The Moscow Cipher

by Scott Mariani

  ‘You are thinking the thieves have taken it?’

  ‘Again, a possibility. If only the casing was broken, it could be replaced. The guts of the phone might still be intact, therefore salvageable.’

  ‘Then they would have sold it by now.’

  ‘Then we can ask Mr Lebedev very nicely for the name and whereabouts of the buyer.’

  ‘Assuming Lebedev is the thief.’

  ‘Which could be an assumption too far,’ he said. ‘Though we might get lucky.’

  ‘But why go to so much trouble?’ she asked.

  ‘Because if we had the phone, and if we could verify that it was definitely Valentina’s, we might find other numbers on it. Such as a mobile number for her father, which could be useful. Maybe even something that might give us an indication of where they’ve gone.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Tatyana said, looking doubtful. ‘If it has not already been erased.’

  ‘These things are technically known in the trade as clues, Miss Nikolaev. And they’re in somewhat short supply at this moment. Every little bit helps.’

  They were getting close to the location of the Zenit bar. Ben had heard about the efforts of the Russian government to knock down entire rundown sections of Moscow for extensive redevelopment. This particular suburb had yet to be reached by the bulldozers, but its time couldn’t be far away. The streets were almost deserted and the grey, crumbly buildings gave off an air of desolation and hopelessness.

  Before the Zenit bar was even in sight they heard the muted thud of loud music from around the corner. The flat-roofed concrete block building stood in a wasteground surrounded by a rickety wire fence. If it hadn’t been for the faded sign above the doorway, the place could have been a bunker. There were no windows Ben could see, and the door was protected by a galvanised steel grid. A row of a dozen or so large motorcycles stood outside, mostly chopped Harley-lookalikes with raked front forks and the kind of elevated handlebars that aficionados called ‘ape hangers’. Great for aerating your armpits in the summer breeze. Three of the bikes were sprayed matt black, with hammer-and-sickle symbols, swastikas and skulls crudely hand-painted on their tanks.

  ‘What kind of low life would ride a motorcycle like this?’ Tatyana said.

  ‘I’m guessing, maybe the kind with a giant spider tattoo on his forehead?’ Ben suggested. ‘Looks like we may have found our Lebedev brothers.’

  ‘I do not think I would like to have a drink in there,’ Tatyana said, eyeing the building.

  ‘Nonsense. This is my kind of place.’

  The steel grid in front of the door was unlocked. Ben swung it open, and they walked inside.

  The volume of the music swelled about twenty times louder as they entered the Zenit. The heat and smell of stale smoke, booze and confined bodies in the airless space hit them at the same time. Flashing multicoloured lights washed over the murky scene within. The Zenit was dank and dark and every bit as seedy as any self-respecting bad boy could have wished for. A pair of strippers occupied a low stage at the far end of the room, wrapping themselves around poles and surrounded by drooling men clutching bottles of booze. Across the bare concrete floor, the bar was crowded with jostling punters all vying to get their next drink, many of them looking as though they’d been at it all through the previous night.

  Ben gazed around him. To his immediate left, four drunken men at a table were openly doing a drug deal, a pile of cash and a bag of something illicit in the process of exchanging hands. To his right, seated at a corner couch behind a table loaded with bottles and glasses, three hoodlums ranging from about twenty-five to thirty-five in age and all bearing a slight facial resemblance to one another were laughing uproariously at some joke.

  Ben caught Tatyana’s eye and knew she was thinking the same thing he was. Here they were: the brothers Lebedev, exactly as described, enjoying life in their favourite hangout. The one in the middle was the eldest, lounging lazily with his arms and legs all spread out and taking up as much room as possible between his two younger siblings. He had yellow hair buzzed to a stubble, doing little to hide his missing right ear. He also displayed an enormous black tarantula in the exact centre of his forehead, as though the tattoo artist who had consented to permanently disfiguring him had measured out the dimensions with great care before applying the ink.

