by Ben Coes
In theory, the guards at the Margaux were trained to profile all manner of potential security threats, the most important being possible kidnappers or terrorists. But they were oblivious of Cloud’s true nature.
Cloud put the wooden box on top of the desk.
“We don’t need to inspect it,” said one, waving his hand. “We trust you.”
“It’s a gift for the two of you for all you do to protect Katya.”
One of the guards opened the box. Inside were two nondescript bottles.
“You like vodka, yes?” asked Cloud.
“Of course.”
“This is vodka from the personal collection of Nikita Khrushchev.”
The guard on the right lifted a bottle and inspected it. The glass was a bluish-green hue and looked as if it had been blown by hand.
“Mr. Vargarin,” he said. “I cannot—”
“Please,” said Cloud. “I personally don’t like to drink anything stronger than tea. I brought one for each of you.”
“Thank you,” said the guard. “You’re too generous.”
“You’re welcome.”
“How did you obtain something so rare?” asked one of the men, a hint of suspicion in his voice.
At the question, Cloud’s demeanor shifted. For a brief moment, a dark look crossed his eyes. Then it was gone.
“It was left to me by my father,” he said.
“Your father must have been very important to receive such a treasure.”
Cloud had a cold look on his face. He looked at the ground.
“He was above all else a kind man, that is all. Now, if you’ll please excuse me.”
In the elevator, Cloud pressed the button for the top floor. As he did so, he thought of his father. Were he alive, Cloud knew that his father would be proud of him, but only for this part of his life. For his other activities, his hacking, his thievery, his father would be deeply angry. As for the nuclear bomb and what was to come, words could not describe the shame and utter revulsion Dr. Anuslav Vargarin would feel toward him, were he alive.
Were he alive.
But he wasn’t alive. He was dead, killed along with his mother by the United States. Killed in front of him. Killed like a dog. All for … well, all for a reason Cloud still did not understand. A computer disk, that was all. Letters and numbers that represented his father’s life work. Data. Now he would turn their data back on them. The information hunters would become prey to disinformation. Their theft of his father’s science would metastasize into a creation far more abominable than they ever could have imagined.
A father’s debt: Cloud would repay it, even though the kindly man whose gentle touch he could never forget would not want him to.
The chime for the seventh floor awakened Cloud from his daydream. He stepped out of the iron-trellised elevator and walked to the only door on the floor. He knocked twice and waited patiently. A few seconds later, the door swung open.
“Pyotr,” a woman said, staring affectionately at him. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Katya,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist.
“I miss you already and I haven’t even left yet,” she said.
“I love you so much, Katya,” he whispered as he clutched her tightly in the frame of the open door, hugging her for more than a minute.
“I love you too,” she said. “You make me so happy.”
At age twenty-six, Katya Basaeyev was among the most famous women in Russia and was well on her way to being recognized as the greatest living ballerina in the world. She was from Yakutsk, the largest city in the remote Sakha Republic, a part of Siberia that bordered the Arctic Circle and was known for producing diamonds.
She had learned to dance at the convent, taught by one of the nuns who herself had been a celebrated dancer before turning to God. By twelve, Katya’s skills were well enough known to draw a visit from the director of admissions at Moscow’s prestigious Bolshoi Ballet Academy. After that, it took only a little while for her to sweep like a tidal wave across the ruthlessly competitive world of Russian ballet. Katya had done so effortlessly, without a great deal of strategy or deliberateness, as if it was simply meant to be, her rise predicated on a unique dancing style. Katya had an inner grace, a simplicity, really, that was almost untrained and a style that even those dancers she eclipsed admired. No one who knew Katya disliked her. Other dancers, choreographers, and conductors all loved her. The fact that she was also so pretty, and so kind, only added to her singularity.
Her nickname: “The Siberian Diamond.”
They stepped into the apartment and shut the door. Cloud handed Katya the flowers.
“They’re beautiful.”
“Would you like to go out to dinner?” he asked.
Katya buried her face in the chrysanthemums and took a big sniff, then turned.
“Do you not have a nose?” she asked playfully.
“What do you mean?”
“I made your favorite dinner.”
He suddenly became aware of the scent of chicken roasting in the oven.
“And for dessert, profiteroles,” she said, stepping to him and removing his blazer, then wrapping her arms around him. “I spent all afternoon making them. Your mother must have been a saint. They are very hard to make.”
Cloud looked into her eyes for several moments, expressing his gratitude, his love, silently, through his eyes.
“The day before you leave for Saint Petersburg, and you are cooking for me. I don’t know what to say.”
“It makes me happy to make you happy, Pyotr,” Katya said, kissing him on the lips.
Katya’s hair was jet-black. It dangled down to her shoulders, parted in the middle, and it shimmered in the light. Her skin was brown; her eyes were aqua, their unusual color like a flash of blue sky on a dark, cloudy day.
Her apartment was a rambling warren of odd-shaped rooms carved out of what had been the palace’s attic. Yet it was the most expensive unit at the Margaux. Katya had purchased the apartment for $12 million two years before. There were four bedroom suites, a dining room, a library, a formal living room, a more casual den, a media room, a wine room, and a small gymnasium, half of which had been turned into a practice area, with a barre, mats, and mirrors.
