Julia Gousseva - Gray Shadows - Russian Historical Thriller

“Deep stuff,” Nikolai said, and he meant it. Many of the things Andrei was saying were things that Nikolai felt himself. He just never took the time to put them in words.

Natalya was quietly listening.

As they were walking towards the building, they passed by some old tree stumps next to a patch of young trees.

Andrei stopped. “See these stumps?”

Natalya and Nikolai stopped as well.

“Sure we see them,” Natalya said. “What about them?”

“Life of a bodyguard is just like these trees. While you’re young, you’re high above the ground, the sun shines on you, gives you warmth, but then, there’s a point in a bodyguard’s life when he gets cut down.”

Andrei patted one of the stumps. “And somewhere deep inside, life leaves holes, just like these ones.” He picked at the rotten wood inside one of the stumps. It crumbled in his fingers.

“So, are you saying that you are like one of these stumps?” Natalya said.

“Not yet, but my time will come. One day, I will be too old to do this job, and I will be thrown aside, like these stumps. That’s life. But you know what’s worse than these stumps? It’s what’s not here, what we don’t see. It’s the young guys who perished while doing their duty, on the job, and not even an old stump was left to remind others of their big sacrifice. Life is a little more stable now, less dangerous even for bodyguards, but remember the nineties?”

Natalya nodded. “What about the nineties?”

“All through the nineties, there was so much crime, so many deaths of bodyguards who were killed while protecting their clients. And the newspapers did not write about these guys. There were no elaborate funerals or memorial services, no fancy monuments, nothing. Don’t you agree, Nikolai? You know how most clients treat their bodyguards.”

Nikolai shook his head. “But Andrei, it’s a job, the clients don’t owe us anything beyond the contract. It’s a dangerous job, but we chose to do it, so we really shouldn’t expect any extra gratitude or extra attention. Our job is to be gray shadows of our clients, unseen and unheard, remember?”

“Gray shadows or not, we are still people. And unlike shadows, we get hurt, we bleed and we die,” Andrei said to Nikolai, then turned to Natalya. “Sorry, I got a little too philosophical here. You must be freezing. Why don’t we go back inside.”

“Good idea,” Nikolai said. “Pyotr Alekseevich is probably back from his meeting and looking for you, Natalya.”

As Nikolai watched Natalya, accompanied by Andrei, head towards Pyotr Alekseevich’s building, he wondered if he had misjudged her. Sure, she was a little immature but she did not seem to be out of control or evil, like her dad made him and Anatoly believe. She was just young. But, like Nikolai’s grandmother used to say, youth is a drawback that goes away with time. Natalya had plenty of time to become more mature and more serious.

When the heavy door slammed shut behind Natalya and Andrei, Nikolai chuckled, remembering Natalya’s words about the sunny beaches of Cyprus. That image was especially appealing here and now, in this frozen Arctic darkness. Nikolai braced himself for another burst of cold wind and headed to the security office where Viktor was working on the network.

“Did you find anything?” Nikolai asked him.

“Yes. Somebody infected the system with a variation of the JS-67 virus.”

“What does it do?”

“Slows down the computers by taking up hard disk space, network storage space, and memory. There are a number of JS-67 versions. Some are malicious and can steal data and corrupt the system, others are just pranks.”

“Which one do we have?”

“I’ll have to run some more checks back in the Moscow office but this one looks pretty harmless.” Viktor took the flash drive out of the computer. “All I need is here. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

“What’s its origin? Did it come from the Internet?”

“No. The system has all the latest anti-virus software, with firewalls and automatic updates enabled, and JS-67 has been around for a while, so it would have been recognized by the anti-virus software and blocked from entry into the system. Someone put it in on purpose.”

“But who would do that? And why?”

“Who has network passwords?”

“You, me, and Pyotr Alekseevich, the company’s director,” Nikolai said.

“You think he could be doing something?” Viktor said.

“Pyotr Alekseevich? Definitely not. Why would he?” Nikolai said. “He’d be hurting his own company. Plus, he doesn’t seem to know that much about computers.”

“Who does computer work around here?”

Nikolai shook his head. “Of course!” he exclaimed. “That was really dumb of me. Oleg, the local computer guy has all the passwords, and he has been working on all computers. He seems to be really good at making them speed up.”

“So, he knows how to find the virus and how to remove it,” Viktor said. “He probably also knows how to put it in. You need to talk to him. He knows more than he lets on.”

“I will call him and Vanya right now.”

Barely twenty minutes after Nikolai’s call, Oleg walked in, took off his mittens, and hung his coat on the rack by the door. “Computer problems? What’s going on?” He smiled at Nikolai and Vanya and headed towards the desk with all the security monitors on it.

“That’s exactly what we would like to know,” Vanya said. “Have a seat.” He pointed to a chair next to a small table in the corner. “We need to talk.”

Oleg sat down, his carefree expression quickly disappearing.

Vanya sat down across from him. Nikolai leaned against the wall next to Vanya.

“We know what you’ve been up to,” Nikolai said. “Tell us who hired you.”

“What do you mean? Pyotr Alekseevich hired me,” Oleg said.

“What are you up to, Oleg?” Vanya said, moving his chair closer to the table and leaning forward. “Tell us the truth.”

“I just fix computers,” Oleg said, his tone pleading and his eyes darting from Vanya to Nikolai.

“What other companies do you work for?” Nikolai said.

“Just this one and Luna Oil. Those are the only two in town.”

“Luna Oil? And how much do they pay you?” Nikolai said.

“My rates are the same for both. It’s all hourly. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.” Nikolai paused, trying to catch Oleg off-guard. “Tell me about JS-67.”

“I don’t know anything about it.” Oleg shifted in the chair, his eyes focused on his tightly clasped hands on his lap.

“Have you ever removed JS-67 virus from the network?” Nikolai said.

“Sure.”

“So you do know about it?” Vanya said.

“I know enough to remove it,” Oleg said.

“How does the virus get into the network?” Nikolai said.

“Like all viruses, through Internet searches and such.”

“Aren’t you responsible for all anti-virus software? Don’t you keep it up to date?” Nikolai said. “Oleg, look at me!”

Vanya leaned back, letting Nikolai ask the questions.

“Of course, I do,” Oleg said, looking up at Nikolai.

“And is JS-67 a new virus?”

“No, it’s not new. It’s been around for a while.”

“Then how can it get past all the latest anti-virus protections and firewalls?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should know. You run all the security checks and updates, right?” Nikolai said.

Oleg nodded, looking down at his hands again.

“And you have all the network passwords?”

Oleg nodded again.

“So you should know.”

“There’s nothing to know. I just come when they call me, run the tests, and fix whatever needs to be fixed. And sometimes I find that virus, JS-67, and I remove it.”