The Moscow Cipher

by Scott Mariani

  Ben’s hands were shaking. This woman was his enemy. She’d tricked and betrayed him, and he’d no doubt she would have tried to kill him if ordered to do so. Perhaps she would have succeeded. Yet how could you feel animosity towards a foe who had done nothing to you by their own volition, and whose actions were totally controlled by an outside influence? He was disgusted by the cruelty of what they’d done. ‘You lobotomised her.’

  ‘Dear me, what a horrible notion,’ Calthorpe said. ‘As though we would stoop to anything so crude. Not at all. Not a single cell of her brain has been harmed. Don’t think of it as damage. Think of it as modification. Enhancement, even. Agent Yakunina is the lucky recipient of one of the most fabulous pieces of modern scientific biotechnology ever created.’

  Ben glanced at the guards by the door. Their jackets were partially unzipped, giving quick access to the concealed weaponry that was creating the bulges below each man’s left armpit. One was completely poker-faced, the other watching proceedings with a look of wry amusement. Calthorpe had been right to bring them inside the room, for his own safety. Otherwise, Ben would have punched his trachea out through the back of his spine.

  ‘And what do you call this gadget?’ Ben said to Calthorpe. ‘Object four-two-nine? Five hundred? Two thousand?’

  ‘Its operational name is classified. Let’s just say that it’s the pinnacle, the Rolls-Royce of cerebral implants. We’ve come an awfully long way from Delgado’s remote-controlled bull, I needn’t tell you. Had you allowed Mr Solokov to perform his little impromptu brain surgery on Agent Yakunina, I doubt whether you’d have found anything in there. While Object 428 measured 7mm in length by 4mm in width, requiring a substantially large hole to be cut into the patient’s skull, every generation since has become progressively smaller. Thirty years ago the implants had already shrunk to the size of a grain of rice, made of silicon or gallium arsenide crystalline semiconductor material rather than metal. The latest generation are tiny enough to be injectable via hypodermic needle, as well as being infinitely more sophisticated.’

  ‘So nice to see the citizens’ tax pennies being put to good use,’ Ben said.

  ‘You can be as sarcastic as you wish, but you can’t deny the brilliance of what we’ve developed. This little “gadget”, as you call it, puts us fully in charge of the human brain via an alternating magnetic field that applies specific inputs to specific neurons, causing them to fire at our will. It’s really a triumph of micro-bioengineering.’

  Calthorpe got to his feet, delicately set his empty glass down and began to pace up and down, looking for all the world like a benevolent university science professor educating a roomful of eager students.

  ‘You see, Major, we are electric creatures. Our bodies run on electrical currents. So does the living computer we call our brain. Every thought and reaction we experience, everything we see or hear, causes a tiny spike in the neurological patterns of the brain’s electromagnetic fields. Every individual brain has its own unique bioelectrical resonance frequency, in the same way we all have unique fingerprints and irises. Today’s computers can decode and analyse those patterns, those minute fluctuations, into thoughts, sounds and images just like a brain can. For instance, thanks to research done at the University of Berkeley in the last couple of years, we can actually hook up a sleeping subject to a monitoring device, record their dreams and play them back as video images. One day people will be able to re-experience last night’s dreams on a screen as they sit having breakfast.’

  ‘Know what I’m dreaming of right now, Calthorpe? You wouldn’t want to see it.’

  Calthorpe gave a little smile. ‘By the same token, the process also can be reversed. That’s when a computer sends electromagnetic stimulants encoded as signals to the subject’s brain, giving rise to thoughts or sense reactions that are experienced exactly as though they were the brain’s own natural responses. We can influence a person’s dreams when they’re asleep, inducing anything from the most wonderful fantasy to the worst mind-bending nightmare imaginable. When they’re awake we can cause them to see things that aren’t actually there, hear voices inside their heads, do anything we want them to do. We can make them run faster and perform better, by instructing the brain to flood the bloodstream with adrenalin and endorphins. Another command can turn off their fear response. Yet another can shut down the pain receptors in the brain. For espionage purposes, should an implanted agent be captured, they can be rendered impervious to torture. Strictly for humane reasons, of course.’

