Nano

CHAPTER 28

A little more than two hours after Pia started her early day’s work, it was after four o’clock in the afternoon more than five thousand miles away in Milan. Zach Berman sat at his computer in his room at the Four Seasons Hotel, going over progress reports emailed to him on the various projects that were running at his company, particularly the microbivores program, which was closest to his heart. He was pleased with what he read, and it made him eager to get back. But he couldn’t go just yet. The Giro d’Italia, one of Europe’s top cycle races outside of the Tour de France, was about to start. It was his reason for being in Italy, but Berman had no interest in anyone making that connection.

A week earlier, almost immediately after his conversation with Pia, Berman flew in his Gulfstream to Milan, where he had met up with yet more Chinese dignitaries. At least he wasn’t meeting any new people: this delegation was made up of individuals he had encountered over the last two years in Boulder or in China, and Whitney Jones had coached him for hours on their names and personal interests and government jobs. Such information made it far easier to converse with these people and avoid the painful stretches of silence he’d endured in his early encounters with them. Raising capital wasn’t his favorite job, particularly with the Chinese, because their bureaucratic mind-set was contrary to his value system. In fact, he freely admitted he hated dealing with them, save for the rare few who had an entrepreneurial streak, however suppressed. Yet on the world stage the big money was in China. That was the long and short of it.

One man Berman now saw regularly and who was easier to deal with than most of the others was Yan, who insisted on being called Jimmy. Jimmy spoke excellent English and was apparently a man of some status in the bewilderingly complex government hierarchy. Jimmy was actually good company, Berman had been happy to find, and it was really to meet him that Berman had come to Milan. Jimmy was a cosmopolitan man who had studied for a time at Stanford, so he was able to converse with Berman about American matters in American English. He wore a Western-style suit and sported a better haircut than the other officials Berman had met. How old he was, Berman didn’t know, although he suspected Jimmy was younger than he, and in good physical shape, as compared with the other Chinese bureaucrats Berman had to spend time with.

Berman knew Jimmy was very smart. Politics was a particular area of interest, and he quizzed Berman closely about recent American presidential elections. He seemed amused by the process. How did Americans know if the people they supported would make good leaders? he wondered. To Jimmy it all seemed absurdly random, more of a popularity contest. Berman’s response was that was the way democracy worked. “The people pick the person they think will make the best leader,” Berman said. “The people?” Jimmy asked enigmatically, and left it at that.

Berman knew the drill with the Chinese, and he was calm and confident when he spoke to them as a group. He’d picked up a few words of Mandarin, and it always amused his guests when he tried a new phrase, even if he almost always mangled it.

After several days of acclimating in Milan, Berman, Jimmy, and two more of the senior Chinese bureaucrats, together with a translator, had visited their investments as they were training. The cycle team was doing sprints around the track in an indoor velodrome, cycling impossibly fast and close together, it had seemed to Berman. The last thing he wanted at that stage was a serious crash. The five visitors had stood at the back of the arena, trying not to stand out too much. The main coach from the team had expected them and walked over when it was appropriate.

“Welcome to Milan. I am Victor Klaastens, team coach. Nice to meet you all.” The man had a heavy Dutch accent.

“Ah, Mr. Klaastens, I’m glad you’re here,” Berman had said.

“Where else would I be but with my team?”

“Indeed. So how is everything going? I’m sure our visitors would like to hear from you.”

The translator had struggled to keep up, and that was okay with Berman. He’d wished he could have talked to the coach in private before the meeting with the Chinese delegation, but it had not been possible. Klaastens was stocky, in his mid-fifties, and definitely had been around the block a few times, with a protuberant beer gut that proclaimed as much. The team’s bright blue, red, and green warm-up suit looked decidedly out of place on him.

“Everything is good,” Klaastens had responded. “Though I’m not happy to have to talk through a translator. And there’s no need to translate that.” He looked at the young woman who interrupted her translation to bow her head hurriedly.

Berman had looked at Jimmy but gave no indication that he was perturbed at what Klaastens had said. Berman wanted everything to go smoothly. Jimmy had seemed to be taking it all in stride. The English of the two other men was iffy.

“This is how sport is these days,” the coach continued. “I’m a Dutch coach on a cycling team from Azerbaijan who these Chinese gentlemen show up to watch, and they have a well-off American with them whose name I don’t know. Ignore that, too, miss.”

“‘Well-off American.’ I’ve been called many things…. I’m merely an observer,” said Berman.

“I don’t really care who you are. Maybe it’s for the best I don’t know. I’m happy with the situation,” said Klaastens. “Even if I have to accept some riders at the last minute who I can’t even converse with, since all they speak is Chinese. We’re a poor cycle team from a poor country. Why Azerbaijan needs a cycling team, I don’t know that, either, but Kazakhstan has one, and they wanted one, too. Which was very lucky for me, because I was out of a job. When I heard we would have our whole season taken care of, I was even more happy. Someone told me that the government got money from outside and they’re very happy to take the credit for having a successful team. What it meant for me was no more chasing down cell phone providers in Belgium for ten thousand euros of sponsorship. That kind of thing is not fun for a man, particularly given my age and experience.”

“So how are the new men doing?” Berman had asked to try to steer Klaastens’s conversation into a more neutral arena.

“They are doing very well.” The coach looked closely at Berman as he spoke. “Extremely well. Maybe a little too well.”

