by Ty Patterson
Nikolai was smarter than his father.
He rarely met his customers and removed all evidence that he was Anatole’s son once his father passed away.
That wasn’t difficult, because his father, who had been based in St. Petersburg, had been a secretive man with few friends. He hadn’t exposed Nikolai to any of his business associates, and the couple of friends who knew, were old.
Nikolai was home-schooled, and all his tutors met untimely deaths when they finished teaching him.
Once Nikolai moved to Moscow, he ended contact with his two friends, who conveniently died a year later. He posed as an employee whenever he was with clients and shrugged his shoulders when they asked him about the business’s owners.
‘A private group took over Anatole’s business,’ he would explain. ‘I am just a salaryman.’ He would laugh, and they would laugh with him.
Nikolai ended the arms-trading business when he turned forty. That was five years back, and the shipment to Hidalgo was one of his last.
Nikolai’s new business venture had started when he had come across Vasily Seleznez. He was in need of a hacker to penetrate British security systems and steal their nuclear submarine plans. Vasily had been recommended by another associate.
The arms dealer hadn’t been impressed with the tousled-haired, sleepy-eyed, stammering younger man. He had planned to use the hacker and dispose of him when the job was done.
Dispose, in his world, meant killing.
He had observed the hacker closely and, while watching his fingers at work, a few ideas had come to him.
‘How good are you?’ he had asked.
The hacker didn’t reply. His head bobbed as he listened to music on his headphones, his eyes nearly closed as lines of code streamed across his screen.
Nikolai was tempted to rip his earmuffs off but decided to let the man complete his job.
It took the hacker three days, and then he repeated his question.
‘No one has caught me,’ Vasily shrugged.
‘Maybe you haven’t done anything worthwhile,’ Nikolai prodded.
The hacker swung back to his screen, his fingers dancing, and brought up a page.
‘That’s the National Security Agency.’
He typed rapidly and a tree appeared. Folders.
‘I am in their system. I have entered the FBI’s system, the CIA’s —’
‘LEAVE! RIGHT NOW!’
Vasily rose and started leaving the room.
‘NO, YOU FOOL,’ Nikolai roared, ‘EXIT THAT SYSTEM.’
The hacker went back to his screen, and the screen changed to a game he was playing.
The arms dealer brought out his handgun and toyed with it. ‘You’ll never hack into any government system without my authorization.’
‘I have other clients.’
‘No longer. You will work for me. You will live here. Everything you want will be delivered here. You will not leave this house.’
Vasily looked around the lavishly outfitted room and mentally compared it to the small, cramped apartment he had in Kapotnya. The neighborhood was several miles away from the city center, to the southeast. It had a high migrant population, depressing brick housing.
Nikolai’s mansion was in Rublyovka, a prestigious area in the west of Moscow. It was called the ‘billionaires neighborhood’ for a reason. The country’s wealthiest had their estates in the neighborhood. Gated communities offered kottedzhi for those who were mere millionaires. A high-end shopping mall offered all the luxuries a billionaire would need.
The Rublyovo-Uspensekoye Highway connected the neighborhood with the city center, a road that was heavily guarded by police and often closed for the movement of politicians.
‘What will I have to do?’ Vasily asked.
‘What you’ve just done.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next day, the sisters trawled through the calls made and received at the Blue River.
No Russian accent in any of the calls, which didn’t surprise them. Most of the calls were routine. Delivery orders and instructions, staff checking in, customers booking tables.
The evening’s call records were more interesting. Hidalgo was in action, directing shipments to various warehouses, receiving or organizing payment, and the twins were able to identify two Mexican cartels he was talking to.
However, that wasn’t who they were after.
‘We should find a way to send this to Chang,’ Beth grumbled, making a face when she tasted her cold coffee.
‘Hmm.’
She looked over at her sister, who was looking at the screen, her face scrunched. Meghan was the more analytical of the two. She could see several steps ahead. Beth was the impulsive one. The two complemented each other.
‘What’s bothering you?’ Beth strode to her sister’s side and watched her screen.
Meghan had logged into the darknet site and was browsing through the discussion forum. ‘Why would a millionaire spend his time on such a game?’ she growled.
‘Is there anything else in his records?’
‘Nope —’ And then she leaned forward when an idea struck, making the game disappear with a series of commands and getting Werner to pull two files and compare rows.
‘What?’ Beth asked, not understanding.
‘Elementary mistake.’ Meghan tapped her keyboard, waiting for the supercomputer to finish. ‘We should have compared the … yes!’ she fist-pumped triumphantly when a number flashed on the screen.
‘Care to explain?’
‘The bank accounts that Werner got for Hidalgo and Kloops.’
‘You compared them,’ Beth caught on, her voice rising. ‘And there’s one account in common?’
‘Yeah, the Bermuda account that Hidalgo received six million from.’
‘Wasn’t there a Russian bank involved, too?’
‘Yes. That account paid three million, but that account does not figure in Kloops’ records.’
‘Nine million dollars?’ Beth whistled. ‘That must have bought a lot of guns.’
