The Moscow Cipher

by Scott Mariani

  But it was unlikely that the cops would get here in time to prevent the final showdown. Ben and his companions were on their own.

  Chapter 58

  The remaining car was now right behind them again. Its back windows rolled down and two of Calthorpe’s crew poked their head and shoulders through, hanging out over the road at each side like outriggers, faces contorted and eyes narrowed, the wind ripping at their hair and clothes as they brought to bear the automatic weapons they were grasping.

  Then the chattering, rattling gunfire started up all over again, shredding what was left of the van’s rear bodywork. Yuri was pressed down out of sight between the rows of seats as bullets spat and thunked into the backrests above his head and he covered his daughter’s body with his own. Ben felt a bullet graze his shoulder, though he hardly registered the pain. Another perforated the head restraint by his right ear. Another tore through the steering wheel an inch from his left thumb and shattered the windscreen. Forward visibility suddenly dissolved into a mass of cracks. He ripped Bezukhov’s pistol from his belt, lunged forward and used the gun to punch the glass out so he could see to drive. A hurricane of cold night air blew into the cab, snatching the breath from his lips and making his eyes stream with tears.

  The van had absorbed virtually all the punishment it could withstand. Ben knew it was soon going to die, even before the smoke started pouring from under the bonnet and the engine began to pack up. As it lost power and speed, the Mercedes surged up alongside. A burst of machine gun fire shattered what was left of Ben’s driver window and forced him to duck low behind the wheel. He thrust the pistol out over the door sill and squeezed off four, five, six shots, firing without aiming as fast as he could work the trigger. The car’s brakes gave a squeal and it dropped back a few metres. Ben wasn’t sure if he’d hit anything, but at least he’d given them something to think about.

  In the handful of seconds Ben had been driving blind, as he now realised, the van was hurtling towards a narrow bridge that spanned a barren area of wasteland. An old iron monster of a thing, probably built back in the old days to ferry materials and work crews to and from the now derelict factories and warehouses. Its rust-red girders and arches stood supported on enormous, weathered concrete blocks that jutted from a steeply sloping grassy embankment littered with junk, rotted-out drums and remnants of Communist-era vehicles. A low iron mesh parapet each side was all that stood between the asphalt surface of the bridge and a forty-foot drop to the wasteland below.

  The van passed under the first iron archway, weaving crazily from side to side to stop the Mercedes from flanking them again. But it was hopeless. The dying GAZ Sobol was losing speed with every turn of its wheels. Its engine was pumping smoke as though it could burst into flames or seize solid any second. The temperature gauge was all the way into the red.

  And still the Mercedes hung on in their wake, its battered front end almost visibly grinning a victory grin as the pursuit finally neared its inevitable conclusion.

  Or maybe not so inevitable. If Ben had learned anything in his life, it was that no matter how desperate things got, even at the last ditch, there was always one last trick you could play.

  ‘Hold on tight, folks,’ he called out over his shoulder. Then to the van he murmured, ‘Come on, baby. Show me what you can do. One last time.’ He shoved his foot down all the way to the floor. The expiring engine gave a cough, seemed about to stall, then suddenly rallied round and came up with the goods. One last heroic spurt of speed, enough to make the speedometer flicker and the gap between them and the Mercedes widen by a car’s length.

  That was all Ben needed. With a silent ‘thank you’, he took his foot off the accelerator and booted the brake with sudden force. He felt himself being thrown forwards, a dart of pain searing through his shoulder where the seat belt bit into his bullet-creased flesh. The frantic pumping of the anti-lock braking system hammered against the sole of his boot. The van’s three remaining tyres hissed and screeched on the surface of the bridge.

  Ben steeled himself for the impact.

  Then the Mercedes, unable to stop in time, pummelled headlong straight into the back of them. The car’s nose impacted against the van’s ruined rear end with a crunch of splintering and rumpling metal and plastic. Bits of bodywork from both vehicles went spinning. The car was much heavier than the van, and far more solidly built. It tore away the Sobol’s other back wheel, the one that had still had a tyre on, together with most of its rear suspension and chassis cross-members. The impact sent the car cannoning sideways. Its grippy low-profile tyres bit the road and arrested its lateral slide, but all that weight and momentum had to go somewhere. As if in slow motion, the big Mercedes went up on two wheels. Once Newton’s laws of dynamics took hold, nothing could stop the car from rolling and flipping. It hit the bridge parapet and tore through the rusted iron mesh like a cannonball fired into football goal netting, upended and somersaulted into space to go tumbling end over end down the embankment.

