by Dima Zales
In the chat, Mitya explains for Ada’s benefit, “You see, there’s a Russian fairy tale written in verse by Pushkin, who was a Russian author of Shakespeare’s caliber. The story deals with a fisherman and a golden fish that grants him wishes, kind of like an aqua genie. And, of course, goldfish is a type of carp, so—”
“I’m in,” I type and share the password with them.
“I’m in too,” they both answer.
I scan Lyuba’s emails but don’t see anything that looks like a coded message.
“I’ve got it,” Ada says out loud. “In the junk folder, the email from [email protected].”
“Of course,” Mitya says. “The guy’s nickname is a type of mushroom, so he sent the email from an account that’s the name of a mushroom that looks like a brain.”
I Google “gyromitra esculenta,” and it indeed looks eerily like a brain. Then I look at the email, dreading another roundabout.
To my relief, the message isn’t encrypted. The email contains a Moscow address, instructions for what to tell the bouncers once we get there, and a reminder for Alex not to bring his mercenaries. Since there’s nothing about my crew, I assume Muhomor will be okay with Gogi, Nadejda, and Joe coming along. I search the meeting place via Yandex (the Russian equivalent of Google), and it turns out to be Dazdraperma, a very exclusive establishment that’s a blend of a casino, a strip club, and a nightclub. It even has a banya—the Russian sauna—on the premises.
I share my findings with my friends. Then I open my eyes and announce, “I know where to go.”
I realize my mistake instantly. “I told you I was good with puzzles,” I say in an effort to cover it up.
People are still looking at me with a mixture of suspicion and disbelief, especially Alex. Since Mom’s rescue is on the line, I find it hard to care what they think, so I just explain where we’re going.
“I know the place,” Alex says after a long pause. “Sounds like somewhere Muhomor might be. I’ll go make preparations so we can leave as soon as possible.”
He exits the room, and I reflect on how this whole thing must’ve looked to him and the others. He emailed me; I glanced at his message, closed my eyes, probably had a look of concentration on my face, and then I opened my eyes a few minutes later and blurted out the answer to a puzzle his special team usually takes hours to crack.
“Make sure you get all the weapons you’ll need,” I tell Gogi, Nadejda, and Joe. “I’ll go wait at the table.”
No one says anything, so I plod back to the Lounge, cursing myself for not leaving before my friends and I started solving the puzzle.
“They probably just think you’re wicked smart,” Ada says when I complain about it in the chat.
“You shouldn’t feel bad for fooling them.” Mitya chuckles. “On a more serious note, and on the topic of getting smarter, I’m done with my STRELA resource allocation project, and the code is going to Ada for review. As soon as she’s done, it’ll be ready for testing.”
“Then let me focus on it,” Ada says. “I’m not as good as you at multitasking.”
I don’t get a chance to jealously check whether she meant Mitya or me when she said “you” because a new email arrives in my inbox.
I read the subject line, and my heart rate spikes.
It says: If you don’t go back to America, this will happen to your mother.
There’s no text in the body of the email, only a file named “play_me.mov.”
As I forward the email to Joe, Mitya, and Ada, I pinpoint the icy, deadweight sensation in my stomach. As a kid, this was how I felt when I went to get my vaccine shots.
I start the video.
The camera is zoomed in on a shaved head, and because there aren’t any objects around, it’s hard to gauge the size of the person in the video, or their identity, or even something as basic as whether the head belongs to a man or a woman.
Then a hand appears in the frame.
The hand is clad in a blue latex glove, and it’s holding a large yellow cordless DeWalt drill. A spindly sword-like drill bit is sticking out of its tip.
“No,” Ada whispers out loud.
“This can’t be heading where I think it is,” Mitya echoes.
I suppress the urge to stop watching and brace myself.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The drill bit spins.
The video has no sound, maybe because the microphone wasn’t enabled on the recording device used to film this atrocity.
I feel like I’m rooted to the floor and my roots are filling with a hundred pounds of ice every millimeter the drill gets closer to the back of the person’s head.