Katya put the bouquet of flowers in a large vase, filled it with water, and then placed it on a credenza against the wall of the living room.
They had met when she was a student at the Bolshoi and he was at the Moscow Technological Institute. They met on the first day of school, seated next to each other in the large dining room the two schools shared.
Like Katya, Cloud was a prized recruit. Moscow Technological Institute, Russia’s top academic institution, did not accept applicants. Like the Bolshoi, the institute scoured Russia, as well as the republics of the former Soviet Union, looking for the country’s most talented individuals. It was MTI that produced the country’s greatest scientific, mathematic, and computer minds.
Like Cloud, Katya no longer had parents, and they shared a similar loneliness. She had been sent to the convent at age four after her father was killed in Afghanistan and her mother died of cancer the same year. She didn’t know what it was like to have a father and mother. Cloud remembered. He knew what it was like to enjoy the love of two doting parents, as an only child, a beloved child. He also knew what it was like to watch those parents be murdered in front of his eyes.
In Moscow, like two birds caught in a windstorm, Cloud and Katya became friends first, then best friends, then lovers. As Katya’s renown increased, so too did Cloud’s. His ability with computers grew every bit as quickly and dramatically as Katya’s ballet skills.
So too did his hatred for the country that had killed his parents.
At fifteen, Katya had her first prima debut, in The Nutcracker at the Bolshoi’s Christmas performances. That same year, using a computer in the school library, Cloud helped to manipulate air traffic control systems in the United States on the
morning of 9/11. Both performances, in their own way, were prodigal.
Now, after a little more than a decade, they remained inextricably linked. But Katya’s world was as transparent as Cloud’s was hidden. She’d become the most famous dancer in Russia. Her life was an open book to Cloud. Cloud, meanwhile, had become the most famous computer hacker in Russia. But to Katya, he remained Pyotr Vargarin, computer consultant, who made a great deal of money but did not like to discuss his work.
They ate dinner at one end of the large dining room table, enjoying a bottle of wine as Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake played softly in the background.
“Tell me about the Kirov,” said Cloud, referring to the Kirov Ballet in Saint Petersburg, where Katya would be headlining the summer production of Swan Lake. It was a highly anticipated series of performances for which she would be paid $5 million. The shows had sold out in less than an hour.
“I thought that perhaps you would consider coming,” Katya said.
“I would like that very much,” said Cloud. “I have a big project at work, as you know, but I am going to do my very best.”
“How long will this project take?” she asked.
“Maybe a week.”
“What is this project?”
Cloud leaned forward and put his hand on Katya’s.
“It’s a boring project involving computers,” he said.
“Computers, computers, computers,” she said. “You think I would be confused if you tell me, don’t you?”
“Not at all, just bored.”
“Try me.”
Cloud was silent for several moments. He didn’t like to lie to Katya.
“I am helping to redistribute certain scientific assets,” said Cloud.
“Why?”
“Well, these assets will help to bring a little heat and light to a part of the world that desperately needs it.”
Katya smiled, leaned forward, and kissed him on the lips.
“I am proud of you.”
“Not as proud as I am of you. I will try to see you in Saint Petersburg. Besides, I have seen you dance now about a hundred times. It seems only fair to let others have the chance to experience the wonder of your dancing.”
Katya smiled and blushed.
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” she said. “But I must tell you, Pyotr, that when you are in the audience, I dance differently. I run faster. I am able to jump higher. Your eyes beckon me to try harder.”
Cloud looked at Katya’s hand on his, running her finger over his gold signet ring. He felt a spike of anxiety, not at the terrible thing he was going to do but at the terrible deception he’d allowed into the most important relationship—the only relationship—he cared about. He’d built a lie in order to project—and protect—an image of himself in her eyes. He knew that if she ever found out his true nature, it would destroy everything he had.
“May I ask you something?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Cloud looked at Katya. He reached to his pocket and removed a small red leather box. Hand trembling, he put it on the table.
“Katya,” he whispered. His eyes were red with emotion. “I love you more than any man has ever loved a woman. I would do anything for you. The thought of you being gone for a month causes me great pain, because I will miss you. But I am also deeply proud of you, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Katya smiled. A small tear came to her right eye as she reached forward to touch the red box.
“Forgive me for my meandering words, but what I am about to say is the most important thing I will ever say.”
Tears of emotion now trickled down Cloud’s cheeks.
“Will you marry me, dear Katya?” he whispered, looking at her with naked vulnerability.
Katya opened the box. Inside was a stunning object: a magnificently large yellow diamond the size of a person’s fingertip, set upon a platinum band scrolled in an antique design.
“It…” Katya started to speak, then went quiet. Her mouth opened in awe as she removed it from the box, and tears of happiness began to flow down her cheeks. “It’s so beautiful.”
Cloud slipped the ring over her left ring finger, then held her hand up, beneath the golden-hued light of the chandelier.
“It’s from Siberia,” he said.
She stared at it for several moments.
For Cloud, the moment was the most beautiful of his life, as he waited, doubt choking his heart.
“Yes,” she whispered.
