Yuri leaned over his hacker’s shoulder in the darkened room and watched the center of three screens. The Russian heavy metal pouring from the man’s headphones almost drowned out Yuri’s jazz. Yuri was streaming the Mambo Kings’ Latin-influenced version of the 1950s classic Blue Rondo a la Turk. There was the one thing he missed about living in America: live jazz. They invented the music and evolved its many forms from ragtime to big bands to modern. Going to a trendy club with a live quartet gave him tremendous joy. Moscow’s jazz clubs were nothing by comparison.
One day he would return to the clubs in Chicago, New York, New Orleans. He would arrive in style with the Cirkus manager’s daughter on his arm. He savored a few more notes of the pounding piano melody, then paused his music and tapped the programmer’s shoulder. “Status?”
“The first was underbooked.” He dropped his headphones to his neck and faced his boss. “They changed equipment. Nothing I could do.”
“Monitor that one and keep looking.”
“There will be one that is perfect. Give it time.”
“We don’t have time. We have an hour. Maybe.” Yuri glared at the man. “Keep looking.”
The programmer shrugged and returned to his screens.
Yuri stood in the center of the room and surveyed the round wall of computer screens. There had to be a perfect pair somewhere.
Roman looked up and pointed to his screen. Yuri crossed to him.
“There is a message in the database they sent us yesterday.” Roman tapped a screen full of social media data about Americans. “Someone named Brad wants you to call him about hackers without borders.”
“What is wrong with you?” Yuri’s blood rose with his voice. “Everyone is working on the assignment. The social media projects are on hold.”
“It’s worth checking out because the guy seems to know—”
“Most likely, this ‘Brad’ guy is FSB. He’s testing for spies. Answer him, and you’re a dead man. Now get to work.”
Yuri pushed his hand into his pocket to stop himself from decking the young man. With all the western influence in the room, an officer couldn’t hit a man anymore. He calmed himself and returned to the center of the room. He checked off each of the monitors to see if anyone else had strayed from his assignment.
One of Lieutenant Vasili’s displays looked promising. He resumed the Mambo Kings and watched the numbers scrolling by. Vasili sensed his stare and glanced over his shoulder. Yuri raised his brows. Vasili shook his head and turned back to his monitors.
Strangelove sent Yuri a text via the GRU’s homegrown version of Snapchat that deleted everything after being read. “Are you working on my project? Expected results by now.”
Yuri bit the inside of his cheek to prevent writing back something snarky about the banda’s growing workload. He texted back “soon”.
There was something impersonal in Strangelove’s orders lately. As if he no longer cared about Yuri’s banda. Strangelove’s previous direction was chilling. Don’t get caught. If you do, do not worry. I’ll handle everything.
Strangelove knew nothing about Americans. They were fierce individualists until someone attacked their country. Strangelove might think he could handle things, but he was no match for them. More troubling was the fact that Strangelove was a seasoned veteran who came up during the Cold War. He would know that. So. Why no written orders? Did Popov really approve this assignment? Was Strangelove playing some game in which Yuri and his banda were pawns? Yuri scratched his beard.
Whatever the cagey old general was up to, Yuri would have to untangle it after the fact. For now, he would rely on Russian Avos’. His nation’s reliance on fate. Hope. Destiny. For a people ruled by autocrats for a thousand years, Avos’ was a reasonable way to deal with impossible situations. Great writers from Cantemir to Solzhenitsyn had championed the mindset as the heart of Russian character. They soldiered on in the face of overwhelming odds. It was their Avos’. He sighed.
He straightened up and took a deep breath. Failures do not get promoted to colonel or general.
Minutes ticked by as his playlist cranked up the next song, Hurricane Season by Trombone Shorty. He snapped his fingers to the beat.
He turned his attention to Igor, who drummed his fingers on the desk. “You have something?”
Igor looked over his shoulder. “No. It’s just that … I’d rather be at the trial.”
“Do your job!” Yuri clenched his fists. “Whether or not those damned addicts are convicted, Alexi will still be dead.”
“I want to look them in the eye.”
“Watch the displays.” Yuri ripped his earbuds out and leaned into Igor’s face. “Filthy street musicians are not your problem.”
Igor turned red and clenched his teeth. His lips formed words that he bit back after glancing in Vasili’s direction. He inhaled and held his breath for a second. “Yes, sir.”
With an impudent flourish, he turned back.
Yuri leaned over him. “What about that one?”
“It’s the right path,” Igor squinted and looked up the tables on his right-hand monitor. “Schedule looks good.”
“Keep watching it. If it stays on time, shout.”
Igor nodded. Yuri resumed his watch and put his earbuds back in. The trial for Alexi’s murderers couldn’t have come at a worse time. His plan could unravel at any minute, and Igor wasn’t the only one losing focus. Everyone had a news feed open on their desktops. He had cut their bereavement short to get on with the mission. Maybe he should’ve given them more time to grieve.
