Firebird

By Yuri Vinokurov

In October 1986, a businessman goes to Hong Kong to sell an advanced device prototype to a foreign industrial conglomerate and finds himself in a game he can't win.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Yuri Vinokurov
• Release date: Mar 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301395071

Yuri Vinokurov

I was born in the Soviet Union and had spent most of my life in Russia before relocating to Vancouver, British Columbia. I have been writing - and discarding - little bits for almost as long as I can remember myself. "Firebird" (2013) is just out. It's an attempt in the retro spy-action genre, set in the 1980s Hong Kong. There's a bunch of bad guys, a slightly less bad guy, a muted love interest, - and a black box that everyone thinks is so important. I started drafting it as a low-budget film script back in 2007-2008 and then abandoned it until late last year. "Fifty Below" (2012) is a short novel, a winter action thriller in Siberia, and an obvious attempt in the Die Hard I, II tradition. "The Colonists" (2012) is the first novella I have completed to a somewhat publishable state. I was vaguely planning to get back to and fix the bugs. "Barbershop Otto and Other Mysteries" - in progress, sort of. The first story is already available to download as a free sample. A few more stories are coming soon, and the collection will be uploaded when I have about 10-12 short stories. They're going to be mostly dark, Twilight Zone kind of stories. At the rate I am writing it could take a couple of years. A few more ideas are in the pipeline. I like hiking, drawing sketches, exercising, punching the bag, eating well (but not a foodie). I don't really enjoy running long distances but that's another thing that I do.

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FIREBIRD

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 Yuri Vinokurov

Cover photo © 2013 by Yasuhiko Ogushi. Used with permission.

This is a work of fiction. Some place names and some geographic facts are real while others are changed. Any reference to real persons and real events is a coincidence.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

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CONTENTS

Boats in the harbour

Early morning in London

Guidestar Systems Limited

The red Phoenix

Kawanichi Industries

Taxi rides

The visitors

Vivian

Phone calls

The key

A late-night train

Boats in the harbour

It’s a pity that I have no painter’s talent, the old man would often think on his visits to the shore. Even if I come here tomorrow at this very hour in exactly the same weather, it won’t be the same. The water and the sky will be slightly different, the rocks will seem friendlier or more menacing, and I will be a day older… Wouldn’t it be interesting to try to capture all this in a painting? Can you, I don’t think you can, do that with a photo camera? He wasn’t quite sure, maybe a very good photographer could, he decided.

He thought himself old, but others would rather say middle-aged, a sturdy fifty or sixty-year old man, dressed and equipped like a proper holiday fisherman, in a fisherman’s vest and a khaki panama hat. In the actual fact some of his work involved letting fish, big and small, back in the water.

It was well after midnight. The business was done away with and well forgotten, money had changed hands, and now he was all to himself, looking at the distant shore across the straight full of moving, fuzzy lights. The sky had long turned dark-blue and through the gaps in the clouds he could see the stars, blinking indifferently at the people and their little affairs beneath. He was away from the water but the wind was bringing the sounds of the waves and the distant chugging of the boat engines.

He looked at one of the boats again, a large cruising boat converted from a former trawler, - they were becoming quite popular among smugglers and some of the wealthier fishermen that liked to venture further out, for some big bluewater fish. Other boats, some larger, some smaller, were making their passage in the darkness, distinguishable only by their red, green and white navigation lights. The boat he was looking at was slowly moving away. For a while he could see the dark silhouette and then the white stern light was hard to tell from those of the other boats.

How do you paint the water and the sky when it’s dark? he wondered again, How do you paint this living, sparkling, breathing, shape-shifting darkness? It was not too cold here by the water and normally he could spend a few hours unless there was something urgent. Still, he was starting to feel a bit sleepy and decided to change the spot. He would find a quiet corner in a country park nearby where he could catch some sleep. He glanced once again upon the boat lights, got up, grabbed his folding chair and started walking back to the Toyota van.

Early morning in London

Griffin liked to come to work a bit early, sit down for a bit, make himself a fresh coffee and to basically get organized before everyone else arrived. He also liked to start his office day with a bit of classical music on the tape recorder. The cassettes were very handy, he was even thinking of maybe getting that Sony Walkman thing, - for jogging, for instance. Was he getting too old for that? He wasn’t sure.

Right now he was seated in his faux-leather chair with his feet on the desk, listening to a bunch of contemporary classical tracks and looking sleepily at the window, at the rain-washed rooftops of the late autumn City. The current track was sombre and tranquil, a rather repetitive piece, but he didn’t mind. It felt like the piece had a potential if only the orchestra really woke up.

A gentle electronic sound of the fax machine intermixed with music, but Griffin didn’t move; the fax was in the auto-receiving mode. After four or five rings, the machine beeped tenderly and a roll of paper started coming out. The modulations of the fax transmission now sounded like part of the musical arrangement.

The machine was not too far from his main writing desk; Griffin rose in his chair and saw a New York number on the little LCD screen. Must be the patent lawyers, he thought. He started reading the message right as it was coming out of the slot:

Simmons Starr Hosseini. Attorneys at Law

Att: Griffin, Delbruck

October 25, 1986

Morning James, a more detailed search shows no prior art conflicts other than those reported earlier (copied below). Rumour of an Eastern development is not confirmed by open sources. RL gyroscope of an unknown type may be used in the new MiG-29 Fulcrum seen in Finland this summer and the rumoured MiG-39 Firebird, still in development. Cheers, Ed.

Two companies were mentioned, United Inertial Systems Inc., a subsidiary of General Avionics, and a smaller Swiss outfit called Ariadne Navigationsysteme GmbH, both with their respective patent and patent application numbers. The message was followed by an invoice; Griffin doubted the number of hours the lawyers had put into looking up the patents, but was happy enough about the message. This is rather good, he thought sleepily, we should hurry up then… He saw the Jane’s report from the Finland air show, but the MiG-39 was new news to him. He tore off the fax sheet and added it to the portfolio on the desk.

The telephone started ringing, this time his regular phone on the desk. Griffin thought for a second, and stopped the tape recorder with one abrupt click. He took the receiver and heard a distant female voice. "Mr Griffin? Good morning, this is Keiko Shigeura from Kawanichi Industries. So sorry about calling