Ed Kovacs - The Russian Bride

Bigger things did come to Popov that decade, but so did trouble, as the ruthless Russian mob ranks in Moscow and elsewhere grew fat with brutal, greedy men bailing from the intelligence services and military. Massacres of rival gangs and even their families became common. To survive, Popov attached himself to an emerging oligarch. But that wasn’t enough; he needed more friends, powerful friends, and so in the late 1990s he sold some secrets to the Americans. Popov held many secrets; he had them to spare, actually, since he’d been the KGB general in charge of the Eighth Chief Directorate. He personally supervised the unit that had been responsible for successful penetration operations against foreign cryptographic outfits and personnel, like America’s NSA and Britain’s equivalent, GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters.

In return for Popov’s help in those unsettled times for Russia, the grateful D.C. intelligence wonks opened the doors to America—“The Big Store,” the Russian mobsters call it—and Viktor Popov walked through with his legions of thugs and cyber-crooks to settle in Los Angeles. He quickly made allegiances with the other larger, more-powerful Russian mob outfits. Seeing the need to specialize, Popov avoided the usual drug, gambling, prostitution, and fuel scams and insurance fraud common to the other Russian crime groups in the United States, and early on he concentrated on what he knew best: cyber-crimes and cyber-spying. He grew wealthy, but his personal wealth ran only into the tens of millions, not the billions, making him a minor player at best in très expensive Moscow, a town that had more billionaires per capita than any city on earth. Popov now spent half of his time in the Russian capital, currying favors with the rich and powerful—crime lords—and trying to weasel his way back into Vladimir Putin’s favor now that the quest to re-establish the old Soviet Union was out in the open.

He was tolerated by the police state of Putin, mainly because of the valuable information he provided gratis to the Kremlin. Information, in fact, had long been Popov’s stock-in-trade. There was less downside to obtaining and then selling sensitive data than there was to monetary theft. Steal money or material, and people come after you. Steal information, a more ephemeral commodity, and institutions and states don’t like it one bit, but they tend to write it off to the cost of doing business in a digital age.

So Popov’s people, experienced “black hat” hackers, vacuumed up facts, figures, statistics, gossip, plans, blueprints, proposals, secrets, strategies, and data of any value. Popov sifted through all of the stolen information and then brokered it, acting essentially as a freelance spy, a “paper merchant” or a “paper mill,” selling intelligence to the secret services of Iran, China, India, Brazil, France, Germany, Russia, the United States, and any other country with hard currency.

But now, here he was sitting across the table from Bennings with some kind of a proposition that he didn’t want taken to the embassy. Kit recalled Herb Sinclair’s earlier warning about Popov: “People trying to get something from that old spy bastard usually get dead.”

“I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars to marry Yulana. When you return to the States, take her with you. You won’t have to live together or anything like that. Your government doesn’t check on such things.”

Bennings stared at Popov for a long time with unforgiving intensity. “We shouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Humor me. We are speaking in private.”

Bennings shook his head. “You’re not joking?”

“No, I don’t joke when it comes to business. Wait just a moment, please.”

Popov suddenly stood up and crossed to a young Asian couple having breakfast with their daughter, who looked to be about two years old. Kit had seen him do it time and time again, whenever a toddler was present. Popov would always approach the parents and tell them what a cute child they had, inquire as to the age, and then gently touch the child’s fingers. He’d make small talk and then politely leave. The first few times, Kit was suspicious that the parents were agents of some sort and that Popov was passing or receiving information, so he always watched very closely. Finally Kit came to realize that the general liked kids. But since spies are not trusting types, Bennings never took his eyes off of Popov.

Viktor Popov absolutely loved the pure humanness of toddlers. The selfishness, the kindness, the overt manipulation of the parents and others, the emotional and physical needs and wants laid bare without malicious artifice. Oh, sure, toddlers could be arch-schemers, but without intent to hurt anyone.

It was the intent that made the difference. Every action in Viktor’s life, as far back as he could remember, had been a product of artifice, underscored with vile intent. Indeed, he’d become a grand master of ruthless maskirovka —deception. His endless machinations hurt people all the time, often in the form of collateral damage: his children, wife, lovers, family, friends, peers. But so what? Life was hard and unforgiving, and the bumps along the road, sometimes big bumps, could and should make one stronger for having survived them.

And then there were his plots designed to absolutely hurt others, “hurt” actually being too tame a word. People would be targeted to be financially ruined, their careers destroyed, their lives taken—necessary outcomes for his deceptions to succeed. This was part and parcel of the way he did business. Viktor held little but contempt for the weak, the losers, the victims.

As he stood towering over the Asian couple and their toddler in the lobby restaurant of the Marriott Grand, the child muttered baby talk and grasped Viktor’s index finger. The purity of the very young made him melancholy for something he’d lost. Doting on toddlers was no artifice for Viktor, but a form of worship, a ritual of remembrance that was possibly the most genuine action Viktor Popov was capable of performing.

“Please have a safe trip home, and take good care of your little girl,” said Viktor, smiling and with a slight bow.

As he crossed back toward his table, he shifted his thoughts back to the proposal he’d made to Bennings, and he knew he’d never have another pleasant conversation with the man. It was a pity, because he liked talking about flying with the American spy. But business trumped everything else.

“Visiting from Japan,” said Popov as he sat back down. “An adorable little girl. Twenty-one months old.”

“How old are your grandkids now?” asked Kit, making an obvious effort to direct the conversation to other topics.

“They are all spoiled, troublemaking high school brats,” said Popov without warmth. “My wife and I had four children, but only my two sons survived past the age of three.”

“Your twin daughters were murdered.” The words had been uttered gently, but Bennings’s gaze bore into Popov’s, as if looking for his reaction.

Viktor realized that this was the first time Bennings had ever brought up an event from his past, especially such a sensitive one. “Yes.” For a brief moment, Popov’s eyes clouded over. He pulled a gold locket from his pocket and opened it, revealing two black-and-white photos of his girls. “By mobsters. I’ve tracked down and personally killed every man responsible, except one.” He turned to Kit. “The murders of my daughters is not common knowledge,” he said, without emotion.

“I’m a spy, remember?”

Viktor waved off the remark as if it were meaningless. “If you say so. Anyway, you don’t have children, Major. But I can assure you that they are so precious the first few years of their lives. They are such a gift. When they’re older, they become assholes like everybody else.”