“If they are performing beyond your expectations, I don’t think that should be a problem. The reverse, in fact.”

“The fact is, they are so good, they make our team leader nervous. I don’t know how much you know about our sport, but when a team’s leader is entering a race with anxiety, it is not good. The leader is a little past his best, I know, but he has a following in France, and our team wants to win a stage at the Tour in July. No one thought anything when I put these two guys in the pack because, to be frank, you and I could have got a place on the team. But these guys are fast, and strong. And no one knows who they are.”

“They have been training in China. I heard about them by chance when I was in China on business. I ride myself, I have always been interested in team cycling, so I made some introductions. If these guys are good, then, well… good. This is the first time they are in international competition.”

“It shows. They never talk to anyone and they have their own doctors.”

“Chinese people are suspicious of Western medics. There is a lot of herbal medicine, all perfectly tested and legal, that they use. And these two guys have never been outside of China. Even being in Italy makes them nervous. I’ve been through this all before with the team president.”

“I know you have,” Klaastens had said. “But I know more about cycling than he does. What is that phrase in America? I’ve forgotten more about it than he knows. Is that right?”

“Very good.”

“Okay. I’m asking for my own benefit. I need to be prepared if one of these guys wins a stage in this race.”

“You think there is the chance of them winning?” If either of these guys wins a stage, I’d be surprised, Berman had thought. Both riders knew the consequences of performing too well too soon. The consequences not only for themselves, but also for their extended families in China. Having heard how fast the two men were, Berman had worried that they had seemed to have stretched their legs too much already, despite instructions to the contrary.

“Probably not. We see a lot of guys who look great in training but flame out and fail on the road. Perhaps they’re like that.”

“Perhaps.”

“Okay. I am not worried, as I said. They passed the drug and blood doping tests we administered several times over, the same one that the race uses. And you tell me everything is fine. So it is fine. I hear there are more than seven hundred million cyclists in China. At least two of them have to be good, right? I found that number on the Internet, and I like it. If anyone from the media asks, which they will, that’s what I’m going to say. Two from seven hundred million. That should quiet most skeptics.”

The translator had talked for a good minute after Klaastens finished, and Zhu, one of the Chinese delegation, had responded with a few agitated words.

“Is everything okay?” Berman had asked the translator. But it was Jimmy who had replied. “He’s just wondering if everything is okay. He says this man here is very serious.”

“Yes, please assure him that everything is fine. Our friend here is very eminent in the world of cycling. He is just expressing some personal opinions. He likes to talk, as you can see. But everything is perfectly fine.”

Berman then had steered Klaastens away from the group. “I don’t want them to think you are not grateful for their support,” Berman had said when they were just beyond earshot.

“I am grateful,” Klaastens had insisted. “But they’re not officially supporting us, you see? It’s the anonymous part that is strange to me. You usually can’t stop sponsors from putting logos on everything that moves. So I appreciate it from that angle, but really I don’t know who these guys are any more than I know you.”

“I assure you, when the time comes, they will come out in the open, and I will, too. These are all early steps. They don’t want to be embarrassed if the men fail. Failure is very bad in their culture, particularly on the world stage. That’s why there is all this intrigue. But your contact was correct. The funding for the team came from a third party and was funneled through the Azeri government. Ultimately the connection is through oil.”

“Oil?”

“It is widely known that the Chinese are interested in cornering the market for raw materials in general.”

Klaastens had shrugged and nodded. Having heard that information, he had become Berman’s accomplice of sorts. Ultimately he didn’t care about the details in that he valued his job more than he cared about the answers to any questions he had. Klaastens figured he had enough deniability should anything untoward happen. The two walked back to the Chinese men and Klaastens addressed the translator.

“Please assure the gentlemen that our team is very grateful for their support for the whole team, and we look forward to a long and fruitful partnership. We just want reassurance that their riders will continue to be team players. Although a lot of people don’t know it, cycling is, in the final analysis, a team sport.”

“Well put,” Berman had said, who then had taken his leave before Klaastens put on a demonstration of the prowess and speed of the team, particularly the two new Chinese riders.

At the desk in the Four Seasons, Berman finished up his emails. He looked at his watch and wondered if he had time for one more dish of fried gnocchi. He found he loved the food in Milan, especially at the cheaper restaurants. His new favorite dish was beyond delicious, but healthwise they weren’t such a good idea. Berman wouldn’t dream of eating such a thing at home, which made them so much more alluring.

These had been a fun few days. He found that Milan had an exciting nightlife, which he had avidly taken in, with Jimmy as a surprisingly knowledgeable guide. He found certain venues in which there was a seemingly endless chain of attractive women from Eastern Europe, particularly the Czech Republic and Hungary. As a result, he was looking forward to a long sleep on the way home.

With Jimmy, he’d visited the team a few more times in training after that first visit. He reminded the doctors who worked with the riders that they should be sure to follow the protocols they had established. Security was paramount. Never carry anything yourself — use the couriers. And remember, the riders couldn’t win. They should be consistently fast, but always ride in support of the team leader. It was likely, especially on this year’s course, that they would be much stronger than the leader, but at all costs they had to hold back, even if they felt strong enough to sprint ahead. The idea was just to introduce their presence, no more at this stage.

There would be ample opportunity down the road for heroics. After all, as far as the Chinese were concerned, that was what this was all about.