During the ride, he told her about his time in Africa, in Zanzibar, about the local customs, and what the island was now, and that if the opportunity arose, it would be possible to go there.
Gustav was actually there in 1896. He managed to persuade Bargash, the local ruler, to come into conflict with the British Empire. He himself had long wanted something more, but his remaining intelligence had kept him from doing so until his weakness had been found.
"Look at what you're leaving behind. "Gustav kept telling him. You need power. Seize it, then expand it, and we'll help you with that You know the whole point of an inheritance. What will you leave to your children?"
Bargash was only the Sultan's brother and had no right to the throne, and that suited him fine, but he had a favorite son, who was only two years old, but was worthy of much more than doing someone's bidding.
Realizing that Bargash would wait for his brother's natural death, Gustav poisoned him himself, and on the appointed day a coup took place, supposedly supported by the German Empire.
The British squadron stood in the roadstead off the coast, knowing full well what to do Gustavus told them that if they had to fight, let them fire on the palace on the north-east side, the new heir would be there, killing him would avoid many casualties, as he was the only thing important to the new Sultan. The second volley buried the imaginary reason for war the little boy was dead, and Bargash, having lost the most precious thing in the world, never recovered. Everything he had dreamed of was gone in 387 minutes of the shortest war in human history.
Gustav had several new estates in England and a disproportionately greater pleasure in his own importance and significance in life. He would not remember it now and would not tell Catherine about the beauty of the island of Zanzibar and its sultan's palace, but he wanted to enjoy inwardly again the abilities of the poison, which he poisoned the real sultan no color, no smell, no symptoms after taking it; the man died simply in sleep, ceasing to breathe, and the time was easy to set the number of drops according to the weight of the victim. "A gift to the Sultan" was the name he gave to the substance.
***
Gustav wasn't in a hurry to get this meeting over with for nothing. Then he had another.
Semi-officially, he was advising the owner of a real estate company, Mienkom, and today he had to oversee one very important policy change for that company. The fact is that this organization, despite its popularity in the capital, practically did not pay taxes most of the income was derived from the hidden margin (the seller gave his object for the amount of N, and the buyer took it for N + Y, being absolutely sure that it is just N, and Y simply kept Mienkom), and most of the employees were not even officially employed in the organization.
Gustav, who introduced himself as the chief analyst of the American real estate broker BlackStone, had the task of increasing Mienkom's market share and solving the tax issue at the same time. The plan was already in place; all that was left was to give out some advice.
"Greetings," Vladimir Arkadyevich, Mienkom's "chief of chiefs," shook hands with the newly contracted new development consultant. Obese, massive, with rich experience, he was far from delighted that this handsome man had to pay 15 thousand dollars a week for 2-3 appearances in the office, but the few recommendations he had managed to give had already had an effect, and this on the one hand, of course, pleased, but on the other hand very alarming. He had seen enough in his life and he wouldn't say it had ever been easy: once he was a shop manager at a regional woodworking plant, then he became deputy director, then he got a place as head of the city executive committee of one of the cities of this region, and after 1991 he got a controlling stake in the plant, where he used to be a shop manager, then, persistently developing in business in the 90s, he became a member of the board of directors of Mienkom, and having come such a long way, he saw in Gustav, who looked 30 years younger than him, a man whose insight and foresight seemed much greater than his own. It was dangerous. He remembered well how he had dealt with those who were less farsighted than he. How he had ruined those people's fates, framed them and sent them to prison or to feed the fish. His entire road of success, strewn with corpses and other people's grief, strangely enough not only gave him complete peace at night, but most importantly, kept him sane in the light of day. He realized well that he could be deceived in words, but never in calculations. Numbers will always tell the truth, you just have to know how to calculate correctly. And check your own calculations. "If you relax, you'll be eaten up by strangers. If you trust your own people, you won't even notice that you've been eaten" that's what he thought long ago, when he took the owner's place. All these rules applied to people like him. He didn't know what to do with the stronger and smarter ones for the time being he negotiated in such cases. But all these cases concerned people who had already lived their lives and had long ago lost their irrepressible thirst for profit. He had never done business with a strong, intelligent and yet young man. That was what frightened him about Gustav.