  ‘That’s very decent of you.’

  ‘And all operated remotely. The electromagnetic impulses can be directed from satellites, from the subject’s mobile phone, an anonymous-looking van parked outside their house. An implanted person can even be triggered by electromagnetic waves coming from their television. Alternatively, where appropriate, we can use one of these handy devices.’

  Calthorpe paused for a moment while he reached into his inside jacket pocket and slipped out a slim black device that looked like a standard TV remote control, but half the size and with only a few buttons. He held it up to show Ben.

  ‘Impressed? You should be. This clever little box of tricks has been specifically attuned to Agent Yakunina’s individual brain resonance patterns and pre-programmed with a range of specific stimulus commands that are emitted as an electromagnetic pulse. At the touch of a button I can manipulate her thoughts, direct her movements, or if desired cause her to completely lose control of her bodily functions. Which I will refrain from doing. Switch off the field entirely and she will return more or less to normal. Right now, as you can see, she’s in standby mode.’

  Ben took a step closer and looked at her. He waved a hand in front of her face, like he’d done before. ‘Katya?’

  Calthorpe said, ‘You can call her Tatyana if you prefer. She couldn’t tell the difference either way, even if she could hear you. Her mind is completely disconnected from present reality, like an epilepsy patient undergoing an absence seizure. She’ll stay that way until I release her.’

  Ben touched her hand. She gave no response. Just like before, not the slightest twitch. Like a living mannequin. Cold fingers ran down his spine and made him shudder. It was as though she were a robot, stripped of everything that made her human.

  He looked back at Calthorpe. ‘You know what I think? I think you make the most dangerous nutcase I’ve ever met in my life look sane and normal.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Calthorpe said. ‘That’s just your natural psychological response to something too incredible and radically advanced to comprehend. I really don’t take it personally. And now, if you’ll permit me, I’d like to show you something.’

  Calthorpe flipped aside the hem of his jacket, revealing his trim waist and a slender belt to which was clipped a small walkie-talkie handset. Unclipping it he pressed the talk button and said into the radio, ‘Dr Arkangelskaya, please be so good as to bring in our young guest.’

  Chapter 43

  Moments later, the room door opened again. Two more black-clad guards had appeared outside. One of them was about Ben’s size, a shade under six feet, fit and well built. The other was slight and sparrow-legged, standing no taller than five-two or so. Maybe Calthorpe’s team were running some kind of equal opportunities non-height-discriminatory employment policy. Or else maybe the little guy was a small but extremely mean taekwondo master recruited for his fighting skills. Ben wondered if he’d ever get to find out.

  The pair were accompanied by a thin woman in a white lab coat. She was almost exactly midway between them in height. Her hair was buzzed short, military-style, and greyed to the colour of dull steel. Her features were pinched and severe and she bore the wrinkles of an excessively heavy smoker that made her look older than she probably was. Ben could smell the stale tobacco across the room, as though her clothes and skin were permanently imbued with clouds of the nastiest and roughest cigarette smoke imaginable.

  Standing very reluctantly by her side, and fighting
to struggle free of the grip the woman had on her arm, was Valentina. The last time Ben had laid eyes on the child, she was being stolen away by armed men aboard a helicopter and there had been times since that terrible moment when privately he’d seriously doubted whether he would ever lay eyes on her again. Seeing her now brought a flood of emotions, his relief tempered only by the circumstances of her, and now his, predicament. She was still dressed as he’d last seen her, the little pink gilet zippered up to her neck and jeans dirtied and torn at one knee from the aborted escape from Grisha’s farm. Her rosy cheeks had turned ghostly pale, her hair was dishevelled and her eyes were red from crying, though she was putting on a brave face and shooting looks of defiance at the woman in the white coat.

  ‘Perfectly unharmed and all in one piece,’ Calthorpe said. ‘As you can see, Major, we’ve been taking good care of her.’ He smiled at Valentina. ‘Haven’t we, my chick? Except that she refuses to eat a bite. You’re far too precious to let waste away, aren’t you, dear?’

