The Code

by Nick Elliott

  I’d listened for hours, days to his story. I liked the man and I felt sorry for him. His health was poor, he was widowed. His daughter lived in another country and it seemed he was afraid for his life. And his stories were enthralling, saving us both from losing our minds; but he still hadn’t told me what he was doing in that dreadful place, or what he wanted from me. Finally though, when he’d brought his tales of espionage up to date and I’d pressed him once again, his present troubles began to emerge. And I quickly realised they were inextricably linked to my own.

  Chapter 11

  Daugavpils, Latvia

  April/May 1999

  ‘I had freed myself from GRU, or I thought I had.’ Valdis was continuing his story some days later, and again we were in the laundry room. ‘Then everything changed, at first for better. USSR collapsed! Who could ever have thought it would happen? But it did – suddenly! Imagine! We - my wife, my daughter and myself, we formed part of human chain from Estonia, across Latvia and across Lithuania: Singing Revolution it was called. We began to demand for restoration of Latvia’s independence. We reclaimed sovereignty and eventually we gained independence. Now we are close to joining you in European Union. We could never have dreamt of it. And now my daughter has good job, career in EU country.’

  ‘Who does she work for in Vienna?’ I asked.

  ‘I am proudest of fathers. She studied at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music in Riga. She is talented pianist but in such competitive world and I cannot give more money for musical education, she changed her plan and now studies nuclear physics at the Atominstitut in Vienna. This is internship with International Atomic Energy Agency. Brilliant girl, and still so young. She inherited her brains from her mother, not from me. And in Vienna she is able to follow her love of music, of course. She makes recitals. Much appreciated by audience.’

  At first he smiled and his face took on an indulgent expression I hadn’t seen before. ‘I love her so much,’ he said, gazing off into the middle distance. ‘One day you have daughter, you will understand.’ Then he began to cry, quietly. He buried his head in his hands and groaned softly. ‘Oh, what can I do? What can I do?’

  ‘Tell me!’ I shouted above the sound of the laundry machines. I wanted to help and I hated seeing the old man so upset. ‘What is it you’re not telling me?’

  He looked up at me and composed himself. ‘I am sorry, Angus. Truly, and now it is time for you to know, if we are to help each other.’

  At last, I thought.

  ‘I am here not because I have committed crime, not against Latvian state anyway. As I told you before, I am here because of GRU’s influence. They are responsible for it. Remember, in Latvia today over 30 per cent of population is still Russian. Many of those Russians are still connected to old state apparatus – especially military, and therefore to GRU. Ever since collapse of Soviet state there has been much chaos. You know this. The military has been part of this chaos and so has GRU. And in a world of chaos there lie many opportunities for criminal and very profitable activities … You know about loose nukes, yes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It is what Americans call nuclear weapons that cannot be accounted for. Many have been identified and secured, but some have not. I know these things because I was monitoring them for the Admiral. Remember Cuban missile crisis. How did those missiles reach Cuba? By sea of course, on ships from the same class as my old friend Dolmatova. Those Morflot ships carried the missiles from ports like Ventspils – my port.

  ‘So, just nine months ago, nuclear weapon from Zeltini goes missing. I know many people who work at Zeltini. When missiles or nuclear materials are moved in and out, always come through my port, Ventspils. So I handle all logistics, all documents, and I liaise with them.

  ‘I have good idea who took it: who transported it to Ventspils, then exported it on ship belonging to Latvian shipowner. All illegal of course. No documents, no authorisation. They must have had help from inside. There was much talking about it at Zeltini, of course. They told me the fools had taken the missile but not the launch code! This made me think, the Admiral would find this very interesting, and what if I could get the launch code? Maybe it will help to track the missile and the people who stole it. They will need the code, so maybe we can draw them to us.

