The Moscow Cipher

by Scott Mariani

  ‘The answer is no,’ Ben said.

  ‘I haven’t even told you what the job entails.’

  ‘Still no. To whatever you have to say. Niet . Or I could put it more bluntly, if you like.’

  ‘I pray you’ll change your mind, if you’ll hear me out.’

  Ben glanced at the guns. ‘Go ahead and talk, Calthorpe. Much as I’d love to, it appears I can’t stop you right now.’

  ‘You and I were soldiers,’ Calthorpe said. ‘We’ve both seen and done things that ordinary men would never be called upon to endure, and that has formed our outlook on life. As warriors, we’ve learned that a lesser evil is often necessary to combat a greater one. That violence can be justifiable when it’s used to end violence. And that’s precisely what the Ploughshares Program is all about. Its purpose is to aid in bringing in the new era of peace on earth by the total eradication of private arms across the world. Some parts of the world are more problematic in that regard than others. The toughest nut to crack is North America, where gun violence has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. It must stop.’

  ‘I can see why it would fit with your strategy to have private citizens disarmed and powerless to defend themselves.’

  ‘If we had our way, there would be nothing for them to defend themselves against, hence no need to be armed,’ Calthorpe countered. ‘It’s a vicious circle that has to be broken. Desperate times call for drastic measures, and that’s what we can provide. An orchestrated, sustained campaign of engineered situations involving prepared subjects that will knock this social cancer on the head once and for all.’

  Ben stared at him. ‘Did you just say “engineered situations”?’

  ‘And I think you know exactly what I meant by it. The United States isn’t the only country to be plagued by the phenomenon of random mass shootings involving significant loss of life, but it’s way ahead in the leagues. Which presents us with a rich environment on which to focus, and a golden opportunity to exploit.’

  ‘I can’t believe what I think you’re about to tell me, Calthorpe.’

  ‘Let’s be realistic. These kinds of incidents represent excellent value for money, so to speak, offering fabulous media traction and public outcry in return for minimal collateral damage. Thirty thousand US citizens killed annually in road accidents and nobody ever calls for a ban on cars. But a lone lunatic with a rifle takes a comparative handful of casualties, and you have every anti-gun lobbyist in Washington marching on the White House to mandate instant nationwide disarmament. Quite rightly, too. Such tragedy.’

  ‘Oh, I can tell you’re all broken up about it,’ Ben said. ‘You’re really quite the altruist.’

  Calthorpe paused for a contemplative sip of his drink. ‘The problem is, if you leave matters to run their natural course, there simply aren’t enough lone lunatics with rifles out there to create the kind of stir that would really bring about change. To topple the powerful pro-gun lobby and bring down the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution we need to boost the number of mass shootings to such a degree that every armed American will voluntarily turn in every weapon they possess out of sheer disgust for what’s happening to their society. See where I’m going with this?’

  ‘In Technicolor. Now I’m guessing we come to the part about “prepared subjects”.’

  ‘That’s the real crux of the matter,’ Calthorpe said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. ‘The militant Islamists seem to have no problem recruiting sufficiently motivated chaps to strap on an explosive belt and blow themselves to smithereens for their cause. But it’s a damned difficult thing to persuade your average secular Anglo male to hole up on a shopping mall rooftop with an AR15 and a few spare magazines, litter the street below with bodies and then blow out his own brains before the police can nab him and start asking questions. Suicide just doesn’t seem to come naturally to them.’

  ‘What a bummer.’

  ‘So, as the saying goes, “If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain.” It’s a simple matter of locating suitable candidates, taking charge of their thought processes and, ah, influencing them to carry out one’s intentions.’

  ‘And you want me to be one of your recruiters.’

  ‘Seems to me you’d be ideal for the job. You’re intelligent, tough-minded and resourceful, a keen observer. You’ve spent many years of your life assisting, and very ably, in the process of war and destruction. Now let us enlist your talents to help us move towards a future of peace and harmony for all mankind. Not to mention the fact that you really don’t have the option of refusing.’