"There is one, some one good reason why this man is engaged only in counseling thought Vladimir Arkadyevich. And it's obviously not money. He didn't feel directly threatened by him, but something told him to be extremely careful.
"Good afternoon, Vladimir Arkadyevich," said Gustav affably. He had long ago grown tired of gaining trust here and padding his price with penny-pinching advice. At first he wanted to just take them to jail, but then he decided that would be too predictable for this kind of activity, and he wanted to be original. Mienkom had several projects of which the whole company was very proud: two elite cottage villages in the region and one residential complex in the Golden Mile area. They were to be developed, promoted, famous people were to live there, and then everything was to be ruined. Gustav had already made several recommendations for changes in design and materials, and had brought his connections to the PR of these objects among the "stars". The only thing left to do was to wait for occupancy, and then we could begin.
"I have one central proposal," Gustav knew he was still expected to do something new and unexpected and yet successful.
"Yes. And what is that?"
"All 3 of our main 3 properties should be occupied in the same week."
"But it's?! Gustav, you know how it is."
"Of course."
"They have deadlines. State Commission, handover, keys, repairs. It's all been coordinated for a long time. It would be good just to be on time there, not to move anything"
"Yes. But I'm talking about the future Today, Mienkom is a serious big company. That's good. But not great Or maybe it is great One week. On Monday one unit moves in, Wednesday the second, Friday the third. Everyone will be talking about it. The company will rise to the top, become a monopoly. In a year's time, Mienkom will already determine the price of real estate in the capital, not some market".
There was a sense in what this young Irishman was suggesting, Vladimir Arkadyevich thought. The advertising campaign in such a case could indeed be built quite conveniently for himself: three objects of such a class in one week was something that had never happened before. And it was quite realistic to pull two of them under the general terms, but the third one, the one in the city The state commission had just started there, and it would take 3-4 months; to reduce this term to 1 month would mean to give so much money to so many people that the risk became not so high, but fatal.
Payoffs were commonplace in this business, but it was one thing to pay off so that no one would bother and create unnecessary problems, and quite another to actually hire the same people to speed up the process to the level of approval in the Government House. If one of them refuses, instead of accelerating the terms of the state commission, you can get criminal terms, and who knows what the highest levels of the Ministry of Economic Development might get.
"No, Gustav. replied the old man. 'I suppose you know that LCD "House on the Embankment" won't have time to pass GC by this time. Three to four months.
It's too dangerous to accelerate. Let's stop at two objects."
"Okay. I only offered a suggestion. Gustav nodded. 2 out of 3 isn't bad.
Some sort of legacy will be quite bearable even with that."
Gustav knew what to kill in this man. He had a daughter, intelligent and calculating, to whom he wished to leave his empire. While she had been studying in England, and now she had arrived after the session; in six months' time Mienkom was expected to blossom, and the management of the company was to be handed over to her, even if nominally. And of course they wanted to hand over more than just a successful company. Vladimir Arkadyevich had been thinking about it for a long time, but there was nothing to make a breakthrough on, nowhere to make the leap that would take the company from the first among equals to the absolute leader. His new advisor had shown him such a chance a couple of minutes ago.
***
In the evening Gustav had to go to Shambala, a nightclub in the southwest of the capital, where he had a date with Oksana, a former glossy magazine model and now a realtor for Smart House, an elite residential real estate agency. She sold apartments about as well as her body in the photos. And though most clients made deals through her because they wanted to talk to the smart hottie, it had to be said that she knew a lot about luxury housing, and could show an apartment as if she were going to throw a party in it with whatever was to follow.
She said openly that she had never slept with a single client, but only hinted at it. She loved the way men watched her stilettos, her long legs, her ass, wanting to please her, only to watch it further, losing their rational train of thought.
She herself was interested in men like Gustav: handsome, intelligent, and able to hold his own, not drool in the presence of a woman like her.
Today she expected to dazzle him. A bright red dress, fully revealing her shoulders and with a slash cut from the bottom of her knee to the top of her thigh. With her plan, he wasn't going to be able to resist.
She booked a private room for them on the second floor: a long couch, a table, glass windows with a view of the dance floor and karaoke.
