Zero Day: A Novel (16 page)

Vladimir took a drag on his cigarette, glanced up at his poster of a bare-chested Rick James with dreadlocks, then continued typing.

And there’s people who pay for it … pay very well. Anyone know Dragon Lady?

23

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA

FRIDAY, AUGUST 18

9:51 P.M.

George Carlton retired to his den, splashed brandy into a snifter, and took a sip. At his leather easy chair he removed a Dominican corona cigar from the humidor, cut the tip, then lit it with a lighter that emitted a blue-and-gold flame like a miniature blowtorch. Setting the lighter down, he pulled on the cigar, then took a longer sip of the brandy.

Carlton and his wife, Emily, lived northwest of Alexandria, Virginia, some two miles from the Beltway, not far from the Ivy Hill Cemetery. Their house was one common to the area, with a decent though not extravagant expanse of yard thick with overgrown trees and a hedgerow between each plot.

The Carlton family was American blue blood. The first documented ancestor, William, had come to the British colony of New York to serve on the staff of General William Howe in early 1777. He’d proved popular on the social circuit that consumed the interests of the British officers during that first winter of occupation. In general, his staff work was adequate and his American career was marred only by an aborted field command. A less senior officer took the blame for the debacle, and Carlton was transferred to England, where he was soon well wed. But within twenty years he had spent the family into the poorhouse. His oldest son, also named George, with no realistic prospects in Britain, emigrated to the United States.

For three generations the Carlton family prospered in America. They were connected by marriage, schooling, or business to most of the new country’s families of influence. But in the period following the Civil War, the family’s wealth began to decline. Carlton’s grandfather, Edward, had invested heavily in the stock market following World War I, and for a time it appeared the Carltons would be restored to their former luster, but the weekend he would have received a warning to get out of the market in late 1929, he was on his yacht with his sixteen-year-old Cuban mistress, and the family lost nearly everything. Edward took the honorable way out, though he botched his suicide, which he’d tried to mask as a boating accident.

Carlton’s father, another William, served under “Wild Bill” Donovan in the American OSS during World War II, providing invaluable staff work. As a reward he was selected to be one of the five most senior officers in the newly created Central Intelligence Agency after the war. He and the fifth director, Allen Dulles, got along well, but when Dulles was forced to resign following the Bay of Pigs fiasco, William Carlton’s career went into eclipse. He retained just enough influence before dying of lung cancer to see that his son, George, who had gone into the FBI following his graduation from Yale, received a favorable appointment with the Company. The transfer had been more than unusual and raised a few eyebrows, as the FBI and CIA were rivals and rarely exchanged staff.

With a stellar family name and widespread connections, Carlton’s career should have flourished. Though the family had retained their Nantucket summer cottage, his father had been compelled to sell the surviving family estate in Maryland after the suicide of his father. The fact was, the Carltons were broke.

George Carlton had sought a wife with one concern in mind—to marry well and restore his fortune. A family name, especially in America, counted for nothing without the money to go with it. The woman he chose, Emily Langsdon, was a bit horse-faced with an overbite, but she had a fine figure and her pedigree was impeccable. Her family was, reputedly, so wealthy as to be beyond comment.

George’s awakening upon his return from a honeymoon he had financed by mortgaging the Nantucket cottage was brutal. He’d told Emily that it was his duty as her husband to assume management of her finances. She’d agreed. He soon learned why: there was almost nothing to manage.

While Carlton came to learn that the Langsdon family was wealthy indeed, the details of the wealth were devastating in their effect on him personally. Emily’s father had fallen out with his father many years before. The grandfather had seen that his granddaughter lacked for nothing, that she was properly educated and traveled, but Emily’s father was omitted from the will and all but eliminated from the Langsdon Family Trust.

Emily would inherit no property and had but a single trust fund herself, containing a mere $500,000. It was managed by the family financial administrators. She received the income from it in an annual check. Upon her death the fund would revert to the Langsdon Family Trust and not go to her surviving spouse or children, if any.

It was, Carlton thought, a gruesome way to manage a family. It had come as an enormous shock. During the years of their childless marriage, Emily had been good about financing her luxuries from her own income, but the burden of supporting them had fallen to Carlton and his government salary. Had they lived a modest middle-class life, this would have proven more than adequate—he’d done reasonably well in the CIA—but neither of them had come from middle-class lifestyles. They moved in circles that required more than they had, and over the years Carlton had been driven deeply into debt.

His move to Homeland Security had been motivated in part by a substantial increase in salary, as well as by a falling-out with his director. Regardless, he had found a way to alter his financial position to the positive. Almost like a miracle, if he believed in them.

Carlton coughed once, sipped brandy, took another puff on the cigar. Things were looking up to such an extent that he was considering dumping Emily, who’d been such a disappointment. If the cash flow continued as promised, he’d be living beside warm water and sipping drinks with umbrellas by year’s end. He could think of half a dozen young things he’d rather have with him, rather than horse-faced old Emily.

24

MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

ARARAT PARK

SATURDAY, AUGUST 19

12:11 P.M.

It was a beautiful day in Moscow.

Ivana wasn’t working this Saturday and insisted her husband leave their cramped apartment and take some air. “You need to be outdoors,” she said. “Away from this smelly place. You need to see some normal people,
real
people, and stop spending all your time on that computer talking with electronic messages.”