  If that one was Bogdan, the other two must be Maksim and Artem, whichever was which. The youngest had more delicate features, almost good-looking if it hadn’t been for the sneer on his face and the greasiness of his hair which, if he hadn’t tied it back in a ponytail, would have been hanging about his face in rats’ tails. The third was bald with a thick beard, as though his head had been turned upside-down. All three were hard at work on tall pitchers of beer, and judging by the number of empties crammed on the tabletop in front of them, it was at least their fifth or sixth each. It appeared that the brothers’ breakfast was running into lunch, with no sign of slowing down.

  Ben and Tatyana drew a few looks as she followed him over to the bar. Ben pushed his way through to the front, signalled for the barman’s attention and, with a combination of English and sign language, ordered a whisky for himself and a vodka for Tatyana. The barman looked as much of a bruiser as the majority of his clientele. Ben figured that he probably knew most of them by name. As the guy was pouring out the drinks, Ben signalled for his attention again, pointed over to the three thugs in the far corner and said, ‘Bogdan Lebedev, da?’ The barman paused and scowled at Ben, then finished pouring without a word and thrust his hand out for the money. His unwillingness to talk was all the confirmation Ben needed.

  Tatyana refused her drink, protesting that it was too early in the day. Ben shrugged and downed the rubbing alcohol that passed for scotch in this vicinity. ‘We did not just come here to drink, did we?’ she asked, tightlipped.

  ‘Nope,’ he replied.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘You’re going to do nothing except hang back and watch.’

  ‘While you do what exactly?’

  ‘Just routine stuff,’ he replied. ‘Trust me.’

  Then he slid his empty glass back across the bar, smacked his lips and headed over towards where the Lebedev boys were sitting.

  Chapter 15

  The brothers were cracking up at another incredibly funny joke as Ben approached. Suddenly aware of the stranger’s presence, their laughter died away and all three pairs of eyes focused on him, as focused as they could be after so many beers.

  Ben walked right up to the edge of the crowded table, stopped and peered down at the three. ‘Bogdan Lebedev?’ The elder brother was as forthcoming about his identity as the barman had been, but Ben had only wanted to get his attention.

  Ben’s strategy was a simple one. To get the information he wanted, he needed to talk to Bogdan on his own, which meant sidelining the brothers. And to do that, he first needed to get all three of them outside. There was only one way to make that happen.

  Without breaking eye contact, he very deliberately reached down, touched two fingers to the rim of the tall half-empty pitcher in front of Bogdan Lebedev, and just as deliberately pushed it over. Glasses rolled and smashed on the floor. Beer sloshed across the tabletop and spilled off its edge into Bogdan Lebedev’s lap. The Russian recoiled with an angry yell, stared down at the crotch of his soaked jeans that looked as if he’d wet his pants, and then glared up at Ben with a look of quivering fury.

  In Ben’s experience, the art of picking fights in bars was all about maximum provocation. The next phase of the plan was to add insult to injury. Still not taking his eyes off Bogdan he pointed a finger like a gun and came out with the most recent addition to his fledgling Russian vocabulary. A slight that was still more or less guaranteed, especially in that country but in pretty much any drinking men’s barroom in the world, the real world, to elicit a strong reaction.

  ‘ Goluboi!’

  Neither subtle nor politically correct, and all the more effective for it. All three b
rothers instantly jumped to their feet, ready for battle. A few punters gazed across, momentarily distracted from their drinks, the writhing strippers or their other business; but Ben hadn’t expected the clientele of the Zenit to come racing to the aid of the Lebedevs, and he wasn’t proved wrong. Fistfights were probably an everyday occurrence in the place, and if you couldn’t look after yourself, you had it coming.

  ‘This way, if you please, gentlemen,’ Ben said, heading for the door and motioning for the three to follow. Tatyana was near the bar, staring at him as though he’d lost his mind. Ben stepped outside into the fenced-off patch of wasteland. As before, the street was empty. He walked towards the parked motorcycles.

  The three Lebedevs stormed out in his wake, Bogdan leading the pack and virtually drooling in rage. They emerged into the daylight just in time to see him push the sole of his boot against one of their bikes and topple all three of them off their sidestands like a row of dominoes. Ben had learned at an early age that few things infuriated wannabe outlaw bikers like seeing their proudly displayed machines fall over in a mass of crunching, twisting, buckling metal. The provocation was complete.

