The CIA.
In the post-9/11 world, the U.S. intelligence community had thrown all its resources behind the war on Islamic terror. As a result, a new breed of CIA officers had emerged in Langley—those who’d spent their entire careers hunting down Al-Qaeda and ISIS radicals. The old Cold Warriors were as extinct as the dinosaurs. The fresh crop of spies was clueless about the inner workings of the Kremlin. Russia is no longer our enemy. A delusional mantra chanted from D.C. all the way down.
Russia did view the U.S. as the enemy, though. When Russian President Frolov, an ex-KGB hardliner, had attacked Western democracies by the Cold War playbook, he’d caught U.S. intelligence completely unawares. Suddenly, the CIA had found itself deep in the midst of a new Cold War—and losing badly.
In the post-truth world of Kremlin deception, the Americans had to learn the ropes all over again if they wanted to withstand the new danger or even fully grasp its scope. Without the veterans’ experience they could draw upon, it proved to be a challenge. The CIA scrambled to hire Russia specialists. Among them was Constantine Sokolov, a Russian historian and Kremlinologist who fit the bill perfectly.
Patriot or traitor? It was only a matter of perspective. From the Kremlin’s viewpoint, the accusation of betrayal hung over him like the sword of Damocles but he felt no qualms about siding with a foreign power. Working for the CIA, he fought for his country’s future, not against it. He didn’t get to choose his allies in a war against a tyrannical regime which had taken over Russia. A war which his ancestors had fought since 1917 and he had no right to quit even in forced exile.
His brother, however, had refused to join him Stateside, for reasons of his own, believing that the battle against Frolov could be won on home soil.
Worryingly, Constantine had lost touch with Eugene.
They hadn’t talked since their stopover in Poland when they’d each gone their separate ways, choosing two different worlds, the U.S. and Russia.
Their pre-arranged method of communication was through a Dark Web forum but Constantine’s private messages stayed unread.
Gene was offline.
Now Constantine knew why.
As he scanned the news headlines, his heart sank. The words on the screen delivered a sickening blow.
Daniil Klimov had been shot dead in the street, right in front of the Kremlin.
The murder suspect’s identity flashed across every report.
Eugene Sokolov.
Inconceivable! There was zero chance that Gene might have killed his longtime friend. Even more appalling than the absurdity of such libel was the cynicism.
Although the charges were false, the manhunt would be real. His brother faced mortal peril, now more than ever.
Filled with grave concern, he opened his phone’s private web browser and sent another message through the forum’s system, once again typing in his U.S. number where Gene could reach him.
Please call asap.
Minutes passed with agonizing slowness. Constantine studied every news article relating to Klimov’s death in detail as he waited. There was only so much he could do from across the Atlantic, eight thousand kilometers away.
Abruptly, Constantine’s phone chimed. Incoming call. Unknown number.
Feeling electric currents going through his veins, he tapped the green button to answer.
“Yes? Hello?”
“Hi, brother. I’m okay but I must keep it short. I guess you know what happened.”
Gene’s voice. Relief washed over Constantine.
“About Daniil? Is it true?”
“They killed him. And they’re after me, as well.”
“Oh, God. Why?”
“A few billion reasons. I’ve got them on a flash drive. I also have the whistleblower with me. A bank insider. Her testimony will be of much interest to your buddies. The Kremlin’s money-laundering web, laid bare. You were right, I made a mistake when I went back to Russia. But at least I have something to show for it. A chance to go after Frolov.”
“No point ruing your bad judgment. Just hang tight until I can arrange the extraction.”
“I’ll try my damnedest to stay alive. See you soon.”
At the other end of the line, the call ended.
Constantine ran his fingers through his thick sandy hair, wondering how the hell he was going to get his brother out in one piece.
Constantine rapped a knuckle on the glass door to the office of the Foundation’s Director.
Seated behind a desk cluttered with books, printouts, and legal pads, Stephen Hilton III took his eyes off the dual computer monitors and waved him in.
Constantine entered. The room was slightly larger than his own. Bookcases brimmed with heavy tomes. A recent photo with the current U.S. President adorned a wall, Hilton dressed in the same sort of shirt and tie combo Constantine saw him wearing every day.
Another picture, taken years ago with the great man himself, the late Harry Richardson, showed a much younger but already balding Hilton.
Constantine had met Hilton at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow as his diplomatic career drew to a close and had taken him up on the offer to follow him across the pond and fill the vacant position at the HRF.
“Take a seat,” Hilton said as he swallowed coffee from a patriotic Star-and-Stripes mug.
“Have you seen the Klimov news?” Constantine asked, lowering himself into a chair.
“Yeah. Shocking—if true. It’s tough to identify fake news these days.”
“I wish it were fake but I’ve just received confirmation from my brother.”
“It must be hard for him to take. How is he?”
“That’s exactly what I wanted to discuss with you. We must bring him here. I need a plane.”
“For God’s sake, Constantine. You know I can’t authorize something like that. We don’t have personal jets at our disposal around here. I know you’re worried about Eugene but I can’t be wasting the Foundation’s budget on a whim.”
