The Russian Doll (Ben Sign Book 3)

by Matthew Dunn

  Knutsen opened his eyes. “You bought the record as a gift?”

  Sign smiled. “No. I bought it as bribe to get you to cook tonight. When I’m gone and you’ve returned home in possession of the hare and the record, put the music on loud, cook while you have a couple of beers, put your feet up with a glass of calvados, and enjoy the fact that you’ve got a couple of hours of escape from my nonsense.” He winked at him. “Adieu Monsieur Knutsen.” He left the flat.

  Fifty minutes later, Sign was in The Coal Hole pub. The establishment was a tasteful yet traditional London boozer, with a rich history. Once it was the place where coal was stored for use in the nearby Savoy Hotel; actors from Shakespeare’s day frequented the place when it was converted into a hostelry; Gilbert and Sullivan performed there; and the late actor Richard Harris used it as his local pub after he’d made a mint from selling the rights of his West End play and had enough money to have a permanent room in the Savoy. Over the centuries, it hadn’t changed much. It was medium sized, but not spacious; instead it had nooks and crannies where people could talk in private, as well as an upstairs and downstairs bar. The place was clean, but embedded within the old walls was the smell of long ago hops, tobacco smoke, smog, and fossil fuel.

  Natalia was standing at the bar.

  Sign stood next to her and ordered a pint of pale ale. After he was served and the barman moved away to attend to other customers, Sign spoke without looking at Natalia. Instead he stared at the bar. “In the bag by my feet is a mobile phone and charger. The only person who has the phone’s number is me and Tom. Keep it with you at all times during your trip. I’ve stored my number in there. It is listed as House Repair Man. I’ve also enclosed five hundred dollars and the location of a dead letter box in Moscow. Memorise the location and destroy the note before you travel. If you have anything of interest to communicate but are worried about using the phone, use the DLB and text me saying you’ve just paid the invoice for the repair to your boiler.”

  Natalia took a sip of her wine and smiled. Like Sign she was staring forwards. “Did you put a suicide pill in the bag as well?”

  “No, because there’s no need for that.” He drank some of his beer. “Tom and I will be on a different flight tomorrow. We’ll be in country late afternoon. I truly hope we don’t have to see you during your trip.”

  “So do I.” Natalia finished her wine, picked up the bag, and left.

  CHAPTER 6

  The following morning Archer was summoned to the office belonging to the chief of MI6. She was feeling nervous, but not because she was seeing her boss. Natalia had flown out of London an hour ago. For one week the young woman was a free agent. Sign was right to send her to Russia. From what Sign had told Archer, Natalia had nothing to do when she was in the motherland, but just her presence there would reinforce in her mind why she spied against her country. And it would give her a much needed break. She was getting claustrophobic and paranoid in London. Hopefully, a break would get her judgement and courage back on track. Still, the fact that, for a few days, she couldn’t be protected by Archer made the MI6 officer anxious.

  She entered the room adjacent to the chief’s office. It contained two secretaries and one mid-ranking intelligence officer. The IO beamed as he saw Archer, stood up behind his desk, and said, “Lovely to see you Jayne. How are you settling in to your new job?”

  “Good thank you.”

  “Excellent.” He nodded toward the door that led to the chief’s room. “He’s waiting for you.”

  She opened the door, without knocking, closed it behind her, and said, “Sir, you wanted to see me.”

  The chief was standing by his desk, flicking through a file that was marked Top Secret, Your Eyes Only. He closed the file and looked at Archer. “Take a seat.”

