"Charles Stross - Merchant princes 01 - The Family Trade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

or a very short one," she confessed. "I got interested in a couple of biotech
companies that looked just a little bit odd. Did some digging, got Paulette
involvedтАФ she digs like a drilling platformтАФand we came up with some dirt. A
couple of big companies are being used as targets for money laundering.
"Turns out that The Weatherman's parent company is into them, deep. They decided
it would be easier to fire us and threaten us than to run the story and take
their losses. I'm probably going to get home and find a SLAPP lawsuit sitting in
my mailbox."
"So. What are you going to do about it?"
Miriam met her mother's penetrating stare. "Ma, I spent three years there. And
they fired me cold, without even trying to get me to shut up, at the first
inconvenience. Do you really think I'm going to let them get away with that if I
can help it?"
"What about loyalty?" Iris asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I gave them mine." Miriam shrugged. "That's part of why this hurts. You earn
loyalty by giving it."
"You'd have made a good feudal noble. They were big on loyalty, too. And blind
obedience, in return."
"Wrong century, wrong side of the Atlantic, in case you hadn't noticed."
Now Iris grinned. "Oh, I noticed that much," she conceded. "No foreign titles of
nobility. That's one of the reasons why I stayed hereтАФthat, and your father."
Her smile slipped. "Never could understand what the people here see in kings and
queens, either the old hereditary kind or the modern presidential type. All
those paparazzi, drooling after monarchs. I like your line of work. It's more
honest."
"Harder to keep your job when you're writing about the real world," Miriam
brooded gloomily. She struggled to sit a little straighter. "Anyway, I didn't
come around here to mope at you. I figure I can leave job-hunting until tomorrow
morning."
"Are you sure you're going to be all right?" Iris asked pointedly. "You
mentioned lawsuits-тАФor worse."
"In the short termтАФ" Miriam shrugged, then took a deep breath. "Yes," she
admitted. "I guess I'll be okay as long as I leave them alone."
"Hmm." Iris looked at Miriam sidelong. "How much money are we talking about
here? If they're pulling fake lawsuits to shut you up, that's not business as
usual."
"There'sтАФ" Miriam did some mental arithmeticтАФ "about fifty to a hundred million
a year flowing through this channel."
Iris swore.
"Ma!"
"Don't you 'Ma' me!" Iris snorted.
"ButтАФ"
"Listen to your old ma. You came here for advice, I'm going to give it, all
right? You're telling me you just happened to stumble across a money-laundering
operation that's handling more money in a week than most people earn in their
life. And you think they're going to settle for firing you and hoping you stay
quiet?"
Miriam snorted. "It can't possibly be that bad, Ma, this isn't goodfellas
territory, and anyway, they've got that faked evidence."
Iris shook her head stubbornly. "When you've got criminal activities and