The Russian Doll (Ben Sign Book 3)

by Matthew Dunn

  She smiled with genuine warmth as she saw him behind his desk that contained an antiquated computer, ink pens, paper, a packet of cigarettes that he wasn’t permitted to smoke in the room, gold lighter given to him by his wife, and a deck of cards that he used to play solitaire to while away the time in what had to be one of the SVR’s most boring and inactive jobs.

  Osip looked up and removed his reading glasses. “Natalia my dear. This is an unexpected surprise. What brings you to the realm of secrets?” He liked to think of himself as the gatekeeper to some of Russia’s darkest, hidden memories. His eyes twinkled as he asked, “Have you come to see me?”

  Natalia sat on the edge of his desk. “Of course. You’re the only sane person in this building.”

  As ever, Osip was wearing his favourite cardigan – brown wool, leather elbow patches, stinking of tobacco. “Are you married yet? Have children?”

  Natalia shook her head. “No one will have me.”

  “More fool them. A young woman such as yourself should have a queue of men wanting to take you dancing. I regret to say that I am too old to join that queue.”

  Natalia kissed him on the cheek. “But, you can still dream. Did you finish the Marlowe books I leant you?”

  “Long ago. If you come back tomorrow I’ll return them to you.”

  Natalia stood. “I’m only in Moscow for a few days and I’m travelling light. Keep them until I return to HQ fulltime.”

  “As you wish. I’ve kept them in pristine condition. How can I help you?”

  “I’m doing some research into the Sergey Peskov case in 1968. I’d like to have access to the files. I have security clearance.”

  “I know you do. Your boss called me before you came down here.” He placed a finger against the side of his nose. “But I’d have let you have a peak anyway. Old files don’t change the world. They simply remind dinosaurs like me that once upon a time we had a ball.” He typed on his computer keyboard. “Peskov, Peskov, Peskov. Where are you? There we go.” He walked along the shelves and entered one of the corridors between them. Two minutes later he returned and handed her three files. “Use the reading room. It’s the usual drill. I’m not cleared to know the content of,” he swept his hand toward the library, “my babies. Just return the files when you’re done.”

  The reading room was a small annex, behind clear glass and subdivided into cubicles containing chairs and desks. Natalia sat in one of the cubicles. She had zero interest in the Peskov case. She didn’t bother unbinding the elastic clasp that held the file closed. She just sat there, waiting. Two hours’ later she walked back to Osip’s desk and handed him the files. “These are interesting. They may help us on a current matter. There is an intriguing reference in one of the files. It refers to a Susan Archer. Can you check to see if there’s a file on her?”

  “Why is she important?”

  “Nice try, Osip. Just see if we’ve got anything on her.”

  He checked his computer logs. “Yes. She appears on the system. The reference dates to 1968 – same year as your Peskov case. But we don’t have her file. Her file’s buried in the FSB archive.”

  Though this was annoying, it did make sense. The FSB was responsible for national state security and was the successor to the KGB. It rarely operated overseas, deferring that responsibility to the SVR and GRU. If there was something suspicious about Susan Archer’s disappearance after birth in Moscow, it would have been recorded in Russian police files. But, if there was anything about her disappearance that touched Soviet and Russian national security it would be a matter for the KGB and its successor. The problem was that FSB officers rarely liked working with their counterparts in other Russian agencies. Nevertheless, the fact that Archer’s name was in the KGB archive inherited by the FSB made her an interesting subject.

  Natalia asked, “How do I get to look at the file?”

  Osip pulled out a cigarette from his pack, twirled it, and put it back in. “You don’t. You know what those bastards in the Lubyanka are like.”

  The Lubyanka was a large neo-Baroque building designed by Alexander V. Ivanov in 1897 and situated in Lubyanka Square in Meshchansky District of Moscow. In its history it had been the headquarters of various secret police organisations and a prison for dissidents, many of whom were tortured and executed in the building. The mere name Lubyanka sent shivers down the spines of Russians. And nothing within the beautiful yellow brick building had changed. It housed the FSB, state police, and a prison. It was business as usual.

  Natalia played it cool. “Not to worry. It was just a thought. Hey – can you recommend a good restaurant I can eat in tonight?”

