing, soaking, and moisturizing. A great deal of attention is paid to the girls’ feet and toes as volcanic rock is used to remove dead skin cells and calluses, and aloe vera and eucalyptus are massaged deep into the tissue. Once a month, all the girls are given physicals by a female physician who tests their blood and urine, the results of which define just a few of the many variables that are used to orchestrate the girls’ lives. It has occurred to Ki many times that she and her housemates are perhaps among the healthiest, most pampered, and most carefully monitored human beings on the entire planet. For this, many of the girls are thankful.

When they wake up, they find clean clothes—usually tight-fitting pajamas or short cotton nightgowns—folded neatly on their dressers. Each girl is expected to groom herself before breakfast and to pick up after herself throughout the day. The entire apartment is thoroughly sanitized weekly by a team of housekeepers—always female. Individually tailored portions of food are served on schedule, and in the time between chores, workouts, and meals, the girls are free to watch videos, play games, or read. The noise level is electronically monitored and there is surveillance equipment in every room: black camera domes on the ceilings, optical spheres turning in their sockets, silicon-covered lenses embedded in bathroom tiles. The house moms sometimes step carefully among the girls and take photographs, or move along the periphery of the room and quietly capture video of a girl sitting alone and cross-legged on a cushion with a doll or stuffed animal cradled tenderly in her lap.

As far as Ki can tell, there are two ways to leave the apartment. The first is by breaking down. If a girl begins to cry and cannot be consoled, she is taken away by one of the house moms. If the house mom cannot manage her, two men are summoned to take over in as gentle a manner as possible. These are the only males the girls ever see on a regular basis, and they are in and out with extreme focus, haste, and precision—speaking to and making eye contact with the house moms only. The girls almost always return, calm and with no signs of physical abuse or injury and with absolutely nothing to say about their time away. Occasionally they do not.

The second way to leave the apartment is to be chosen. The girls do not know what being chosen means, but it is a celebratory event nonetheless. The chosen girl becomes the center of attention as her few possessions are packed in a small shoulder bag. She is examined one last time, bathed, usually scented with oils, and generally seen to by the house moms with great fastidiousness. Her hair might be evened out, or her eyebrows plucked. If she is old enough and hasn’t undergone any form of permanent hair removal, she may be handed a razor and, under supervision, be expected to shave herself again. She is given fresh underwear and a brand new outfit—a short dress, or a skirt with a fitted top, or perhaps a schoolgirl uniform. A tight denim, cotton, or terry cloth jumpsuit. Occasionally a princess or a kitten costume. When it’s time, she is gently herded to the front of the apartment, simultaneously eager and reluctant. There is applause as she passes through the first set of doors, and when she turns and waves her final goodbye, she is crying both for what she is leaving behind, and for whatever lies ahead.

The next day, she is replaced.

Ki frequently requests additional time in the gym. She tells the house moms that the extra exercise keeps her calm and helps her to sleep. Exercise allotments are finely tuned, so there was initial resistance. The request had to be passed up through a chain of command, all but the very first link of which were a mystery to Ki. The doctor and nutritionist were consulted. Ki’s request was disruptive, but a calm and well-run operation was the house moms’ top priority, so permission was eventually granted. Ki’s schedule, supplements, and caloric intake were adjusted appropriately in order to compensate.

Ki knows that she could get more concessions. She knows that she is somehow special even if she doesn’t entirely understand why. Compared
to those who grow up obsessed with the material world, orphans have an overdeveloped sense for the intangible. Their connections to others are all that they have, so they know exactly how they are perceived by those around them, and exactly what they are capable of evoking in others. Charisma and manipulation must stand in for resources and privilege, and those who survive frequently do so by learning to exploit that which is unique to them. They learn to use pity or fear or sexuality to their advantage, and once that power is used up, they discover that they have no other way of connecting with the world around them, and that they are truly and profoundly alone.

Ki is respectful of her power. Extra video time or more dessert is not important to her. She has no desire to exert influence over the other girls, or to claim ownership over property or territory. But extra time in the gym is critical. And when she’s in bed and all the lights are out—when the surveillance system relies on audio rather than video—Ki rolls over onto her stomach and pushes herself up so slowly and gradually that the bed beneath her does not rock or creak. Then she lowers herself back down until her lips are against her pillow, takes in a slow, muted breath, and pushes herself back up again. Sweat begins to drip from her chin and nose. Her nightgown clings to her back and legs. She quits just before her arms begin to quiver and her breath becomes heavy enough to be heard.

The material world does not interest Ki, nor does the social order of the house. To her, all that matters is strength.