The Backup Asset

…46

Olga and Nikolai, Smolin’s cover daughter and son-in-law, had left the dining room immediately after finishing dinner and cleaning up the table. They were still uncomfortable in his presence and kept quiet almost all the time.

Smolin understood how he intimidated them; having a high-ranking SVR officer stationed in their home while on a covert mission in the United States was a dangerous position for them to be in. However, they had been nothing but supportive and dedicated since he’d arrived, proud and eager to serve Mother Russia the best they possibly could.

Well-trained by the SVR, prior to their arrival on a visa lottery green card, the Novachenkos proved to be unexpected assets for Smolin. He had to recognize the wisdom of the case manager who had recommended them and their residence for Smolin’s base of operations.

Alone with his laptop, Smolin logged into his webmail server and started drafting a new message. He no longer used Gmail or Yahoo; not since he’d learned the NSA swept those servers systematically, and that the major technology players of the Silicon Valley had signed secret alliances with the NSA, participating directly in security actions alongside the American government. Bastards…

He had moved to a smaller, private server that managed domains for sale, and, under one of those domains, he had set up a webmail account. Well, it hadn’t really been his idea. Valentina Davydova had taught him to bypass the monster servers and go with the smaller, inconspicuous email servers, more likely to be omitted from the systematic security sweeps the NSA conducted.

Smolin typed his email message. The subject line read, “Happy Birthday To You!” and the message body contained a few lines of text.

When he finished typing, Smolin read the message again and smiled. He was happy with his idea. The message read like a plain birthday email greeting; yet he was clearly telling his boss, Vitaliy Myatlev, that he had deployed his first few assets and already had valuable pieces of information to send home.

Satisfied, he closed the message without sending it, saving it into the drafts folder of his webmail application. Sending it would mean the message would have to go through the NSA’s screening, and why risk it? Even if the message seemed inconspicuous, it was better if he didn’t send it at all.

Instead, he had set up a communications system before departing from Russia. He had shared his username and password for that email account with Myatlev. Soon, Myatlev or one of his people would log in using a proxy server and read the message saved in the drafts folder of the webmail application, then delete the draft or edit it to reply. No email message would ever cross the NSA-guarded servers, because, technically, no information would leave the American-based servers heading toward Russia.

Wasn’t technology great? Too bad he couldn’t use the same method to transmit the actual intelligence; the risk was too big with large amounts of data, schematics, or images that could trigger the interest of who-knows-what network engineer to sneak a peek. Even encrypted photos ran the same risk. The NSA was aware of the practice to embed information into the background of banal photos, and they screened every server, every photo-sharing application, everything. He had to find another way to send the intel home, and he had to move fast. The stuff he was sitting on could do miracles for Russia’s aged military technology. Maybe he could ask Mother how she’d like her gifts sent to her; maybe she had an idea.

He reopened the webmail drafts folder and adjusted his message, then saved the unsent message, closed everything, and went to bed.