The Moscow Cipher

by Scott Mariani

  At that moment, Arkangelskaya rolled her head back and let out a long, rasping, ululating shriek, so piercingly loud that anyone in the building must surely be able to hear. The high-pitched cry was still coming from her mouth when Ben silenced her with a short, sharp punch to the head. She slumped limply in the chair with her eyes shut and her tongue sticking out.

  ‘Is she dead now?’ Valentina said, peering at her.

  ‘Haven’t you seen enough dead people today already?’ Ben shook his head and wondered at a twelve-year-old’s concept of death. Had he understood what it really meant, at that age? Maybe not. That was a lesson he’d come to learn later, in spades.

  But two things that all children certainly did understand were pain and fear. Both were etched all over Valentina’s little heart-shaped face. Ben grabbed her shoulders and shook her, gently but firmly. She didn’t resist his grip.

  ‘Tell me more about the old hospital. We need to know where it is, Valentina. You have to try and remember if they said anything else, anything at all. That’s the only way we’re going to be able to help Papa.’

  Valentina’s eyes filled with tears as she shook her head. ‘I’d remember if they’d said anything more. But you can find it, can’t you? Like you found us before? You’re someone who can find people, aren’t you? That’s why Tonton sent you, isn’t it?’

  Ben’s heart was sinking as fast as his hopes had risen. ‘Valentina, it could be anywhere in Moscow.’

  ‘But you have to find it! Those men are going to kill Papa!’ Her voice was rising. Ben suddenly clamped his hand over her mouth, stifling her words.

  He’d heard something. The sound of voices and running footsteps somewhere within the empty building. Still some way off, but approaching fast. Next, Arkangelskaya’s radio started crackling with urgent Russian voices. The damned woman had alerted the guards with her cry for help, and they’d be here any second.

  Ben turned off the walkie-talkie. He said, ‘Valentina, turn around with your back to the door. Eyes shut. Fingers in your ears. Now.’ Whether it was the authority in his voice or her fear of what was about to happen, the girl obeyed. Ben whirled around to face the door.

  In the next instant, two things happened. A pair of black-clad thugs burst through the door and charged into the room.

  And Arkangelskaya’s phone suddenly started ringing and vibrating in Ben’s pocket.

  Chapter 50

  They were the same two guys who had accompanied Arkangelskaya and Valentina earlier. The bigger of the two about Ben’s size, a shade under six feet, the other not much over five-two, whippy and mean-looking.

  Stopping dead in the doorway, they stared bug-eyed at the trussed-up and unconscious shape of Arkangelskaya in the chair where the child had been before. Then they turned their astonished gaze towards Ben, the very last person they’d have expected to find running around free. Hence the fact that their weapons were still clipped inside their shoulder holsters under their jackets. Which gave Ben a distinct advantage, as his two Grach pistols were in his belt, butt-forwards and ready to hand for a fast cross-draw. And Ben wasn’t so sporting that he wouldn’t make the most of such an advantage at a time like this.

  The moment of surprise lasted no more than three-quarters of a second before the two guards simultaneously fell into a combat crouch and reached inside their jackets, clawing out their pistols. Too slow, too late. Before either one had cleared its holster, Ben had yanked both Grachs from his belt, one in each hand. Silk-smooth and snake-fast, lining up on target without conscious thought. Their twin reports sounded like a single muted shot. A small red hole appeared in each man’s forehead, dead centre, as the jacketed 9mm bullets drilled neatly through their skulls and exited to the rear, spraying the wall either side of the doorway with blood and brains. Their knees crumpled and they hit the floor with their weapons still half drawn.

  Valentina had opened her eyes, taken her fingers out of her ears and turned to stare numbly down at the corpses with her mouth hanging open. ‘Don’t look at them,’ Ben said. But she kept staring. The doctor’s phone was still ringing in Ben’s pocket. He hesitated, then pulled it out and thumbed the reply button.

  A gruff, gravelly Russian voice spoke in his ear. He quickly held the phone close to Valentina’s, snapping her out of her trance at the sight of the dead guards. The girl’s face was pale and taut as she listened to the voice on the line. She cupped her hand over the phone and whispered, ‘It’s him. It’s Bezukhov, calling the witch!’