When the tip of the drill bit penetrates the skin, my cursed imagination fills in the details not available to me, like the person’s scream and the horrible bone-crunching buzz and the smell of—
I get violently sick on Alex’s marble floor.
When I’m done heaving, my ribs sing in agony, but the video is over.
My friends are saying something, but I just stand there, gulping in air until I get sick again.
“Oh my,” says Anna, Alex’s model housekeeper. She must’ve witnessed me losing all that super-expensive caviar I ate on her earlier recommendation. “Are you okay?”
I get sick again. Both my ribs and my skull feel like they’re breaking apart. “No, I’m the opposite of okay.”
Anna grabs my elbow and starts dragging me away, saying something along the lines of, “Let me walk you.”
She leads me to a bathroom to freshen up and rinse my mouth. Afterwards, she takes me somewhere else, and as I follow her, I’m truly glad I can communicate with my friends via the mental interface, because I don’t think I can gather the strength to speak.
Into the chat, I type, “It must’ve been someone from the study.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ada whispers out loud.
“Yeah, man,” Mitya echoes in a subdued tone. “Hang in there. Don’t fall apart.”
As they continue saying supportive nothings, I take out Mr. Spock and stroke the pink part of his fur, hoping a little pet therapy will help me pull myself together—something I have to do for Mom’s sake.
Mr. Spock closes his eyes, which I take as a sign of pleasure. Confirming my guess, he begins bruxing and gently nibbling on my skin. All of that, combined with the violet aura he has from the app, means he’s very happy and at ease. After a while, I also feel more relaxed and start thinking rationally enough to notice my surroundings. It turns out the whole gang is around me, with Nadejda staying far outside the rat-leaping range.
“Did you see it?” I ask Joe. “The email I forwarded?”
He nods, his expression unreadable. “Do we know who sent it yet?”
“I have my people on it,” Alex says. “But I wouldn’t hold my breath. It’s from a free provider, so anyone with a Tor Browser could’ve created the account, sent the email, and remained anonymous as can be.”
“Is that true?” I type into the chat. “We can’t track it?”
“I’ll take a look, but I’m afraid Alex might be right,” Mitya replies.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say out loud to no one in particular.
“You should probably consider going back to the United States.” Alex walks over to the nearby table, pours a shot of vodka, and offers it to me. “I saw the video. Those people aren’t kidding around.”
I shake my head, refusing the vodka (which is very rude in Russia, but I don’t care), and grab a handful of grapes instead.
“Looks to me like they’re showing their weakness.” Gogi adjusts the shoulder strap on his heavy duffel bag. “They know we’re on their trail, and they got scared enough to execute one of the hostages.”
“But it’s such a desperate move.” I put all but two grapes in my mouth and feed the rest to Mr. Spock. “It worries me. Desperate people do irrational things.”
“I agree,” Alex says, knocking back the shot he offered me. “What if Mike’s mother is the ne
xt victim? What if—”
Alex stops speaking because Joe demonstratively takes out his gun, flicks off the safety, and places the loaded weapon on the table in front of him. In the silence that follows, he stares at Alex until the billionaire looks away. With lethal finality, my cousin says, “We’re going to Dazdraperma.”
He doesn’t need to add any niceties such as “and that’s it” or “no more debate” or even “or else I’ll shoot you,” because it’s clear he’d shoot anyone not on board with his plan.
Funny enough, I don’t think I disagree with him. It doesn’t take a brain boost to realize that if we fly back home, Mom’s death is a certainty. True, it might involve something less drastic than a drill to the head, but her chances are slim nonetheless. On the other hand, if we stay, there’s a possibility, however remote, that we might save her.
Thus determined, I carefully put Mr. Spock back in my pocket, grab a handful of food from the table, and say, “Let’s head out.”
