QUOTE : The person we'd be discussing, if you'd allow me to, isn't my sort of klept.' ¶ 'Klepts are scarcely your sort, period,' Netherton said, 'and that's been my impression since we've known one another.' ¶ 'This goes beyond that. Not my father's sort, nor my grandfather's. Different roots entirely.' ¶ 'He's not Russian?' Netherton asked, having assumed this to be impossible. ¶ 'Russian,' said Lev, 'but descended from Soviet functionaries, rather than émigré 'garchs. Klept, but something else as well.' ¶ 'What's the difference?' ¶ 'Extremely low profile. Not given to ostentation, either as displays of wealth or demonstrations of power. Never entertains. Attends no functions outside of the Square Mile, and few enough there. Very much a creature of the City. Even there, though, he keeps to the deepest processes, those of the least transparent sort.' ¶ The City, Netherton had heard Lowbeer say, explaining the klept to Flynne, had long been, and well prior to the jackpot, a unique species of semi-autonomous crypto-state, the single least democratic element of elected British government. It was this singular status, according to Lowbeer, that had allowed it to ride out the eventual collapse of democracy. That, and its core expertise in laundering money, had brought it into a mutually beneficial synergy with the émigré oligarch community, dominated by Russians, who had themselves first been attracted to London by the City's meta-criminal financial arcana, plus the lavish culture of personal amenities for those requiring same.