  Then, in the immediate aftermath of so much noise and violent chaos, all was eerily silent.

  Ben opened his eyes and blinked a few times, and realised that he was lying pressed against the driver’s door, now strangely underneath him. There was blood running down his cheek where he must have banged his temple against the window in the impact of the collision. The van had been overturned and was lying on its side. The dead engine had fallen silent. There was only the murmur of the night-time wind singing against the iron gridwork of the bridge. Then, from behind him, Ben heard a cough and a splutter. He levered himself up on one elbow and tried to speak, but at first all that came out was a dry croak.

  ‘Valentina? Yuri?’

  ‘We’re okay,’ came a weak reply. ‘We’re alive. I think.’

  ‘Can we go home now?’ said Valentina’s voice, and Ben almost laughed out loud with relief at the sound of it. ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Yes, we can. But I think we might need another vehicle.’

  He struggled free of his seat belt and crawled back through the overturned cab to join them. It took all of his and Yuri’s strength to scrape and drag open the Sobol’s buckled sliding side door, now a roof hatchway for them to clamber out of. Ben pulled himself out first, then reached down and grasped Valentina’s upstretched hand to haul her up. Yuri came last, looking stunned and dazed as though waking from a nightmare.

  If it had all been just a bad dream, it was over now. Or, almost over.

  Ben looked down over the edge of the parapet and saw the wrecked Mercedes at the bottom of the embankment. It had hit the ground nose-first and come down on its roof. One door hung open. Nothing was moving down there.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Yuri said as Ben clambered over the parapet. Ben made no reply. He scrambled down the slope, boots slithering on fresh dirt where the tumbling car had churned deep furrows in the grass and weeds. It took him over a minute to make his way down to the darkness of the rock-strewn, garbage-littered wasteland at the foot of the embankment, using Arkangelskaya’s phone as a flashlight. He had his pistol in his belt, but something told him he wouldn’t be needing it.

  One wheel of the capsized Mercedes was still lazily spinning. The roof pillars were crushed and buckled and the front wings and grille were a crumpled mess from where the car had rear-ended the van and then ploughed through the bridge’s parapet. The driver was dead, his bloodied body protruding half out of the shattered windscreen. Another man had been thrown clear of the vehicle when the door had come open. He’d crushed his skull against a rock and would soon be joining the driver in heaven or hell, whichever way they were headed.

  Ben walked around the car, bending to shine his light and peer in through its cracked windows and outflung door. He could smell leaking gasoline from a perforated tank or ruptured fuel line.

  Three other men were still inside the wreck. The only one still living was Aubyn Calthorpe.

  Chapter 59

  Ben crouched by the car’s remains and wrenched open the buckled rear
door next to where Calthorpe lay twisted and bleeding on the upturned ceiling.

  ‘You’re not looking quite so hale and hearty, Colonel,’ Ben said, casting the light up and down over him.

  ‘My legs,’ Calthorpe moaned. ‘They’re broken.’

  ‘Then again, you’re not going anywhere,’ Ben replied. ‘You won’t be needing them.’

  Calthorpe reached out a quivering hand. ‘Help me,’ he croaked.

  ‘You mean, no hard feelings, let bygones be bygones, water under the bridge and all that?’

  The smell of spilled fuel was intensifying, along with the sharp ozone stink of burning plastic wire insulation. Something was arcing and sparking and liable to set the leaking wreck off like a firebomb before too long. A fact of which the trapped survivor was all too acutely aware.

  ‘Get me out,’ Calthorpe said. ‘Please. I’m asking you to do the right thing.’

  ‘The right thing?’

  ‘One ex-soldier to another,’ Calthorpe begged, trembling fingers outstretched. He blinked as the bright light shone in his eyes and brought out all the wrinkles and crevices of his face. ‘Doesn’t that count for something?’

  ‘It didn’t before,’ Ben said.