To pull Vladimir’s wheelchair backward out of the apartment had taken some effort, since he’d had new equipment delivered the previous day. With nowhere to put it he’d instructed that the man place it in the cleared path out the door. Before they’d done anything, however, he’d insisted on getting his external drive and taking it with him.

“If we had a fire,” Ivana said as she stacked boxes, “you’d be trapped here. We can’t keep living like this.”

At twenty-seven years of age, Ivana Adamov Koskov was a petite, dark beauty. Like her mother—indeed, like most traditional Russian woman—she was a pessimist. If anything could go wrong, you could count on it. Life was to be endured because there was no alternative. The one bright spot in her life had been her love of Vladimir Koskov. Their short early years had been filled with hope.

The bomb had nearly destroyed them. Though she had emerged essentially unscathed, her beautiful Vladimir bore terrible scars and had been crippled for life. The day Ivana was to go to the hospital and move him into the apartment she’d rented, her father, Sasha, had taken her aside.

“What are you doing?” he asked, the smell of vodka on his breath.

“Getting Vlad, of course,” she said haughtily. She had long since stopped listening to her father. “We have an apartment now.”

“You can’t be serious about this.” Ivana’s father was a veteran of the ill-fated Soviet war in Afghanistan. He’d seen, and once intimated that he’d done, terrible things. Since his discharge from the military he’d been adrift, never really settling at any job, despondent if not embittered, turning increasingly to his bottle. She’d watched her mother slowly retreat with resignation into the role of enabler for her father until she couldn’t bear to watch it any longer.

“I love Vlad, Father,” she said. “He is a good man.”

“He is a cripple! What future can you have with such a man?”

“His body is crippled, but his mind is whole. I love him for who he is. Please, you’re in my way.”

“You’re nineteen years old,” her father pleaded. “Don’t throw your life away like this.”

“Vlad needs me. He can’t live alone and he has nowhere to go. I’m late. Please, Father, I must do this.”

That had been eight years before. Her father had never accepted the situation, but at family gatherings he was always cordial if not friendly to Vladimir. His drinking was no worse, though, and that at least was something.

Ivana had arranged for their neighbor to help her, and with great effort the pair of them managed to get the wheelchair and her husband down three flights of stairs since the elevator wasn’t working. Vladimir had stoically sat in place, unable to help, resigned away from his computers to his role as an invalid.

But Ivana had been right. The weather had turned, and it was a glorious Russian summer day. Vladimir had forgotten the beauty of the vast sweep of the sky overhead, the smell of the trees and flowers, the familiar sounds of the city. For the first hour Ivana just pushed the chair to give him a full taste of the city. Finally, they reached Ararat Park in the heart of Moscow.

Families from across the city were gathered here. Most were enjoying picnics, while others were content to walk and enjoy the beauty. From a vendor, Ivana bought their lunch. She found a shaded spot beneath a tree set on a small hill from where they could watch the people.

As a couple with a small child passed them, Ivana said, “Perhaps we should have a baby.”

Vladimir laughed. “What? And put it in the sink?”

“We’ll have a bigger apartment soon.”

“Maybe. But why would you want to bring a child into this world? You don’t really think anything will improve, do it? You aren’t that stupid.” He watched her as he spoke. He often tried to bait her like this.

Ivana looked up. “A baby would make me very happy.” Vladimir’s body was scarred and much of it was useless, but in her mind’s eye Vladimir was the same young, strong man to whom she’d given herself so willingly. He was handsome still, she knew, handsome enough to have turned the heads of more than one woman since they’d left the apartment.

“Maybe later. When we can afford one, when we have enough room. I can’t work with a crying baby all day, you know.”

“I’ll see to it that doesn’t happen. Anyway, you said you were making a lot of money these days.”

That was true. More and more work was coming Vladimir’s way. He was even paid in hard currency, and in the new Russia, hard money opened every door. Parked in an e-gold account out of the country, his money was growing. So what if he didn’t know who was paying him? A cloud passed over Ivana’s face.

“What’s the matter?” he asked a bit nastily. “I thought you were happy.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s my work, isn’t it?”

Ivana looked at him. “What if State Security is eavesdropping? You could be arrested. And me as well!”

Vladimir laughed harshly. “I’m doing nothing illegal.”

“You’re very secretive about it for something that isn’t wrong.”

“I’m not secretive. It’s … complex, that’s all. It would be pointless for me to try and explain it.” He tapped her head, striking once so hard she jerked back, out of reach. “Anyway, it’s nothing for you to be concerned about. It’s my business.”

“But what
if
State Security is listening in?”

Vladimir snorted. “I’d like to see them try. All my communications are encrypted so they can’t eavesdrop. You worry too much. Just like a woman.”

Ivana was close to tears. After a few moments she persisted, “They have resources.”

Vladimir rolled his eyes. “They are idiots! They aren’t smart enough to catch me.”

“Catch you at what?”

Vladimir lit a cigarette. “Never mind.” He reached down into the pocket beside his wheelchair and pulled out his MP3 player and headset. Within seconds he was listening to Rick James, his eyes closed, his head moving to the beat. Ivana could no longer stand the music.