It was just the two of them. Gustav was sitting on the couch, Oksana with a microphone stood right in front of him. She had said several times before that she wasn't ready to sing this song yet, but after she had almost completely drunk a bottle of Asti Martini, she turned on the song "Sun" by Ani Lorak.
"it's like parting with your soul -
To live without you"
Oksana sang. She thought she was perfect for the song. You have to be in the right state of mind to say those words. And her looks, too. She thought she was perfect, especially her legs. She often liked to say to herself, and sometimes out loud, that maybe she had a bad temper, but she had the most beautiful legs. She finished singing and sat down next to Gustav. He was completely calm, as if what had just happened didn't concern him personally, as if he were just evaluating an actress at a casting.
Placing his hand on the back of the couch and lightly touching her shoulder Gustav brought his lips close to her ear and said softly: "And do you often sing this song?"
"No." Oksana smiled slightly, not turning her head. Very rarely She's my favorite."
Only on special occasions? Or when you're in the mood?
"On special occasions when the mood strikes." She nodded, smiled, and turned her head. Her eyes glistened with desire, as if she were ready to tear at that gorgeous dress, to cling to it, to cling to it and not let go until she owned it. "I liked it. Gustav said affirmatively and calmly. Tell me about yourself,
Oksan. Why do you like clubs so much?"
I don't know Here you feel free. You can do what you want Everyone is your own In general, I go to jump around.
I guess my parents were always fighting.....
Yeah! But they quickly got used to my personality.
Which one is that?
Angry. Yeah, angry. Everyone used to ask me why I broke up with my boyfriend. I'd say, "Well, would you like it when your other half comes home at 3:00 in the morning drunk?" They all said, "No." I said: "Well, he didn't like it either." Yeah. Frankly.
What's there is there.
She spoke from the heart. It was like a murderer in hiding who had found someone to pour her heart out to. But on the other hand, it was obvious that she was justifying herself with a view to the future. So that she wouldn't have to apologize for her behavior later, but just say, "I warned you, that's just the way I am."
Gustav hadn't met many of these, but he already knew what to do with her now, all that was left was to find out what he should do it against.
"What are you most afraid of?" He asked.
"Thunderstorms. Thunder and lightning. I need someone to be there for me." she sounded very serious. Clearly it wasn't the kind of fear that would paralyze her or make her lose her mind, but it was definitely the kind that would throw her off balance.
Oksana looked into his eyes again, her arms gently wrapped around his neck, the leg closest to him slowly and smoothly climbing into his lap.
"Why don't you sing something?" The girl asked.
"No, but you know We could go jumping."
She smiled and chuckled lightly, "Come on, Goose!"
She had told Gustav before that she knew a lot of people in clubs, and especially in this one. And this time she'd already talked to the manager, the bartender, the waitress, found out how things were going, who was where, who the DJ was, and then voiced it all out loud.
It turned out that the people she would have been happy to see were not here today. She didn't like Pablo, the new owner of the place, whose arrogance had made many people stop coming here, but she knew him well and had known him for a long time.
After dancing for a while, they sat down on one of the couches in the center of the room. After a minute, she called out to someone passing by, who came over, and they kissed lightly on the lips, after which he went on his way.
"It's Pablo," Oksana announced. It was obvious that she had had enough alcohol, and in such a state she could do obvious stupid things.
Gustav didn't bother to remind her of what she'd told him about the man five or ten minutes ago, about her attitude toward him and the epithets she'd thrown at him. It was too soon, but it was clearly a direction to go in, since she was setting herself up so cleverly.
"Ah, the owner." Gustav said. Why do so many people dislike him?" "Well he used to be one of his own. You know, when there was hardly any money, and everyone tried to support each other. They still do now. And he is. He just got lucky once in his life. It was an accident. He just got married. Lucky for money, I mean. He had a lot of money. Bought this club and started acting like he was better than them. And everyone remembers who he is, where he's from, what kind of man he is, what he's worth. They are used to communicating with him on equal terms, so they don't come here now. In general, it's a fairly standard story.
So he's switched.
Yeah. I guess so. Or maybe he's just been like that all the time and now he's just showing himself more clearly Has money changed you?