Dirty Little Wars 02: Barcelona

THE OLD GUARD

We join the pre-dinner cocktail party in the library at dusk, led by one of the servers to an expansive room with tall bookshelves, an outside balcony, and an Oriental sitting area with dark tables and polished leather couches and chairs. The walls are olive green with red piping, and the ceiling glows with intricate geometric patterns outlined in emerald, gold, and silver.

Soft guitar Bossa Nova jazz lilts from the corners, mixing with the clink of ice in glasses, and the loud burble of Russian conversation punctuated with bursts of pitched story-telling and laughter. We weave through the haze of cigarette smoke wafting in from the balcony, and I catch sight of a few couples dancing between the lit nymph sculptures and potted palms outside.

An eruption of drunken singing erupts from behind us and a group of young women—the bride's entourage—storm into the room in a broken conga line, swaying like sailors as they attempt to follow each other through the crowd. Their outfits match in color and style, their nude silhouettes bared under the pastel sparkle of beaded lace and partially-transparent mermaid skirts. They're twirling and off-balance, their cheeks red and their eyes glossed with joy.

People laugh and raise their glasses.

I recognize several young ministers watching the display, a few fresh lawyers, tech company CEOs, and bankers—the sons and daughters of the favored. These are the Russians who grew up under Putin and remember nothing before him. These are the children who cause all the scandals, who unwittingly share photos on Instagram featuring the riches their parents aren't supposed to have: the four hundred thousand dollar watches of public servants and the shiny diamond bracelets sported by the mistresses no one is supposed to know about.

These are the unwitting suppliers of OSINT, open-source intelligence; the information gleaned from public sources, or publicly available tools, such as webpages, tracking apps, Google Earth, and social media posts. These are the soft targets of the espionage world because they weren't trained by the KGB like the old masters. They were never sworn to serve a glorious ideology requiring individual sacrifice. They want 'likes'. They want emojis. They want attention. They want to be known for what they are and who they know because in their world there is nothing larger than themselves.

It's almost comical to think of Putin, and Sechin, and all the once-hardcore Russian patriots who were trained to kill and wreak havoc for their country, now forced to gaze over ballrooms crowded with these impractical souls—eyes transfixed to their phones—who will eventually determine the fate of Russia.

They're hardly the Putin youth brigade that Kremlin propagandist, Vladislav Surkov, attempted to create in Russia after the Orange Revolution; the army of young Russians devoted to the cult of Putin, frothing with the idea that the Americans and Europeans were set to invade.

As if they want the mess. I'm convinced that not even the preening egomaniac Surkov ever believed his own spin.

In any case, he would have failed to convince the young Russians in this room. These children are too wealthy. They're impossible to enrage as long as the credit cards still work, and the trips to Ibiza are still booked.

Of course, there are rebels and heroes among them, but they're unrecognizable to their predecessors, unwilling to surrender to the comfort of fatalism and connected to the world in ways their parents never dreamed of. When they look at the Kremlin, they see a gaggle of old men; paranoid grandfathers reeking of cheap manipulation, aging ghosts who rattle chains and mourn the loss of Soviet ambition, even as they continue to steal from the coffers.

I think of Irusya—my half-sister—who would fearlessly chase Putin-sponsored monsters like Ramzan Kadyrov to the ends of the Earth to bring him to justice. I've received reports that she is doing well in Switzerland, though I know she must be hurt that I haven't visited.

I bury the thought, knowing I can't afford to be distracted by it.

The bride's friends shuffle past me, one of them reaching out to stroke the sleeve of my dress in greeting. Nadya. I smile at her and catch the weight of a dozen stares after she disappears.

I return the nods of business associates, peers and competitors, and I ignore the pointed glances of a few wives. We all know each other. As far as female spouses go, I know several who believe that I'm just a slut who doesn't know her place. Fair enough, though it's difficult for me to see the wives of powerful business associates as anything other than non-combatants.

I'm not sure what they do when they're not planning shopping trips to London, but it's nothing like what I do. Many of them are used as shields to protect their husband's assets, owning property they can't use, offshore bank accounts they don't dare to control, and companies they're not permitted to run. They're devious and competitive, but they don't fight their own wars.

What a curse that must be.

"Zoya," I hear a familiar female voice. I turn to see the Polina Mikhailova, wife of Igor Mikhailov; the CEO of Good Sweet, Russia's largest hard candy and fondant exporter. She rushes toward me, dressed in an embroidered pink jacket belted over a flowing blue skirt. Her blonde hair is curled at her shoulders, her girlish face beaming with the effects of liquor and gossip.

She raises up on her toes to kiss me on both cheeks, then settles too close, her voice conspiratorial. "Can you believe we're here?"

I'm not sure what she means, but it's clear she expects an answer.

Fortunately, she doesn't give me time to formulate one.