MÁLAGA, SPAIN
Yuri Grebnev follows a servant through a quiet, arcaded courtyard in the center of the stately, whitewashed Mediterranean villa. The sun isn’t high enough yet to reach the courtyard’s terracotta floor, leaving the space cool and still. They skirt the obligatory tiled fountain on their way to three graceful arches that appear to open onto thin air.
Grebnev can’t tell exactly what function the person he’s following fills here. The plain black slacks and long-sleeved, white button-down shirt don’t give away any clues. Housekeeper? Server? He’s finally figured out she’s female; her unisex face and hair could go either way.
The arches lead to three broad steps down, then to a terrace overlooking a swimming pool as blue and nearly as large as the summer sky. The heat hits him immediately: nine-thirty in the morning and it’s already over 30o C. Despite the two large patio umbrellas and the misters, Grebnev deeply regrets the slate-gray wool suit that’s now slowly broiling him.
A black wrought-iron patio table sits dead-center on the carved-stone railing, flanked by matching chairs. An elaborate breakfast covers the white tablecloth. A man draped in a knee-length, embroidered dressing gown lounges on the chair to Grebnev’s right, scrolling through a tablet’s screen.
He grins. “My dear Grebnev! Welcome.” His Russian comes from south and west of Moscow—Belarus, Ukraine, that area. He stands to shake hands. “Now that I see you, I recall that we met in Rublyevskoye two years ago. Your CEO’s dacha. Ex-CEO, I should say.”
Grebnev’s reasonably sure he’s never seen Konstantin Brusin in his life, though he’s heard plenty about the man. He sits in the unoccupied chair and glances out on the cascade of red tile roofs spilling down the hill to a broad beach and blue sea. “Lovely view.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Brusin settles into his chair and waves a hand over the table. “Join me for breakfast? My chef is a miracle.”
“No, thank you. I already ate.” At six, his usual time. Grebnev’s not sure he could stomach breakfast this late in the morning. “Coffee is fine.”
Brusin aims a stream of Spanish at the housekeeper, who leaves with a little bow. Then he turns to smile again at Grebnev. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
“Mr. Severinov didn’t tell you?”
“He told me to expect you, not why you’re here. I assume it has something to do with security since, well, Severinov.”
The Chief Security Officer for Zapadneft, Russia’s third-largest oil company, and Grebnev’s immediate superior. “It does. We have a…situation. We’re hoping you can use some of your contacts to help us resolve it.”
“Of course. Anything I can do for a valued client.”
Splashing water and laughing distracts Grebnev. A good-looking young man and a pretty young brunette are playing in the pool. Both are quite nude and apparently know each other extremely well. Grebnev clears his throat and returns to Brusin. “Am I interrupting a party?”
Brusin glances toward the pool, smiles and waves, then chuckles. “No, no. The party was last night. And this morning, too, I suppose. I love high season on the Costa del Sol. Please, continue with your situation.”
“Right. It appears we’ve been hacked. Someone managed to break into our financial system and created more black accounts.”
“Like the ones for your executives.”
“Yes. The funds disappear into numbered accounts all over the world and that’s the last we see of them. I’m told they were quite skillful about it. That may be why we hadn’t noticed it until recently.”
The housekeeper sets a chrome-handled glass mug in front of Grebnev. The top half is dark coffee; the bottom half is something creamy white.
Brusin notices Grebnev’s puzzlement. “It’s a café bombón, from Valencia. Espresso poured over condensed milk. Live a little.”
“Of course.” Grebnev doesn’t usually have much tolerance for experimenting with coffee, but he needs to be as gracious a guest as possible. He sips the espresso, then glances at the hovering housekeeper.
Brusin says, “Go on. She doesn’t speak Russian.”
“How do you know?”
Brusin laughs. “You got me there.” He dismisses the woman. “Have any accounts I process been affected?”
Process. An interesting euphemism for launder. “No, they’re all fine. The people in Finance and IT who were asleep at the wheel have been dealt with. But we’re left with accounts we can’t, ehm, account for, if you will. Also, IT has yet to discover how the hackers pulled off the exploit. We’re leaving the accounts alone for now to see if the people who created them come back to tweak them.”
“Oh, Connie, darling!” A woman’s voice with an English accent pulls Grebnev’s attention to the pool again. A striking young blonde with a scarlet streak in her jaw-length hair stands next to the pool in a frilly white robe. Her fists are planted on her hips. “Are you coming? It’s too hot to stay out here for long.”
Brusin stands and leans his palms on the balustrade. “Of course, my dear,” he calls in lightly accented English. “In a few minutes. I have business.”
“You always have business. Don’t take too long.” She flings off her kimono—she’s also quite nude—and paddles to the young couple. She appears to know them both extremely well. Grebnev watches for a few moments, both fascinated and a bit embarrassed. Things like this never happened in the army.
Brusin thumps into his seat, chuckling. “Mixed doubles, my dear Grebnev. When in Rome and all that. If I may ask, how much have they taken you for?”
“Six and a half million euros, more or less. Small compared to our revenues, but it’s the principle of the thing.” He watches Brusin butter a roll. “For a while, we thought it was you.”
Brusin’s head shoots up. “I would never. I don’t need to. Between the corporate accounts I process and the black ones for your executives, I have more than enough business from you.” He takes a generous bite from the roll and sighs. “Tastes like a cloud. So, what do you need from me?”
The splashing and laughing and short, sharp cries keep tempting Grebnev to watch the pool action, but he resists. He’s never been part of this kind of scene, and he doesn’t need to waste brainspace wondering what he’d say if Brusin (or the striking blonde) asked him to join them. “Our cybersecurity team traced the hacking activity’s origin to this area. It apparently moves from time to time. Several other firms in our commercial space have noticed the same kinds of intrusions. Normally, we’d deal with the problem ourselves, but…well, I’m sure you saw the news reports about that disaster in Riga last year.”
“I did. I was embarrassed for you all, truly.” Brusin sets down his fork, leans back in his chair, and folds his hands in his lap. “Were you…part of it?”
Grebnev hesitates. “I was there. I wasn’t in command.” That was Ivlev, then the company’s Director for Physical Security. The stupid bastard who Grebnev replaced after the purges ended. That inescapable news photo of the two dead women shielding the dead baby under their bodies still haunts him.
“Well done.” Brusin spreads his hands. “I don’t have an army like Zapadneft does. What use can I be in this?”
“Someone in the hacker group going by the name ‘Sonia’ is engaged in some low-rent drug dealing on the side. It’s surely an alias. We know that some of your clients also operate in that space. We’d appreciate it if you could convince one to eliminate the competition.” He finishes the espresso in his drink, leaving the condensed milk mostly untouched. “It should be easy. Hackers aren’t usually hard targets in the physical world. Your client would benefit from it in market terms, of course. One less rival in a crowded field. That may lead to more money for them and larger fees for you.”
Brusin chuckles. “And Zapadneft comes out ahead. You have your hacker problem solved for you without getting your hands dirty. Clever.” He sips from a tall tumbler of intensely red liquid. “As it happens, I have clients who may be just the thing for your scheme. An up-and-coming Catalan group trying to expand into the Costa del Sol. They’re certainly not afraid to break eggs to get what they want.” He raises his glass to Grebnev in a mock toast. “This could be very interesting for us all, yes?”