MOSCOW
RUSSIA
“KREMLIN in your language means fortress inside a city, but most people don’t know this.”
Sonya Voronova scanned the strange architecture of Russia’s seat of power, feigning interest and shivering from the cold.
“The palace you see over there used to be the czar’s residence but is now the home of our president Boris Utkin…”
She allowed the man to press against her as he spoke, not only for appearances but for the warmth. Otherwise she ignored him, turning her attention to the snow cascading from steel-gray skies.
He was about her age, broad shouldered and good looking. They’d ostensibly met in a bar the night she’d flown in and later retreated to her hotel room a few blocks away. To anyone watching, she’d be a single female tourist looking to have a good time and he’d be a Russian local willing to provide it. As always, the truth was very different. To the degree that truth even existed in the life that had been foisted on her.
“It’s beautiful,” she said when she noticed he’d fallen silent. And it was. But what it all meant for her was a mystery. She’d been ordered back to Moscow to give a personal report of her meeting with the man in West Virginia. Why? Secure channels were abundant in the modern world.
She wondered if she’d ever see America again. If her life would end here in a country that felt as foreign to her as it did to the tourists around her. And if that was to be her fate, would it come at the hands of the beautiful young man next to her?
Whatever was going to happen, it turned out that it wasn’t going to happen there. After an exhaustive review of Russian history and architecture, they wandered back to the road, grabbed a bite from a street vendor, and hailed a cab.
She was thankful to be out of the wind, but despair set in when the driver used his cell phone to report that she was on board and to provide an ETA. Part of that despair came from the fact that she had to strain to understand his Russian over the background noise. The rest came from watching the engaging smile of the man sitting across from her fade into a blank stare.
“Where are we going?” she asked in English.
Predictably, he replied in his native tongue. Their native tongue. The one-word response translated roughly as elsewhere.
The outer office was nondescript and governmental, and had the same stale tobacco smell as the cab. A stout woman sat behind a desk on the far side of the room, working on a computer but also watching to make sure Voronova wasn’t up to any mischief.
Her despair had withered into something more like resignation—an emotional state that the Russians had elevated to an art form. She knew she had to keep her wits about her but having no idea what she was about to face made preparation impossible. In light of that, she grabbed a magazine and squinted at the Cyrillic writing it contained.
Just over an hour passed before she was ushered through the door at the back. Despite the chill she couldn’t seem to shake, sweat broke across her forehead as she entered. Her handler was nowhere to be found. Instead, she was faced with not only Pavel Kedrov, the director of the SVR, but with the president of Russia himself.
“I understand that your meeting with our contact was successful?” Kedrov said, while Boris Utkin silently appraised her. She felt utterly naked and wondered if it would have been more comforting to have worn a uniform instead of the jeans, sweater, and down jacket of an American tourist. Maybe. But what uniform? She’d never been an official part of the Russian military or even the KGB. She’d never been an official part of anything.
“It was, sir.”
“He’s made some very bold claims. What’s your assessment of them? Does he actually have anything that might interest us?”
“I believe he has the ability to do what he says.”
The surprise registered on both of their faces and they gave each other a look that she couldn’t quite read.
It seemed to her that men—particularly men like these—were little more than children. They could never fully escape their schoolyard thirst for power and notoriety. They craved it. Fought for it. Sometimes died for it. The ones who possessed a great deal—like Utkin and Kedrov—became intoxicated and wanted ever more. The ones who didn’t have it—as she suspected was the case with the man in West Virginia—endlessly romanticized it. Led by males like this, it never ceased to amaze her that humanity had survived long enough to crawl down from the trees.
“This seems extremely unlikely to me,” Utkin said.
“Me as well,” Kedrov agreed. “We’ve spent a great deal of money and effort penetrating the American power grid with results that are, at best, uneven. Certainly blacking out portions of the country for a limited time is achievable, but a long-term shutdown of the entire system? Are you sure you wouldn’t like to reconsider your response, Sonya?”
She found herself paralyzed. Telling them what they wanted to hear was the only hope she had of returning to her modest life in Washington. But what were those magic phrases? The ones that would get her on that plane?
“I don’t think I do, sir,” she heard herself say. “The amount of information he has is incredible. As is the level of detail. He also has full access to the mainframes of nearly every power company in America.”
“He told you that?”
“He showed me that. He let me use his computer to enter various systems. I chose at random and got into every one I tried.”
“At what level?”
“I had command and control access. He also says he’s uploaded malware to all those systems and that he can activate it at any time.”
“Did you confirm this as well?”
“It wouldn’t have been practical. But with the level of penetration he has it would be a trivial matter. I see no reason not to take him at his word.”
Again, they looked at each other.
“Did he tell you how he achieved all this?” Utkin said.
“No, sir.”
“And you didn’t press him on the issue?”
“Those were not my orders.”
Utkin looked over at his intelligence chief. “The path seems clear. If this man has that kind of information on offer, we’ll acquire it.” He turned his attention back to Voronova. “What does he want?”
“For it to happen, sir.”
“Excuse me?”
“He isn’t asking for money or anything else. Apparently, for his plan to work, he needs a small group of well-trained saboteurs to operate in concert with his cyberattack. He believes we can provide those saboteurs. But if we refuse, he made it clear that he’s talking with other parties.”
