The Backup Asset

…43

Vitaliy Myatlev and Defense Minister Dimitrov lit their cigars, waiting impatiently for the aide to finish his work. The two of them stood by the open window overlooking Moscow’s cityscape under a rare and wonderful blue sky.

The young aide set up a tray of hors d’oeuvres on the small coffee table. Small saltine crackers in a silver bowl. Beluga caviar in another bowl, this one sitting on a bed of ice. Pate de foie gras on a crystal tray, set on bite-sized pieces of toast. An unopened bottle of vodka, Myatlev’s favorite brand, Stolichnaya, ready to serve in an ice bucket.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” the aide asked. Myatlev just waved him away and the young man disappeared.

“What are we celebrating, Vitya?”

“How can you ask that?” Myatlev responded, feigning offense. “Only the first successful recruitment in our new network of agents. And what a first!”

“Smolin’s asset?”

“Da,” Myatlev replied, engulfed in thick cigar smoke. “Smolin said the first set of documents is impressive.”

“Tell me already, I’m growing older by the minute,” Dimitrov said humorously.

“Smolin’s asset confirmed that the Americans have the laser cannon weapon ready to deploy.”

“Fuck it… Petya’s going to be mad, so mad. He’ll say we were asleep at the wheel again. You know how much he hates any news that anyone’s ahead in anything.”

“Smolin’s source is very close to the project; he’ll give us more intel. Then we’ll know more.”

Dimitrov reached for the bottle and poured vodka in two glasses, then threw some ice cubes in them. He handed one to Myatlev and raised his in a joyless cheer.

“Ura,” he said, then gulped the liquid.

“Ura,” Myatlev said in unison, then continued, “You keep forgetting something, Mishka. You keep forgetting we should celebrate.

“Hard for me to think of celebrating, when the news is so bad.”

“Yes, but think of the big picture,” Myatlev insisted. “You, more than anyone else in this government, should be able to see the big picture. We have a new network in place. We have new handlers in the field, recruiting and getting us results. We have intel, good intel, and we’ll have better intel soon. And we have channels that we’ve tested now and we know they work. We’re back in business, Mishka, like in the old days.”

“Good,” Dimitrov cheered up a little, “I can drink to that!”

Myatlev quickly obliged and refilled their glasses with generous amounts of vodka.

“It only took Smolin a couple of weeks to hook his first asset, just a couple of weeks. Do you know how rare this kind of talent is? Even for us?”

Dimitrov nodded appreciatively.

“And I have found more like him. We can deploy all the good ones, to consolidate our network of assets.”

“What are you going after, Vitya?”

“Big data, Mishka, I am going after big data.”

Dimitrov rubbed his forehead thoughtfully.

“Do you want to hear me say I’m too old for this game? I won’t say it. Maybe I’m too old for your methods, but not for the game.”

“We’re both old fucks, Mishka, don’t kid yourself. But we can still get it up, we can get the job done like never before. That’s why we have hordes of young people in our organizations, da?”

Both men laughed hard, clicked their glasses, and drank their vodka.

Myatlev invited Dimitrov to approach the coffee table and try an appetizer.

“Now tell me,” Dimitrov asked, “what’s with this big data you’re talking about?”

“There isn’t anything you can’t find out when you’re willing to grab data in a massive way. The Americans are joining all their databases now, associating what people do with where they work and what they spend money on. Such incredible power.”

“And you want us to do the same?”

“Umm… yes, but in a different way. I want us to create backup plans to our backup plans, to grab any amount of intel there’s to be had out there.”

“On what?” Dimitrov asked, his eyebrows at an angle, conveying his confusion.

Myatlev stuck two of his right-hand fingers in the caviar and licked them, letting out a groan of satisfaction.

“On anything,” Myatlev replied. “Even if we don’t know on what, they will.”

Dimitrov swallowed a cracker dipped in Beluga, then said, “Now I am convinced you lost it. You’re not making any sense, my friend. I think the stress of life and of working with Abramovich has caused you some permanent brain damage,” he ended, half-jokingly, patting Myatlev on his shoulder.