  Calthorpe let out a wheeze of pain and his features screwed up until he could speak again. ‘For God’s sake, man, I was just doing what I was told. I’m only a go-between.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Ben said. ‘But I didn’t come down here to help you. I came to tell you my reply to your offer, in case you were still wondering.’

  ‘I’d rather assumed the answer was a flat no,’ Calthorpe replied with a weak grin that turned into another agonised grimace.

  ‘Life’s all about compromises,’ Ben said. ‘I have a counter-proposition to make you. But for that, I can’t speak to a go-between. I need to speak to the Chairman.’

  Calthorpe managed to shake his head. ‘Nobody speaks to the Chairman.’

  Ben made to get up. ‘Okay. Bye.’

  ‘Wait!’

  ‘Second thoughts?’

  ‘What do you want?’ Calthorpe hissed desperately. Smoke was beginning to trickle out from under the buckled seams of the car bonnet and into the upside-down passenger cabin.

  ‘Give me your phone,’ Ben said. ‘The one you use to talk to your boss. Bring up his number for me.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I’ll do the right thing by you. Quid pro quo. You have my word on that. One soldier to another.’

  Calthorpe managed to twist one arm to fish a mobile from his pocket. He activated it with his thumb and squinted at the little screen as he urgently scrolled down a menu of numbers. Finding what he needed, he thrust the phone towards Ben. ‘Take it! Now get me out of this bloody thing. Hurry!’

  ‘All in good time, Colonel,’ Ben said, taking the phone and putting away Arkangelskaya’s. He stood up, brushing dirt from his trousers.

  Left alone in the darkness of the wrecked car, Calthorpe began to panic. His voice was edged with terror as he cried out, ‘Where the hell are you going?’

  ‘To make a call,’ Ben replied calmly. The smoke was pouring thickly from the car, stinging his eyes, and he moved away a few steps towards the slope of the embankment. He could see the spangled lights of the city from here. Somewhere far away was the wail of sirens as fire crews descended on the scene of the underpass and police hunted for the perpetrators. The helicopter lights were still moving across the night sky, a long way off. He glanced back at the car. Calthorpe was thumping on the upturned floor pan and braying, ‘Hope! Get me out! Come on!’ He had only a couple of minutes, at most, before the wreck began to burn. What Ben had to say to the Chairman wouldn’t take that long.

  A very British voice answered the phone. Statesmanlike and grave, befitting an elder politician of great stature. Which, Ben could well imagine, the man probably was. A trusted establishment figure. Bastion of the realm.

  ‘Am I speaking to the Chairman?’ Ben said.

  ‘Who is this?’ the voice said. Not a man easily fazed, by his tone.

  ‘The name’s Ben Hope. You know who I am, and I know who you are, so let’s save ourselves the intros because I intend to make this quick.’

  ‘Go on,’ the voice said.

  ‘I also know where Object 428 is, not to mention a good deal about a certain illicit operation that goes by the codename “Ploughshares”. And someone with my mouth could cause a lot of trouble for you people. With me so far?’

  ‘You have my attention.’

  ‘So here’s the deal,’ Ben told him. ‘The terms are simple. One, Yuri Petrov and his daughter are to be let free and never touched. Two, don’t ever come looking for me. If I get even the slightest hint of you people sniffing around my door or theirs, I’ll make burning you down my new hobby. You personally, and your entire operation and everyone even remotely connected with it.’

  ‘I see,’ the Chairman said. ‘In other words, we leave you alone and you’ll leave us alone.’

  ‘The way you’d treat a hornets’ nest. Or else, get ready for a war.’

  The tiniest of smiles could be heard in the Chairman’s voice as he replied, ‘And what makes you seriously think you can go up against us? You’re only one man.’

  ‘And I’m only just getting started,’ Ben said. ‘That is, unless you’re willing to let it go.’

  The Chairman was silent for so long that Ben thought the line had gone dead. Finally he replied, in the same calm, unflappable tone, ‘You’re a very direct man, Major. So am I. I like that in people.’

  ‘Then give me a direct answer. A simple yes or no. Then it ends here.’

  Another thoughtful silence. ‘Thanks to Colonel Calthorpe, this escapade has already cost us dearly in terms of manpower and resources. I might be willing to consider ways of cutting our losses.’

