Page 23

Chapter14

Andrei watched the door close behind Ahmad, then looked to Nikita, saying, “What do you think?”

“Sir, I think we make him disappear. My views haven’t changed. I should have tossed him out of the helicopter coming here.”

Andrei laughed and said, “You might be right, and he still has a helicopter flight left. But I think he might be valuable. He gets to America, and we get to control him. For the rest of his life. Might be useful, even if he ends up as an Uber driver.”

“Not if he gives up that you have the treasure. It’s sitting here in the garage. One slip out of his mouth, and you and I will be persona non grata here. Liechtenstein will not look kindly on looting treasures when the European Union and America get in the fray, especially because of the debacle that is happening with Afghanistan. America will be looking for a way to be the hero, and this is it. They already don’t like us. We’ll have to find a new base of operations, and they’re getting fewer and fewer for Russians on the European continent.”

Andrei pursed his lips, putting a finger to them, thinking. He said, “Yes. That is a risk. But I can’t send it back to Russia. It’ll end up in Putin’s hands within days. Or some other thief working in the government. It’s why I’m here instead of in Moscow.”

“Then send it somewhere else, just for safekeeping. It’ll giveus a cutout if it’s found. Maybe to a safe in Zurich at a bank, or something like that. Just to get it away from us if this guy talks.”

Andrei paced a bit, then said, “Get him his clothes. Give him some loaded credit cards and a sheaf of U.S. dollars. Say, ten thousand. Let him stay at the hotel for a few days until I make an ultimate decision. You’ll either take him to Zurich, or lose him out of the helicopter over the border. Not sure yet.”

Nikita nodded, saying, “Up to you, boss.”

Andrei waved his hand and said, “Bring in Branko. We have more important things to do than collecting antiquities.”

Nikita left the room, returning a few moments later with the scraggly twenty-something Ahmad had sat across from. Branko entered the room and plopped down like he belonged, belying his clothing. Andrei saw it as a sign of disrespect, but one he was used to. The kids he employed had a skill in computers that few others possessed, but he was a little sick of the insolence. Well, not insolence, just a lack of understanding of the power he wielded. Which he knew Nikita would solve.

Nikita came up behind him and snatched him out of the chair by his hair.

In Russian, he snarled, “Show some respect.”

Branko’s eyes flew open as he flailed around. Nikita slapped his hands away and held him upright, his hand still in the hair, Branko’s head bent back.

Branko nodded as best he could, shouting, “I meant no disrespect!”

Andrei flicked his eyes, and Nikita released the youth, letting him fall back into the chair.

He rubbed his head, feeling the pull of the hair, and said, “What did I do?”

Andrei said, “You disrespected me. You and your men need to learn respect. I pay you for your services, but I can just as easily kill you. Do you understand?”

Now fully attentive, the slacker attitude from the foyer long gone, Branko nodded, his eyes wide.

Andrei said, “So, where do we stand?”

Branko said, “The test went perfectly. The zero-click penetration worked just as advertised.”

The usual penetration of a computer system for ransomware employed social engineering, whereby one enticed someone to click on a malicious link through email or some other communication and inadvertently caused a cascading effect of malware in the system, such as John Podesta had done in 2016 when he’d tried to change a password from a site that wasn’t authentic, allowing the Russian state to penetrate his entire system. Zero click meant they’d no longer need such efforts from the far end. They could inject the malware without anyone’s help. It was unique, in that it didn’t require someone in the targeted organization being dumb enough to click on a link.

“So it will work on the final target?”

“Yes, as long as they’re running Windows or Linux. Which they will be. Nobody is going to use the Apple operating system for what we want to hit.”

“Good. Who did you attack?”

“We just picked a company out of Washington, DC. Someplace called Blaisdell Consulting. They do work for the government, so we figured it was a good fit, but you wouldn’t believe what we found.”

“What?”

“We thought Blaisdell Consulting would be just a one-off,where we’d get some ransom and test the system, but the Trojan horse kept going. Before we knew it, we were embedded in like twenty different companies. It was like that Kaseya hack last year, where the infected operating system was used by a bazillion different companies, and they in turn were infected. We had no idea it would go so far.”

“So Blaisdell Consulting is a software firm?”

“No. Not at all. We have no idea how the various companies were connected, but their IT architecture sure was, and we flooded the entire system.”