The Moscow Cipher

  ‘You have done this before, I see.’

  ‘Once or twice.’

  ‘Then I presume you have a plan?’

  ‘It involves you. That okay?’

  ‘For the man who always works alone, you certainly need my help a lot. What do you require from me this time?’

  ‘Oh, just the pleasure of your company,’ Ben said.

  ‘I think I can manage that.’

  ‘Then let’s get it done. I’d like to have this kid back on her granduncle’s plane by dawn.’

  ‘And her father?’

  ‘Not my concern. He can stay here with the goats and chickens, for all I care.’

  Ben knew he needed to deal with the dog first. Back in the day, one of the tricks the SAS had used when evading enemy K9 teams was to work on the handler. Ben had schooled his troopers not to waste effort on eluding the dogs’ almost preternatural sense of smell; forget it, it couldn’t be done. Instead he taught them: ‘Once they have your scent, race for the nearest steep climb and get up it as fast as you can. The dogs might be able to follow, but the handlers are generally much less fit than their animals. They won’t be so inclined to chase you up the hill and they’ll be worried about what might be waiting for them at the top.’

  And it worked. More often than not, the handlers would rather call the dog back and pretend to their officers that it had lost the scent. Exploit the human, defeat the dog, win the day. Psychology was a powerful tool of warfare. And Ben could use that tonight, in a different way.

  He was thinking about the anger in the big guy’s voice when he yelled at the dog. And about the dog’s reaction to its master’s tone. Ben sensed an established pattern there. Maybe the dog had a habit of sounding off at nothing, raising false alarms and getting its owner riled. Ben could use that, too.

  Darkness had fallen completely now. Ben hung the binoculars around his neck, left his bag and the rest of his kit inside the car and locked it, then slipped down the hillside, Tatyana following. ‘Do not make me go near those goats,’ she warned.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  They spent the next several minutes working their way around the perimeter, keeping a good distance between themselves and the farmhouse. If Tatyana minded getting her nice clothes dirtied and torn by brambles, she didn’t show it. The wind had picked up a little, blowing their way, which would help prevent the dog from getting their scent. As they passed around the rear of the farmhouse Ben saw that it had no windows on that side, nor any back door.

  One way in, one way out. For Ben’s purposes, that was good too.

  Thirty metres from the goat enclosure, Ben crouched and found a stone about the size of a golf ball. The animals’ pen was a shadowy rectangle in the darkness. He lobbed the stone at it, and heard the clang and clatter as it hit the pen’s makeshift tin roof. The goats began bleating and milling about nervously at the disturbance. The humans inside the farmhouse might not have heard their commotion but sure enough, as expected, the dog started up its furious barking once more. Ben and Tatyana withdrew into the bushes, to a spot where they could see the yard. Ben readied the night vision binocs.

  ‘Always the man who has the toys,’ she whispered.

  ‘Jealousy is an ugly thing, Comrade,’ he whispered back.

  ‘I wish you would stop calling me that.’

  ‘I will, if you stop calling me Major.’

  Moments later, Ben heard the farmhouse door open, and voices, and the explosive barking of the dog as it was released and went charging straight for the goat pens, startling the poor creatures even more. Through his binocs Ben could see Yuri and the fat guy patrolling the yard with their longarms. Two minutes, three minutes, and their body language was changing as they began to understand it was a false alarm. The fat guy was getting grumpy. He shouted for the dog, was ignored again, repeated its name at twice the volume, and like before the dog came slinking back with its head low: canine sign language for ‘Okay, okay, no need to get all riled up’. They returned to the farmhouse, the door closed and all that could be heard was the anxious goats shifting about.

  ‘Come on,’ Ben whispered. They continued working their way around the perimeter and within a few more minutes had circled the property, positioning themselves behind the wire fence directly opposite the front of the farmhouse where they could observe the door and windows. One window was curtained with only the faintest glow emanating from inside, while the other was brightly lit up and casting a yellowish shaft of light over the parked vehicles outside. Through the binocs, Ben could see no more sign of Valentina but her father was clearly visible, sitting at the table with a glum expression on his hairy face as he gazed pensively at the same newspaper that his buddy had been looking at earlier. There was a bottle of vodka in front of him, and a glass that he kept refilling and knocking down. The old Mosin Nagant was propped against a sideboard within easy reach. Portrait of the happy fugitive celebrating his successful escape.