  The large room had no windows, walls were adorned with framed photos of every previous chief since the service’s creation in 1909, artificial flowers were in pots on the floor, and the only furniture in the room were the chief’s desk and chair and four armchairs. The chief sat in an armchair, opposite Archer. He was medium height, early fifties, had receding dark hair, a slight paunch, and was wearing a shirt, tie and pressed trousers. His suit jacket was on the back of his desk chair. Aside from his glistening eyes, that right now were peering at Archer over the top of his spectacles, he looked like an unremarkable middle aged civil servant who wouldn’t stand out of place in the Department for Transport or the Department for Work & Pensions. And yet, he’d led a remarkable life. His father was a catholic priest and his mother was a Church of England vicar. While trying to feed and shelter Bosnian Muslims during the siege of Sarajevo, both died from Serbian sniper fire. He was in his early twenties at the time and was climbing Everest, while serving as a lieutenant in the Household Cavalry. When he got to the summit, he radioed base camp news of his successful ascent. The radio operator there said that a friend had been trying to get hold of him – a chap that the chief had gone to university with at Harvard and had momentarily been a lover before both young men decided they weren’t gay. His friend was now a paratrooper and part of the peacekeeping force in the Former Yugoslavia. The operator patched his friend through to the chief’s radio. He learned about his parents’ deaths while sitting on the summit and overlooking the world. He descended the mountain in treacherous conditions. The siege of Sarajevo was still raging – it was the longest siege of any city in modern warfare. The chief passed selection for the SAS. Via Bosnian Serb propaganda video footage, facial recognition technology, and various contacts, he ascertained the identities of the four Serb snipers who were on duty the day his parents died. When he was granted a few days’ leave, he paid them a visit in Serbia, armed with a handgun. Their dead bodies were never found. Three years later he joined MI6. Since then he’d served in nearly every continent and was regarded as one of the brightest spies of his generation. He was a tough man, but wise.

  He said to Archer, “I wish to have an update on Natalia Asina.”

  Archer kept her eyes fixed on the chief’s penetrating stare. “I am making progress, but I’m not there yet. Baby steps, nudge her thinking, get her back in the saddle when she’s ready.”

  “We don’t have time! We need a download of her brain before she’s shipped back to Russia for good.”

  “I know. And that’s why she’s my number one priority.”

  The chief look bothered. “I’m getting pressure from the Americans, French, Germans, Austrians, and others. They all want to know two things: who is our source and when will our source give us the names of the high ranking SVR and GRU spies in their countries. I can deal with the pressure. But, there are other wheels in motion. Political wheels. The Yanks think our relationship with them is diabolical and at an all-time low.”

  “They’re right. We can’t trust them while they have a lunatic dictator as president.”

  The chief didn’t respond to the comment. “The Europeans are in a chaotic frenzy as a result of Brexit. They’re turning on each other. The only sane partners we have now are Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The PM wants me to build bridges. I’ve told her that the best way we can do that is to give gold dust to our foreign intelligence counterparts.” He was silent for a few moments. “Natalia’s knowledge is the gold dust. You must get her to continue to spy for us.”

  “She spies for me, not you, sir.”

  “Yes, yes! I know how it works.” He looked away, irritated. “What steps are you taking?”

  “I’ve been meeting her regularly, counselling her, and today she’s on a plane to Moscow so she can get a breath of fresh air outside of London. She’ll be back in a week.” “Alright.” The chief asked, “Are you up to this job?”

  “Which job? Running the Russia Department or running Natalia?”

  “Both.”

  “I am. You shouldn’t need to ask me.”

  The chief sighed. “These are trying times. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m up to my job. I meant no malice when I posed the question t
o you. We’re all floundering amid shifting sands.”

  “I know, sir. I don’t envy you.” Archer asked, “Would you like me to make you a cup of tea? I could murder a cuppa right now.”

  The chief smiled. “That would be extremely gracious of you, Jayne. Once it’s poured, let’s sit down and talk about anything other than Russian spies and politics. In fact, I’ll tell you about the time, twenty years ago, when I was in a bare knuckle fight in a wasteland in Algeria and lost because one of the members of the gambling audience stabbed me in the back with a three inch blade.”

