“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Capistrano,” Godunov said. “I am not a man taken to violence, but I can assure you that I know very well how to use this. So instead of doing something you will regret, albeit only for a very short time, perhaps you should listen to me very carefully.”
Capistrano merely nodded as he pressed his lips together. “You have my attention.”
“There are a number of things that have occurred recently, things that greatly disturb me.”
“What are you talking about?”
Godunov waved the muzzle ever so slightly and said, “Remember that I said you should listen carefully. That is best done with your mouth shut. Now as I was saying, the people to whom I answer are very disturbed by your recent indiscretions. You’re being downright greedy, in fact. You see, we’ve allowed you to continue for about as long as can be reasonably tolerated. But in these very tough economic times we must protect our assets…which means protecting you, Mr. Capistrano. You enjoy the freedom you do because you’re a producer, a man who knows how to get money out of even the most destitute. The difficulty that is presented to us, however, is that you have not been quite as generous as we’d hoped. That is about to change.”
“Look, I don’t know who you are or who you work for but—”
Godunov’s laugh dripped with derision. “Come now, Mr. Capistrano, do you think me a fool? Look at this place. Look at it! You live like a king, but you give like a peasant. And I’m here to deliver a message, one that would be in your best interests to heed.”
“I don’t respond to threats, Mr. Godunov. I make them.”
“You make nothing apart from us, Eduardo. We have been patient and allowed you to keep the majority of the funds from your investors. Now it is time to return what you have borrowed.”
“Borrowed?” Capistrano laughed so loudly he thought he might fall out of his chair. “Everything that I have I earned.”
“No.” Godunov shook his head like a petulant child. “Everything you have we earned. You are not an independent operator. You never were, in fact. We just let you think you were. All the paperwork for those companies you allegedly own is utterly worthless. None of it is legal or binding. You were so busy scooping up the pot that you forgot you had put others in to play the game for you. Those individuals were very cleverly placed through our own machinations, and they have done a marvelous job of keeping our operations afloat while making money. Now it’s time to return what you’ve borrowed, and with interest.”
“I don’t have any of this money that you’re yapping about, pal,” Capistrano lied.
Godunov shook his head in disbelief. “You just don’t seem to understand what I’m telling you. Yes, that must be it….You are stupid, perhaps? Let me explain this in a way that will assuredly make things clear for you. Your monies and holdings, all of them, will be transferred to the control of my people within the next twenty-four hours. If you attempt to interfere with us, we will take everything you own and exploit it for our gain. That includes those lovely children of yours. How are they enjoying that special school they attend? Are they getting good grades? I would hope that their father would want to cooperate with me, because I can tell you that they would fetch a very nice price in some areas of the world.”
Capistrano could hardly believe his ears, but he didn’t doubt a single word of it. Godunov hadn’t come here to kill him, despite waving the gun. He’d come to explain that everything Eduardo thought was his didn’t, in fact, belong to him at all, and probably never had. He’d made the crucial mistake of not looking too closely at his business associates, and in the end it had come back to bite him. He was left with no choice now but to cooperate. Just as the people he thought had been working for him, but had actually been working for Godunov, were doing.
Capistrano sighed and leaned back in his chair, suddenly feeling much older than his thirty-eight years. “What do you want me to do?”
BOGDAN LUTROVA STARED absently at the computer monitors as rows of data whizzed by.
The program he had written to penetrate the New York banking system had involved much more than simply hacking the data. No, this system had taken months to build, putting the pieces in place a little at a time so as not to alert the security sniffers and lockout programs meant to deter individuals from doing the very things he had done. When it came down to it, breaking down those barriers involved a give and take; it was the equivalent of an electronic dance, really.
Getting into the system required Lutrova to insert specially designed scripts to test various areas of the New York Central Financial Data Exchange, allowing some scripts to be discovered while he deftly diverted others. There was an unspoken rule in the information security field that the more American security specialists were able to stop attempted hacks, the more confident they became in the integrity of those systems. Such attacks were intended to make them put more faith in their systems than they had a right to expect. It was an old trick, but one that worked frequently.
Once Lutrova had discovered the weaknesses in the system security, it had just been a matter of sending bits of his program into the system. When it came right down to it, computers knew only one language—the binary language of ones and zeroes—and it was a language Bogdan Lutrova had become extremely fluent in over the years. He wasn’t about to let this slip out of his hands.
Godunov’s plan had been simple enough, ingenious really—using the embezzled funds from the RBN’s biggest financiers against them. The monies and securities they had buried weren’t difficult to find; in fact, the money was right under everyone’s noses. It just wasn’t easily accessible. The RBN could have attempted blackmail or extraction by more conventional methods, but by doing it in this fashion they wouldn’t draw any attention to themselves.
It would still take some footwork on the part of Yuri and his mercenary team, but Lutrova had decided not to bother himself which such trivialities. His only concern, as his masters in Russia had instructed, was to get the information they needed so the funds could be moved. How the “contributors” dealt with their sudden change in fortune wasn’t anything he needed to concern himself with. His only task was to make sure the transfers took place when Yuri Godunov wanted them to.
In a way, Lutrova wondered why he was so worried. There wasn’t anything they could do to him without ruining their own plans. At this point in the game, the leaders of the RBN had invested a tremendous amount of resources into this operation. The payoff for Lutrova alone would be half a half-million dollars and a place of his own for the rest of his life. He’d picked an estate outside of Geneva for his retirement, a strange choice to many, but one he knew would suit him perfectly. Who would think to look for the RBN’s premier hacker there?
In spite of it all, Lutrova knew he was expendable. Everyone was expendable in the RBN; the organization thrived on self-reliance and survival. When they had something, they took it. When they needed to generate money, they beefed up their pornography sites and sexual slave trading. If they wanted to bring down some high-tech corporation, they would turn to their vast pool of talents, which comprised many like Lutrova, to destroy that company’s information systems infrastructure.
The slam of a door caused Lutrova to jump, breaking his concentration. Or had he been daydreaming? he wondered. His vision was blurry and his eyes itched. He turned in his seat to see Yuri Godunov enter, a newspaper under his arm and a briefcase in his hand. He would look like any other businessman on the crowded streets of New York City’s financial district, but beneath that facade was a heartless killer and taskmaster. Lutrova didn’t really like Godunov and never had; he always acted superior to anyone else. And in a way, Lutrova felt glad that he’d managed to keep his new relationship with the Americans from the man’s scrutiny.
Godunov stepped into the spacious quarters he’d set up. The place certainly was roomy, and Lutrova had to admit he couldn’t complain about his accommodations. He was well fed, and there were plenty of changes of clothes—all in his size and to his discerning tastes—with just about anything he wanted being little more than a request away.