  “There are plenty of good places to eat. You know that.”

  “I do but here’s the thing – I’m going to be on my own and I don’t want jerks hitting on me. I’m not in the mood for that stuff. So, I’m thinking somewhere discreet.”

  Osip pondered the question. “There is nothing more pitiful than a lonely, transient woman, dining alone. Come over to my place at eight.” He scribbled his address on a slip of paper. “I will cook beef stroganoff and rice. It won’t be fancy. You’re safe with me.” He laughed. “I haven’t been able to get it up for a very long time. Nor do I have the inclination on such matters.”

  Natalia patted his hand. “It will be good to have dinner with a true friend. I never worry about you. I worry about myself.” She smiled. “See you at eight. I don’t like my beef rare.” She walked out of the room. When she was out of the building and sufficiently far away from the place she texted Sign.

  Sign, Knutsen, and Lenin arrived back at Gregor’s house. Knutsen’s gun was under his belt, his spare bullets and equipment secreted in his jacket. Gregor and Yuri were in the kitchen. On the chopping boards were the two ducks and goose; all plucked and trussed. Gregor was wiping a brush dipped in a soy sauce and marmalade marinade over the ducks’ skin. Yuri was jabbing a knife into the goose and inserting a peeled onion, lemon, and a handful of herbs into its cavity.

  Gregor’s face lit up when he saw Sign and Knutsen. “Tonight we have a banquet, yes? I have unearthed potatoes that have been growing since last autumn, picked four mushrooms the size of saucers, boiled beans and left them to rest in a jar of bacon powder and brine after which they will be drained and flash fried in butter, and I have this beauty.” He held up a red cabbage. “Half of it will be used as a coleslaw, the other half as a stir fry with sliced radishes, gherkins, pepper, spices, and slithers of fresh orange. I have also made a red wine gravy. Not bad, eh?” He put down the brush. “We will have a drink now on the lake balcony.” He picked up a bottle of vodka and three glasses. “Mr. Tank Engine – after our drink Lenin will need some further training. This will be your responsibility while you’re my guest.”

  They sat on the balcony. As Gregor poured the drinks, Sign said, “My asset needs to get access to the Lubyanka. It won’t be easy.”

  “But she’s working on it?” Gregor handed them drinks.

  “Yes.” Sign stared at the lake. “Whether she’ll be successful is another matter.”

  “Was it your instruction that she must infiltrate the godawful place?” Gregor sat and followed Sign’s gaze of the lake.

  “No. She’s following her own leads.”

  “Then this is good! She is mustering her own courage without anyone telling her she must become stronger.” He chuckled. “That said, it was your clever idea to put her on the battlefield to see if she would fight or flee.”

  “True, but I’ve always hated this part. You counsel someone to go over the trenches and when they’ve summoned the strength to do so your heart’s in your mouth because you know you’ve persuaded the person to die.”

  “Come on, friend. You told me this is a routine job. She’ll be fine. I presume she’s a Russian intelligence officer.”

  Sign looked at him and made the slightest of nods.

  “She’s doing the right thing. I just wish I could be of service to you these days. But, I’m getting old
. Still, it would be nice to have one last crack at this ridiculous regime.”

  “You are of service. You’ve been gracious enough to give Thomas and I a safe house. Plus your cooking is nearly as good as mine.”

  “Nearly as good?!” Gregor swigged his vodka. “Everything you eat here is fresh from the fields and lake. You cook produce from markets.”

  Sign smiled. A gentle rain was sprinkling over the lake. The sound of the droplets hitting the surface was like that of a drummer making the most delicate and rapid taps on a cymbal. It was a beautiful sound and soothing. He walked to the wooden rail that separated the covered balcony from the lake. “You have a beautiful place here, Gregor. You deserve it after everything you’ve done for your country and for me.”

  Gregor wasn’t going to allow Sign to get deep and meaningful. In a mischievous tone he replied, “I only worked with you because I didn’t know anyone else in MI6. For all I know I could have got a much better partner.”

  Sign turned to face him, Knutsen, and Lenin, while leaning against the fence. “Do you think we’ve made a difference, over the years? Have all the things we’ve done made an iota of change?”