  Four hours’ later Archer visited her mother in her retirement home in Godalming. The grounds were still wet from rain the day before, but now the sky was clear and there was no wind. She decided it would be nice to take Elizabeth out into the beautiful grounds. She pushed her mother in her wheelchair, along one of the many footpaths that ran between manicured grass, sensationally sculptured medium-sized trees and hedges, flower beds, and vegetable plots that were wired off to protect the crops from being eaten by hedgehogs. The air was rich with the scent of the moist grass, pine, rhododendron, bay, and burning logs of birch that had been cut, stored and dried since last winter, and were fuelling an exterior stone fireplace. She looked at the beautiful house that contained the residents. Smoke was billowing from three of its chimneys. Inside the house, lights were on, making the windows look amber, as yellow light mixed and reflected off the gorgeous heavy and currently parted crimson curtains. Patients were in there, some playing cards or board games, others reading or watching TV. Though Godalming was a small town, the care home was sufficiently far from the centre to be completely untroubled by the hurly burly of everyday life. It was, Archer always thought, a refined and magical oasis. She stopped by a small pond that contained frogs, carp, newts, and other aquatic life. Two ducks, a male and female, were on its surface. They’d lived here for two years. The residents called them Bonnie and Clyde, due to their proclivity to nick stuff out of people’s hands or pockets.

  From her handbag, Archer withdrew bread and a bag of raisons which she handed to her mother.

  Elizabeth said, “Raisons?”

  “I’ve researched it. Apparently ducks shouldn’t eat bread. It swells up in their throat, plus is difficult to digest. The bread’s for the greedy carp.”

  Elizabeth smiled and started tossing the food. “I’m hoping to see the old fella today.” She kept her eyes on the pond as the ducks chased after the bread and ignored the raisons. “There he is! Do give me a hand.”

  Archer helped her mother out of her chair, fully supporting her weight, and assisted her to get on her knees. Elizabeth handed the old fella chunks of bread. He was a thirty pound carp who was often shy and other times brazen and greedy. Today he had no fear and sucked the bread from Elizabeth’s fingers. Archer lifted her mother back into her wheel chair.

  Elizabeth shivered, despite wearing a shawl. “Autumn’s upon us.”

  “Are you cold, mum?”

  “No. Shivering’s a good reflex. It shakes off fear.” She patted her daughter’s hand. “The estate is beautiful at this time of year. I know I must leave soon, after all the tests are complete, but even this ancient been-around-the-block gal can get the collywobbles when change is afoot.” She looked at Archer. “I’m looking forward to moving in to your house. It will be lovely to spend time with you and see the Thames again. But, I will miss the old fella, Bonnie and Clyde, and the bonkers residents.” She laughed. “They are a crazy bunch.” She pointed at the house. “But, all of them in there would make an obituary writer have a wet dream. They have so many stories to tell about their lives.”

  “You can visit them, mum.”

  “True. I have their mobile numbers in a black leather-clad notebook that your father gave me because he wanted to stop me forgetting stuff when I went to the shops. I never used it for shopping lists. Now, I’ve used it for listing who, one by one, will die.”

  Archer said in a curt tone, “Don’t get maudlin. We’ve spoken about this before.”

  Elizabeth replied in a matter-of-fact tone, “I’m not being maudlin. It is what it is. Try being my age and thinking that you’re going to live forever. Sorry to disappoint you.” She tossed more bread. “We all get buried or incinerated. I don’t worry about that. What worries me is, in a year’s time, I’ll be ringing up my friends in the estate, to see if they’d like to join me for a gin and tonic or a trip to the flicks, and I’ll have forgotten they’re dead. I’ll have to cross their numbers out in my notebook. I have no bucket list. Instead I have an imminent dead list.”

  Archer pushed her mother onwards, passing sycamore, and a rabbit warren that drove the groundsmen crazy as much as the mole hills. “I’m trying to find out what happened to Susan.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “That’s kind. You know that I don’t mourn her. It happened so long ago. I was a wreck at the time. But I had to bring you up. I had to function. So, I kept telling myself that someone kind was raising Susan, even though I was conscious that I was telling myself a lie. I don’t believe in mothers’ instinct and all that nonsense. I believe in facts. But, sometimes we have to fib to trick our brains. Now that you’re head of the Russia desk, do you think you’ve got the power to get to the bottom of what happened to Susan?”

  “I don’t think power’s the right word. What I do now have is significant autonomy and access to expert resources. That said, I wish you’d told me about Susan before.”