  ‘But how to get the code? So, you must understand that the men and women who work at Zeltini have become rather careless since Soviets left. And the whole base is due to be closed down anyway. They do not like their jobs. They are not well paid and they have other work – black market work. I could not risk bribing them, but I did learn where the launch codes were kept for all missiles there – in a safe. But I did not need to steal it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Ha! I had seen where the combination numbers for the safe were kept: in the drawer of a desk nearby to safe. On computer printout. Would you believe this? One afternoon – day after I heard of missile stolen – I took vodka and some nice food: shashlik, smoked fish, even caviar for the two men who worked in that department where safe was. I knew them. They were bachelors, I was widower. We talked and had good times together. It was summer. I had opened window and they didn’t close it when we left; they were drunk. That night I came back. I knew perimeter fence was broken. And if foxes and, how do you say, jenotsun – racoon dog, and other animals could get under fence, then so could I. Then climbed through window. It was hardest part for me, and coming back through window too. But into safe was easy. I memorised code – not so difficult, only eight digits. And now I know how to launch that missile. And that makes things dangerous for me, you see?’

  I did see. ‘So you mean this Tochka has been shipped out of the country? Where has it gone?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can tell you there is just one missile, that I know of anyway, armed with nuclear warhead and mounted on launcher. But where it has gone, I do not know. Ship sailed and declared Rotterdam anchorage for orders. I know this but it means nothing.’

  ‘Why didn’t you pass this information back to London?’

  ‘How could I when I was locked up here?’

  ‘So who exactly kidnapped you?’

  ‘Day after I took launch code, I left from harbourmaster’s office on way home. It was dark. I was careless – always walked same route home, same time. Stupid. Every day I told myself must walk another way home. That night I had some vodkas, by myself in the office. I was little bit drunk. Live alone now. Wife gone, daughter gone. I planned to pass intel back to London same night but GRU guys come in car, stopped ahead of me on quiet street and caught me. Simple. Injection, then next thing I am here. No trial, no lawyer, no Admiral. Only you.

  ‘So that is situation. What to do? I must contact Admiral, but how? That is why I need you, my friend. You have contact with your embassy and through that contact we can reach Admiral. But we must hurry! How long before they take me away from here? They must know I have code. That is why they kidnap me. They are just holding me here, for now. Look, I have been around these people for so many years. I know them and I know their methods. When I say ‘rogue’ I don’t mean they do not have contacts in the official GRU. Of course they do. That is how things work in Former Soviet Union these days.’

  ‘Right, so what do they plan to do with it? Who’s their enemy?’

  ‘No, no. They plan to sell it. Or perhaps they have already sold it. I don’t know.’

  ‘Who buys these things? Terrorists?’

  ‘Yes, eventually. But I believe there may be middle men involved. Not just brokers but other buyers and sellers – traders. It is, opaque. Archie liked that word. Opacity: it defines the world he and I worked in, he would say.’

  ‘So, you want me to persuade a British embassy man to call round here for a chat. I can try but I’ll need a good pretext to convince them I’m not wasting their time. They haven’t been very sympathetic to my plight so far.’

  ‘Yes, but I have no way myself of contacting Admiral. I cannot just ask to see man from Bri
tish embassy. And Admiral has no way of knowing what has happened to me, where I am. I was taken off street and hidden away here. But you have access, and that is how you can help me. Admiral can help us both. That must be our purpose: to get out of here, both of us.’

  ‘So this GRU gang must have a lot of influence.’

  ‘Influence through this,’ he said rubbing his thumb against his fingers. ‘You buy influence and favours in this country nowadays, in dollars.’

  ‘And they are keeping you here to prevent you informing your British masters of this theft of the missile? Do they have any evidence that you’re working for the British? If I’m to meet the Admiral I must know these things.’

