Dale Brown - Puppet Master

The Amtrak train was heading for New York City, a destination that Tolevi would have much preferred to have flown to. But he was taking the train, and this train in particular, at the request of Yuri Johansen. Johansen wanted to talk to him, and Tolevi couldn’t easily turn down such requests.

Tolevi had met Johansen more than twenty years before, when both had been not only younger but also borderline naive. Tolevi was a young officer in the Ukrainian army, looking to come to America and not particularly concerned about how he got the money to do so; Johansen was a freshly minted CIA officer whose responsibilities included helping people like Tolevi. Johansen had recruited Tolevi following a three-month “courtship”; as these things went, it was rather quick, but it had proved immensely valuable over the years.

The relationship was mutually beneficial. With minimal but strategic assistance from Johansen, Tolevi had exploited his connections in both the Ukraine and Russia to build a thriving import-export business, one that was generally, though not always, aboveboard. American by birth as well as a Ukrainian passport holder, he was now a property owner and a man of some means. The fact that he occasionally worked with the Russian mafya was both necessary and a source of endless opportunity, not just for him but for Johansen, too. Johansen had moved up the ranks at the CIA. Even so, he continued to “run” Tolevi personally.

Johansen had once explained to Tolevi that he kept up contact because he “liked to keep a hand in.” Tolevi doubted that was true — he suspected that the CIA officer used trips from the Washington area to Boston as a cover for something else, including a mistress — but he was used to Johansen, and in fact would have balked if he had been handed off to someone of lesser importance.

Johansen liked using trains for contact. This was inexplicable to Tolevi. Perhaps it had to do with the CIA officer’s ability to scan the tickets and ID passengers; maybe he got some sort of agency discount. It did solve one problem: Tolevi had to be especially careful in Boston, as there were plenty of people around with connections to the Russian mob and, through them, to the intelligence services. Even a chance sighting of him next to a CIA agent would add complications to his life that he preferred not to deal with.

The train was late. He walked back into the station building, circling around toward the eating area between Dunkin’ Donuts and the Au Bon Pain. There were no seats, so Gabor satisfied himself with examining faces, trying to decide who in the small crowd might be following him.

No one. No reason for paranoia.

The train was finally called. Tolevi made his way on board, finding a seat in the first car. He took the window seat and left his jacket on the aisle seat, a precaution to ward off a neighbor. The train, though, was relatively empty, and as it turned out, he didn’t have to wait long — Johansen got on at Route 128, the second stop after the station, a little less than fifteen minutes after pulling out.

“This seat taken?” asked the CIA officer.

“Go ahead,” said Tolevi roughly. He dropped his jacket onto his lap, repositioning his Kindle Fire atop it.

Johansen pulled a laptop from his briefcase before sitting down. Neither man spoke; they never admitted to knowing each other or made any sign of comradery or even bare courtesy during these meetings. They communicated by typing on their devices, pretending to be talking to someone else.

As always, Johansen started the conversation with an inane question.

You are flying?

Tolevi resisted the impulse to reply with something nasty.

Plane leaves tonight.

Are you stopping in Crimea?

If all goes well.

Could you pick up a package?

Not a good place.

You must try. We will compensate.

Yes, Tolevi thought. You definitely will compensate. He typed:

I will need the rate applied for the Moscow errand.

That was a one-time thing.

This is more difficult than that.

I will arrange it.

I will do my best.

That was the extent of their conversation. Johansen shut down the word-processing program and pulled up the browser; he watched a movie until they reached Westerly, Rhode Island, where he got off.

Always suspicious that Johansen might have left a trail or even some sort of device to watch him, Tolevi waited until he reached New York and was in a cab to make the call.

“Yes?” said Iosif. It was a bare syllable, more a grunt than a word, but it immediately identified him beyond any doubt.

“I’ll be out of town for a few days. We have a shipment coming on the ninth.”

“Taken care of.”

“Good. Anything else?”

“Stratowich stopped by. He wants to talk to you,” added Iosif.

Stephan Stratowich was a low-level goon who worked with some of the mafya people, Maarav Medved in particular. He obviously had been sent to bug him for either a favor or money.

Probably money. Tolevi owed Medved a payment: a “tax” for the benefit of not being interfered with.

“He was ranting about a robot,” added Iosif.

“A robot?”

“You know Stratowich. Always something.”

“Was that what he wanted?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Neither do I. Tell him I’ll be back in a few days.”

“I did.”

“Let me know if anything comes up. I’ll check in from Europe.”

“Right.”

According to Trevor Jenkins, Massina was just one of a hundred people who had been victimized in a strain of identity theft involving ATM skimmers.

“The theory is they used a skimmer,” said the FBI agent. Massina listened patiently as the agent then explained what a skimmer was — a device that was placed on the ATM, reading the pertinent information.

“There was nothing like that there,” said Massina when Jenkins finished.

“They are quite clever,” said the agent. He unfolded a sheaf of papers with photos demonstrating how the machines were placed over the ATM’s card apparatus. They ranged from crude card readers with a keyboard to a far more sophisticated device that looked like a card slot with a fat lip. “As soon as the PIN is keyed in, the thieves have all the information they need.”

“I don’t recall seeing anything like these,” said Massina. “I think I would have noticed.”

“Well, the ATMs seem to be the only link,” said Jenkins apologetically. “There have been a rash of these, at different banks.”

The incident was one of half a dozen in the area over the past several weeks, explained the agent. The thefts occurred within moments of each other — literally nanoseconds, as computer programs directed transfers over high-speed Internet lines. The transfers would cascade across a number of accounts until finally disappearing somewhere in Eastern Europe, where tracing them became very difficult.

The FBI had dealt with these sorts of devices for years and had a fairly good feel for what they looked like and were capable of. They also knew what sort of fraud pattern they generally corresponded to — quick hits on a number of bank accounts that had only one thing in common: a withdrawal at the compromised ATM. Most skimmer operations were relatively primitive; in most cases, the skimmers had to be recovered for the data to be used. This was more sophisticated; the transfers happened instantly, in small amounts that defeated normal security screening. And it involved transfers rather than cash.

“We have a number of the ATMs under surveillance,” added Jenkins. “We’ll catch them eventually.”

“You’re watching every ATM in the city?”

“I wish. Has your bank offered to make good on the money?” asked Jenkins.