Scott Mariani - The Moscow Cipher

She didn’t look, but two small vertical lines appeared above her nose and her blue eyes narrowed. ‘Who are they?’ she whispered back. ‘Why would this be happening?’

‘Perhaps I should go and ask them,’ Ben said. ‘What do you think?’

‘I am sure you are just imagining it,’ Tatyana said. ‘You are … what is the word?’

‘Paranoid,’ he said. ‘Maybe. All the same, don’t turn around and look for them. They don’t know I’m onto them, not yet.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Make a phone call, for starters.’

‘And then?’

‘Maybe we ought to confront them, shoot them, dump their bodies on the track and then make a run for it before the cops arrive,’ he said. ‘Have you got a gun on you?’

Tatyana frowned. ‘You are not serious.’

Ben had Auguste Kaprisky on his list of speed-dial contacts. Two taps, a couple of bleeps and a few moments’ wait, and the old man’s crackly voice came on the line. Hurtling through a tunnel deep beneath Moscow, and the signal from 1500 miles away was crystal clear. The benefits of superior Russian technology.

Ben spoke softly, in French. ‘Auguste, I thought you said your guys were off the job.’

‘They are,’ Kaprisky replied, sounding taken aback.

‘Positive about that? I seem to have picked up some company here.’

‘I can assure you, it has nothing to do with me. Are you quite certain you are not—?’

‘Imagining things? Thanks, Auguste. Talk later.’ Ben ended the call. It was hard to know whether to believe Kaprisky. The wily old fox could be hedging his bets by keeping an eye on him. Maybe you didn’t get to become a billionaire by being too trusting.

Tatyana was looking at him, an eyebrow raised. ‘Well?’

Ben thought about all the places in a subway system he could lure the two goons. Men’s toilets were always a good place for an impromptu roughing-up and forced interrogation of the ‘Who are you working for?’ variety. If indeed Kaprisky had sent them, the old man might not be happy to have Ben knock his hirelings around. If however they were someone else’s guys, the use of forceful tactics could be stirring up a hornet’s nest that Ben preferred to leave alone, for now. He decided he could worry later about who they were. For the moment, his priority was to give them the slip so he could get on with the job he’d come here to do.

‘Next stop is ours,’ he said to Tatyana.

‘But we are not halfway there yet.’

‘I fancy a little fresh air, don’t you?’

The next station they arrived at was even more ridiculously opulent than the last. As Ben stepped off the train, followed by a confused Tatyana, he saw the two goons filter among the throng of disembarking passengers and drift along in their wake. Ben moved faster, forcing Tatyana to trot to keep up. The goons kept following, keeping their distance like before but moving with greater urgency. If they were working as part of a bigger surveillance team, it was time to put their organisation to the test.

Back up at street level, Ben saw they were still deep in the heart of the city. Traffic was heavy and pedestrians crowded the pavements. At a nearby taxi stand a line of yellow Ladas was waiting. Ben hustled over to the car at the head of the queue and got in the back seat. Tatyana piled in after him.

‘Speak English?’ Ben asked the driver.

‘Sure.’

‘Just drive. And step on it.’ Ben thrust a sheaf of rubles through the gap between the seats, where they disappeared instantly into the driver’s clutches.

‘Twenty years I waited for someone to say that,’ the driver said, gunning his engine with a grin. As the little Lada took off into the traffic, Ben turned to glance out of the window and caught a momentary glimpse of the two goons running out of the subway station and looking around in a panic for their disappearing targets. Then they were lost among the crowds.

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