  Ben’s thoughts whirled at light-speed. He remembered something else he’d been told: skill at languages was just one talent the kid possessed. Another, according to her doting granduncle, was doing impressions.

  ‘Talk to him,’ he hissed. ‘Pretend you’re her.’

  Valentina’s eyes widened as round as dessert plates. ‘What shall I say?’

  ‘Just talk.’

  Valentina took a deep breath and replied into the phone. ‘ Da, eto gavarit Arkangelskaya.’ Yes, this is Arkangelskaya. The way she lowered her young voice into an impression of a much older woman’s, deep and raspy from smoking too many horse-dung cigarettes, was beyond uncanny. Despite the urgency of the moment, Ben had to smile. This kid was every bit as smart as her granduncle and her father had made her out to be.

  The rumbling voice on the line spoke again. Valentina listened, her face rigid with concentration, then quickly covered the phone with her hand and looked back up at Ben with the same huge, bewildered eyes.

  Ben whispered, ‘Well, what did he say?’

  She whispered back, ‘He said he’s sending some men to pick up the brat.’ From her look, it was clear she understood perfectly well that the brat in question was herself. ‘What do I tell him?’

  Ben had to think fast. Very few options were open to him and it was a stark, grim choice to have to make. But he knew it was the only way forwards. He said, ‘Tell him she’s ready whenever he wants her.’

  Valentina flashed him a look of fearful confusion, then put Arkangelskaya’s voice back on to relay the reply in the same perfectly croaky Russian, even though she didn’t yet understand the reason for it. Ben had to smile again at the faultlessness of her impression. On the other end, Bezukhov seemed to be completely taken in.

  After a couple more passes of conversation, Bezukhov ended the call. Valentina handed the phone back to Ben and puffed out her cheeks. ‘Phew. That was really intense.’

  ‘All right, Valentina. We’re going to have company. I need you to be really brave and grown up for just a little bit longer, all right?’

  ‘What do they want with me?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be with you every step of the way.’ He could see the deep apprehension in her eyes. He dropped the phone in his pocket, lowered himself into a crouch and grasped both of her hands in his. They were cold. As reassuringly as he could, he said, ‘I know how scared you are, kid. But there’s a good side to this. Before, we didn’t have any way of knowing where your dad is. Now they’re going to take us straight to him. And we know he’s all right.’

  She nodded, but the fear in her eyes hadn’t melted. ‘Do we?’

  ‘These are bad men, Valentina. Really bad. But your father has a secret that they care about more than anything. They can’t hurt him too much, because what they’re most afraid of is that he wouldn’t tell. That’s why they want you there, because they’re hoping the sight of you will persuade him to talk.’

  He could see her thinking, working through the logic of what he’d said and understanding its dreadful implications. After a moment’s silence she said, ‘Are they going to hurt me?’

  Ben clasped her hands more tightly, looking deep into those frightened hazel eyes. ‘No, Valentina. I swear that won’t happen. I’m here to protect you. You stay close to me, do what I say and everything will be fine. I promise.’

  She sniffed, blinked away a tear, and then nodded pluckily. ‘So what’s going to happen now?’

  Ben gave her hands a last reassurin
g squeeze and let them go. He took Arkangelskaya’s mobile back out. ‘First, I’m going to make a quick phone call.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then we’re going to get Papa, and take him away from the bad guys.’

  Valentina blinked. ‘How do we do that?’

  ‘Tonton says you’re a pretty good actress. From the way you fooled Bezukhov just now, I’d say you’re a movie star in the making.’

  ‘Maybe, I don’t know,’ she replied with a blush.

  ‘A lot better than me, anyway. So, now’s your chance to do a bit more acting. Are you okay with that?’

  She shrugged her shoulders under the pink gilet. ‘Okay, I suppose. And what then?’

  ‘And then we’re all going home,’ Ben said. ‘And we’re all going to live happily ever after.’

  ‘Papa too?’

