Page 46 of Tamed Enemy
I hurt them. I embarrassed them. And no matter how many times I repeat my justifications to myself in the dark, there’s nothing in the world I can do to make it right.
“Are you awake?” Kate whispers.
I reach a hand toward her, pulling her close to my side. We managed to find fifteen minutes before dinner tonight, huddled in my office with the door closed. I told her about the Andersons. She told me about her call with Orla. And then we pasted smiles on our faces and went into the dining room and complimented Anna on the best Mediterranean grilled chicken with chilled orzo salad we’d ever eaten in our lives.
“I’ve been thinking,” Kate says, her voice so soft it melts into the shadows.
“About?”
“Viktor.”
Her response takes me by surprise. “The software?”
I can’t see her nod in the dark, but I feel her head move as she presses against my body.
“What about it?” I ask.
“You designed it to look like it was breaking through firewalls. But what if we changed the interface?”
“Changed it how?”
“Can Viktor look like a cryptocurrency ledger?”
Her question is trivially simple, but it spins out a universe of options. I wrote Viktor to snare Pyotr Tarasov. The program is fueled by artificial intelligence. It’s designed to mimic a wide range of businesses, appearing like it’s giving access to behind-the-scenes data. Building on itself, it creates increasingly elaborate images of its target. It learns from every new request for information, storing away both questions and answers.
A crypto ledger—the record of all transactions done with any particular cryptocurrency coin—is a mind-numbingly difficult program to create. The necessary encryption is on the bleeding edge of coding. Every purchase and sale requires updating and maintaining a stunning amount of data. That’s why I couldn’t meet Nikolai Tarasov’s shortened deadline.
But Viktor can.
It will take a few tweaks of coding, but I can already picture the necessary changes. The user interface will be nearly identical—login at a bank is as protected as login for a ledger. The output will take massaging. I’ll need to add all the jargon for cryptocurrency, train the AI on various systems currently in use.
“It can,” I finally answer. “With a day or two of work.”
“Less than building out RedBear.”
“I have no intention of building out RedBear,” I say flatly.
Nikolai Tarasov has proven he’ll fight for the results he wants. That was the purpose of today’s leak of the indictment. He’ll play dirty, too, changing deadlines at will. And he’ll forfeit short-term profit—the blackmail payments I could have paid—for long-term gain.
He thinks the fraud charges have me on the ropes—financially crippled, politically neutered, and socially impaired. He thinks I’ll do anything to escape a penalty even worse. I’ll give him RedBear on his insanely expedited schedule. I’ll give him Kate too.
He’s dead wrong.
Losing control over the indictment only makes me more determined than ever to manage the remaining Tarasov threats. I’ll never hand over a cryptocurrency he can use to build unequalled wealth for his criminal empire. He’ll never have my wife.
Release of the indictment didn’t make me afraid. It made me angry.
“But you can deliver Viktor,” Kate says. “Wrapped up in a shiny new package. Prettier and simpler than the version we got Pyotr to use.”
The versionshegot Pyotr to use. My gut tightens when I think of the video Pyotr Tarasov recorded—Kate writhing on a stained hotel mattress, following his sick commands in exchange for his taking the software.
There’s only one complication. “I don’t want that bastard thinking he’s won.”
“Of course you don’t,” Kate says soothingly. “But think of how sweet the reveal will be when we finally show Nikolai the truth.”
Make that two complications. “He plans to take you, once RedBear is done.”
“He won’t,” she says.
