Start at the Prologue and First Chapter here

He reopened the two emails and smiled. The first, from Filitov, read as follows;

Dear Oleg Borisovich,

It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to Dimitri Federovich Ustinov, Superintendent of Blockchain Activities for the Department of Information Technology in the Sphere of Budgeting and State and Local Finance Management (copied in above). As you know, the Department is the financial sponsor of the Russ project, and it has been most generous.

While of course you have been most gracious in contributing your own time without payment, this has not been so with all of the programmers, whose assistance has also been essential to our success. And, of course, there are many other expenses that have been necessary to incur help the Russ achieve success in the marketplace.

Now, about Dimitri Federovich. He has been a constant and willing supporter of the Russ Project, and I could scarcely be accused of exaggeration if I say that his support has been instrumental in retaining the Department’s confidence and financial support. This was particularly so in the early days, when we had only promises to show for our efforts.

So, and now to the point. Dimitri has a matter of importance he needs to discuss with you. He has asked me to provide this introduction so that you will understand how significant the Government’s continuing support remains, and now I have now done so. I am sure that you will give him every assistance he may request.

Sincerely,

Mikhail

He could not remember when he had last received such a fawning email. Even the Bees got a good laugh out it.

But of course it was no joke, because it was followed almost immediately by another message, which began as follows:

Dear Oleg Borisovich,

It is with great pleasure that I make this acquaintance, following on the kind introduction of Mikhail Semyonovich which I trust you have received. Let me begin by thanking you for the exemplary leadership and technical brilliance you have brought to the Russ blockchain project. The Russian people, as well as myself, are in your debt.

And yet I find myself in the position of having to ask you a favor on behalf of Aleksandr Isayevich Shukov, Senior Manager of Cyber Activities for the Federal Securities Service.

Aleksandr Isayevich has informed me, in the highest confidence (which I am sure you will respect), that he and his colleagues wish to consult with you regarding the BankCoin technology with which I am sure you are familiar…

Now Crypto needed to decide what to do. Clearly, a face to face meeting was out of the question; he could think of no circumstance that would persuade him to put his anonymity at risk. A telephone conversation would be almost as bad; this was, after all, the FSS. Surely, they would be capable of tracing the call before its completion. And just as assuredly, they would try.

That left only email, or some other kind of on-line exchange, such as setting up a page on the Dark Net where the FSS could post questions and he could type in his answers. At the very least, his insistence on such an approach would arouse suspicion on their part.

But he could hardly ignore the request, either. At most, he could buy a little time; wait a few days before responding, or give an ambivalent response, or both. But then what? All too soon he must either refuse agree, or quit responding. In either case, the FSS would surely seek to find him; perhaps they might eve lock him out of the Russ system.

No, this was not good.

Then you must launch the attack! A Bee shrilled

You must! Without Delay! the booming bass of B Bee echoed.

Crypto jumped; even after all these years, such a sudden interruption sometimes took him aback. In this case, he was doubly shocked, because his Bees might be right.

Indeed, the situation was becoming complicated – Adversego was doing who knew what; the Russ Task Force was beavering away and might have discovered a vulnerability – perhaps even the vulnerability he had planted in the Russ blockchain. For all he knew, the FSS might know of the Task Force itself; perhaps even planted someone on it, someone who would be sure that the vulnerability was patched. What then?

And now, they might track him down, too. But it was still too early to launch the attack – just another few weeks would make an enormous –

Idiot! B Bee boomed. Later will always seem better! But later will be too late when suddenly you have handcuffs on your wrists!

Crypto could not argue with that. But he also needed time to think. What was the balance between opportunity and risk? And if the time was now, how would his detailed plans for the attack need to be adjusted? With the Bees in hot pursuit, he stumbled off to his exercise bike.

*  *  *

Crypto was beyond exhausted; he had never ridden so long or so hard. But the effort had allowed him to make an important decision.

It was time to launch the simultaneous attacks on BankCoin and the Russ he had been planning for so long. Suddenly, the prospect of completing his ten-year quest was before him. Now that he’d over ruled his naturally caution nature, he found the prospect of action urgently appealing. Just a few final tasks to complete, and then he could rest and watch – nothing more to do but rest and observe the multiple waves of financial catastrophe as they circled the world, governments collapsing in their wake. The sense of relief was so enormous that even the Bees left him alone.

A reminder popped up on Crypto’s screen. Perfect! It was time for the weekly meeting with his General Staff. He looked forward to sharing the good news with those who had followed him so faithfully for so long.

Crypto logged on to the Tor site where their meetings were held. There would be no video, of course, and each participant’s messages would be encrypted on transmission and decrypted on receipt. As well they should, since he and his lieutenants were plotting nothing less than the takeover of the developed world.