  ‘Not for sure, just strong suspicion. Remember: my file, my record. They have good reasons to suspect me, if not that I already passed intelligence to London, then just that I knew about this stealing of missile because of my work as harbourmaster at Ventspils port. That is enough for them to keep me silent. There is more: even though I am almost retired, I still have contacts, friends I keep in touch with, for good reasons you understand. They put this together with my record already over so many years – Cuba, the Sulu Sea – all is on my record, and maybe things I don’t know of. All is enough for them to distrust me and have me locked up here. This is safe place to keep me. And think of it. If you are trading nuclear weapons you cannot afford to take chances. A suspicion is enough for them. It is lucky I am still alive.’

  ‘And you think they know you have the code.’

  ‘They must. Why else keep me in here. I might be very useful to them one day. I am like red flashing button: you can use me to launch missile. They do not have the code and not easy for them to get it.’

  ‘I’m surprised they haven’t tried to force it out of you already.’

  ‘This is my fear. Maybe they will. Tomorrow, next day, tonight? This is why we must get out of here.’

  ‘Why tell me this now. You should have said before, before you gave me all the back story.’

  ‘Because they have just replaced GRU guys with three new ones. Maybe they are here to do it. I don’t know.’

  Chapter 12

  Daugavpils, Latvia

  May 1999

  Gaining access to the consular officer was not as straightforward as the British Foreign Office pretended. Persons in custody who are citizens of the United Kingdom have the unrestricted right to receive visits from consular officers of their countries of nationality, it claimed. All visits must be requested in writing from the prison administration in good time, it said. I dutifully wrote a request and presented it to one of the guards who regularly patrolled our block. He looked at it, smiled and tore it up. ‘Don’t understand English,’ he announced and walked away. I persisted, protesting to him each time until, after three days and three more written requests torn up, I collared a more senior guard who was doing the rounds and who I knew spoke more English. I had a fourth written request in my pocket and gave it to him, asking him if he could get the message to the British embassy for me. He looked at me, took the note, looked at it and walked off without saying a word.

  ‘Will you?’ I called after him. No response. I had to just wait and hope.

  It was another three weeks before the consular officer finally appeared marking the end of my second month in White Swan. It was the same character who had come before: Dominic Farrington. I began by apologising for my outburst at our previous meeting, a gesture which he studiously disregarded. This meeting took place across a table in a room I hadn’t been in before. A guard stood in the corner. He looked bored, gazing around him as if impatient for us to get finished. I took this as a good sign. I had a better chance of getting my message across if the guard wasn’t paying attention. I spoke quickly and quietly while trying to avoid appearing furtive. ‘This is extremely important,’ I said. ‘You must get word to the Ministry of Defence, to the Admiral in charge of the International Maritime Task Force. Do you understand?’

  He was young and his manner had been condescending up to this point. To him I was a low-life sailor who’d brought his fate upon himself. He knew my case but still acted like he’d rather be somewhere other than in this dump. And I wouldn’t argue with that, but I had his attention now.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he said cautiously, moving a little closer across the table.

  ‘Tell them that Humming Bird is here. He was snatched off the street nine or ten months ago. He has vital information about the theft of a nuclear warhead and his life is in danger. He is under the guard of the GRU, or a rogue element of the GRU, here in the prison. They’ve planted three of their thugs to keep an eye on him. He needs to get out and he needs the Admiral’s help. Nuclear weapons are out there being traded and Humming Bird can help find them. This is a grave and precarious situation. He has asked me to act as go-between. It is extremely urgent. That’s it. Visit me again when you have news.’

  ‘Who is this Humming Bird?’

  ‘Humming Bird is a codename. You don’t need to know more than that. The Admiral will know who he is. Now just tell me you’ll do it.’

  ‘I’ll see it’s done,’ he muttered hesitantly. ‘There are people at the embassy …’

  I’d told him enough for him to know I wasn’t making it up as some kind of stunt and even if he did, he knew he couldn’t afford to ignore it. I got up and nodded to the guard. Farrington stood too, looking awkward. The meeting was over.

  When I got back to the laundry room, Valdis was waiting, nervously glancing around as he asked how the meeting had gone.