As we drive through the congested Moscow streets in Alex’s tricked-out Land Rover, I can’t help gawking at the sights that range from the colorful onion-like cupolas of the Orthodox churches to monuments from both tsarist Russia and the Soviet days. When I was here as a kid, I didn’t appreciate any of this, and I still don’t, given my state of mind. But I glimpse enough wonders to understand why the real estate prices in Russia’s capital are on par with those in New York, Shanghai, and Paris.
Dazdraperma isn’t located in the center of the city for the same reason Alex’s Palace isn’t—it’s huge. There’s a block-long line, which is crazy in daytime. Lines in Russia shouldn’t shock me, though. They’re what I think of whenever I picture this country. In Krasnodar, around the late eighties and early nineties—when most of my perceptions of Russia were formed—you had to stand in line to get everything, even something as basic as bread or milk.
We bypass everyone standing in line and waltz up to the bouncers. Gogi tells them the password we got from Muhomor—shmakodyavka frikadel’ka.
“That’s ‘shorty meatball,’” Mitya types into the chat.
“I’m still reviewing the code,” Ada replies. “Let me be.”
Wanting to focus on my surroundings, I put away the chat window as I pass through the heavy doors.
The first thing we see upon entering is the casino, and it’s themed to match the name of the establishment. In Russian, and to some degree in English, the word dazdraperma sounds funny, and not just because it sounds a bit like sperm. It comes from an infrequently used female name that only the most ardent communists or accidentally abusive parents gave their daughters during Soviet times. It actually stands for “Da Zdra(vstvuet) Per(voye) Ma(ya),” meaning something like “Long Live the First of May.” That date was a big made-up holiday in honor of International Workers’ Solidarity and reminds me of one of those Hallmark holidays in the US, like a sort of commie Valentine’s Day. Incidentally, the Russian version of Valentine’s Day is March 8th, though it’s known as International Women’s Day and kind of incorporates Mother’s Day as well. When I was growing up, there were parades on May 1st, and I was often forced to participate in them with the other kids. In Moscow, the parades included soldiers marching down the Red Square alongside rolling tanks, and I believe they recently reinstated the whole practice, though I can’t be sure.
The casino has photos of Lenin, wheat husks, sickles and hammers, and other paraphernalia you’d see back in the day on May 1st, but I think it’s meant to be ironic, since casinos were illegal back in the Soviet Union. Actually, speaking of legality, I’m not sure gambling is legal in Russia today. Then again, neither is marijuana, and I detect its telltale smell in the cloud of smoke I pass through.
“What do we do now?” I ask my entourage. “Every second we waste is a chance for them to figure out we didn’t react to their threat.”
“It’s still not too late to leave,” Alex says. Noticing Joe’s jaw muscles tighten, he adds hastily, “Muhomor will send someone to approach us. That’s how he always operates.”
To stop myself from going crazy, I walk over to a table where a card game is taking place. There’s a dealer and six players already at it, and it takes me only a couple of rounds to develop a theory about the rules—in part because it’s a variation of poker. Curious if I’m right, I run a mental search. I learn I’m very close to knowing the rules and that this game is called Russian Poker—though I guess they might simply call it “poker” in Moscow. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I think I could make a killing if I played, though I don’t know if it’s because I’ve always had a propensity for poker or if my brain boost is striking once again.
I share my thoughts with Mitya via chat, and he warns me, “Don’t even approach the table. Yes, you could make a figurative killing, but then it could turn into a literal killing—of you. You don’t want the house thinking you’re cheating, and casinos all over the world define being very good at a game as cheating. Even in Vegas you can get something broken for being too lucky—or at least that was the case in the past. This is Russia, so the bone they’ll break is your skull.”
“Hi,” says a soft feminine voice. “You’re Mike Cohen.”
I turn around and see a familiar Russian face looking at me with a barely detectible smirk. It takes me half a second to place her as the girl from the puzzle picture Muhomor sent Alex.
“Hi,” I say. “Is your name really Lyuba?”
“Why not?” the girl whose name is probably not Lyuba says. “It’ll work for the purposes of my current assignment.”