  “Don’t be angry with me. I was protecting you. And you weren’t in the Russia Department. You wouldn’t have been able to do anything.” Elizabeth looked up. “Clouds are coming in. We’d better turn back before it rains.”

  “It might not rain.”

  “It will, according to my phone’s weather app. It’s predicting a downpour this afternoon.” Elizabeth breathed in deeply. “Let’s just wait here for a minute. If it does start raining I want to feel the droplets on my face. It’ll make me feel alive. And anyway, my skin’s waterproof.” She ran a finger over Archer’s hand. “It’s a weird thing – you’re all I have now, and yet you may not be all I have. Your father and I spent fifty years trying to find Susan. I know Russia, I speak Russian, I have contacts there, though all of them are now old and retired, or dead. I persisted, but got nowhere. Susan vanished on the day she was born.” Tears ran down her face. “It’s… well, it’s…”

  Archer wrapped her arm around her mother’s back. “Mum – you’ve carried this burden for too long.”

  “So did your father. It broke him in the end, I’m sure of that.” Elizabeth rubbed away her tears. “It’s just I’m not a smart academic anymore, and I don’t want to be. I want to be a soppy old lady who looks back on her life and takes pleasure from my memories. That’s hard to do when one of the memories is a mystery; a very painful mystery.” She looked at her daughter. “It’s a fool’s hope, I know, but I keep having this image of you me, and Susan together in your house. It’s stupid of me, I guess. But, it is what it is.”

  Archer pushed her mum back to the care home. “When I was a teenager I used to fantasise about marrying the actor Jeremy Irons. I loved his voice and his elegant mannerisms. The fantasy put a smile on my face. It might have been a foolish thought but most certainly it wasn’t a wasted dream.”

  Sign and Knutsen arrived in Sheremetyevo International Airport, one of Moscow’s largest transportation hubs. It was the first time Knutsen had been to Russia. As he stood in the queue for passport control, he yawned – not because he was tired, instead because he wanted to look bored and unsuspicious. Sign was behind him, ten people back. He couldn’t help Knutsen now. Knutsen was on his own.

  The queue was moving at a snail’s pace. Passengers on the Aeroflot flight in to Moscow had been warned by the plane’s captain that there might be delays getting through immigration and security due to increased analysis of passengers by airport authorities. The captain didn’t need to elaborate why that was the case. Passengers knew that everyone entering and lea
ving Russia were treated as potential terrorists or spies.

  It took Knutsen thirty minutes to reach passport control. He handed over his false passport. The man behind the desk scrutinised the passport and repeatedly looked at Knutsen. He asked in English, “What is the purpose of your visit?”

  Knutsen yawned again. “I’m a teacher. I’m bringing some of my school children to Moscow early next year. I’m travelling with a colleague. We have to make sure it’s safe to bring them here.”

  The official frowned. “Why would it not be safe?”

  Knutsen put on his strongest London drawl. “It’s not that mate. It’s a pain in the arse. We have to do the same thing if we take them on a day trip to Madame Tussauds or the London Eye.” He screwed up his face and sucked in air, as if he was trying to stifle another yawn. “It’s the bloody law. We have to check everything, down to is it safe to cross the road, can we get gluten-free food, are there minibars in their hotel room that they can raid? You know – that kind of stuff. So, the teachers have to come here in advance and check it out. Have you got kids?”

  The man nodded.

  “Then you know what it’s like. Eyes in the back of your head all the time.” Knutsen smiled. “There’s only one advantage on these bloody risk assessment trips – we get to have a few bevvies.”

  “Bevvies?”

  “Booze, drinks.” Knutrsen winked at him. “I’ve heard you Russians have got some brilliant Polish vodka in Moscow.”

  For a moment the official looked stunned. Then he laughed. “British sense of humour. I get it. Only Russian vodka here. Polish vodka is rubbish.” He handed the passport back to Knutsen. “Enjoy your stay. Before you travel with your school children check the website of The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. It’s in English. It will tell you if there are any security threats in the area where you will be staying.”

  Knutsen put his passport in his coat pocket. “Nice one, mate.” He grabbed the handle of his trolley bag. “By the way – do the bars stay open late here?”