“Nah… nothing like that,” Myatlev reassured him between bites of pate de foie gras washed down with another sip of vodka, “nothing like this, you’ll see. I’ll explain.”

“Huh… I’m curious to hear it,” Dimitrov said, then sat in a large leather armchair, stretching his legs, unbuttoning his jacket, and choosing a cigar.

“Just imagine we deploy a hundred assets, managed by ten handlers, on the American East Coast. We don’t know what to look for, but they don’t know that. So the handlers simply tell them to bring valuable information — the latest research, new technologies, and so on. We grab all that, we decrypt it, we study it.”

“Nah… that is ridiculous, Vitya.”

“I agree, some of the intel will be unusable crap, but some of it will be good. Good enough to let us know at least what’s out there worth looking for. Then we target our intelligence-gathering efforts, once we know what they’re doing.”

“So, you’re saying…”

“I’m saying Russia hasn’t conducted any decent intelligence work in the past two decades, Mishka, no offense intended. The Chinese are ahead of us in intelligence work, Mishka, the fucking Chinese! We have a huge gap. We don’t know who the players are any more and what they’re doing. This laser cannon thing caught us by complete surprise. And it was a pure shot in the dark.”

“Don’t tell me we don’t have lasers…” Dimitrov said, a hint of irritation coloring his voice.

“We do, but ours can’t be installed on battleships. First, we never thought of that, then second, we seem to be unable to make them smaller than a house.”

“Fuck…” Dimitrov took another drag from his cigar and blew the smoke out in small circles toward the open window.

“You see my point? The laser cannon intel was a shot in the dark. Smolin had no idea he had to ask for it. He just put the bait out for the asset, and the asset delivered one big motherfucking surprise.”

“How did he even find this asset?”

“He started from a list of interesting companies, from information that’s publicly available on the Internet. Now you see?”

“What?”

“What we could do with this type of approach, if we go after data and intelligence in a big way.”

Dimitrov nodded almost imperceptibly, then whistled quietly in admiration.

“You’re not crazy, my dear friend, not at all. Your diabolical genius still inhabits your attic,” Dimitrov said, tapping his own head with his finger. “But how are you planning to work through that massive amount of data?”

Myatlev smiled cryptically.

“How’s the construction going at your new military data center?”

“Almost done. They’re scheduled to bring in the equip — oh, no,” he stopped mid-sentence, “oh no, the Army needs that center, Vitya.”

“So you’ll build another one, Mishka, what’s the big deal? We need that center to build the biggest intelligence and security center in the world — the ISC. Ours. Just think what we can do with all that computing power.”

“We need that center, Vitya, for satellite operations, for military research, for new weapons.”

“And it will do all that, indirectly. Well, maybe not satellite operations, but everything else I think we can do.”

Dimitrov scratched his head, a doubtful look shading his eyes and wrinkling his forehead.

Myatlev didn’t let him think it for too long; he put a glass filled with vodka on ice in his hand, and toasted enthusiastically,

“To the ISC, ura! To Operation Leapfrog!” Myatlev cheered, baring his teeth in a wide smile filled with contagious confidence.

“To the ISC, to Leapfrog, na zdorovie!” Dimitrov replied, a little hesitant at first, then wholeheartedly.

The two men drank, then sighed loudly in the typical manner Russians express satisfaction when drinking to their hearts’ desire.

“How are you going to pay for this intelligence gathering, Vitya? It will cost a fortune. Intel is expensive, especially in America. People won’t betray their country for five bucks. You’ll need billions for such a bold plan.”

“I’m not going to spend a lot of money,” he said and winked. “I’m going to spend fear. And a little money too, but mostly fear. Just a little bit of carrot for our future assets, but mostly stick.”

Dimitrov looked him in the eye, surprised.

“That’s the value of big data,” Myatlev replied, but Dimitrov’s gaze remained puzzled.

Myatlev smiled a little arrogantly and whispered, “Trust me, everyone can be turned, everyone is gettable.”