  ‘One more time should do it,’ Ben muttered to Tatyana.

  He picked up a stone from the dirt and threw it towards the parked vehicles. It pinged off the bodywork of the Beetle, kicking off the same routine all over again. The thunderous barking must have been deafening inside the farmhouse.

  The door flew open. The hound burst out, filling the night with its noise and making straight for the vehicles. He was an excellent guard. Ben felt sorry for him, because he knew what was going to happen next.

  Chapter 23

  The fat guy had had enough. Storming from the doorway in a rage he propped his shotgun against the wall and seized the dog roughly by its collar. Yelling and cursing, he started dragging the poor animal over to a corrugated tin shed adjoining the house near the parked pickup truck and Yuri’s VW Beetle. He yanked open the shed door.

  Then the fat man froze as he heard the distinct click-click of the shotgun’s twin hammers being cocked, five yards behind him.

  Still clutching the dog, he slowly turned around to face the terrifying sight of a shadowy figure standing in the yard, pointing his own gun at him. The figure was joined by a second as Tatyana hopped over the fence.

  Inside the farmhouse, Yuri Petrov had got up from the table. He returned to his seat a moment later and went on looking at the newspaper and drinking his vodka as the strains of an old Dr Hook number began to thump through the farmhouse. Anything was better than listening to dogs barking.

  Not taking his eyes off the fat guy, Ben said to Tatyana, ‘Tell him not to let go of Alyosha. If he does, what happens is on him.’ Tatyana relayed the message in Russian.

  ‘I understand, man. I speak English good.’ Which the fat guy did, though with a heavy accent made even thicker by the quaver of fear in his voice. His arm was getting stretched as the dog strained furiously to be let go, but he had a solid grip on the animal’s collar.

  Ben said, ‘Then be a good boy, do what you were about to do and close Alyosha in the shed. I don’t want to hurt him. You’re a different matter, so no tricks.’

  The fat guy’s hands were shaking so badly that Ben worried the dog would get away from him, but in the end he managed to close up the shed with its prisoner safely locked inside. Alyosha was in a frenzy in there, claws raking at the door. Ben wanted to take him home, as a fine addition to the guard pack at Le Val. The fat guy turned to face Ben, raised his quivering hands and managed to mumble the words ‘Don’t shoot me, man’.

  Ben kept the gun aimed steadily at his chest. It had a trigger for each hammer and he had fingers on both. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Grisha Solokov,’ came the rapid reply.

  ‘Where’s the child?’

  A look of mixed surprise and consternation came over Grisha’s face. He pointed at the other window, the curtained one.

  ‘She is just a kid. Please don’t—’

  ‘Shut up and do as I say, Grisha, or I’ll blow you in half. Understand?’

  Grisha was sweating and his legs seemed ready to buckle under him. ‘W-what do
you want?’

  Ben had weighed the options. If he and Tatyana burst inside the farmhouse, Yuri might very well snatch that rifle he was keeping close by, and start blasting in all directions. Assuming he knew how to work it. Ben couldn’t afford to assume differently. If that happened, there was no telling who might get hurt, including the child.

  Ben had to find a way to get Yuri outside.

  He said to Grisha, ‘I want you to call your pal out here.’

  Through the farmhouse window, the pal was still deeply absorbed in what must have been the world’s most fascinating newspaper, and seemed completely oblivious of what was going on outside. He refilled his glass, drained it, refilled it once more. He was getting drunker but the rifle was still just as close to hand.

  ‘You have come to kill him, yes?’ Grisha quavered.

  The question struck Ben as genuinely odd. Why would anyone want to kill Yuri? He covered his surprise and replied, ‘You first, if you don’t obey me.’

  Grisha held out both palms. He blinked sweat from his eyes. ‘Okay. Okay. Please. I will do it. What do I say?’