* * *
Later, after watching Katya pack for Saint Petersburg, after making love to her, after she had long since fallen asleep, Cloud arose from the bed. He wrapped himself in a silk bathrobe and walked soundlessly out of the bedroom and through the apartment. In the front hall, he stared for several moments at the cherry credenza, almost as if he was admiring it. He got to his knees. Reaching down, he felt the bulge of a gun taped to the bottom of the credenza. Slowly, he pulled the gun out: Stechkin APS with a black silencer threaded into the muzzle.
Cloud went to the apartment door and waited, leaning against the door, listening for more than a minute but hearing nothing. He raised the Stechkin with his left hand and trained it on the door. With his right hand, Cloud turned the doorknob, slowly, until it cracked open. He spied the guard to the left, seated on the floor, oblivious. Cloud pulled the door open, then triggered the suppressed Stechkin. The slug struck the burly Russian in the temple, spraying blood and skull down the hallway.
He heard movement down the hallway, around the corner, near the elevator, out of view. He dropped his left arm to his side, concealing the gun, then walked toward the elevator.
“Miss Basaeyev?” he heard from the second guard.
Cloud stepped around the corner and found the guard, who was standing near the wall. He smiled.
“Mr. Vargarin,” he said. “Is everything all right?”
“No,” said Cloud. “I can’t sleep.”
Cloud swung his arm up and fired. The slug ripped the guard before he could even comprehend what was happening, kicking him backward.
“You, however, don’t seem to have that problem,” added Cloud, making eye contact as the guard slid down the wall, clutching his chest, trying to say something.
Cloud took the elevator to the lobby. As the elevator came to a stop, he raised the weapon. The doors parted. Cloud stepped forward and started firing at the front desk, before he even had time to aim. His first two bullets missed, but it didn’t matter; both guards were seated, legs up. They both reacted too late, reaching for their sidearms just as Cloud pelted them with slugs, hitting one man in the left eye and the other in the forehead, decorating the walls behind them in a riot of crimson, brains, and bone.
Cloud shuffled calmly to the front desk. One of the vodka bottles was sitting there, unopened. He picked it up, yanked the wax-covered cork from the top, and took several sizable gulps. He reached beneath the desk and found the entrance buzzer, hitting it, unlatching the front door to the building. A few seconds later, a small army of men swarmed in from the outside. Two were dressed in suits, like the guards at the front desk; two were in sweaters and slacks, similar to the men upstairs; and two wore one-piece dark green work suits, their hands already covered in purple rubber gloves. Each carried a large duffel bag, inside of which were body bags, industrial cleaning equipment, plaster, wood putty, and small jars of paint for fixing the walls.
The crew went to work, packing up the two corpses. Cloud took several more slugs of vodka.
“Are they in place, Leo?” asked Cloud, looking at one of the men in the cleaning suits.
“The team is in Saint Petersburg.”
“And the backup?”
“Yes, Cloud. The backup. And the backup to the backup. The two women too. They are all highly skilled. The best that money can buy.”
Cloud nodded. Saying nothing, he turned and walked to the elevator.
“If anything—”
“Nothing will happen to her,” said Le
o. “You have my word.”
21
ABOARD THE USS DONALD COOK (DDG-75)
NEAR CÁDIZ, SPAIN
General Torey Krug was standing with five other men on the bridge of the USS Donald Cook, an Arleigh Burke–class guided missile destroyer. They were all looking at the same thing: an illuminated plasma screen tied in to various naval and land-based units. The screen looked like an air traffic control screen, though instead of tracking commercial airliners, this one displayed U.S. military assets, in real time, in the geographic area south of Spain. Krug and his senior officers were tied in to a gamut of teams, including two other Aegis destroyers, two submarines, UAV command centers, and on-the-dirt commanders, including members of SEAL Team 6, now in fastboats off the coast of Spain.
At that moment, those military assets were all doing the same thing: searching for a boat.
The focus was the crowded stretch of water between Spain and Morocco known as the Strait of Gibraltar. Twenty-two UAVs had been scrambled to the area. Gray Eagles, Raptors, and several other drones were flying in low-hover lines back and forth across the narrowest section of the waterway, between Tarifa, Spain, and Eddalya, Morocco, a nine-mile stretch of water Krug believed was the best opportunity to stop the rogue nuclear bomb before it got to open water and the relative freedom of the Atlantic Ocean.
The challenge for Krug and his team was multifaceted. They had only a vague description of the boat. That description, moreover, was of a type of vessel that was extremely common. Already, they’d pinpointed ten trawlers matching the description. They had no idea how fast it was moving. In addition, it was nighttime and, despite various thermal-sensitive cameras, it was difficult to see, and what they were able to see was starting to blend into a continuum.
With the help of the Spanish and Moroccan navies, along with local police forces, a small armada of speedboats patrolled the waters, looking for anything suspicious, their officers equipped with Geiger counters. Already, several boats had been boarded, without result.
Reflexively, Krug kept looking over at the line of clocks displaying time in various countries. It was five A.M. in Spain. Dawn was coming. On the one hand, the improved visibility would help. On the other, each passing hour diminished the chances of finding the boat.