Threat Vector

SEVENTY-ONE

An hour later, Clark, Biery, Kraft, and Kovalenko arrived at the Russian spy’s Dupont Circle apartment. It was almost four a.m., nearly an hour after Kovalenko had been ordered to report in by Center. Kovalenko was nervous about the exchange to come, but more than that, he was nervous about what would happen to him afterward, at the hands of John Clark.

Before they entered the building John leaned in to Kovalenko’s ear. He spoke softly. “Valentin. Here is what you need to understand. You have one chance to get this right.”

“I do this and I walk?”

“You do this and you go into our custody. I let you go when it is all over.”

Kovalenko did not react negatively to this. On the contrary, he said, “Good. I don’t want to fuck over Center and be left alone.”

They entered the apartment; it was dark, but Valentin did not turn on any lights. The laptop was closed, and John, Melanie, and Gavin stood to the side of the desk, so that when the camera came on they would be out of the field of view.

Kovalenko stepped into the kitchen, and Clark rushed in after him, thinking he was trying to get a knife. But instead he reached into his freezer, pulled out a frosty bottle of vodka, and took several long swigs. He turned and headed out to his computer, his bottle in his hand.

He passed Clark with an apologetic shrug.

Biery had given the Russian a flash drive loaded with the malware he built from FastByte22’s file uploader and his RAT. Valentin slipped it into the USB port of the laptop, and then opened the machine.

In seconds he was logging in to Cryptogram, initiating a conversation with Center.

Kovalenko typed “SC Lavender.” This was his authentication code. He sat there in the dark at his desk, tired and worn-looking, hoping like hell he could pull this off so that neither Center nor Clark killed him when this was all over.

He felt like he was walking a tightrope, with a long fall into the abyss on either side of him.

A green line of text on the black background: “What happened?”

“There were men at Hendley Associates that Crane did not detect. After we entered and took the data from the server, they attacked. They are all dead. Crane and his men.”

The pause was shorter than Kovalenko had expected.

“How did you survive?”

“Crane ordered me out of the building while they fought. I hid in the trees.”

“Your instructions were to provide assistance if needed.”

“If I had carried out my instructions, you would have lost all your assets. If your assassins could not kill the Americans there, I surely could not do it, either.”

“How do you know they are dead?”

“Their bodies were removed. I saw them.”

Now the pause was long. Minutes long. Kovalenko imagined someone was getting directions from someone else on how to proceed. He typed a series of question marks, to which he received no immediate response.

A new Cryptogram window opened, and Valentin saw the phone icon, just like earlier in the day.

He put on the headset and clicked the icon. “Da?”

“This is Center.” It was definitely the same man as earlier in the day. “Were you injured?”

“Not badly. No.”

“Were you followed?”

Kovalenko knew Center was listening to his voice, trying to detect signs of deception. He was also certainly watching him right then via the camera. “No. Of course not.”

“How do you know?”

“I am a professional. Who can follow me at four in the morning?”

There was a long pause. Finally the man said, “Send upload.” And he hung up.

Kovalenko uploaded Gavin Biery’s file from the flash drive.

A minute later Center typed, “Received.”

Valentin’s hands were shaking now. He typed, “Instructions?”

Softly, and barely moving his lips, he whispered to Biery, “Is that it?”

Biery responded, “Yes. It should work almost immediately.”

“You are certain?”

Biery was not certain. But he was confident. “Yeah.”

A line of Cryptogram text appeared. “What is this?”

Kovalenko did not respond.

“This is an application? This is not what was requested.”

Kovalenko looked at the camera.

Slowly he lifted his hand in front of his face in a fist and extended his middle finger.

Clark, Kraft, and Biery all stood to the side, mouths agape.

It took only seconds for a new line of text to appear on Cryptogram.

“You are dead.”

The connection terminated instantly.

“He’s off,” Kovalenko said.

Biery smiled. “Wait for it.”

Clark, Kovalenko, and Kraft all looked at him.

“Wait for what?” asked Valentin.

“Wait for it,” he repeated very slowly.

Melanie said, “He logged off. He can’t send any—”

A file popped up in the Cryptogram window. Kovalenko, still sitting in front of the machine, looked up to Gavin Biery. “Should I…”

“Please do.”

Kovalenko clicked on the file, and a single picture expanded on the monitor. All four people in the dark apartment leaned forward to get a better look at it.

A young woman, with Asian features, eyeglasses, and short black hair, sat in front of the camera, her fingers resting on a computer keyboard. Over her left shoulder, an older Asian man in a white shirt and loose necktie leaned close, peering to a point just below the camera.

Valentin was confused. “Who is…”

Gavin Biery touched the girl with his fingertip. “I don’t know who that is, but that guy, ladies and gentlemen, is the MFIC.”

Melanie and Valentin just looked at him.

Biery said, “Dr. Tong Kwok Kwan, code name Center.”

John Clark smiled and said, “The Motherfucker in Charge.”