  ‘You say, “Hey, Yuri, come and take a look at this.” Keep it light. And remember, the lady speaks Russian. Warn him, and you’re dead.’ Ben turned to Tatyana. ‘The thing you did at the Zenit. Think you can do that again for me? Without doing any damage?’

  Her eyes sparkled in the light from the window. Delighted to be of service once again, she moved fast and silently past the door and pressed close to the wall beside the doorway.

  Ben nodded to Grisha. ‘Go.’

  Grisha staggered towards the lit-up window, rapped a trembling knuckle on the glass, and inside the farmhouse Yuri looked up sharply from his newspaper. Grisha called to him in Russian, swallowing back the terror that threatened to strangle his voice. Nonetheless, Ben had known Yuri would be bound to sense something was up.

  Yuri grabbed the rifle and darted away from the table, fully alerted. Now it was fifty-fifty as to whether he’d grab his daughter from the other room and try to hole up protectively inside the farmhouse, or act the hero and come storming outside to face whatever threat he clearly thought awaited him there. Ben was hoping for the latter.

  Yuri acted the hero.

  The front door opened and he jumped out, feverishly working the bolt of the old rifle. His eyes flew wide open in horror as he saw Ben standing there pointing the hammer gun at Grisha. Yuri’s rifle barrel swung up and he rammed the butt into his shoulder in readiness to shoot; and then he was tumbling backwards and the weapon was torn from his hands as Tatyana came up fast and hard behind him.

  Her disarming move was as slick as it had been at the Zenit. Maybe even slicker. Yuri Petrov landed heavily on his back and looked up to see the rifle turned on him, its muzzle pointing at his face twelve inches away. He opened his mouth to scream, but before any sound came from his lips Ben had rushed in and stifled it with a clamped hand so as not to alarm the child in the other room.

  Yuri’s eyes rolled wildly and he tried to struggle, but Ben forced him back down and pinned him to the ground.

  ‘Yuri Petrov. You’re not as hard a man to find as you think you are. Now I’m going to take my hand away and you’re not going to yell. There’s no need to scare the child.’

  Yuri stared up at Ben. ‘I … I … I’m not Yuri Petrov. You have the wrong person.’

  ‘Come on, Yuri. You’re found, have the guts to admit it.’

  ‘Who sent you?’ Yuri demanded, suddenly full of indignation. ‘Bezukhov? Tell him I don’t have it yet. Tell him to go and fuck himself. Tell him what you like.’ Then his defiant act subsided again as fast as it had appeared. ‘Just don’t hurt my little girl. Please! I’m sorry I ran. I was scared. I—’

  Ben was about to say, ‘You don’t have what yet? What are you talking about?’

  Just then Valentina appeared, framed in the light of the doorway as before, only now she looked much more distraught. Seeing these strangers threatening her father she let out a sharp cry and ran outside. She threw herself at Ben and started throwing wild punches and kicks. Tatyana grabbed her and pulled her away. Yuri was yelling ‘Don’t harm her!’ Grisha was advancing with his fists clenched. Ben warned him back with the shotgun.

  ‘I didn’t come here to hurt anyone, Yuri,’ he said. ‘Not you, not your daughter. But there’s something else going on here. And now you’re going to tell me what the hell this is really all about.’

  Chapter 24

  They all went inside. Ben marched the two men at gunpoint into the farmhouse’s tiny living room. Aside from the table, there were just a few flimsy sticks of furniture, a small TV perched on a beer crate, and a ratty sofa. He trussed their wrists behind their backs with cable ties, then made them sit side by side on the sofa. Neither tried to resist him. When the two men were effectively out of action, Ben laid both firearms on the table, where he could still get to them quickly if needed.

  Yuri demanded, ‘If Bezukhov didn’t send you, who did? Are you the police?’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Ben said.

  ‘Then who the hell are you?’

  ‘When guys like you disappear off the face of the earth with someone else’s child, I’m the guy they send to deal with it. You didn’t stop to think whose grandniece you were making off with?’

  Yuri Petrov’s jaw dropped open. The news that he was suspected of abducting his own child was like a kick in the guts. ‘She’s my kid,’ he protested, close to tears.