  ‘ Va te faire foutre, vieux connard!’ Valentina yelled at him in French, still wriggling to get loose of the doctor’s grip.

  ‘Such a foul tongue for one so young and pretty,’ Calthorpe said, shaking his head in mock disapproval. ‘She should put her talent for languages to better use. It’s a good thing she doesn’t speak Russian, or she might have given offence to our hosts. Thank you, Doctor, you may leave us.’

  The tall, severe woman let go of Valentina, pushed her into the room and shut the door in the child’s wake, closing herself and the guards outside in the corridor. The two flanking the inside of the doorway were as still as statues but Ben could sense from their body language that something was about to happen. His mind raced, but he couldn’t guess what.

  Valentina looked at Ben and said, ‘ Où est mon papa?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘I don’t know where your father is, kid. I’m sorry.’

  She could slide between French and English like a train switching tracks, so effortlessly that she barely seemed conscious of it. ‘I don’t like it here. I want to go home.’

  ‘Me too,’ Ben said. ‘And we both will. Soon.’ Another promise that he could only hope he’d be able to keep. He turned back to face Calthorpe. ‘Mind telling me what your game is, Colonel?’

  Calthorpe smirked. ‘Why, let me show you.’ Flourishing his little black remote control device as though he were changing TV channels, he aimed it at Katya and pressed a button.

  The effect kicked in as fast as it took for the electromagnetic signal to pulse across the room at something near light speed, hit the microprocessor inside her head and trigger off a lightning sequence of snapping neural connections within the brain. In a heartbeat, Agent Yakunina seemed to snap right out of her bizarre trance. She rocked on her feet, shook herself a little, then her eyes regained their focus and swivelled around the room as though she was suddenly taking in her surroundings for the first time since she’d arrived. Her gaze passed blankly over Valentina without any apparent sign of recognition. Then over Ben, showing a similar lack of response. As though they’d never met before.

  ‘The reason I invited our young friend here to join us,’ Calthorpe said, motioning at Valentina, ‘was to enable a demonstration of the full power of this technology. Chiefly for your benefit, Major Hope.’

  ‘That’s not necessary, Calthorpe.’

  ‘’Fraid I must insist, old chap.’ Calthorpe aimed the remote and pressed another button. ‘I’ve just sent her a new command. Now watch. I assure you this will be most interesting.’

  As he spoke, something was happening to Katya. Her body seemed to go rigid. Whatever processes were taking place inside her head, whatever images she was seeing or voices she was hearing, it was all playing out through her expression. Her eyes darted and rolled wildly. Her facial muscles were twitching as though a hundred random electric pulses were being fired through them. It was eerie to watch. Almost frightening.

  But what happened next was far worse.

  Katya’s eyes stopped rolling, and a strange light came into them as they turned on Valentina. Her lips drew back from her teeth in a mirthless smile that grew into a snarl.

  And then she took a step towards the girl. Then another. The tics and twitches were gone. Now the look on her face was like a shark’s. Blank, unemotional, void of compassion, empty of anything except pure predatory intent.

  Valentina shrank away in terror, instinctively moving to Ben for protection in the absence of a father to look after her.

  ‘Call her off, Calthorpe,’ Ben warned.

  ‘You don’t want it, then stop it,’ Calthorpe replied.

  Katya came on another step. Her teeth were still bared and the veins were standing out horribly on her forehead. Her hands came up, clenched like talons. Valentina let out a whimper and backed further away, but she was running out of space to retreat.

  Ben had seen enough. He grabbed Valentina by the shoulders, whisked her behind him and stepped protectively into Katya’s path. ‘No.’

  It was like stepping between a tigress and her kill. Katya instantly dropped down into a fighting stance, reverting back at some unconscious level to military training that had been instilled so deeply it was second nature. Without hesitation and as fast as any karate black belt, she launched a savage blow at Ben’s face.