  ‘He got the message and agreed to pass it on. Calm down, Valdis. We must wait now.’ But I could see the paranoia mounting.

  ‘I have asked if I can be in same dormitory with you. It will be safer if you are around.’

  ‘What did they say to that? Surely you don’t want to arouse even more suspicion.’

  ‘No, don’t worry. They know I am not a difficult prisoner, not violent. They said it could be arranged. I told them you wanted to learn our language and I would teach you. They liked that. It will be good on your record too.’

  ‘What about the triplets, your GRU goons?’

  ‘They don’t frighten me,’ he said. Maybe not, I thought, but they frightened me.

  The arrival of the warmer days of summer was bittersweet. The days were longer but the birds sang less now than in the spring nesting season. I’d come to appreciate birdsong as a novelty. Besides the cry of gulls and other seabirds, the sounds of nature’s creatures were largely absent at sea. The rats were an exception. The birdsong I heard from the confines of the prison represented freedom and joyfulness. It instilled a sense of hope. Now it was replaced by sounds of laughter and shouting from the surrounding streets out beyond the exercise yard, beyond the razor wire, as people were out and about enjoying the good weather. Birdsong, being non-human, was abstract. But human voices worked negatively on my mood only serving to remind me of my predicament. I was only a couple of months, or was it three now, into my nine-year sentence. When I thought about it, a rising sense of panic would envelop me. It was how I imagined drowning would be. The sense of optimism following my meeting with Farrington hadn’t lasted. Valdis and I were sharing a dormitory with others from our caste now, and that had helped for a while, but Valdis’s unrelenting paranoia was beginning to get to me. ‘Just because I am paranoid doesn’t mean they are not after me,’ he would say only half humorously, claiming it was what had kept him alive all these years. I wondered who he’d picked that one up from. But if I’d thought he was imagining things, I was wrong, as events were to prove.

  There are three castes in the Latvian prison hierarchy, and I had learned this pretty much from my first day there. Blatnije, meaning a favour for a favour, were the VIPs. Mužiki suggested someone is a true man, and these were your average thugs. And then there was the Kreisie, or the left, as in left behind. These were the bottom feeders. The average thugs are subservient to the VIP caste. If they don’t accept this status they get booted
down to the bottom-feeder level. The bottom feeders have no choice but to serve the thugs, who use them for their own purposes. The VIP prisoners don’t ever speak to or use the same utilities as bottom feeders. This prison hierarchy is a structure created by the prisoners themselves and based on a sense of justice, a set of values, or so it was said. The prison authorities accepted this status quo. They didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter.

  Paedophiles, rapists and the most brutal murderers are automatically deemed bottom feeders and they are kept in separate cells for their own safety. But prisoners can be kicked down to the bottom feeder tier for even menial reasons like gambling debts or stealing food from other inmates. Such relegations are decided by the VIPs.

  Valdis and I had been classed as Mužiki. Unfortunately, the GRU guys, Aramis, Athos and Porthos as Valdis had christened them in a futile attempt at comedy, were ranked as VIPs. Although us Mužiki did not share facilities with the VIPs, that didn’t stop the GRU triplets entering the shower block when Valdis was in there one morning. Prisoners are often at their most vulnerable in the showers and Valdis was elderly and in poor health. The courage he’d shown for so many years as a double agent seemed to have deserted him, not because he was a coward, far from it, but because he was old enough and wise enough to know that he was vulnerable.

  There were some very tough, violent men in that prison and some very unpleasant things went on in the shower block. Men were sodomised regularly and one young prisoner had been knifed to death a few days before Valdis encountered his own trouble there. He came back to the dormitory cell, bent over, holding his broken glasses, a towel tied round his waist, his wispy grey hair plastered to his skull; and he was shaking. I’d been in the shower block just before him and seen nothing other than the usual shouted threats and abusive language.