‘Don’t forget there must have been some cash payment, too, but look at this.’ Meghan brought up another transaction. ‘Kloops paid three million to that Bermuda bank. Look at the time stamps.’
Hidalgo’s payments matched what he had told them. They were five years old. The millionaire had paid into that bank a week before he had attacked Angie.
‘How much did he pay?’
‘Two million.’
‘Two million for her life,’ Beth said softly. ‘That’s …’ she trailed off.
‘That’s high,’ Meghan agreed. ‘Assuming that’s what the payment was for. She wasn’t a high-value target. It’s high-ranking politicians and business people who command such a price. For the man on the street, a hitter can be hired for a few Ks.’
‘We’re sure there’s no link to Konstantin’s business?’
Meghan opened another screen and pointed to rows of files. ‘All of his personal emails and calls. Werner’s hacked into his system, too. We’ve got records of his cell as well. No one called to blackmail him. No threats received.’
‘Who owns that account?’
‘Some shell company. Company called Phoenix Trading.’
‘No records of any directors or officers?’
‘An accountancy firm in Bermuda. They have a post-office box address.’
‘Which means they probably don’t exist,’ Beth swore, kicked at a trash can and sent it rolling. ‘Nikolai must be communicating with the bank directly for any business.’
‘Any link between Kloops and all the hitters? The Times Square dudes, the ones in the parking lot …’
Meghan did the thing with the commands again. ‘Nothing obvious. Werner’s running in the background and will go through the money trail … but here’s my theory.’
She went to a flip board and dragged it over to their desks.
She drew the timeline of the attacks, listed the locations and the number of attackers. Wrote dow
n the identities of the assailants they knew. That was a small list. Chavez, the Russian criminals and Kloops.
Inserted two boxes: one for the payment Hidalgo received from the Bermuda account, and the other for Kloops’ money transfer. Wrote the sums transferred and their dates.
‘And your theory is …?’ her sister drawled.
‘Let’s assume the first hit was by Kloops. Outside that Fifth Avenue store.’
‘No money trail,’ Beth reminded her.
‘That we know of. Werner’s still checking. Stay with me on this.’
‘Kloops was no shooter, either.’ Beth didn’t budge.
‘He wasn’t an expert shooter, or at least there’s no record of it,’ Meghan corrected her. ‘However, he was a gun owner and a member of a gun club.’
‘Okay, I’ll go along with you for now. He took a shot at her. Missed.’
‘Then he organized grabs. Outside that nightclub, at the premiere. That one, Chavez had her in the back of his car. He could have killed her if he wanted to.’
‘What about the heavies in Times Square and her building?’
‘We don’t know what their intentions were. It’s not as if we were bystanders,’ Meghan replied acidly.
‘Why does he go to an assassin in Queens? And why didn’t he attack by himself?’
‘Because by then Angie was receiving a lot of publicity. We had stopped two attacks. It would have been more difficult. I think he wanted to end whatever mission he was on.’
‘By killing her.’
‘Yeah.’
Beth bought time for herself by going to her desk and picking up her cup of coffee.
‘It has holes. Your theory,’ she said slowly.
‘It does, Ms Obvious. It’s not as if Kloops left a note for us.’
‘The biggest hole,’ Beth continued undeterred, ‘is the other dude who was with Kloops. He could be the person who was gunning for Angie.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Vasily hacked into the election systems of several American states. He didn’t choose them at random. Nikolai gave him the targets. A special election in a Midwest state for which the hacker penetrated the system and altered votes. A similar election in a northern state, where Vasily manipulated the count.
‘How are we benefitting?’ the hacker asked when he had finished the tasks.
‘You are smart,’ Nikolai leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms behind his head. ‘Figure it out.’
Vasily had a glass-walled cabin within the gunrunner’s enormous office. Nikolai could watch him at work without leaving his seat. The hacker didn’t complain. He had never had an office before. He wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
‘You have stopped the arms business,’ the hacker thought aloud. Over time, the two men had become close. They weren’t friends; however, Nikolai had started sharing details of his business with the younger man.
‘You have Russian clients. Politicians, businessmen.’ Vasily snapped his fingers suddenly, his eyes lighting up, ‘They pay you for my work. They want particular candidates elected in the U.S.’
Nikolai smiled thinly and didn’t confirm nor deny. He presented another list to the hacker, who studied it, a frown on his face.
‘These are …’
‘Councils in Britain. They have elections coming up. Those I have highlighted are the ones I want you to go after.’
Vasily went.
The arms dealer observed him as the hacker worked. He watched him as he hacked and as he relaxed.
Play time for Vasily was games. Nikolai learned about various role-play games from the younger man. One particular game caught his interest, and he questioned the hacker at length.
‘You want to play?’ the tousle-haired man asked eagerly.
‘Nyet. It has no interest for me.’
But it had, though not in the way the hacker thought.
It took a few more months for Nikolai to refine his idea. He spoke to a few people, very discreetly, about a possible interest in what he was planning.
He was astounded by their reaction. They wanted to know when he was starting his ‘venture.’