“You’re telling me that he asked for no financial compensation?” Utkin said incredulously.
“None,” she confirmed.
Utkin leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his mouth. “Your people have gamed this, haven’t they, Pavel?”
“The ramifications of a widespread, long-term power outage on America?” He nodded. “It would be carnage. On par with a large-scale nuclear strike.”
“And the worldwide effects?”
“More difficult to predict,” Kedrov said. “You’re talking about taking the US completely off-line for the foreseeable future. They account for almost a quarter of the world’s economic activity.”
“But we’re less reliant on them than many other countries.”
“Unquestionably. We’re a resource-rich, relatively independent country. Still, there would be serious—”
“But if we knew the attack was coming and no one else did,” Utkin hypothesized, “could we position ourselves to weather the storm and come out ahead of our enemies?”
“In any tragedy there’s opportunity,” Kedrov said, sounding a bit hesitant. “But it’s likely that we’d be facing a worldwide depression. Not something that’s so easy to weather. Even from an advantageous position.”
They seemed to have forgotten she was there and all Voronova could do was look on in disbelief. In the time since her meeting in West Virginia, she’d done some research into the potential effects of a massive grid failure in America. Kedrov’s choice of the word carnage, if anything, was an understatement. How could these men be even considering something like this?
It reminded her of a joke told by one of her instructors so many years ago. It was about a peasant farmer whose neighbor saves enough money to purchase a goat. The peasant asks God to put right this injustice and God answers, asking what the peasant wants him to do.
Kill the goat.
According to her instructor, that one joke explained the Russian people better than all the history books ever written. The fall of America could only harm Russia. The question these two overgrown toddlers were debating was whether others would be harmed more.
Of course, they could have spent their time and resources making Russia a prosperous, respected, and productive country in its own right. But that was too difficult. Instead, they’d sink the boat containing all of humanity because they believed their life vests were the most buoyant.
“America is as weak and fractured as it’s been in more than a hundred years,” Utkin said. “So this comes at an interesting time.”
It was a true statement. The front-runner in the recent US presidential election had committed suicide, throwing America’s politics into even more turmoil than usual. The eventual winner was a largely unknown quantity and conspiracy abounded. Polls suggested that almost half of Americans supported the idea of a new election, but there was no constitutional provision for one. Perhaps the era of American democracy was coming to an end. Perhaps they would finally fall back into the oddly comfortable embrace of a de facto dictator like Utkin. Certainly, that would be of great comfort to the men whispering in front of her. Nothing frightened autocrats more than a successful democracy.
She strained to make out their increasingly hushed conversation but her rusty language skills made it impossible. Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe she just didn’t want to know.
Finally, Utkin rose, brushed past her, and disappeared through the door. His body language suggested that his involvement in the meeting was done.
In front of her, Kedrov removed his glasses and examined her. When their eyes met, his expression had morphed into one of vague disapproval.
“You’ve put us in a very difficult position, Sonya.”
A hint of fear escaped the façade she’d constructed but he dismissed it with a casual wave of the hand. “I didn’t get to where I am today by shooting my messengers. Now tell me. What’s your opinion? You’ve lived in America for years. What would happen if the American people were faced with an attack like this? If the average citizen got a taste of real desperation and suffering, would they turn to a leader of strength? Someone capable of providing order and security?”
“It’s possible,” she admitted.
He nodded and contemplated her again, this time staring at her leather boots and ending with her knit hat.
“What should I do with you, Sonya?”
Taken by surprise by the question, she found herself unable to answer. What she wanted was to go home and die of old age without ever being called on again. But was that wise? Based on the less-than-scientific research she’d done, she calculated her chances of surviving a long-term US power outage at pretty much zero. On the other hand, the thought of trying to build a new life in Russia was somehow even more terrifying than the thought of dying of cold or hunger in her basement flat.
“I only want the privilege of serving my country, sir.”
He nodded in a way that suggested he wasn’t buying her sudden patriotism. “Then you’ll go back to the US.”
She gave a short nod. It wasn’t reassignment to Paris or Rome, but it also wasn’t a basement cubicle in Novosibirsk or a bullet in the back of the head. In her line of business, that was about as much of a win as you were going to get.
“Do I have orders, sir?”
“What kind of orders?”
“Would you like me to investigate this man? Based on how extensive his knowledge is and the fact that I know what he looks like, it’s possible I could identify hi—”
“You’ll do nothing.”
“But it could help Russia in its preparations,” she said, daring to push a little. “We would be able to—”
“No,” he said with utter finality. “At this moment, he’s a nameless man with information that we declined. We haven’t communicated with him since your meeting and based on what you’ve told us today, we will never do so again. Our only concern is ensuring that there is no trail that leads back to us.”
“But, sir, what if he was also telling the truth about having other countries and organizations interested? It doesn’t seem so far-fetched. If we—”
“Enough!” he said, his voice rising almost to the level of a shout. “Perhaps I’m making a mistake sending you back, Sonya. Perhaps you’ve become a little too sympathetic to your adopted country.”
“No, sir. It’s just that—”
“The Americans are very good at making enemies both from within and without,” he said, cutting her off again. “It’s their responsibility to defend themselves against those enemies. Not ours.”