Crypto’s precautions did not end there. It had taken a decade to build his vast network of true believers in anarchist political theory. In the beginning, he had spent countless hours at radical chat sites, observing but never participating. Doubtless there were CIA agents and other security officers monitoring the same sites, and he could hardly afford to be noticed by representatives of the governments he hoped to someday overthrow. Instead, he lurked and listened, carefully assessing the comments of regular participants and paying equal attention to how they were expressed. He was looking for zeal, to be sure, but also for maturity and for people he sensed he could trust. When he decided that someone met those requirements, he added them to his list of potential allies.

When the list was complete, he turned to the next laborious step: contacting each person directly. Then began a slow dance, very much like the recruitment of a spy, where his first goal was to gain the trust of his would-be recruit. From the more limited group where he succeeded, he selected those with the most talent who lived in one of the nations on the target list of his evolving plan. Many, but not all, rose to the call he extended. The invitations were vague, of course: simply to become part of a secret cabal dedicated to the goal of someday bringing their political convictions to fruition. And in truth, at that time he could promise nothing more. Only gradually over the years did it become clear, as the blockchain became accepted, that his master plan wold succeed.

During those years, he also drove the recruiting process, now accomplished by his lieutenants. Those efforts had generated thousands of followers they reported, although of course he had no idea who anyone in that network really was. Indeed, he did not even know the true identity of the members of his own General Staff. Like any good spy apparatus or insurgency network, his troops were rigorously segregated into small cells. Each cell of a half a dozen members was separate and anonymous from all other cells. If any individual was compromised, at most only the other members of their cell could be exposed.

For the same reason, information was rigidly restricted on a hierarchical basis. Only his General Staff knew the details of the master plan. Each staff member had his or her individual role. Some were generals, while others held positions such as the Director of Communications or Strategy. Their subordinates, in turn, were privy only to the information they needed to know to perform the specific function of their division. By the time you reached the foot soldier level, all anyone knew was that a day was  coming when they would receive their orders, and a new world order would arise from the ashes of the old one.

There was risk to this approach, of course, but that was the risk of failure rather than personal exposure. Crypto had no choice but to rely on the assurances of his staff that the same conviction that drove them was shared by the thousands of true believers in anarchism they commanded across the developed world.

It was time for the meeting to begin.

Comrades, he typed. It is my pleasure to tell you today that the day we have awaited for so long grows near. I cannot yet give you the hour of the attack, but be assured that you will know it very soon.

There was an explosion of enthusiastic responses; Crypto waited until the last had scrolled across his screen.

Indeed, Comrades, he typed, the day grows nigh. But we must not let this distract us from our normal operations; shame on us if we fail because of lack of discipline at the very end! So I now ask you to make your status reports. Comrade Cronkite, will you begin please.

With pleasure, Comrade Chairman, the Secretary of Communications responded. I am pleased to report that the systems of every news agency on our target list has now been penetrated. When you give the word, your announcement will be broadcast to billions of people throughout the developed world.

Excellent. And now from General Guderian.

Comrade Chairman, the troops are ready and awaiting your call. In the United States, the militias are well armed and enthusiastic to overthrow a government they hate and do not trust. Throughout Europe, we have harnessed the zeal of anti-immigrant groups. In the Russian Federation, the old-line communist guard chafes at the trappings of pseudo-democracy. The timing could not be better.

And so the reports continued. Crypto was pleased. His forces were as ready as they would ever be.

*  *  *

And then a soft ding! Distracted him. Only a few people in the world had his email address. He looked down and gasped in disbelief when he read the message. It read:

Head Mutha is forking BankCoin

*  *  *

Author’s Notes for this Week:

Yes, the plot is thickening, as are my efforts to back fill plot elements as new ideas strike me and I realize old plot weaknesses.

For starters, I had a big decision to make: should I reveal that Crypto is behind the Russ blockchain now or later? You only get a chance to use a big “reveal” once, so you don’t want to waste it.

In this case, I thought that the benefits of any early reveal made sense. First, I want to start building tension and momentum as we get closer to the end of the book (in my current draft, we’re at page 160 out of 191). And second, I can build more some additional bits on top of the early reveal.

As to old weaknesses, it occurred to me some time back that I needed to do something to make Crypto’s ambitions seem at least somewhat credible. At first, I had thought no farther than that he would believe that if he could destroy the world financial system that anarchic governments would naturally result. On reflection, I realized that this would be a very weak element in the plot, and I hate reading books where the author leaves such a big hole in their plot. So now Crypto has a General Staff that has been supporting his efforts for years. It hardly assures success, but at least we have a basis upon which we could believe that he believes he can succeed.

I’ve introduced the full back story for his General Staff here for your benefit, but in the final book don’t be surprised if it’s introduced earlier, with only the specifics of the meeting itself appearing in this chapter.

And, as you can see, I close this chapter with a brand new plot twist, which gives me the opportunity continue to build tension and make the final scenes more interesting as well.

Next week: We meet Head Mutha, as well as a bunch of very pissed-off investment bankers.