  Now the Lebedevs were itching to tear this impudent foreigner apart, and they formed a semicircle around him with clenched fists as he stepped calmly away from the fallen bikes. A few of their bar buddies lingered in the doorway, watching the spectacle with mild amusement. There were a couple of shouts of encouragement, the Russian equivalent of ‘Get’m, Bogdan, sort’m out, kick his ass!’

  Tatyana squeezed past the group and hovered uncertainly to one side.

  The brothers came a step closer, shoulder to shoulder, Bogdan the eldest in the middle, with all the confidence of scrappers who’d done this a hundred times before and were certain of their victory. Three against one. How could they lose?

  Ben didn’t back away. His body was relaxed, his heartbeat slow and steady, arms loose by his sides. The brothers came on another step, and when Ben still didn’t back away he saw a tiny flicker of doubt appearing on the face of the one on the right, the youngest: Artem or Maksim, Ben neither knew nor cared. His money was on Bogdan to make the first move.

  Which Bogdan did, two seconds later. With a furious yell he lowered his head and crabbed his arms and rushed straight at Ben intent on ramming him with all his bodyweight. Ben stood motionless until Bogdan was almost on him, then quickly sidestepped out of his path and put out a foot to trip him. An opponent’s power and momentum can quickly turn against him in a fight, a fact of life that Ben had known and exploited for many years. In Bogdan Lebedev’s case, it was like derailing a fast-moving train. The Russian landed belly-down on the concrete with a wheezing grunt as the wind was knocked out of him. Ben kicked him lightly in the head, just enough to keep him down a while longer without doing any lasting damage. Whatever few brain cells the man possessed, Ben needed to keep intact for later.

  The remaining Lebedevs stared down at their fallen sibling, exchanged a brief glance and then came at Ben in unison. Ben almost had to feel sorry for anyone so poorly schooled in the true craft of street brawling. He put an elbow in the youngest one’s face and a boot in the bearded one’s kneecap. The first went down backwards, the other forwards. The youngest brother hadn’t been a bad-looking kid, but now his days of being pretty were behind him. He struggled gamely to his feet and put a hand to the pulped mess where his nose had been, gaped down at his fallen brothers and seemed ready to bolt. The bearded Lebedev stayed on the ground, writhing in agony and clutching his knee while braying at the top of his lungs. The noise was irritating, so Ben knocked him out with a harder kick to the head than his elder brother had received.

  About four seconds in, the fight had now gone from three-to-one to even odds. The gathering crowd in the bar doorway had stopped offering yells of encouragement. Tatyana was still watching, as though transfixed. The last Lebedev standing wiped blood with his sleeve and circled Ben warily.

  ‘We haven’t got all day,’ Ben said. ‘Get on with it.’

  Now out came the knife, a small stiletto dagger the younger Lebedev kept tucked in the back of his belt. Ben shook his head. People really shouldn’t play with those nasty things unless they knew how to use them.

  The young guy wagged the blade this way and that, slicing at the air as menacingly as he could, then made a determined lunge at Ben’s chest. Ben deflected the strike and rolled the weapon out of his hand as easily as confiscating a lollipop from a child. Blood still pouring from his nose and horror in his eyes, the young guy stared at his empty hand, then back at his inert brothers, then back at Ben, before taking off like a startled antelope.

  ‘Not so fast,’ Ben said. As the younger Lebedev shot away he grabbed him by his greasy ponytail and yanked him backwards off his feet. Thump, kick, and it was over. Ten seconds, three knockouts, and Ben hadn’t taken a punch.

  The barman had other ideas, though. The gang in the doorway moved aside as he emerged and stalked towards Ben, burly and bristling and toting a pump shotgun. Maybe the fight wasn’t over, after all.

  Chapter 16

  A pump-action twelve-gauge hunting shotgun, out of the box, would typically sport a twenty-eight-inch smoothbore barrel and a good heavy wooden buttstock for absorbing the strong recoil of the firearm. This one had been converted to make it the ideal under-the-bar concealment weapon, in case its owner needed to blow away armed robbers or stop a riot among the punters. It would have served either purpose admirably. Both ends had been hacksawed away, leaving a stub of a pistol grip and a barrel no more than a foot long. Much less accurate, but just as dangerous to the guy on the wrong end of it.