  ‘I’ll give you a tip, Yuri. Next time you smash your daughter’s smartphone because you thought it’d cover your tracks, make sure nobody can put the pieces back together again. Especially when there’s a whole trail of photo and video files leading straight to your hidey-hole. You’re not half as clever as you think you are.’

  Meanwhile, Tatyana was doing all she could to quieten the tearful, near-hysterical Valentina. Ben had never seen an alleged kidnap victim so upset that their abductor had been apprehended by the forces of justice.

  Turning to the child he crouched down to make himself less threatening, and spoke in a soft, calm voice, knowing she understood and was fluent in English. ‘Valentina, I understand you’re scared and confused. Calm down and let me show you something.’ He reached into his jacket pocket and took out the photo he’d been carrying since Le Mans. Valentina peered at it, and he could see the understanding in her intelligent eyes. Nobody but Eloise could have given him the picture.

  ‘Your mother asked me to come and find you. She’s worried that you didn’t come home when you should have.’

  ‘I’m here with Papa! She knows that!’

  ‘She’s worried about your dad as well,’ Ben said, shooting a glance at Yuri. ‘So is your granduncle Auguste. They’re afraid he might have got himself into some kind of trouble.’

  ‘Stay away from her!’ Yuri yelled. ‘Valentina, don’t listen to him!’

  ‘I’m your friend, Valentina,’ Ben said. ‘And your father’s, too, even if he doesn’t realise it.’

  Valentina looked at her father, then at Ben, then at the photo. She was no longer crying, but her eyes were red and her cheeks were flushed and wet. ‘Are you working for Tonton?’

  In France, ‘tonton’ was a child’s familiar expression for ‘uncle’. Ben had to smile at the thought of the great Auguste Kaprisky being called by that nickname. ‘That’s right, Tonton sent me here,’ he explained in the same gentle tone. ‘I flew over on his plane, just like you. And you and I are going to travel back to France together, and I’m going to take you back to your mummy, and that lovely house you live in, and your horse, and all your nice things, and you’ll be able to tell Adalie all about the big adventure you had. Paul, too.’

  Valentina was unable to resist blushing at the mention of her secret boyfriend. ‘What about Papa?’

  ‘Papa lives here in Russia. He can’t come with us. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘But I like being here with him.’

  ‘You can come back and
visit him anytime you want,’ Ben said, knowing it was a wildly false promise.

  ‘Don’t listen to a word he says!’ Yuri yelled from the sofa, struggling purple-faced against his bonds. ‘He’s working for them!’

  Ben stood up and walked over to glare down at the pair. ‘If I’d been sent to eliminate you, Yuri, do you think we’d be having this conversation? You and Grisha here would already be in the ground. So get that notion out of your head and talk to me.’

  ‘Mind games,’ Grisha growled. ‘The old trick.’

  Outside, the dog still hadn’t stopped barking. The shed’s thin wooden slats were doing little to muffle the commotion.

  Ben shook his head. ‘I don’t really care if you believe me or not. My name’s Ben Hope. I’m not a cop, never was, never will be. I’m a former British serviceman living in Normandy, France. The old man is a former security client and a friend of mine. As a favour to him, I’m here to fetch the child home safely to her mother, nothing more, nothing less.’

  He paused to let those words sink in, then pointed at Tatyana. ‘This is Miss Nikolaeva, a private investigator from Moscow hired to find you after you absconded from your apartment. You’re in deep shit, Yuri. There’s no telling what host of charges might be brought against you as a result of this little escapade. The moment Valentina’s home safe and sound, you’re a marked man. Kaprisky will bury you.’

  ‘I didn’t … I thought …’

  ‘You didn’t think,’ Ben said. ‘You didn’t stop for one moment to consider the consequences of your actions, or what kind of shitstorm one of Europe’s most powerful men would unleash against you in retaliation. You only reacted, without a second thought. Because when people are as frightened as you obviously are, logic goes out of the window. What are you so afraid of, Yuri? Who’s Bezukhov? Who are you running from?’