He made a business plan; wrote down the risks and the benefits. There was no significant investment he needed to make. He had Vasily already. He wrote down some names and put some numbers next to them. He knew those figures were realistic. He knew that world; he had employed killers. That was the kind of money one spent on taking out particular targets.
Risks? Obviously, there were many. What he was planning wasn’t a legal business. However, in this ‘venture’ there was no need for warehouses, and no middlemen like Hidalgo needed to be involved.
There would be intermediaries, he corrected himself. People who provided information, like private investigators, transport providers, arms providers.
He had existing networks for those kinds of people. The more he thought about it, the more he liked his idea. The risks were lower simply because there would be no connection between what happened in the real world and the online world.
Besides, he had his ultimate protection: the man in the Kremlin.
The next step was to talk to Vasily. By then, the hacker knew a lot about his business. He had moved on from hacking into elections to manipulating social media advertising. Vasily was a criminal. But then, he always had been, and what Nikolai was going to propose wouldn’t shock him, the arms dealer reasoned.
Nevertheless, he prepared for his meeting by carrying his Beretta in his pocket.
The hacker’s eyes turned wide when he heard Nikolai’s idea. His mouth dropped open, and for a moment the gunrunner wondered if he should kill Vasily.
‘A real-life version of —’
‘Yes.’
‘Wow,’ the hacker was lost for words. He looked at his screen, which had a game on it. Turned back to his sponsor. ‘How will it work?’
‘Can you design it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not just the —’
‘Yes, I know,’ Vasily said impatiently, ‘the communication, the payment, the characters. It’s not the first time I have developed games. I am asking about the outside —’
‘Leave that to me.’ It was Nikolai’s turn to interrupt.
‘Go,’ he told the hacker.
And Vasily went.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Andropov provided further breaks for Beth and Meghan.
‘Your man,’ he told them in a video call, ‘is Ivan Biryukov,’ referring to the second man with Kloops. ‘He was a shooter for a few low-level gangs in Moscow. He dropped off the radar a year back. Looks like he came to your country.’
‘Not legally,’ Beth told him. ‘There’s no record of his arrival. Not with that name.’
‘He was a criminal,’ Andropov shrugged. ‘He knew how to live off the grid.’
‘He wouldn’t be the one after Angie?’ Meghan asked him.
‘I doubt it,’ the Russian replied. Someone knocked on his door and entered. He waved the flunky away. ‘He had a few kills to his name. A bar owner who was refusing to make payments to the Mafia. A rival gang leader. He didn’t have the brains or the resources to plan something like that.’
There goes your theory, Meghan smirked at Beth.
‘I have something else,’ said Andropov, drawing their attention. ‘Those six men who you killed. I think I know who recruited them.’
‘Nikolai?’ the sisters asked in one voice.
‘No,’ the Russian shook his head. ‘Nikolai, if that’s the name he uses, has not come up anywhere.’ He paused to allow them to work that out.
Andropov’s agency had dossiers for every major criminal in Russia. Its database was as vast as the FSB’s. Rumors were that the high-profile agency came to the secretive outfit if it needed help.
‘He has connections,’ Meghan said.
Andropov gave her a thumbs-up. ‘Not ordinary connections.’
‘All the way to the top.’
‘Yes, that’s
the only way to have zero footprint.’
‘So, this dude —’
‘He is Max Sidorov,’ he read from a file. ‘I am meeting him tonight.’
‘He agreed?’ Beth asked in surprise.
Andropov’s flinty smile was her answer.
Grigor Andropov left his office at five pm and was immediately surrounded by his security detail. The spymaster, which was what his bosses called him even though he didn’t run any spies, stood outside the building for a moment, apparently breathing the air while discreetly checking out the street. Second nature to him.
His agency was housed in an unattractive building a block behind Lubyanka Square. The FSB had its offices in that square, and it attracted all the tourists. Not many visitors ventured to Andropov’s block, a fact he was very happy about. He wasn’t in the eyeball business.
His Mercedes E Class came around, and a guard sprang forward to open the door. Andropov seated himself in the back, while one of his bodyguards seated himself in the front.
‘Vin Zavod,’ he directed his driver, ‘near Kursky railway station.’
The driver nodded. He knew the neighborhood, which once had factories, but now had art galleries and theaters. Sidorov had been summoned to meet in the agency’s office near the train tracks.
Even as the German-make car slid through the streets of Moscow, two agency men were hauling in the recruiter and taking him to the office.
It should be an interesting meeting, Andropov thought.
It would have been, if it had happened.
There was no one at the office when the Russian arrived. He waited. It wasn’t uncommon for people to be late in Moscow. He could have called his men but he didn’t. He minimized electronic communication, a habit acquired from his days as a field operative.
He broke custom when his men were half an hour late. They didn’t respond. Forty-five minutes later, he flagged the delay to his agency.
Fifteen minutes later, three of his operatives found Sidorov, in a garbage bin behind a large shopping outlet near Kursky station.
Andropov’s men were there, too, their bodies riddled with bullets.