  Ben playfully ruffled her hair, and for all her apprehension she gave him a beaming smile that touched his heart. He said, ‘Yep. Papa too.’

  If only things could be that simple.

  Chapter 51

  Ben’s call to Kaprisky was short and sweet, and Ben did all the talking. He kept his back to Valentina and his voice low. If the kid knew Tonton was on the line, she’d want to speak to him. Big emotional scenes could wait. When Kaprisky picked up, Ben said, ‘It’s me. Send the plane. We’re coming home.’ He ended the call before Kaprisky could react, and turned off the phone so the old man couldn’t call back at an inopportune moment. There might be plenty of those ahead.

  ‘Now let’s get started,’ he said to Valentina.

  They didn’t have long to prepare before Ben heard the sound of an approaching vehicle outside, and glanced out of the window to see headlights cutting through the dusk.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked Valentina, giving her a thumbs-up.

  ‘Ready,’ she replied from the chair she was sitting on, but her voice sounded nervous.

  At any rate, they were as ready as they could be. Arkangelskaya was trussed up tighter than a Christmas turkey, securely gagged and stuffed in the tiny storeroom with the two dead guards for company. Ben had mopped the blood off the floor as best he could, then exchanged his denim shirt and brown leather jacket for the black polo-neck sweater and black nylon jacket he’d taken from the dead guard his size. Under Valentina’s pink gilet she’d donned the bulletproof vest that Ben had stripped from the smaller of the two corpses. The wiry little guy had stood only an inch or two taller than she was, and with her gilet zipped up to the neck the thin but effective armour was invisible and added barely any noticeable bulk to her shape. At first she’d flatly refused to put it on, but Ben had explained that it would make her safe.

  He was all too aware that was wishful thinking on his part. The idea of walking a child into the very heart of danger filled him with horror. But it was either that or leave Yuri to his fate in the fairly certain knowledge that Bezukhov’s people would torture the poor guy to death. Had Ben been forced to take that grim option, he’d have had to kidnap Valentina himself and drag her out of Russia kicking and screaming while her father met his awful end, alone and abandoned. He couldn’t have forgiven himself for such a thing, any more than she would.

  It was a tense few moments as they waited, hearing the sound of doors and voices and footsteps growing louder. Ben patted Valentina’s shoulder. ‘Remember what I told you. Stay close to me but don’t talk to me, and act scared. They have to believe that I’m one of the bad guys.’

  She nodded. ‘I will.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘I trust you, Ben.’

  It was the first time she’d addressed him by name. Those words placed such a heavy burden on him that they were hard to hear. The prospect of what lay ahead chilled him to the core, but nothing was more heart-warming than a child’s trust. He smiled. ‘It’s all going to be okay,’ he repeated, forcing himself to believe it. It was when you stopped believing that you started dying.

  The footsteps reached the door, and an instant later it swung open. Ben held his breath. He was betting on the theoretical supposition that Bezukhov’s thugs and Calthorpe’s thugs were on separate teams and didn’t know one another. Now was the moment when he’d find out.

  Three unfamiliar faces of Bezukhov’s guys looked in. At a glance they were pretty much what Ben had expected, the usual run-of-the-mill gorillas, not fabulously bright and perfectly suited to this line of work. The one who seemed to be in charge glanced around the room and frowned. He’d clearly been expecting to see Arkangelskaya. Maybe more than just a single guard watching over the kid, too. At least, that was Ben’s interpretation of his grumbled query, to which Ben responded with a noncommittal shrug as if to reply, ‘ How the hell do I know where everybody is? I’m just doing my job, mate. ’

  The three came into the room, as brisk and businesslike as a haulage crew come to pick up a package for delivery. The leader walked up to Valentina’s chair and made as if to grab her by the arm, but Ben stepped in between them and shook his head. With a stony expression and one hand on the girl’s shoulder he drew out one of his Grach 9mms and pressed the muzzle to the side of her neck. Pointing a loaded firearm at a child was one of the hardest things he’d had to do in his life. But the unspoken message was clear, and it was one Ben needed to establish immediately with Bezukhov’s delivery boys. This one’s in my charge.