  ‘Sounds like an irresistible deal.’

  ‘You would quit your current business in France and relocate to the States. Somewhere nice and warm, with white beaches and swaying palms. We have a number of bases across the country, with which you’d be in constant contact as you travelled about locating potential candidates. Ex-military personnel would be a good source of likely subjects to choose from, as they often fit the right profile, are already familiar with the weaponry, and as soldiers were used to having all kinds of mysterious procedures done on them without asking questions. Once the subject was selected by you and approved by us, our teams would move in and take charge of the rest. The subject would be taken to a secure location where trained staff would administer the procedure. The implant takes only minutes to install, and the patient remembers nothing afterwards. Once in place …’ Calthorpe waved a hand in the direction of the blood pool that was slowly congealing on the floor. ‘Well, you’ve already seen how effectively it works.’

  He went on, ‘We also aim to target members of the public, in the interest of diversity. Implant them with ideation that gives them the desire to kill at random, while removing their natural inhibitions about ending their own lives when the task is complete. Then put a gun in their hand, and away they’ll go, ready and willing to commit the perfect crime. It’s a no-lose situation for us, because even if they managed to get themselves caught before they could terminate themselves, we can shut them down remotely prior to interrogation. In any case they’ll be quite incapable of consciously revealing any information that might compromise the program, simply because they’ll know nothing whatsoever about it.’

  ‘You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?’

  ‘All we have to do at this end is let things run their course, watch and wait for the fireworks as the media pick up the baton. Neighbours of the lone gunman will say on CNN, “Oh, but he seemed such a nice man.” Friends and family will express justifiable shock, while the internet conspiracy brigade will spin their false flag scenarios as usual.’

  ‘Where do they get these crazy notions?’

  ‘But the public reaction is always the same, and it will ramp up until the policy makers, and eventually the gun manufacturers themselves, cave in under the pressure. How many incidents does it take to break the dam? Ten in a year? Twenty? Thirty? How many dead bodies of innocent men, women and children stacking up in morgues across the country? It’s simply a matter of numbers; the more the better. The conclusion is inevitable.’

  ‘Tell me, Calthorpe. Has this program already started? Are you already using brain-controlled patsies to murder innocent victims?’

  Calthorpe smiled. ‘Well, now, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?’ But the twinkle in his eye was all the answer Ben needed.

  ‘You know, I thought I was already used to dealing with the lowest scum on earth. You’ve opened my eyes to a whole new realm.’

  ‘Come, now. Don’t you want to come on board the winning side once again? I haven’t mentioned the pay. A lot of zeroes. Perks, too.’

  ‘I already have a job, thanks.’

  ‘Doing what, training the Keystone cops to plink at paper targets on a firing range and running errands for your billionaire chums on the side?’

  ‘I’d scrub sewers in Bangladesh before I’d work for you.’

  ‘You don’t consider peace
and harmony to be worthy enough aims?’

  Ben said, ‘I love peace and harmony more than anything. But not at the expense of taking away the last real freedom people have.’

  ‘The freedom to kill and maim one another?’

  ‘No, the freedom to think and judge for themselves what’s right and what’s wrong.’

  ‘Even if that freedom is the source of so much suffering and unhappiness in the world?’

  ‘Human nature is flawed. We’re doomed to unhappiness and uncertainty, from the day we’re born until the day we die. But that’s the way we’re made. To force change on our species would be to play God. And no man can be God. Because then, who oversees him?’

  ‘Back to the theology class,’ Calthorpe said. ‘But we’re not singing “Kumbaya”.’

  ‘Nothing like a stimulating philosophical conversation.’

  ‘The very last one you’re ever likely to have, unfortunately,’ Calthorpe said. ‘Sadly, this job offer doesn’t come with a get-out-of-jail-free card. If you still persist in turning it down, you walk away from more than just a great opportunity.’

  ‘I get the idea. Then it looks as if you’ll just have to kill me. Or get one of your ghouls here to do it for you, if you haven’t got the guts.’

