The Moscow Cipher Read online

  Chief Bezukhov’s big florid face was a mask of incredulity. He’d frozen like a lamped rabbit in the first few seconds of the battle and now was stumbling backwards in his haste to retreat out of the field of fire, while groping inside his jacket for a shiny nickel-plated pistol that he fumbled getting out of its holster. That was the problem with seniority. You didn’t get enough range time to keep your combat skills fresh. Or maybe the chief was just too old and fat for this kind of thing. Ben swivelled his right-hand Grach at Bezukhov and his left-hand Grach at the guy standing beside him, who was swinging up a pump-action twelve-gauge ready to fire, and squeezed both his triggers. The guy with the shotgun went down with a hole where his right eye had been.

  Ben’s aim with Bezukhov had been just a little off. The chief tumbled back with a roar, dropping his gun and clasping at the spurting wound that had opened up under his jaw. Ben was about to shoot the big man again when an impact slammed into his chest and made him stagger. One of Bezukhov’s crew was hunkered down behind an overturned table, using it as cover. The big black pistol in his hand boomed again and Ben felt the .45 calibre slug smack into him with the force of a punch from a heavyweight boxer.

  It hurt. A lot. But bruises and cracked ribs were better than being dead. Ben clenched his jaw and stood his ground, feeling the child squeezing tightly against his back like an infant clutching a parent for protection. He was about to fire back at the shooter behind the crate, but now the guy had ducked down out of sight. Ben dropped his point of aim twelve inches and sent three fast rounds into the side of the flimsy wooden box. BLAMBLAMBLAM. The first two glanced off solid objects inside and didn’t make it all the way through. The third one penetrated both sides of the crate and hit its mark on the other side. Bezukhov’s guy screamed and sprawled out sideways from behind the crate, letting go of his gun and clasping both hands to his right thigh to stem the crimson jet from his ruptured femoral artery. A probably fatal wound; but Ben sped things up for him with a shot through the skull.

  More shots snapped out from around the room. Ben felt the scorching heat trail of a bullet that passed an inch from his face and smacked into the mouldy plaster of the wall behind him, and he heard Valentina cry out as its splashback sprayed harmlessly against her. Another bullet punched into the Kevlar vest, thumping him hard in the left pectoral muscle right over where his heart was, but he no longer registered the pain. He stayed on his feet and kept on firing, his pistols in constant motion as they tracked from target to target. Totally in the zone. His conscious mind almost completely shut off. Another one down. Then another. Then there was nobody firing except him, because he was suddenly the last man standing in the room.

  He lowered his hot, smoking guns. The one in his left hand had locked back empty. He let it drop. The one in his right had maybe three rounds left in it. The decayed, mouldy room was suddenly still and strangely silent, strewn with prostrate bodies like zonked-out meth addicts in a derelict squat. Yuri Petrov’s panda eyes were staring at Ben in speechless amazement. Valentina was still clutching him tightly, burying her head against his back. He pried her hands away from his waist and stroked her cheek. ‘You were brave,’ he said.

  ‘It is over?’ she asked in a small voice.

  It wasn’t. Ben could hear the shouts coming from below, and the thunder of footsteps hammering up the rickety stairs. He snatched a fallen chair and wedged it at an angle against the door. It wasn’t much of a barricade. Next Ben stepped over dead bodies to the collection of torture implements, fished inside the crate and pulled out a pair of bolt croppers. Just the job for snipping off fingers and toes, but Ben preferred putting them to their original purpose. He carried them over to Yuri’s chair and made short work of the chains holding him to its metal frame. Yuri needed to be helped from the chair. His exhausted brain was so full of questions, he didn’t know where to begin. He kept murmuring, ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe what you did.’

  ‘You didn’t think I’d leave you to your old boss’s tender mercies, did you?’

