It didn’t help that Israel had no assets on the ground in South Russia. Moscow, St. Petersburg, yes, Volgograd, even beyond the Urals and in towns of special strategic value, yes. But way down south in the ass-end of Russia, near the Caspian, no way. And since the assets they did have at closest proximity—Odessa, Kiev, Lviv—were so well watched, it made no sense to send someone over from, say, the Odessa consul to check out the plant as a casual tourist. That would be sending SVR a telegram that the institute had something going on, was watching somebody, and who knew how SVR would react and how that reaction would mess things up.
“We know they’re making something; we don’t know what. We know they haven’t shipped it anywhere. We know they’re close to Iran, a night’s voyage by freighter. We know they have deep pockets and are highly paranoid about security. We don’t know who’s paying.”
“Gershon, what I don’t get is: they rushed, they rushed, they rushed. And now . . . nothing?”
“Odd, isn’t it? Represents a kind of mind that wants everything under control, overthinks, overprepares.”
“Gershon, you’ve just described the director of the institute, the prime minister, the entire cabinet and, God rest her soul, Golda Meir.”
“I know. Psychology gets you nowhere in this game, because everybody in this game is already crazy, including me and Cohen. But especially Cohen.”
So it was odd that Cohen came up with an idea. “Gershon,” he said, “considering your platinum mystery.”
“Yes.”
“If we’re monitoring the plant by satellite and secondary intelligence sources and our friends at Precious Metals Industry Reporter, and there have been no large-scale, industrial-appropriate raw materials shipments to the plant, then would it not seem possible that whatever else they’re using in their manufacturing process would be available locally? Perhaps that’s why they located there, because whatever else they needed was abundant, and anyone ordering large supplies of it would not attract suspicion.”
“What a horrible idea,” said Gershon. “So stupid, so useless. I wish I’d thought it up.”
* * *
What was abundant in Astrakhan besides fish eggs? It turned out only gas and oil; the Caspian Sea was a vast body of water sitting on a concentration of unpleasant-smelling substances that were of extraordinary value in the world’s energy market. Pipelines already ran from Azerbaijan to Turkey; drilling stations already dotted the coastline. The spindles and turrets of refineries already rose against the sky, and noxious fumes already clung miasmatically to all nine ports that ringed the world’s largest lake. How the fish survived to lay strings of the little black eggs that people gobbled on wafers with champagne seemed a minor miracle, one that perhaps did not bear investigating too closely. The caviar still tasted great, and the oil and gas still powered many of the civilizations that flourished in the fertile crescent.
Gershon ended up with a list of raw materials, chemicals, enzymes, compounds, end products, by-products, and waste products that such aggressive siphoning of the planet was known to produce. Natural gas alone was not an industry but a mother of industries: its product list included engine oils, industrial coolants, compressor oils, bearing greases, endless varieties of fuel and energy, fertilizers, fabrics, glass, steel, plastics (endless), and paint. It went on and on. My head, why does it hurt so? My indigestion, why does it burn so? It was too much stuff. It was as if the stuff had won. He, mighty Gershon, defeated by the abundance of stuff!
Since it was late and Cohen wasn’t around to provoke him, he tried a last exercise, the dullest form of investigation known to man, requiring no IQ, no education, no sensibility for the game, no experience: the good old random stab.
He went to his good friend Dr. Google.
He entered: “platinum.”
Then he entered the name of a substance that the Caspian was known to produce in copious quantities. The result, for minute after minute, clicking drearily into the night, was gibberish, nonsense, pointless.
I must be cracked, he thought.
If I am, it’s all right with me.
He tried one more. What the hell?
PLATINUM + METHANE
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, more gibberish until . . .
What on earth was ANDRUSSOW OXIDATION?
Another question for Dr. Google.
Ultimately, in Gershon’s mind, Dr. Google, the world’s greatest spy, loafed and dithered, took time for a shit and a nice bicarbonate of soda, and then answered. It must have been quite obscure, because it took Dr. Google .0742 seconds to answer, instead of the average .0181. Reading quickly, Gershon learned that the Andrussow Oxidation seemed to be a process invented by a Leonid Andrussow at IG Farben in the ’20s that enabled methane (Caspian-abundant) and ammonia (Caspian-abundant) in the presence of oxygen (world-abundant) at a temperature of about 1400 centigrade over (imported at great cost and under serious security) platinum to oxidize, if he understood it, into something called hydrogen cyanide, sometimes called Prussic acid, which, when combined with a stabilizer and an odorant, became . . .