Of course, Nina would not be able to prove anything to any TV phrasemonger. But she was not going to prove or explain anything. She just knew that the crisis was near, almost arrived already.
Nina was standing motionless by the window, absorbed in the picture of imminent global economic trouble which had presented itself to her mind. The picture was terrifying and bewitching at the same time.
Nina was seized by a pioneer’s rapture. “To think that the world does not know anything yet. Nobody knows but me,” she said proudly to herself. “Well, that is – except for doctor Mattiasson and me…”
She wanted to cry out, “I am a genius!”
Instead, she yelled, “Idiot!”
The pigeon startled, slipped down from the ledge and flew away heavily.
Nina clutched her head and groaned. “Idiot! Genius, indeed! You’ve fouled up everything!”
All her recommendations on project Zaryadje were now up in the air. Gradbank had trusted her… To hell with Gradbank! Pavel Mikhailovich Samsonov, her love, had entrusted her with a matter of utmost importance to him, and she failed, let him down. Now it was too late to fix anything. Or was it?…
As she was, in her robe and slippers, Nina darted to her computer table.
“All right, calm down. Crisis, crisis… What does it mean?”
Nina was racking her brain trying to understand what consequences a global crisis might have for the project, Zaryadje XXI. The oil prices were probably going to fall. By how much? The state currency reserves were going to reduce, and a budget deficit was inevitable. How large a deficit, and what did it imply? All the stock indices would sink, that was for sure. A collapse of the entire system of international credit was possible. Enormous bad debts, bankruptcy of the major banks…
Nina lost track of time. When she finally noticed that night was falling, she realized that she was still sitting at her table in her robe, and that she had not had a bite to eat that whole day.
She gulped down a sandwich and two cups of coffee in the kitchen, and then rushed back to her work.
Chapter 7
If Nina had had a dog, the beast would have hated its mistress because in those days, Nina would have certainly been forgetting to feed or walk it. The only excuse Nina could provide was that she herself was forgetting to eat, let alone have walks.
To say that Nina was hard pressed for time would be a gross understatement. Developing the ‘Zaryadje under crisis’ scenario should normally take at least a couple of months; as it was, Nina had only a few days at her disposal. The tenders from the contest participants were officially due the next Monday. Not counting the weekend, Nina had it until Friday to draw up her new proposals. How she was supposed then to reach Samsonov, bring him to listen to her sensational ideas, and convince him to make last-minute changes to the approved document – about all that Nina tried not to think for now.
Complying with Sinitsin’s directions, Nina did not keep any project materials on her home computer, but she had no need for that. She relied on her well-organized, ‘library’ memory. Drawing out the right ‘card-boxes’ from her huge ‘catalogue’, she restored the necessary figures and facts immediately.
When the first panic that had seized her after she had made her global discovery was over, Nina forced herself to concentrate and at least try to evaluate the new risks. That was an incredibly hard job, her analysis constantly getting blurred and falling apart. A lot of doubtful pieces of information had to be taken on trust, and a lot of missing pieces had to be thought up. Still, having gathered and organized in great haste all the available data on major financial crises over the past half century, Nina was pretty confident she could put her finger on the main threats. Everything that did not qualify as such had to be neglected.
To her great relief, Nina discovered that things were not all that terrible after all. Gradbank’s investment project proved to be rather robust and, on the whole, capable of surviving even a serious shake-up. Part of the credit for such high quality of the project was due to her, Nina.
The project Zaryadje XXI would survive the crisis, but only at the cost of very serious losses. After several days of backbreaking work, Nina identified five issues that were going to become threats to the project in the event of a big crisis. The way it was kept in Samsonov’s safe now, the project contained two of those potential weaknesses. If the other three had somehow found their way into the project, it would have become suicidal for Gradbank. To herself, Nina called that hypothetical, worst-case version ‘Plan B’. If she had been the old Nina who had dreamed of taking revenge on Gradbank, she would have desired fervently that, through some twist of chance, Plan B be adopted by the management of that callous capitalist monster. But Nina was no longer her old self, and quite the reverse, she hoped to convince Pavel Mikhailovich to make changes to the two bad items and thus defuse those time bombs. She had figured out a way to defuse them, too.
Besides, as it turned out, a crisis could paradoxically lead to some big benefits, provided Gradbank was prepared to reap them.
Nina made up a ‘Plan C’. According to that plan, the two problem items were removed from the project, and some good items were added to replace them. With those changes, the project was not only feasible again – it became many times more profitable and promising to Gradbank.
Nina recalled what she had read somewhere about the way the word ‘crisis’ was translated into Chinese – it was represented by two hieroglyphs one of which meant ‘hard plight’, and the other ‘opportunity’. It was the same way with Gradbank: a crisis might ruin it, or else, it could become its hour of triumph.
The victorious Plan C was her gift for her man.
On Friday morning Nina called Samsonov.
She hoped that her call would be taken by Klara Fedorovna as it would be hard for her to go into explanations with Marina. But it was neither of the two; instead, an unfamiliar woman’s voice answered:
“Director’s reception. How can I help you?”
Nina asked to be put through to Klara Fedorovna.
It seemed to her that she traced a moment’s hesitation in the woman’s voice.
“Klara Fedorovna? … She is not here. Who is speaking?”
Nina gave her name and said that she needed to see Pavel Mikhailovich.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No, but it’s a very important and urgent matter.”
“State your business, and I’ll report it to Pavel Mikhailovich in due course.”
“But it’s impossible! Not on the phone.”
“Sorry, there’s nothing I can do. You said that you worked in the analytical department? Then you should turn to your department head.”
There was no way Nina could approach Ariadna Petrovna about that. What could she say to the wise woman? That she had a presentiment of a crisis and suggested altering the project proposals on those grounds? However much Ariadna Petrovna might favor Nina, she was not about to go to the director with such nonsense. At best, the chief of Analytics would advise her employee to stay at home and take a really good rest since, obviously, the girl had gone off her head a bit as an aftermath of a long, exhausting pull.
Nina was pondering what she could do. Go to the bank and try to force her way to Samsonov through the unfamiliar secretary? The secretary would probably just call the security and kick her out. Nina did not even know whether her pass to the twelfth floor was still good – it could have been cancelled already.