Word: companioner
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...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...
...traveling companion and I found ourselves parked at the side of the road, approximately 93 miles south of Sverdlovsk-45, sharing a picnic lunch with a Russian scientist and two former military officers. Ignoring the freezing wind, we ate brown bread heaped with butter and red caviar. We drank tea from a thermos that had given up its heat hours ago, and stamped our feet in the snow as we discussed the import of a meeting held two hours earlier...