  ‘When you told your superiors you were quitting the SAS, they didn’t want to let you go so easily.’

  ‘They gave me a week to think about it. But they could have saved themselves the trouble. My mind was made up, just like it is now.’

  ‘But back then it didn’t mean losing your life. This time is different.’

  ‘At least I’ll be able to live with myself, for as long as I’ve got.’

  Calthorpe frowned at him in silence for a beat or two, then nodded.

  ‘One hour. That’s how long you’ve got. I suggest you use it to come to your senses. I have some business to attend to. We’ll speak again in sixty minutes, on my return. If you still refuse, Major Hope, you’ll be dead in sixty-one.’

  Chapter 47

  Calthorpe made his exit from the room, pausing a moment to mutter a few quiet words of Russian to the guards. Then Ben was alone with the shaven-headed pair, who seemed pleased at the prospect of maybe getting to kill him in an hour’s time.

  For the moment, they had their orders to keep him alive and locked up. Following the same routine as before, one guy kept his silenced 9mm Grach unwaveringly aimed at Ben’s head from a safe distance, while the other guy stepped closer and fastened the cuffs back around his wrists, before he stepped away and pulled out his own identical pistol.

  They escorted Ben outside into the empty corridor and began walking him back through the twisting passages towards his cell, the one in front setting the pace, the one behind keeping the gun aimed somewhere between Ben’s shoulder blades. Staying well back. Doing the sensible thing, observing the proper protocol for escorting a highly dangerous prisoner who wants you dead more than most things in the world at that moment, and has a better idea how to achieve that result than the vast majority of humans who ever lived.

  Ben walked slowly with his chained hands dangling loosely in front of him, measuring his step against the guy in front. The corridors were narrow and featureless under cold neon light. The floor was smooth tile, grimy and dusty. The walls were whitewashed brick. He didn’t need to test the handcuff chain to know it was strong. Slim and lightweight, four links in length, probably made of titanium or some kind of aircraft-grade aluminium. Impossible to break free. A bullet might not even do it. But that kind of strength could be made to work both ways, for him as well as against him. It was just a matter of opportunity.

  As they entered the final stretch leading up to the cell door, Ben slowed his pace a little and turned his head, watching out of the corner of his eye to see if the guy behind was catching up. All Ben needed was for one of them to venture just a little too close. But the guy behind seemed to understand he was being tested. He maintained the safe distance between himself and Ben and gave a gruff command. Ben smiled to himself and kept moving.

  As they reached the door to Ben’s cell, the guy behind snapped out, ‘ Stoy’, and Ben obediently halted. The one in front tucked his pistol into his shoulder holster, and from his belt loop unclipped his key ring. He spent a moment jangling keys, head bent in concentration as though this were a difficult task for him. Which perhaps it was, because the first key he tried in the lock wouldn’t work. He muttered irritably to himself. The guy at Ben’s back said something in Russian, like ‘What’s up?’ To which the guy with the keys muttered something back, shaking his head in annoyance as he searched for the right one to open the lock.

  Ben watched closely, savouring their distractedness. Anything that diverted their attention from him was good. Even for a split second. A split second would be all he’d need. While their eyes were off him, he inched forward. Then another inch. They didn’t notice. He smiled to himself again.

  The second key worked. The cell door opened outwards into the narrow corridor, as all cell doors should do in order to prevent the inmate from barricading himself inside. As it swung open, the guy with the keys moved back a step to allow for its arc. And in so doing he made a terrible mistake. He entered Ben’s space. Stepped right into the zone of maximum danger.

  Protocol: momentarily forgotten.

  Caution: foolishly allowed to slip.

  Life: fast running out of time.

  Before he could react, the slim, strong chain connecting Ben’s wrists was up and over his head and locked back hard against the softness of his throat and he was being yanked violently off his feet, gurgling and choking and clawing at the metal links digging deep into his flesh. Ben pivoted backwards, using his hips and lower back to draw the guy’s weight against his chest and use his momentum to swing him around in an anti-clockwise semicircle. Straight into the guy behind, who was caught off guard and failed to get a shot off in time.

