Catholic school. He went to the best parties, wore the best clothes and rubbed elbows with others as rich as him—although they were typically a bit more famous. And he never allowed himself to be in the limelight.
There were two men he paid who were responsible for making sure he stayed that way. They accompanied him just about everywhere he went, made sure his path was clear and that nobody was putting his nose in Capistrano’s business. His men were more than just bodyguards; they ran his errands, maintained round-the-clock security on his home and prevented anyone from getting too close when he was in public.
Capistrano never allowed anyone to photograph him and he didn’t do interviews. Hell, even the half-dozen companies he owned were managed by boot-lickers who got their jollies from driving their BMWs to work and throwing wild poolside parties with others of their species. As long as they did what they were told and signed the papers they were ordered to sign, Capistrano didn’t give a shit what they did.
But all of that lent to his surprise when a tall, distinguished looking type showed up at his front door asking to speak to him. Capistrano’s security chief told the man to go away, but that didn’t seem to make any difference. He wasn’t an overly big man, tall but lean, and not very dangerous looking, so Capistrano thought about telling his man to throw the guy out on his ear. Still, discretion was the better part of valor, and so he let Nick show the guy into the parlor, Capistrano still lived in a part of the world where houses had parlors, near the Hudson River.
“What can I do for you, Mr….”
“My name’s Godunov, Yuri Godunov,” the man said.
Capistrano could feel his blood run cold at his extremities, and he had the sensation of a marble being lodged in his throat. He had only a moment to decide how to react, and he decided not to react at all. But the very name alone told Capistrano just about everything he needed to know. He hadn’t really believed the rumors about the Russian Mob, but this guy, his accent and his name and just every damn thing about him, screamed of Russian until it practically dripped from his pores.
“And what can I do for you, Mr. Godunov?”
“You know what you can do for me,” Godunov replied, his smile chilling Capistrano more.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“I think that you do,” Godunov said. Capistrano started to reach for his panic button beneath the desk, but the sudden appearance of a small pistol in Godunov’s hand stayed him.
“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Capistrano,” Godunov said. “I am not a man taken to violence, but I can assure you that I know very well how to use this. So instead of doing something you will regret, albeit only for a very short time, perhaps you should listen to me very carefully.”
Capistrano merely nodded as he pressed his lips together. “You have my attention.”
“There are a number of things that have occurred recently, things that greatly disturb me.”
“What are you talking about?”
Godunov waved the muzzle ever so slightly and said, “Remember that I said you should listen carefully. That is best done with your mouth shut. Now as I was saying, the people to whom I answer are very disturbed by your recent indiscretions. You’re being downright greedy, in fact. You see, we’ve allowed you to continue for about as long as can be reasonably tolerated. But in these very tough economic times we must protect our assets…which means protecting you, Mr. Capistrano. You enjoy the freedom you do because you’re a producer, a man who knows how to get money out of even the most destitute. The difficulty that is presented to us, however, is that you have not been quite as generous as we’d hoped. That is about to change.”
“Look, I don’t know who you are or who you work for but—”
Godunov’s laugh dripped with derision. “Come now, Mr. Capistrano, do you think me a fool? Look at this place. Look at it! You live like a king, but you give like a peasant. And I’m here to deliver a message, one that would be in your best interests to heed.”
“I don’t respond to threats, Mr. Godunov. I make them.”
“You make nothing apart from us, Eduardo. We have been patient and allowed you to keep the majority of the funds from your investors. Now it is time to return what you have borrowed.”
“Borrowed?” Capistrano laughed so loudly he thought he might fall out of his chair. “Everything that I have I earned.”
“No.” Godunov shook his head like a petulant child. “Everything you have we earned. You are not an independent operator. You never were, in fact. We just let you think you were. All the paperwork for those companies you allegedly own is utterly worthless. None of it is legal or binding. You were so busy scooping up the pot that you forgot you had put others in to play the game for you. Those individuals were very cleverly placed through our own machinations, and they have done a marvelous job of keeping our operations afloat while making money. Now it’s time to return what you’ve borrowed, and with interest.”
“I don’t have any of this money that you’re yapping about, pal,” Capistrano lied.
Godunov shook his head in disbelief. “You just don’t seem to understand what I’m telling you. Yes, that must be it….You are stupid, perhaps? Let me explain this in a way that will assuredly make things clear for you. Your monies and holdings, all of them, will be transferred to the control of my people within the next twenty-four hours. If you attempt to interfere with us, we will take everything you own and exploit it for our gain. That includes those lovely children of yours. How are they enjoying that special school they attend? Are they getting good grades? I would hope that their father would want to cooperate with me, because I can tell you that they would fetch a very nice price in some areas of the world.”
Capistrano could hardly believe his ears, but he didn’t doubt a single word of it. Godunov hadn’t come here to kill him, despite waving the gun. He’d come to explain that everything Eduardo thought was his didn’t, in fact, belong to him at all, and probably never had. He’d made the crucial mistake of not looking too closely at his business associates, and in the end it had come back to bite him. He was left with no choice now but to cooperate. Just as the people he thought had been working for him, but had actually been working for Godunov, were doing.
Capistrano sighed and leaned back in his chair, suddenly feeling much older than his thirty-eight years. “What do you want me to do?”
BOGDAN LUTROVA STARED absently at the computer monitors as rows of data whizzed by.
The program he had written to penetrate the New York banking system had involved much more than simply hacking the data. No, this system had taken months to build, putting the pieces in place a little at a time so as not to alert the security sniffers and lockout programs meant to deter individuals from doing the very things he had done. When it came down to it, breaking down those barriers involved a give and take; it was the equivalent of an electronic dance, really.
Getting into the system required Lutrova to insert specially designed scripts to test various areas of the New York Central Financial Data Exchange, allowing some scripts to be discovered while he deftly diverted others. There was an unspoken rule in the information security field that the more American security specialists were able to stop attempted hacks, the more confident they became in the integrity of those systems. Such attacks were intended to make them put more faith in their systems than they had a right to expect. It was an old trick, but one that worked frequently.
Once