“You don’t understand, Stephen. It’s not a personal request. Official business. My brother holds the key to Klimov’s assassination. And whatever led up to it from behind the scenes in the Kremlin. He’s recruited an asset, a Russian bank official who wants protection in exchange for sensitive financial intel. There’s only one way to withstand the Kremlin aggression. Go after their dirty money.”
“Hit ’em where it hurts,” Hilton confirmed.
“A motto we keep repeating. But Treasury has had no luck finding the money trail. You won’t get this kind of breakthrough falling into your lap again.”
“Are you positive that this whistleblower can really deliver the goods? What if it’s a ruse to sucker us? You know, start a new life at Uncle Sam’s expense and feed us false documents. Disinformation.”
“Gene vouches for the source so that’s good enough for me. People don’t get killed over fakes. But if it’s an elaborate ploy to plant deza, as you say? I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out pretty soon. It makes no sense for Frolov to waste so much effort on a lie you can refute easily,” Constantine said. “What I do know is that the CIA runs an entire fleet of rendition aircraft shuttling snatched terrorists to black sites around the world. You’ve got enough clout for a simple exfiltration mission. The sooner you make that call, the faster I’ll get there for the pick-up. Time to act, enough talk.”
“You must be mad thinking you can get in or out of Moscow just like that. How are you going to get past the FSB border guards?”
“Who said anything about Moscow? I have a better idea. Trust me.”
After Constantine explained it to him, Hilton sighed.
“All right. I’ll let you have your plane,” he conceded picking up the phone.
“I really appreciate it.” Constantine meant it.
He returned to his cramped office. First, he had to brief Gene on his plan.
Then he had a flight to catch.
10
She kept talking about her son, tears and alcohol flowing dee
p into the night until her speech began to slur and she dozed off on the sofa. Gently, Sokolov picked her up and relocated Paulina into the bedroom. As he carried her and laid her atop the bed, a tiny object slipped out of her pants pocket and dropped to the floor.
She’d lied to him.
It wasn’t in her purse.
The flash drive.
11
Pavel Netto slouched in front of his PC, staring dumbly at the display as he waited to end an agonizing day at the office. Several hundred other people across several departments were also sitting in their cubicles, keyboards chattering in what on the outside might seem like ordinary office work.
It was anything but.
No outsider could enter the building without security clearance. Surveillance cameras spied on every move of the workers inside. All window blinds remained perpetually shut to avoid prying eyes. Nobody was allowed to discuss the details of their work even among their colleagues.
The elaborate four-storied building on Ostozhenka Street, just a few blocks from the Kremlin, housed no ordinary office.
It was home to an FSB-run Internet troll farm.
Officially, the address belonged to a software research company. The unofficial activities that went on behind those walls were the subject of a non-disclosure agreement which Netto had signed like everyone else. Violators would face lengthy prison sentences.
Security was paramount for an outfit engaged in a massive disinformation campaign against Western democracies.
The army of trolls waging info warfare had a complex structure. Some units created fake news stories and propagated them. Others posted pro-Russian and anti-American comments across various forums and blogs and attacked legitimate news sources. An entire social media floor, staffed by eight hundred trolls, was solely dedicated to weaponizing the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. A visual content team created YouTube videos which racked up millions of views and upvotes with the aid of bot networks or generated picture memes. There was also a team that edited Wikipedia articles to fit the Kremlin’s narrative.
In some cases, special teams were set up to bombard particular topics or target specific countries.
The farm’s cream of the crop were the English-speaking trolls with passable language skills who posed as ordinary Americans. They had their own coffee machine.
A complicated system, all right, but someone had to keep it running. This was where Pavel Netto stepped in. His role was tech support, making sure the whole thing functioned without too many bugs and crashes. A regular IT job, except his resumé would never say Sysadmin for the FSB’s Covert Info Warfare. His involvement with the Kremlin propaganda machine filled Netto with a growing sense of frustration and self-loathing.
The majority of the trolls were imbeciles who could hardly string together a coherent sentence and their FSB bosses weren’t much smarter. A simple automated script could handle their tasks more efficiently and make them all redundant. Coding it would take Netto a few days but he had no desire to boost the troll farm’s productivity.
He knew he was wasting away his talent but with the FSB keeping tabs on him, he couldn’t switch jobs or leave the country. Netto had firsthand experience as an inmate of Lefortovo Prison and he wasn’t going back behind bars.
Besides, traveling abroad, he risked ending up in hot water with the FBI and Interpol should they link him to covert election-meddling activities in the West.
Troll farm? More like a plantation.
He was stuck there for the foreseeable future and he hated it.
A group of tanned, dark-haired men marched silently past Netto’s desk, heading to their separate office on the top floor.
Entering it required the highest level of security clearance.
The mysterious cyber-warriors belonged to a special task force, codenamed Yellow. They never spoke to him but Netto was certain he wouldn’t understand a word they said.
Ever since their arrival a few weeks earlier, those freaks creeped him out. You could tell they were pros, not the bunch of losers normally employed by the troll farm. They had a no-nonsense, military demeanor about them.