Then he stopped thinking. Major Yuri Belenov never second-guessed his decisions.
The mission was in motion. Nothing could stop him now. The window of opportunity was short. Their man had inserted the code in the Cleveland ARTCC system an hour earlier. It had gone undetected. Sixteen possible scenarios had been studied and modeled. So far, eight had been eliminated. The timing would have to be perfect. Sending the revised code would have to be timed to the second. If the Americans discovered their connection, it would take months to get back inside.
Les McCann’s pounding piano on Compared to What danced in his ears.
“I’ve got it.” Roman snapped his fingers and pointed at his monitor. “These two.”
Yuri ran to him and followed his finger on the first screen, then looked at the second. “Definitely. They will work.” He shouted over his shoulder, “Vasili! We have them. They’ve already received instructions from TRACON.”
“What are the numbers?” Vasili shouted.
Roman called them out, and Vasili repeated them.
Yuri listened intently and confirmed. “Go! Go!”
Igor ran the math through the simulator. “It will work. They’ll hand off to ARTCC in five minutes.”
“Quickly, quickly.” Yuri felt his voice rising with his excitement. “Get it loaded now.”
Vasili pounded his keyboard, sending the revised math to their Trojan subroutine. His fingers clicked like an orchestra of crickets, then stopped. Everything in the room went quiet.
“Check your work. Confirm everything.” Yuri shouted. “We only get one chance at this.”
Vasili called out the numbers. Roman repeated them, pressing a finger to his screen as he read them off. After he confirmed each set, he called out, “Correct.”
When his men finished, all eyes in the room turned to Yuri. “Proceed.”
The lieutenant dramatically pressed the enter key with the index finger on his outstretched arm. Then he stared at his monitor for a long, agonizing moment. He jumped up and shoved his fists in the air. “Upload confirmed!”
The entire group shouted for joy.
“Not yet!” Yuri held up a hand, stop.
They ran to Roman’s display and watched as two dots blinked and moved and blinked again. They crowded in for a closer look. The dots moved ever closer to each other on a triangular path. Five minutes inched along like as many hours. No one spoke, no one moved. The whir of the computer fans the only sound in the room.
Everyone’s eyes remained glued to Flight 1028, New York to Chicago, and Flight 31 from Boston. The first carried 212 people, the other 153.
For what seemed like an eternity, the two dots remained side-by-side. Blinking. Blinking. Blinking. Then they disappeared.
Everyone in the banda shouted and gave high-fives. Even Yuri smiled. Mission accomplished. He pulled his phone and sent a text to Strangelove: “It is done.”
Strangelove texted back: “Reported in the news?”
Yuri’s fist tightened around his phone. Of course, the media hadn’t picked it up yet. The mid-air collision had just occurred. It would take an hour for a major news organization to confirm the story and post it online. He watched his team celebrating. They had worked hard for weeks to reach this point. They had lost a brother. They had executed an impossible string of math in seconds. They were careful and diligent in their work. They deserved a moment to revel in their accomplishment.
Vasili noticed him staring and tapped one of the others. Roman looked up next. The voices died down. They faced Yuri. “Well done. Now the next step.”
The men nodded and returned to their workstations. They brought up the social media accounts they’d created in the general vicinity of the crash. They posted online about a loud noise. They posted about seeing airplanes falling from the sky. They posted about President Hunter’s failure to upgrade the FAA. They posted about how obviously avoidable this horrific accident was. They posted about how no one in the media was publishing the true story. They posted that there were no news reports because lamestream media were covering up for their favorite establishment candidate, Veronica Hunter. They posted that President Hunter should be called “the Murderer of Flight 1028.” They posted that Chuck Roche had blasted President Hunter for failing to fix the outdated FAA. They posted that Chuck Roche would never have let this happen.
Roman started a meme: #HuntersFail.
Yuri liked it and had everyone copy it.
All the social media accounts had been set up in advance. All the fake-accounts had friended or followed someone connected to a major media outlet—but not reporters. The reporters would hear the Russians’ spin from friends and thereby find it trustworthy.
Everyone in the banda waited with twenty news browsers open.
The first mention was a banner on a major website: Mid-Air Collision, 365 Lives Feared Lost. Then another and another. A specialty news site took the bait: Hunter’s Failure Costs Hundreds of Lives. Then another and another. CNN was the first to pick up Roman’s meme, #HuntersFail. Then Fox, and moments later, the rest followed.
Yuri walked behind his men and watched over their shoulders. He sent the confirmation text to Strangelove.
An odd quiet fell over the room. Only the computers hummed.
Igor groaned loudly. He turned his chair around, his back to his screens, and held his head in his hands. “What have we done?”