Chapter thirty two. (mature warning slight cursing)

The attack on pier 49 was only the beginning of a sharp decline of the fortunes of Fairweather Tech in Russia. There were a total of fifteen attacks on Fairweather controlled territories at the docks in the following three weeks of which I only participated in five. Vladimir hired professional mercenaries from morocco and armed them with military grade weapons and explosives and they did the rest. He didn't care that all that was left was rubble after they were finished, he could always rebuild afterwards.

The press were reporting that a group that had links with the Taliban was attacking Fairweather Tech which has several defense contracts with the US and the EU . The credibility of that story went up when the body of one of the Moroccan mercenaries was found in the rubble of one of the places that were attacked. Apparently the mercenaries that Vladimir had hired were not too picky about who their clients were and at some pont had worked for the Taliban as well as other terrorist groups and dictators. I didn't feel too good about arming known terrorists with high quality weapons but I'm sure Vladimir had it under control.

The Atelli didn't take all this lying down, they fought tooth and nail ( and claws and tentacles ) for every inch of territory but when the other side is willing to use heavy handed tactics like heavy artillery fire, monsters or not they didn't stand a chance. They were reminded of why they kept themselves secret from the world. They maybe scary monsters but when it came down to it humans can be pretty fucking scary too.

They tried to throw their money around, handing out bribes like they were candy to every civil servant they could get their hands on, they even convinced the chief of police to arrest Vladimir on several charges of murder, extortion, smuggling, and racketeering. The Atelli thought that they had won but they had forgotten that Vladimir had home field advantage, he was out of jail in less than thirty minutes and the police chief was arrested and charged with several counts of corruption and bribery by the chief justice himself. The Atelli might have money but Vladimir had connections that he had fostered for decades, he could play the system like a violin. He was so deeply entrenched in his web that he probably could shoot a person live on TV and still come out smelling like roses. They weren't getting to him in that way.

Then things got even worse for the Atelli. Every building and asset that they owned in Russia were all broken into and vandalized. Even the employee's cars had their windshields broken and their tires slashed. Even my mother's Bentley wasn't spared. Not only were their assets under attack but the value of their stock in the Russian market took a sudden unexplainable plunge.

And finally Vladimir's ending move , his coupe de grace if you will. The main headquarters of Fairweather Tech in Russia was a skyscraper in Moscow. A government inspector said that there was a dangerous gas leak in a gas main under the building and ordered an immediate evacuation. An hour after the people had been evacuated there was a massive explosion under the building.

The press reported that a leaky gas main had exploded under the Fairweather building causing extensive damage to the superstructure and making it unsafe. The fact that no gas mains could run under large buildings according to city regulations seemed to have been completely forgotten. The experts that said that the damage caused to the building were suspiciously similar to dynamite were promptly ignored. The power of Vladimir was such that it allowed him to literally blow up a building in the middle of the capital city in broad daylight and get away with it.

Meanwhile back in St Petersburg after taking beating after beating the Atelli lost their final grip in the docks restoring full control to the Russian mob. During the little war I was able to kill a neat 40 Atelli using sniper fire and racked up four million in bounty money making the endeavor profitable in more ways than one.

As for Fairweather Tech after all the disasters they went through they were just waiting for the finishing blow and that blow was swiftly delivered by the minister of finance who brought up allegations of embezzlement and tax evasion against the company. State hired auditors combed through their records until they found several discrepancies and leveled several heavy fines against the company in addition to a dissolution order to cease any activities in Russia.

Vladimir had the order of dissolution framed and sent to the head of the Russian division of Fairweather Tech who had been recalled to their world wide headquarters in Helsinki with a little note that said 'from Russia with love'.

I saw all this unfold and learned a very valuable lesson. Sometimes political power is more important than personal power.

I also learned that Vladimir Mikailov was one scary motherfucker.