  The barman angrily racked the pump. The metallic crunch-crunch of the machinery of death in motion. He stood planted with his feet apart, the weapon butted up against his right hip, the short barrel pointing Ben’s way.

  Ben was still clutching the stiletto knife. The question was, whether he could whirl it through the air accurately and quickly enough to plant the blade in the barman’s eyeball before the guy launched an ounce and a quarter of buckshot down that sawn-off tube at something like fifteen hundred feet per second. There would be only one way to find out.

  Tatyana had been standing frozen still throughout the fight. Now she suddenly came to life. Without hesitation and before any of the assembly could stop her, she strode up behind the barman and stunned him with a hard, blindingly fast blow to the back of the neck.

  As he half-staggered, half-spun towards her she whipped the shotgun from his hands and whacked him under the chin with the cut-down buttstock with a crunch of wood against flesh that echoed across the urban wasteland. The barman flopped to the ground like a wet mattress and lay spreadeagled on the concrete.

  In a flash, Tatyana turned the weapon on the gang in the doorway, who seemed about to get threatening. The sight of the chopped gun muzzle pointing their way was enough to dispel any such notions, and they retreated back inside, almost falling over one another in their haste to abandon their fallen comrades to their fate. When the door slammed shut, Tatyana shucked the shells out of the gun’s receiver and lobbed all five of them up onto the flat roof of the Zenit, from where it would take a ladder to retrieve the ammo. She threw the empty weapon among the weeds at the side of the building.

  ‘We should leave now, before the politsiya come.’

  ‘If they do, that’ll be their problem.’ Ben walked over to the semi-comatose heap that was Bogdan Lebedev, grabbed him under the arms and hauled him upright. The Russian swayed on his feet, blinked several times and managed to focus on Ben. Recognising his tormentor, he staggered backwards in terror.

  ‘Miss Nikolaev,’ Ben said, ‘please inform this gentleman that we’d like to be taken to wherever he keeps his stash of stolen goods, because we believe he has something we want back. Advise him that if he plays any silly games with us, he’s going to get both his wrists very painfully broken and his brothers, when they come out of the hospital themselves, will be taking turns wiping his arse fo
r the next several months.’

  ‘You want me to put it exactly that way?’ she asked, arching an eyebrow.

  ‘You can improvise a little, if you prefer.’

  ‘I understand English, motherfucker,’ Bogdan Lebedev muttered in a croak. ‘What is it you want?’

  Ben took a step towards him and raised a hand. The Russian flinched like a beaten dog. ‘Okay, okay, I take you to my place. Is not far.’

  Ben looked at him. ‘Bogdan, please tell me you’re really not that stupid that you’d keep a load of stolen goods in your own home.’

  Bogdan sort of shrugged, indicating that yes, he really was that stupid. But it would have been stupider still to refuse to comply with Ben’s request. ‘You can have what you want. You promise not to hit me again, agree?’

  ‘We’ll see about that. Move.’

  With a last wistful glance at his toppled motorcycle and barely a look at his unconscious siblings or the barman, Bogdan led the way at a shuffling limp. Ben and Tatyana followed. Minutes later, they were walking along a dismal street just a pistol shot away from Petrov’s apartment building, which, by comparison to the Lebedev residence, suddenly seemed about as upmarket as Ben’s hotel. Bogdan managed to drag himself noisily up three flights of stairs, pausing now and then to rub his bruises and complain of the agony he was in. Finally he led them into a squalid, dingy flat that reeked of cheap cooking, body odour and the smoke from all manner of illegal substances.

  The loot was kept in a spare room. Burglary was how the Lebedev boys seemed to earn much of their living, and stacked boxes of stolen goods covered nearly every square inch of the floor. ‘You want TV, video?’ Bogdan muttered, pointing to a crate full of equipment. ‘I got Panasonic fifty-inch screen, almost new. I got lot of stuff here.’

  Ben made him shove boxes aside and show him the stuff he and his brothers had raided from Yuri Petrov’s place, then ordered the Russian to stand aside while he and Tatyana rummaged through the junk. It was hard to believe that any of it had value, even to a low-end thief.