  Yuri fell to his knees and hugged his daughter with all the strength he had left, tears streaming down his face. But there was little time for an emotional family reunion. The urgent footsteps on the stairs had reached the third-floor landing. The door shook from heavy pounding; then bullets punched through as one of Bezukhov’s sentries tried to take out the lock or inside bolt they thought was holding it shut. Ben picked up the pump-action shotgun that had been in the hands of one of the men he’d shot. He levelled it in the direction of the door, and the room filled with its numbing, ear-splitting blast as he sent an ounce and a quarter of buckshot ripping through the wood to pulverise whoever was standing too close on the other side and warn off anyone else who got ideas about forcing their way inside the room. That would buy them a little more time, but not much.

  Ben asked Yuri, pointing at his injured leg, ‘Think you can walk on that?’

  ‘I can hardly stand, my friend. But I’ll try.’

  Ben stripped off the black jacket. Underneath, the bulletproof vest was marked by the gunshots that had peppered him. His chest would bear a few marks, too. It hurt to breathe, almost as much as it hurt to move. At least one cracked rib in there, but he could worry about that later. He winced as he removed the vest. Yuri said, ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You two are my charges, and you come first,’ Ben said firmly. ‘Put this on, Yuri.’

  ‘I have one already,’ Valentina said, part-unzipping her pink gilet to show her father the black garment hidden underneath. ‘Ben got it for me. He thinks of everything.’

  But there was one detail Ben had overlooked, which was that Antonin Bezukhov was still alive. Coming to, the injured chief groaned and tried to roll his thick body up onto his knees in the midst of his dead associates. His face and thick neck were shiny with blood in the dim light. He gazed around him, as though he couldn’t believe what had just happened. Then he collapsed onto one elbow, and let out a deep, rasping moan. His red-spattered hand inched like a huge, pale, wounded spider towards his fallen Smith & Wesson.

  Yuri’s face twisted. Gasping at the pain it caused him, he stooped and snatched up the gun before Bezukhov’s stubby fingers could close on it. He aimed it downwards at his former employer, teeth bared, eyes bulging with all the pent-up loathing he felt for this man. The words Yuri spoke were in Russian, but their sentiment was perfectly clear to a non-speaker like Ben. ‘You would have harmed my baby girl, Bezukhov. You’re an evil piece of shit. Now you’re going to hell where you belong.’

  Before Yuri could pull the trigger, Ben stepped in and twisted the gun from his hands, then tossed it away. Yuri turned towards him, eyes full of betrayal and confusion. A wave of pain and exhaustion washed through him and his face creased. He wobbled on his feet as though he might collapse, and Ben gripped his arm to steady him. ‘You’re a better man than that, Yuri. Don’t tarnish yourself with his murder.’

  ‘He needs to pay for all the things he’s done,’ Yuri said.

  ‘He already is paying. He won’t last long.’

  Yuri’s pain-racked eyes looked deep into Ben’s. He opened his mouth to say something more. His words were drowned by the sudden gunshot that rattled their eardrums and made both men flinch.

  Bezukhov sank to the floor with a final moan. He stopped moving and the last vestiges of life ebbed from his body.

  Valentina stepped back, the big gaudy nickel-plated automatic huge and heavy in her small hands. She let it fall back to the floor where she’d picked it up. A tear rolled from her eye. But it was a tear of pride and vindication, not one of sorrow. ‘Nobody hurts my Papa.’

  Ben and Yuri both stared at her, neither able to speak.

  And that was the moment when Bezukhov’s phone began to ring.

  Chapter 55

  Bezukhov’s mobile ringtone was the opening bars of the old State Anthem of the Soviet Union, belted out by the massed chorus of the Red Army Choir. Easy to tell where his allegiance had remained al
l these years.

  Ben dug the phone out of the dead man’s pocket and held it for a moment, uncertain whether or not to answer it. Two thoughts flashed through his mind: first, that information was power and the more he knew about Bezukhov’s business the further it might take him and his charges from harm; second, that the call would be in Russian and he just happened to have a pair of multilingual interpreters to hand right beside him. He put the call on speaker so that Yuri and Valentina could hear.

  Ben might not have understood what the caller was saying, but Aubyn Calthorpe’s English-accented tones were instantly recognisable. As was the urgent note in his voice. And the mention of Ben’s name. Calthorpe was calling to alert Bezukhov that Hope was free and there could be trouble.

  Yuri whispered in horror, ‘Who—?’

