Sokov knew the old-timer hated computers and thought little of what he referred to as his “socially inept degenerates” that he kept in The Dungeon. The one thing the Bratva leader couldn’t ignore about his new recruits was the bottom line. The Russian was amazed at just how lucrative his army of hackers had become in just a few short years.
Operation Berlin had been in process for the past eighteen months. It was the most sophisticated and audacious operation the Bratva leader and his siloviki backers had ever attempted, and the powerful group of Russians expected it to yield the biggest payday in history.
The name of the operation was symbolic. The hatred and anger that burned deep inside him and his comrades was no less than the day the Wall came down. If he were asked, he would probably say their hatred of the United States of America was even stronger.
In their enemies’ eyes, the collapse of the Berlin Wall was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union, and the event had served as bitter motivation over the years that had passed. There had been some close calls along the way, but this was the operation that would put balance back into the world and finally swing the pendulum in their favor.
These men loathed the United States and had sworn to transform their motherland into what it once was: powerful, feared, and communist. They had planned the modern-day version of a coup d’état, one where they would use technology to cause enough chaos for the American people to revolt.
Chapter 28
Dennis Zander looked over at the door to the server room when it opened. A wiry man whom he knew as Mikhail appeared, his frame backlit by the bright lights from inside. A loud voice could be heard barking out in Russian, before the door sealed shut behind him. The tone of the voice was angry. The hacker had been working hard to learn the language, and his work had finally paid off. He knew they were talking about the death of a US senator’s son.
Zander shrunk nervously in his chair as Mikhail approached the group he was sitting with.
“Some shit is going down,” Mikhail said with a thick Russian accent. His voice was deeper than it should have been.
“Good thing I won’t be here to catch any grief,” Zander said nervously. “I need to head out for my dentist appointment.” He shrugged his shoulders and forced a smile. He always talked too much when he got nervous, and this time was no different. “Now that I think about it, I’m not sure which would be worse. Maybe I should just stay here.” He laughed, and it sounded more contrived than he would have liked.
Mikhail wasn’t amused. “Very funny,” he said. “I suggest you not act like such a fool.”
“What’s the big deal?” Zander asked, unable to shut himself up.
The Russian shook his head and changed the subject. His tone was gravely serious. “When will your work be completed?”
“I’ve got data for the past three months from the locations you requested. It’s already loaded on the servers. The script is inserting the records into the database as we speak. It should be finished in a couple of hours. The script will fire off the rest of the jobs once that’s done.” He was uncomfortable but tried to act normal. “I’d say it’ll be done by the time I get back from my appointment.”
From the conversation he had just overheard, Zander knew coming back wouldn’t be an option if he wanted to stay alive. He hoped his bullshit sounded convincing.
“Good,” Mikhail said with a raised eyebrow, and walked away.
Since the unexpected death of his mother a month ago, Zander had been hell-bent on figuring out a way to get back at the Bratva. The bastards had threatened to kill her if he didn’t come to work for them, and the fact that the mafia had robbed him of being there to support her during the final days of her life was something he wouldn’t let go.
He imagined her fear and sense of loneliness and would never forgive himself, even though it wasn’t his fault. Now he had nothing to lose. In his mind, he represented the only chance for his fellow hackers to make it out of this miserable situation. The trick was finding a way to get back at them without getting his head blown off. He needed to make sure there was no way they could figure out what he’d done.
Running into Maximillian Soller in the hacker forums was serendipitous. His username, mi11Ion2, made it a fairly simple task for someone with Zander’s unique skill set to confirm his identity after tracing the communications back to his college dorm. It was the break he’d been waiting for. He knew it was a long shot. It would take some serious luck for his selection of the senator’s son to materialize into a problem for the mafia, but it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
For the time being, he had the advantage. Nobody knew his mother was dead. The hackers all lived in fear knowing the Bratva might be tracking their every move. As far as he could tell, the Bratva only tracked their movements by their cell phones and the video surveillance in and around the apartment building where they all stayed. The complex was owned by Kozlov, so he never felt comfortable there.
“What’s going on?” Zander heard one of the guards ask Mikhail.
“Dimitri is sifting through the logs trying to figure out who put the senator’s son in the queue,” Mikhail said.
The queue was what they called the list of hackers who were good enough to install their bots without getting caught. Zander knew Soller wasn’t a skilled hacker, and that was one of the main reasons he chose him. Maximillian Soller II was a time bomb he hoped would eventually go off. Zander was purposely sloppy when deleting the communications between him and Soller. He was equally as careless with the messages between the other hacker recruits. The more opportunities he left for the authorities to uncover something untoward, the more chances of the Bratva being exposed.
He was concerned about the length of time it would take Sokov to work through the logs to figure out who had done the deed. He decided he only had a couple of hours before they would come after him. The hackers had been put on lock-down before, so he needed to move fast to make sure he wasn’t trapped in The Dungeon.
Zander had never been so thankful for a dentist appointment in his life. He walked over to the guard and submitted himself to the routine search. When they were finished, he rushed through the dank catacombs of the building and out to the street. He took the bus straight to his apartment, knowing he wouldn’t need a dentist if he didn’t hurry.
Chapter 29
The benign clouds above had delivered night early. Smells swirled through the air of the nation’s capital and propelled summer into full swing. Plants were in bloom, and a light breeze delivered hints of culinary creations from a line of restaurants up ahead.
Trent Turner cautiously walked down Connecticut Avenue toward the Marriott Wardman Park. Out of habit, he would take a detour into a store, this time a Starbucks, to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He decided it would be a good idea to double back through a neighborhood before making his final approach to the hotel.
Turner hailed a taxi outside the coffee shop and directed the driver to take Cathedral Avenue and then head down Woodley Road toward the Marriott. A cab was his best option to go in unnoticed. Just before turning into the hotel driveway, he noted the gray Chrysler 300 parked on the street. There was a black scrape down the front driver’s-side quarter panel. He sized up the damage with his rental car in mind and knew the car’s owner was somehow connected to his brother’s death. He wasn’t a man that believed in coincidences, so he began to run the possible scenarios for Millar’s pickup through his head. It was an extremely busy hotel, and he would never risk involving innocent people.