  Ben was faster, though only just. He rolled the blow harmlessly aside with the flat of his palm and shoved her back, making her totter on her feet. He could have trapped her wrist and snapped her arm in at least two places, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

  That would soon have to change.

  Ben had never seen a human being look so demented. Her wild eyes flicked back and forth between him and Valentina, the target her programming had instructed her to destroy. Valentina was cowering behind Ben for protection, whimpering.

  ‘We get the message, Calthorpe. Turn it off.’

  ‘Sorry, old chap. Can’t do that.’

  ‘Tatyana. Katya. Please stop. Don’t make me hurt you.’

  Ben didn’t even know if she could understand him. With a scream of fury she charged, and this time he knew she would leave him no choice.

  Many times, he’d found himself pushed into combat against desperate men. Men so highly trained and motivated to survive that they would fight through their pain and fear, and keep fighting until either they or their opponent were out of commission. This enemy was different. She was like a machine. There was no fear to cloud her judgement. No pain through which to lever the body into submission. She would keep on coming until her target lay dead at her feet or until every bone in her own body was broken, without caring either way. The only way to stop her would be to take her apart.

  Ben had been made to witness, and carry out, a lot of ugly things in his time. But the next few minutes would be the ugliest of his life.

  Chapter 44

  The guards had stepped closer, watching and waiting in hungry anticipation of a good show. Calthorpe’s face wore a smug grin that Ben would dearly have loved to wipe off with something hard, heavy and blunt, if he hadn’t had his hands full at this moment.

  Katya attacked. A storm of unbridled fury, maximum violence, rushing him like a crazy person. But without guile. Deception and trickery are what decide the outcome of fights between well-matched opponents, rather than brute strength that can be converted into momentum to work against you, or blinding speed that can be redirected to trip you up. Like a bar-room brawler blinded by irrational rage, Katya wasn’t thinking consciously – and that was her weakness.

  Ben saw the throat-crushing strike coming and stepped out of its trajectory, snatching her right wrist out of the air and twisting it as he moved. It was Katya’s own speed and power that pushed the joint past breaking point. He felt the sickening crackle and pop, felt her right hand go limp in his. He could have held on, twisted the arm behind her back and snapped it at the elbow while driving her face down to the floor and stamping on the back of her neck.

&n
bsp; He let go. Still couldn’t do it.

  ‘Katya. Please. You know me. Stop this.’

  Her lack of any reaction to the broken wrist made the hairs stand up on the back of Ben’s neck. Right hand flapping loose at her side, she came back at him with an animal scream and a white-knuckle left fist. This time, Ben just dodged it without doing any more hurt to her, and backed away. Desperate to think of something, anything, he could do to avert this disaster, he said, ‘You’re Katya Yakunina. You were an army captain. You used to have family living out in the countryside near the old church we passed, and when you were little you were taken to visit them. You love romantic Russian men and vodka cocktails but you’re not keen on whisky, and you hate goats even more.’

  And you can handle yourself in a fight , he might have added.

  ‘Nice try, Major,’ Calthorpe commented from the sidelines. ‘But it’ll take more than a few unearthed memories to appeal to her better judgement. She can’t even begin to process what you’re telling her.’

  Ben had to try. But Calthorpe was right.

  Katya regained her momentum and attacked once more, this time aiming for Ben’s midsection with a lightning strike that could have punched out a man’s spleen. Ben had to call on all of his speed and agility to evade it. He spun outside of the blow’s trajectory, hooked her left arm with his and twisted his body hard, feet braced solidly apart, using his rotational movement to yank her off balance and send her crashing to the floor. He kept hold of her left arm, exerting hard leverage on her shoulder joint and hoping the force of pressure would keep her down; but she barely touched the floor before leaping up again like an uncoiling steel spring, letting her shoulder dislocate itself rather than be pinned down. The awful searing crackle and crunch of cartilage was a sound usually accompanied by a shriek of agony, even from the toughest battle-hardened warrior. She didn’t even flinch. There was nothing in her expression as she sprang back and away from Ben, tearing her dislocated arm out of his grip.