  They seemed content to let Ben assume the role of the kid’s minder, sparing them the ignominy of having to play baby-sitter themselves. Nothing more needed to be said, which suited Ben fine as they left the building and crossed the empty, unlit concrete to where a plain black minivan was waiting with its engine ticking over. The evening air was cool and damp and the moon was rising behind a drifting veil of fog.

  Ben had been anxiously watching the clock for the last several minutes, because the hour was almost up and Calthorpe was due to return at any moment. If he appeared now, Ben’s plan would explode disastrously before it had even begun. He felt a peculiar mixture of relief and apprehension as they reached the van. So far, so good; but the wave of luck Ben was riding could collapse at any time. All it would take was for someone to recognise him. Or to ask him something complicated in Russian and get suspicious when he failed to reply with more than a grunt or a shrug. He lit up one of Arkangelskaya’s cigarettes and puffed clouds of the foul smoke around him to ensure nobody got too sociable.

  The van was a GAZ Sobol. Manufactured by the Gorky Automobile Plant, virtually identical to scores of others Ben had seen going about Moscow in various configurations. This one was fitted with three rows of seats, like a minibus, and a sliding door at one side. Ben sat in the rear by the window with his young hostage next to him, the pistol resting in his lap. Valentina was acting her part well and looking suitably terrified of him. The others clambered in. Doors slammed. Nobody said a word. The driver set off through the gates and hit the road, wipers slicing away the sprinkles of mist on the windscreen, headlamps carving into the murk.

  The short journey took them around the edge of the city, then carved towards the heart of Moscow through a twisting night-time maze of streets and junctions that soon stripped Ben of any kind of bearings. In a quiet, dark and austere-looking suburb with virtually no traffic, the van pulled up at a tall gate set into a rusty iron-railed fence, its headlights throwing long shadows into the badly overgrown grounds of what looked like a rundown old mansion house from a bygone century, barely visible through the trees. The driver waited as a pair of men appeared, unchained the gates from inside and hauled them open for the van to pass through. Both men had submachine guns dangling on straps. Ben could feel the odds stacking up against him already, and it wasn’t a reassuring sensation.

  The gates were closed and rechained behind them as they drove down a short avenue of trees and pulled up in a weedy forecourt in front of the tall, long, once grand building, whose state of creeping dilapidation was even more apparent up close in the headlights. Ben guessed that the ‘old hospital’ had been some kind of p
rivate clinic back in the day, perhaps a sanatorium or rest home. On the outside, it gave the impression of having lain totally disused for many years. Its windows, many of them broken, were almost completely in darkness; only a faint chink of light peeped out from a couple of boarded-up panes on the third floor.

  But there was no question that someone still had a use for the place. It looked exactly like the kind of handy out-of-the-way spot where a guy like Chief Bezukhov and his thuggish Russian intelligence pals would bring people to torture and murder them. In the olden days of Lubyanka prison, they’d have been able to do these things more openly. Modern progress was of little comfort to their victims, however.

  The shadowy figures of two more armed men stood by the door, to add to the two working the gates and the three in the van, plus the driver, plus whoever else was inside. Ben’s headcount of opponents he’d have to deal with that night was growing fast. The men climbed out of the van, along with the driver, who plucked the keys from the ignition and tucked them in the back pocket of his jeans after blipping the locks. Ben couldn’t blame him for wanting to lock his vehicle. A lot of crooks around.

  Ben took Valentina’s arm and followed, treating her just roughly enough to look the part without hurting her. As they reached the entrance, one of the figures by the door stepped forward and said something in Russian while reaching out to take Valentina from him. Like before, Ben gave the guy a dead-eyed stare, shook his head and dug his pistol muzzle against the side of the girl’s neck. The universal sign language for ‘Uh-uh, hands off, she’s mine’. The van driver pointed at Ben and made a comment in Russian that sounded lewd, causing a ripple of coarse laughter among his pals. Ben turned his stare on them and they quickly shut up and looked away. The one at the door shrugged, like ‘Whatever, dude,’ and backed off.