As Scull viewed it, the specs that accompanied his fancy job title were simple and straightforward: he’d been hired to help his employer plan for the future by making plausible guesses about what that future would be. What wasn’t so simple was actually isolating the factors that were key to an analysis. Say Gordian wanted his predictions about how an agricultural crisis in Russia would turn out, what effect that outcome would have on the nation’s sociopolitical climate, and what bearing it all would have on completion of UpLink’s European low earth orbit satellite communications gateway. The usual way to do that was to rely on news summaries, historical precedents, and dry statistical reviews, which Scull believed was a lazy man’s cop-out. There were limits to how much troubleshooting could be done from behind a desk; inevitably, forces that couldn’t be quantified on paper would come into play and drive events along one course or another. To detect them you had to use your personal radar, read subtle wind changes, keep your eyes and ears open for anything that might be important. The more you got around, the better.

Which was what he’d meant when he told Perry he was in Kaliningrad “assessing risks.” It had been twelve weeks since he’d flown back to the States, and all the information he’d gotten while he was there suggested the Russian food shortage was rapidly worsening. Alarmed by the reports, and wanting to see for himself how serious it was, he had decided to make a trip to the nearest population center his immediate priority upon returning to the region. And from where he stood right now, the situation looked a lot like the divorce settlement a judge had handed down to him a couple of weeks ago, formally dissolving his third marriage and sticking him with whopping alimony payments: pretty damned grim.

The grocery in front of him was locked up tight, its window displays bare of merchandise. The plate glass was pocked with starry fractures of the sort that would have been made by rocks or blunt-ended sticks. A cardboard sign in the doorway read “NYETU PISCHA”—“NO FOOD”—in handscrawled Cyrillic characters. It was similar to the sign he’d seen in the bakery down the block, which had said, “NO BREAD.” Or the one above the empty market stand that said, “NO FRUITS OR VEGETABLES.”

Scull thought it significant that none of the signs merely had “CLOSED” written on them. Obviously, the absent storekeepers had wanted to discourage property damage from break-ins, making it clear nothing had been left behind for potential looters.

He moved up to the storefront, shaded his eyes with his hand, and peered in at the vacant shelves.

“Shit,” he said in a rueful tone. “So much for my smoked-fucking-herring.”

“Hope it’s easier to get drunk than fed around here,” Perry said.