  Ben had heard enough. He dropped the phone to the floor and smashed it with a stamp of his heel. Calthorpe would be quick to figure out that his warning had come too late. He’d be no less quick to mobilise whatever force of men he had left. And it wasn’t such a long way from the deserted base to the old hospital.

  Ben said, ‘We don’t have a lot of time. Let’s go.’

  ‘I didn’t really want to hang around here much longer anyway,’ Yuri muttered.

  ‘Home now?’ Valentina said.

  ‘No stopping, no U-turns,’ Ben replied. He scooped up Bezukhov’s gun and jammed it in his belt. Then the pump-action, which he slung over his shoulder after topping up its underbarrel tube magazine from the spare cartridge carrier on the folding stock. Whatever hellfire Calthorpe might be about to rain down on them, he’d at least be ready for it.

  ‘How are we getting out of here?’ Yuri asked.

  ‘Preferably not by Shanks’s pony,’ Ben replied. He kicked over a few corpses until he’d found the driver of the van, and the ignition keys in his pocket. Their magic ticket out of here, as long as Calthorpe’s guys didn’t land on them first.

  ‘What pony?’ Valentina said.

  With Yuri supporting himself by an arm wrapped around Ben’s neck and Valentina staying close behind, the three of them made their cautious way out of the awful room and into the dark, dingy landing beyond. A dead man lay sprawled outside the door where Ben’s shotgun blast had laid him flat. A scattered trail of fat, penny-sized blood spots glistened in the shadows of the passage that led back towards the stairs. It looked like Ben had winged another of Bezukhov’s crew through the door – how badly, and how much of a threat he still was, remained to be seen.

  Someone had turned off the lights below, plunging the stairway into murky gloom. The stairs were quiet. Too quiet, full of potential hidden lurkers waiting to open fire. On his own, able to move like a ghost through the twisting passages and interconnecting hallways, Ben would have found another way down, whether by climbing from a window or abseiling from the damn roof if need be. But hampered as he was by a wounded man and a child in tow, the stairs were his only route out of this place. He slipped Bezukhov’s fancy Smith back out of his belt and pointed it ahead, finger on the trigger, senses straining for the slightest sound or movement from the darkness that engulfed them more deeply with every downward step.

  Oh so slowly, anxious not to let the stairs creak underfoot, they crept their way down to the second floor. Then the first. Whatever the darkness contained, Ben could only rely on the fact that his night vision would be at least as sharp as, and his reflexes considerably sharper than, any of Bezukhov’s remaining men. That was, if they hadn’t all fled the building.

  Which, by the time Ben, Yuri and Valentina had reached the ground floor and retraced the way to the exit, appeared to be the case. Nobody tried to stop them. No shots came from the darkness. The faintly gleaming blood trail terminated in the foyer, where the guy Ben had winged lay dead. The rest of them had taken off and vanished.

  ‘Bunch of miserable cowards,’ Yuri grumbled. ‘Take down their leader and they scatter like a pack of rats instead of fighting.’

  ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ Ben said. ‘Isn’t that what you once said to me?’

  The black van stood abandoned in the grounds, just where its now-dead driver had left it. The whole place seemed deserted. So far, so good. Ben blipped the vehicle locks open and propped Yuri against its wing while he opened up the side sliding door and peered inside. They weren’t out of the woods yet, and the child’s safety was his top concern. In his experience, most modern civilian vehicles appeared to be manufactured out of some kind of soft cheese that offered zero protection against anything more potent than a pea-shooter. This van was no different, but Ben noticed that the rearmost seats were bolted to a raised section of the floor whose vertical face made a pretty solid bulkhead. He tapped it with his knuckles. Sheet steel. Not too flimsy. It would have to do. ‘Valentina,’ he instructed her, ‘I want you to huddle as tight as you can into this little nook in front of the seats. Keep your head down and don’t move, okay?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, Ben.’ Nothing in the world like a biddable, tractable child.

  ‘And try not to shoot anybody else tonight,’ Ben said. ‘It’s not the kind of thing little girls do.’

  ‘I’m not a little girl,’ she snapped back at him. Maybe not so biddable after all. She flashed Ben a resentful look before clambering in.