  Gregor pondered the question. “We are caretakers who clean our buildings. But we always know they will get dirty again. So, we clean them again, and we keep reliving the cycle of cleanliness versus dirt. And we do so knowing, all the time, that we can’t change the structure of the building. Instead we tart it up.” Gregor laughed. “That’s what we are – a bunch of tarts.”

  “I hear you.” Sign grabbed his drink and sat in his chair. “After dinner and when it’s dark I will take your sturdiest rod and go fishing again. I suspect there are zander in the lake. They are strong and their teeth are fierce. The zander will be deep in the lake but they will be feeding. If I net one we will have a sublime plate of food tomorrow evening.” He stood. “I’ll check on your fishing equipment. I’ll need some heavy weights, a wire tippet, and a hooked lure that will imitate something like a frog or a small fish. After that, I’ll help Yuri with the rest of the cooking.” He walked in to the house.

  Gregor felt at peace as he absorbed the vista in front of him.

  Knutsen said, “He wants to be alone tonight. Sometimes he gets like this. I don’t know if it’s him collecting his thoughts about ongoing projects or he wants solitude for solitude’s sake.”

  Gregor drained his drink. In a serious and quiet voice he said, “It’s neither. It is his prayer time. He wants to say sorry for his memories. Leave him be when he’s like this.”

  “His memories?”

  “He’ll be working through the alphabet, or adopting a similar ritual. ‘A’ is for Anna who he failed to rescue in Budapest. ‘B’ is Becky who tried to shoot him in Trieste. And on it goes until he reaches ‘Z’. Then he restarts the alphabet with new names. And when he’s finished it, he restarts it again and again. I’m making this up. I don’t know his ritual. And I know less than ten percent of his past. But I know for certain that he needs to process and catalogue his background.” Gregor poured himself another drink. “It’s not trauma. Not in the strictest sense. Rather it’s recognition that one has been thrust into the most unusual situations one can imagine. It catches up with the best of us. And it confuses us. Ben is the most intelligent man I’ve ever met. No man on Earth is mentally stronger. He fights the confusion and won’t give up until he’s beaten it at its own game. He’ll win… I think.”

  “That sounds like trauma to me.”

  Gregor shook his head. “There are matters to attend to that are beyond the human condition and most certainly are beyond trauma. Ben is the warden of a prison of his own demons. He has to be tough with himself and have systems in place. Otherwise, the demons take over the prison.” He looked at Knutsen. “Ben and I did many jobs together. One in particular stuck in my mind. We were in Las Vegas, of all places. Ben had constructed the most brilliant plan to entice three Chinese intelligence officers to Nevada. It took him six months to do so and the way he baited them and reeled them in was truly incredible. His objective was to negotiate with them. A thirty year old Chinaman named Sun Xin was imprisoned in a tiny steel cage in Qincheng Prison in China. He was autistic, a brilliant mathematician, had a photographic memory, but had physical limitations due to other disabilities. He was a man-child who should never have been locked up. He was frightened and didn’t know what was going on. He worked for the Chinese ministry of defence. In the department’s headquarters, video recordings caught him reading blueprints of a new nuclear missile system. The Chinese thought he was memorising the prints with a view to selling the details to the West. In truth he was just curious about the designs. And he wouldn’t have had the gumption, knowledge, or desire to contact the West. Nevertheless the Chinese took a different view. They incarcerated him and treated him as a spy. In prison the poor chap was in a dreadful state. Ben didn’t want him to defect. He didn’t want him to relay what was in his head. He just wanted Sun to be returned to his mum. I was with Ben in a Las Vegas hotel room, with the three Chinese officers. Ben told them what he wanted. The men laughed. Ben pulled out papers and showed them to the men. They were exact copies of the missile blueprints. Ben said that he’d got them six months prior to Sun’s arrest. And he added that he got them from a real British spy in the Chinese intelligence service. I suspect he was bluffing and to this day I don’t know how he got the blueprints. He said that Sun was innocent and that anything he’d done was of no interest to the West. All that mattered was that he should be released. The Chinese men seemed reasonable. They said they’d return back to their country and tell their bosses that there’d been a mistake. Sun Xin would be released, they promised. They also said they would be investigating the identity of the real spy in their unit. Three months later a letter was received in MI6, addressed to the alias Sign had used when meeting the Chinese men in Nevada. Sign opened the letter. Inside was a photo. Sun Xin’s face was unblemished and easily recognisable. The rest of his body was hacked to pieces. He was dead. It was a message, a warning, to MI6 – the innocents don’t matter; don’t fuck with us. It devastated Ben. All he wanted to do was the right thing.” Gregor looked at the lake. “And that’s why Ben wants to fish alone tonight. He wants to hook and reel in a monster. And tomorrow night he wants to eat the thing.” Gregor sighed. “Memories, God bless them.”