And they sure as hell weren’t Russians.
They were Latinos.
Venezuelans, to be precise. Officers of the notorious SEBIN secret police.
They were running an automated bot network, numbering tens of thousands of social media accounts, which attacked a single country.
Spain.
Watching them leave, Netto heard a notification. Incoming email, sent by the FSB handler to all employees.
Subject: Urgent! Media blackout lifted
He clicked it open and the message filled the desktop monitor.
The screaming headline made him nauseous.
FORMER EMERCOM CHIEF GUNNED DOWN IN MOSCOW, SUSPECT AT LARGE.
The email contained clear instructions on how to cover the developing story.
Smear Daniil Klimov and spread lies implicating Eugene Sokolov in his murder.
Netto had never forged a close friendship with his former boss but Klimov was a good man—had been. His death had come as a shock.
“Poor Daniil Petrovich. He didn’t deserve it,” Netto muttered to himself.
Neither did Sokolov. He had been a friend. Long ago.
Netto swept back his spiky blond pompadour and massaged his throbbing temples.
He gazed with fatigued eyes at the corner of the screen which showed a countdown timer. Every troll labored in twelve-hour shifts, watched closely by FSB overseers. Nobody was allowed to leave their workplace during that time for fear of severe fines. Netto stayed in from 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. As the numbers ticked down to zero, Netto signed off and exited the building, walking past an armed guard at the checkpoint.
Out in the street, he sighed wearily. Right now, he was just happy to have the next two days off, away from that steaming pile of troll dung.
But first, he wanted to take a long shower to stop feeling dirty.
He reached his modern yet brutally ugly apartment block after a two-hour commute to the city’s southern outskirts. At least the troll farm paycheck covered the rent. As he unlocked the door to his second-floor studio, a shadow moved behind him.
A strong shove in the back hurled Netto into the apartment. In the darkness, Netto staggered, followed by the intruder who slammed the entrance door shut behind them.
Netto pivoted, throwing a punch at the dark figure. Netto’s thin frame was hardly athletic and he only mustered a feeble swing that was deflected easily. Another forceful push sent him crashing to the linoleum floor, arms flailing.
The stranger flicked a light switch on the wall, revealing himself.
Squinting, Netto gasped.
Standing over him, haloed by the single light spot, was Eugene Sokolov.
“Gene! Man, you scared me. What are you doing here?”
“You tell me.”
Sokolov grabbed him by his lapels and picked him up.
“Hey, let go of me! What’s going on?”
“You’ve come a long way, Pavel. Doing quite well at the FSB troll farm, aren’t you?”
Icy fear gripped his insides.
“Please don’t hurt me! I have nothing to do with the fake news! You know that I’m just a tech guy. I’m not responsible for the content, I swear! I’m on your side. Trust me. I’m your friend, Gene!”
Sokolov’s piercing blue eyes studied him for a long moment. The cold, hard gaze sent a shiver down Netto’s spine.
“Your friendship isn’t worth a damn, Mr. Anon. But I could use your services—for hire.”
“Hire?” Netto blinked, utterly confused. “Like, you’ll pay me money? Whatever you say, dude.”
“Just remember, if your pal Minski and his FSB goons ever get a whiff of this, you’re dead. You ratted me out once. Consider yourself warned.”
“Minski? You can’t imagine how much I hate him. He ruined my life. I’d love nothing more than to get back at him.”
“We’ll
see about that,” Sokolov said. “Now get to work.”
“What do you want me to do, Gene?”
It looked like his plans for a late night of Netflix and beer had just been canceled.
Instead, Netto ended up watching a different kind of video, far more chilling and gruesome than any TV show. He sat at his workstation, backing up files from a hard drive as requested by Sokolov. Surveillance camera recordings. He opened the last file to make sure it transferred without error and moved the fast-forward slider.
“Is this what I think it is?”
He needed no reply.
He realized what he was seeing as the picture zoomed in on two figures, walking down the street. Sokolov and Klimov, their former boss. Suddenly, a cyclist appeared out of nowhere.
Gunshots. Klimov and Sokolov going down. Passersby running away in panic. More shots. Klimov staying down.
“Damn.” Netto sighed rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“It wasn’t just an assassination,” Sokolov said. “It was an execution.”
The door buzzer chimed, startling Netto.
He hit the pause button.
“Are you expecting someone, Pavel?” Sokolov asked standing over his shoulder.
“Not at this hour, no. I haven’t got a clue who the hell it might be.”
“Well, why don’t you find out.”
Netto swallowed. What if it was Minski? He’d be finished and he wasn’t sure who’d kill him first.
Netto went to the door at pulled it ajar. There were two men at his doorstep.
His old EMERCOM buddies. The stocky, barrel-chested Sergei Zubov and the bearlike Yuri Mischenko.
“Guys, what’s up?” Netto said with relief.
“We both received texts from a hidden number telling us to come to your place urgently,” Zubov said.
“Did you send it?” asked Mischenko.
“No,” replied Netto, dumbfounded.
Moscow Gold (SOKOLOV Book 5) Page 5