Word: companionably
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...three-day jaunt to an isolated military factory city, where my traveling companion initiated a multimillion-dollar weapons-system purchase, shows how the system operates. Only a promise of confidentiality precludes revealing exactly what weapons were for sale...
...factory made the system my companion was interested in, even though the particular production lines were temporarily shut down. But why, demanded the factory director, had we come to the far reaches of Russia, when a certain East European country had similar units for sale? The answer established my companion's bona fides: his client, a Middle East country, wanted to buy those very units and after months of negotiation reached a satisfactory price. But a shuffle of ministers ushered in a new set of officials, who also demanded to be cut in on the deal, making the price...
...manager nodded as if he knew this all along. "We could supply those items for perhaps $6.5 million a unit, including spares," he offered. My companion said he had $5 million in mind. But if the Russian-built weapons had the latest navigation and guidance systems, his Middle East buyer might be willing to pay more...
...less than 24 hours, authorities in Moscow gave the green light for the factory to resume production of my companion's desired items. There was only / one hitch: because of delicate political considerations involving a large sale to an Islamic client, the factory director explained, Moscow would prefer to create the appearance that a private company in Slovakia had purchased the units and exported them. The manager scrawled a note and handed it to my companion: "This is a Slovak trading company in Moscow. Go there, and they will make the necessary arrangements...
...ventures by shipping arms through East bloc countries. Now, because newly independent but still cash-hungry Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia all support networks of privatized export firms to stimulate arms sales from their own faltering factories, it is easier than ever to use such channels. Even so, my companion was impressed at the influence wielded by powerful members of the military-industrial establishment eyeing a $100 million deal: overnight the old comrade's network had worked out methods to obtain supplies and components from several different factories to restart production and persuaded the government to enlist...