  Ben helped Yuri into the front passenger seat, then stashed the shotgun in a nook behind the driver’s seat, settled himself at the wheel and fired up the engine and lights. The GPS was all in Russian. He quickly twiddled with the language settings. Once it was reset to English he punched in the destination: VNUKOVO INT. AIRPORT. The airport was just sixteen kilometres away. So near, yet so far. But with any luck Kaprisky’s plane would soon be there waiting for them.

  ‘Ready to go home?’ Ben said.

  ‘I would be, if I still had one to go to,’ Yuri replied.

  ‘Then we’ll just have to find you a new one.’

  Ben slammed the van into first gear, hit the gas and slewed hard around to face the way they had come. As the van roared towards the street entrance, he saw that Bezukhov’s surviving thugs had left in such a hurry that they’d clambered over the spiked iron gates without undoing the padlock and chain.

  ‘We’re shut in!’ Yuri groaned.

  ‘No, we’re not,’ Ben said. ‘Yuri, you might want to fasten your seat belt. Valentina, hold on tight.’

  He revved the engine harshly and accelerated straight for the tall, solid gates, aiming for the weakest spot in the middle. Yuri snapped his belt in place, covered his eyes and prepared for death.

  The van hit the gates with a bone-jarring, rending crash, ripping one of them off its hinges and flattening it under its wheels as Ben drove right over the top of it and skidded out into the street, trailing wreckage and showering sparks in his wake. He floored the pedal and kept going. One headlight had gone dark and the front bumper was hanging in pieces and scraping the road, but all the van had to do was carry them a few short miles to the airport. Ben would drive it on its bare wheel rims if need be.

  ‘We made it!’ Yuri yelled with a triumphant whoop.

  But Yuri had spoken too soon. There was a loud crack as a bullet hammered through the back window and embedded itself somewhere in the plastic fascia of the dashboard. Ben glanced in the mirror and saw the fierce headlights gaining on them from behind.

  Calthorpe’s men had arrived.

  Chapter 56

  ‘Who are they?’ Yuri said, squinting at the mirror.

  Ben replied, ‘You don’t want to know.’ He hit the gas and spurred the van as hard as it would go, forcing a tortured yowl from its underpowered diesel motor. The lights in his rearview mirror kept gaining, and fast, bright and dazzling. He could hear the roar of powerful engines growing rapidly louder over the whiny rasp of the van. Whatever Calthorpe’s men were driving was a lot more useful than a mild-mannered GAZ Sobol.

  But high-performance saloon cars weren’t the only toys they’d brought to play with. A dark figure leaned from the window o
f the lead vehicle, clutching something that spat a crackling yellow-white halo of muzzle blast as a burst of automatic gunfire raked the back of the van and blew out what was left of the back window. Ben heard Valentina’s muffled cry of terror from where she huddled hidden between the rows of seats. He yelled, ‘Stay down!’ He had his foot all the way to the floor. The rev counter was soaring and the whole van was filled with noise, but the damn thing was giving all the power it would give.

  Their pursuers had plenty to spare, by contrast. The two cars drew up parallel to one another in the van’s wake, gaining rapidly and coming up so close that Ben could make out the Mercedes Benz badges on their radiator grilles. Suddenly they peeled apart like fighter jets and came swooping up on either side. Ben anticipated the flanking move before it happened. They were planning on closing in to block the way ahead and force the van to a halt. But he wasn’t about to let these guys stop him so easily. Not without a fight.

  Just as he expected, the instant the cars had shot past on either side of him, they swerved into a V-formation. Ben didn’t lift his foot from the gas, and didn’t touch the brake. Yuri let out a cry of alarm just before they hit.

  The van slammed its way between the incoming cars with a crunch of buckling metal and crumpling plastic and splintering glass and a screech of scraping bodywork as the two cars were forced apart. Ben kept going, jamming his foot down even harder to milk the power he needed from the straining engine. The van’s remaining headlamp was now pointing upwards at a cock-eyed angle and something was scraping badly on a front tyre. They’d lost momentum in the impact, and if he didn’t make it up again fast the chase would be over as quickly as it had begun.