  “Why did Ben go out of his way to help Sun?”

  “Because of a small, but pertinent matter. Seven months prior to Sun’s imprisonment, Ben was on the run in Beijing. Chinese secret police were hunting him. It was a desperate situation. The net was closing in. Ben knocked on a random door in the city. The apartment belonged to Sun’s mother. Ben knew nothing about her or her son. He just wanted refuge until the police moved on. He told her that he’d been mugged and was in shock. He asked if he could have a glass of water. I suppose most people would have closed the door in his face. But, she let him in and made him a bowl of chicken soup. It was a Saturday. Sun was at home. Ben speaks passable Mandarin. He spoke to the mother and to Sun. An hour later he told the mother he would repay her for her hospitality – not with cash, that would have been rude. He said that if ever they needed shelter he would ensure they’d get it. And that was all there was to the matter. A brief moment of kindness from Sun’s mother meant that Ben had zero qualms about pulling out all the stops to help her son. That’s Ben.” His tone of voice changed as he said, “Now! You must do your duty and give Lenin some training.” He tossed Knutsen a bag. “Take Lenin to the paddock. The horses are not there – they’re in their stables for the night. In the bag is a shoulder of beef. I want you to put Lenin on one side of the paddock. Extend your hand in front of your chest. He will sit. Don’t speak to him. Back away carefully to the other side of the paddock, keeping your eyes on the wolf at all times. Then pull out the beef and hold it at arm’s length. He will charge towards you. Don’t flinch. I’m hoping he will accurately grab the meat in his jaws. Don’t be surprised if you’re bowled over
when this happens. The combination of his weight, speed, and aggression will make it feel like you’re being hit by a truck.”

  Knutsen finished his drink and said sarcastically, “Excellent. When you say you’re hoping he will get the meat and not my arm…”

  Gregor laughed. “If he gets your arm it will mean he’s not ready to be released into the wild. The loss of your arm will be a small sacrifice in the context of Lenin’s rehabilitation. Go to it, Mr. Tank Engine! Dinner will be in one hour.”

  Natalia visited her aunt and uncle in the outskirts of Moscow. They lived in a high-rise block of flats. Conditions in the building were squalid. The lifts were notoriously temperamental and stank of urine, there was graffiti on the grey stone walls on the ground level, the stairs up the eighteen story building were a place where teenagers hanged out and dealt or took drugs, and the building was surrounded by other tenement blocks of the same height. Despite the champagne swilling and oyster swallowing affluence of other parts of the city, this part of Moscow resembled a throwback to the darkest days of communism. In fact, the buildings had been erected in the 1950s. Ever since, the zone hadn’t moved on. It was a place that had been forgotten by the state. Despite the poverty in the area, there was little serious crime. It was a ghetto of sorts. People had to get on with each other to survive. And they were tired. They didn’t have the energy to steal from one and other. Plus, there was nothing worth stealing. Wannabe criminals in their midst knew there were far better pickings to be had a few miles south of their location.

  And yet, like many of the flats in the area, her aunt and uncle’s miniscule one bedroom home was immaculate. Her aunt and uncle were proud people. Her aunt had laid the table; on it were small cakes on her best crockery. She was wearing the dress she wore when attending church. Her uncle had dressed into the only suit he owned and a bow tie before greeting his niece at the door. This evening was a formal occasion, one that the aunt and uncle had been looking forward to for days. Everything had to be right. There’d be no talk of medical problems. No talk of any signs of weakness. All had to be proper and a splendid occasion.