  Speed and surprise were everything, and Ben was a master of both. In two short steps he had the second guy jammed hard up between his choking, rasping human shield and the opposite wall. The second guy’s gun arm was pinned sideways, his hand still clutching the weapon and desperately trying to grapple it around to bear on Ben so he could shoot him. Ben momentarily released the backward pressure on the first guy’s throat and used his forearms to ram their heads together. He lashed out with his foot and crunched the second guy’s gun hand against the wall. With a sharp cry the guy let go of the pistol and it clattered to the floor. Another swift kick, and it was spinning away across the dusty floor tiles. Ben crashed their heads together once more, feeling the solid impact of skull on skull. Then he whipped the chain out from under the first guy’s chin and let his weight fall backwards. As he went down, Ben’s hands were darting inside the guy’s jacket and ripping the 9mm Grach from the shoulder holster. Ben danced backwards, clutching the pistol. The first guy slumped to the floor at his feet, fingers raking at his crushed throat as he battled for air. He was less of a threat than his buddy, who was still on his feet against the opposite wall, streaming blood from a broken nose. Ben dealt with him first.

  In the confined space of a brick-walled corridor, even a sound-suppressed pistol would make a bang plenty loud enough to draw attention. But there were other effective, and more discreet, uses for a kilogramme-heavy lump of carbon steel and polymer. Ben laid into the two guys, hard and fast and brutal. The one still standing didn’t remain on his feet for long. The one already on the floor put up even less resistance. Moments later, both men were stretched out in the corridor, pistol-whipped stone cold unconscious.

  Ben froze for a few seconds, listening out for the sounds of voices and running footsteps that would mean the alarm had been raised. There was only silence, apart from the beating of his own heart. He quickly retrieved the second Grach, checked both weapons’ magazines and stuffed them crossways through his belt, like a pirate of old. One at a time he dragged the unconscious bodies through the open cell door by their ankles, and du
mped them side by side and face down. He pulled off one guy’s shoe and jammed it in the door to prevent it from closing all the way. Then he stood over the bodies and thought about what needed to happen next.

  The unconscious guards were both bleeding profusely from several head-butts and a fresh set of scalp wounds. If they were ever to wake up, they’d have headaches for a month. But Ben would be sparing them that discomfort, as well as the inevitably nasty punishment they’d receive for letting their prisoner escape. Their troubles were about to end.

  Cold as ice, Ben knelt over each man’s body in turn and strangled him with the handcuff chain. A true strangle, as opposed to a simple choke-hold, is the way a lion kills its prey by clamping the blood vessels in the neck to shut off the supply of oxygen to the brain. Ben maintained an even pressure for four minutes for each guard. When they were both clinically brain-dead, he calmly retrieved the keys from the cell door lock and went through the ring until he’d found the one for the handcuffs. Once his hands were free he spent a few moments checking the bodies for whatever he could find. Both were wearing slim bulletproof vests under their jackets, the kind of lightweight Kevlar weave that could turn a standard pistol round or a knife blade, if perhaps not a full-power rifle. Tools of the trade for guys in their profession. Unsurprisingly, neither man was carrying any form of ID, not even a wallet. Just two more anonymous dead footsoldiers. And there would be more. As many as it took to finish this.

  Ben had already decided to save Calthorpe until last. Some people deserved special treatment.

  He stripped the bulletproof vest off one of the bodies and put it on under his own jacket. It wasn’t a bad fit, and it made him feel better. He closed the bodies inside the cell along with the keys, then drew one of the Grachs from his belt and set off at a run back the way he’d come. He was ready to encounter more guards at any moment, but the corridors were empty. So was the lounge room where Ben’s meeting with Calthorpe had taken place. The only trace that remained was the smear of Katya Yakunina’s blood on the wall and floor, already turning russet-brown as it oxidised and congealed. Ben gazed at the blood and his anger and nausea returned threefold.