“Let’s go then,” I say. “Lyuba.”
“No funny business,” Nadejda adds, her deep voice carrying over the pinging noise of slot machines.
Lyuba takes a good look at the former wrestling champion, and her smirk disappears. She turns on her heels, briskly walks through the casino, and opens a door into the next section of the club, which happens to be the dance floor.
Instantly, trance music envelops us, nearly deafening me, and I marvel at how good the insulation must be in the walls and doors. Just a moment ago, all I heard was the ambient casino noise. Still, I like the super-loud song enough to get Einstein to figure out what it is—“Resurrection” by a Russian group called PPK.
Lyuba pushes through the sweaty bodies on the dance floor and heads toward the giant DJ booth in the farthest corner. The DJ is wearing a shiny cosmonaut helmet, but as it turns out, he—or she—isn’t our destination. To the side of the DJ’s big podium is a door, and that’s where Lyuba leads us.
A short corridor later, we stop at a big metal door, and Lyuba knocks.
A buzzing sound blares, and Lyuba pushes the door in.
Once we’ve all entered, she says, “He’s inside,” and slams the door behind us.
Joe reaches out and locks the door.
“Is it me, or is this a bit ominous?” I try typing into the chat but discover I can’t.
I’m not feeling so great, and the AROS apps are shouting connection errors at me. My mind feels as though I just woke up with a hangover and a sleep-deprivation headache.
Teeth clenched, I look around the room for answers.
Chapter Thirty
The room is all but empty, with the exception of a sleek desk and an office chair. In the chair sits a man with a haircut that could give Ada’s hairdo a run for its money.
The walls have an odd metallic sheen to them, and I begin to suspect the cause of my mental state, as well as the reason for AROS bugging out.
I take out my phone to verify my theory, and sure enough, there are no bars or any hint of connectivity.
“Does your phone work?” I whisper to my conspirators.
One by one everyone checks their phones, confirming my suspicions.
So the errors of my AROS interface are due to a lack of connectivity. I got so used to the brain boost that without it, I actually feel like something is missing. I guess that makes sense since, in a way, it’s as though an extra part of my bra
in suddenly went away.
“This room is a Faraday cage,” the man behind the desk says without turning. “Hence why I use this.” He dangles the network cable that snakes into one of those rugged, briefcase-looking laptops the military likes to use.
“A Faraday cage is an enclosure that blocks electromagnetic energy,” I explain in case Gogi or Nadejda aren’t familiar with the term. “Put your phone in a microwave oven, and it’ll have the same effect. Microwaves have a Faraday cage built in to prevent—”
Alex puts a hand on my shoulder, interrupting me. When I turn, he simply shakes his head at me and says, “Muhomor, let me make the introductions.”
“One moment,” Muhomor says and types something so fast I wonder if he’s just banging the keys randomly to look cool. The keyboard is arranged in JCUKEN (or ЙЦУКЕН in Cyrillic) formation, the Russian answer to the popular QWERTY layout. If Mitya could still communicate with me, he’d probably brag to Ada about his bilingual typing skills, which I lack.
Finally, Muhomor stops the banging and swivels his chair to look us over.
The guy has all the signs of being on a computer for more than twelve hours straight, the most telling of which are his red-rimmed, crusty eyes. Maybe to mask the wear and tear, or maybe to increase the air of mystery around him, he moves his dark shades from atop his head onto his nose. From the front, his spiky hair looks less like Ada’s and more like he came out of an anime or Japanese RPG, a feeling heightened by the hint of Asian—likely Mongolian—heritage in his features. He’s thin and clad in something like pajamas, which lend him a distinctly nonthreatening air, especially for the super-hacker/criminal Dark Net tsar I expected to meet.
Alex finally gets to the introductions, and Muhomor nods at each of us from his perch, but he doesn’t get up to shake our hands.
“So,” Muhomor says after Alex introduces the last person, me. “What can I do for you? And, more importantly, what can you do for me?”