  ‘You’re a wise man,’ Ben said. ‘Then do we have an understanding?’

  ‘I’m unclear as to how Colonel Calthorpe fits into the equation.’

  ‘One of the losses,’ Ben replied. ‘Or soon to be.’

  ‘Is that an additional term of your proposition?’

  ‘Call it the cost of doing business.’

  Over the line there sounded the unmistakable clink of ice on fine crystal as the Chairman sipped his nightcap. It was late there, well past bedtime for normal folks while the secret rulers of the world worked late.

  ‘He can be replaced,’ the Chairman said with a grave finality that was as cold as the ice in his glass.

  Ben gave a dry smile. ‘Who can’t?’ He paused. The Chairman said nothing. Ben said, ‘Then are we agreed?’

  There was another silence. Then the Chairman said, ‘Very well. We’re agreed. Goodbye, Major Hope. It was a pleasure doing business with you. I shall not expect to hear from you again.’

  The line went dead before Ben could end the call. He walked back towards the wrecked Mercedes and tossed Calthorpe’s phone in through the open door. Taking out Arkangelskaya’s, he shone its flashlight beam inside the car. Calthorpe’s pain-streaked face was pale in the light, his pupils shrinking to little black pinpricks of fear. ‘I thought you’d buggered off and left me. Quickly, get me out of here before this bloody thing goes up in flames!’ He stretched his hand out, yearning. ‘Hurry!’

  Ben didn’t take the hand. He drew out Bezukhov’s Smith & Wesson and clicked off the safety. The glint of nickel in the light caught Calthorpe’s eye and he seemed to shrivel in terror. ‘W-what are you doing?’

  ‘The right thing,’ Ben said.

  ‘You can’t … You promised!’

  ‘And I always honour my promises.’

  ‘Come on, old man,’ Calthorpe quavered. ‘Be a sport.’

  Ben weighed the pistol in his hand as he crouched by the open car door. ‘There’s another kind of brain implant you never mentioned, Calthorpe. It’s not very high-tech and it costs just a few pennies but it does the job every time. Made of lead, wrapped up in a shiny copper jacket. It’s implanted at high s
peed, using a special tool. And guess what, I happen to have one of those right here.’

  He aimed the gun at Calthorpe’s head.

  Said, ‘This is for Katya.’

  Calthorpe’s last yell of defiant fury was drowned out in the short, sharp crack of the report.

  Ben got to his feet, tossed the pistol into the car and walked away. He could feel the heavy weight of sadness descending on him like a fog. Post-operation melancholia was the best way he’d found to describe it. He loathed killing, and he hated death. Yet he seemed to do so much of one and see so much of the other.

  Moments later, there was a fizz and a spark from the wreckage, followed by a deep, guttural WHOOMPH as the leaking petrol ignited. The carcass of the Mercedes erupted into a mass of flames.

  Halfway up the embankment, Ben paused and watched for a short while as the all-consuming blaze devoured the car and everything inside it. The smoke rose up into a black tower that slowly drifted towards the night lights of Moscow.

  Then he turned and continued up the slope, towards where Yuri and Valentina were waiting.

  Chapter 60

  Adrien Leroy and Noël Marchand were waiting anxiously by the Kaprisky Corp’s Gulfstream’s hangar at Vnukovo Airport, the jet standing by and ready to leave at a moment’s notice as instructed. The long minutes had kept ticking by since they’d landed back in Moscow, and there was no sign of their pickups. No contact since the brief and mysterious call their employer had received from Ben Hope hours earlier, to say only, ‘Send the plane. We’re coming home.’ The Kaprisky household had been thrown into a turmoil of speculation, nobody quite sure what ‘we’ signified and terrified to jump to any hopeful conclusions. The old man was going apeshit and chewing carpets back home.

  The longer the pilots waited, the more their spirits sank until they became convinced that they would be returning empty-handed once again. Leroy was pacing the floodlit tarmac in agitation with his shoulders hunched and hands in pockets, while Marchand had retreated to a corner behind the hangar to steal a cigarette in defiance of all the No Smoking signs that plastered the private jet terminal. Let someone come to give him grief over it. He was in just the mood for a good punch-up.