The Moscow Code

by Nick Wilkshire

  “Last time we talked,” Charlie went on, “he was running a couple of stores. Now all of a sudden, he’s got a whole chain and he’s expanding out of province.” He paused and let out a little laugh. “Listen to me. Some brother I am. Plus, you’re not supposed to be consoling me.”

  Her face lit up in a way he hadn’t seen before with her first genuine smile. “It was the reverse for me. Steve was still backpacking around Europe by the time I finished my surgical residency, but that didn’t seem to matter.” She sighed. “I was all set for the perfect life — great career ahead, married to Mr. Perfect when I was still in med school. He was a surgeon, of course.” The smile faded, then disappeared altogether. “The promise of grandchildren kept our parents happy for a while. They didn’t even seem to mind that I’d married the world’s biggest asshole, and neither did I. I was so hell-bent on beating Steve at something. Boy, did that backfire on me,” she said as their drinks arrived. “It didn’t work out, and while Steve was hitchhiking from hostel to hostel and living on peanuts, I was busy getting divorced. Another strike for big sister.”

  Charlie could see her mood darkening, and he was thinking of ways to nudge her onto another topic, but she was in full swing now. “Why couldn’t I just have been happy for him? He never gave a shit about prestige or status or money, and good for him. I know he didn’t like Brad — my ex,” she added, swirling her drink around in the glass. “But he never showed it, always put on a friendly face. Why did I have to resent him for his happiness?”

  Charlie shrugged. “People like Steve have a certain innocence that can be … well, annoying,” he offered. “But it’s that same innocence that makes them immune to whatever resentment you might have felt. I’m sure he never even noticed.”

  Sophie looked at him as though half of her wanted to believe him, while the other half thought she was being fleeced. “I hope you’re right,” she finally said, her voice on the verge of cracking. “I just can’t get what he said out of my mind.” She looked at Charlie and he saw her eyes tear up. “The man at the Conservatory.”

  Charlie shook his head. “What do you mean?”

  “Steve told him I’d know what to do if he was ever in trouble. That I’d help him.” She wiped a fat tear from her cheek. “I guess he was wrong.”

  Chapter 13

  It was after midnight by the time Charlie and Sophie made it back to her hotel. Standing in the lobby, Charlie was enjoying the warmth that seeped into his thin coat; the Moscow nights were distinctly colder now that fall was morphing into winter. He watched as Sophie shifted her weight unsteadily from one foot to the other, the result of several drinks superimposed on a rather insubstantial BLT.

  “Thanks for coming, Charlie,” she said. “It was totally unfair for me not to level with you, but I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  “It’s fine. Next time, though, you’ll tell me what’s going on, right?”

  “Right.”

  She waved at the elevators. “I’d invite you up for a nightcap, but we’ve probably had enough for one night, I think.”

  Under normal circumstances, the idea of a nightcap with Sophie Durant would have been irresistible, but these were hardly normal circumstances.

  “Yeah, I’m really beat,” he lied.

  She nodded. “So I’ll come to the embassy first thing on Monday?”

  “Yeah. We can go over to the MFA meeting together.”

  “Well, I’ll let you go.” She put her hand on his arm. “Thanks again. I really mean it.”

  “No problem.” He watched as she began to cross the lobby, a forlorn figure on her way to a weekend alone, with nothing to do but imagine her brother’s final moments.

  “Hey,” he called out, taking a few steps toward her. “I was just thinking, it’s supposed to be a nice day tomorrow. I could show you around a bit, if you like.” He couldn’t tell by her body language if she was thinking of accepting his offer or of how to politely refuse it, so he just kept talking. “It’d be good for you to get out of your hotel room for a bit. Maybe take your mind off —”

  “I’ve already monopolized your Friday night. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”

  “You forget I’m a newbie here — haven’t developed a social life yet,” he said with a grin. Her face brightened in turn.

  “Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind …”

  “I’ll drop by here around … is noon okay? We can go for a walk around Red Square and the Kremlin, maybe grab a late lunch.”

  “See you tomorrow, then.”

  “Sleep well, Sophie.”

  He watched her until she was safely inside an elevator, then turned and headed back out into the night for the short walk to the Metro. He had only gone fifty feet along Tverskaya when he heard his name and turned to see Sophie running toward him.

  “What’s the matter?” He could see the urgency on her face.

  She held out her open palm and Charlie could see a small, rectangular object, its metallic surface glittering in the beam of the streetlight overhead.

  “It’s a USB stick,” Sophie said, her voice a note higher from her excitement and the short run. “I found it in my purse when I was rummaging for my room key. He must have dropped it in there at the Conservatory.”

  “Do you have a laptop?”

  She nodded. “Can you come back with me and have a look?”

  Charlie pulled the armchair up to the table where Sophie had set up her laptop. He watched as she plugged in the USB stick.

  “I hope it’s not in Russian,” she said as they waited for the laptop to recognize the stick. A few seconds later a new directory appeared with two files, the first of which was en­­titled AS. Sophie clicked on it and they both sat in silence while the file opened.

  “It’s in English,” Charlie said, scanning the full screen of text. “Who’s Alexander Surin?”

  “I have no idea.” Sophie frowned. “But this appears to be a bio on him. Looks like he’s some kind of bureaucrat. Ah, look at this — he’s a former KGB officer.”

  “That’s not uncommon for Russian bureaucrats, especially if he’s an older guy.”

  “He’s fifty-five,” she noted, continuing to scan the document. When she reached the end of the page, she moved the cursor to the bottom and held it there. “It’s just the one page.”

  Charlie took a few seconds longer to finish reading, then sat back and asked, “Did the guy at the Conservatory mention anything about this Surin?”

  Sophie shook her head. “No, he just said that Steve had asked him for some background information about Russian politics. It sounded like publicly available stuff, and he certainly didn’t say anything about this Surin guy.”

  “Let’s see what’s in this other file.” Sophie clicked it and as they waited for it to open, Charlie turned to her. “Steve never mentioned anything to you about political research?”

  She shook her head. “Steve hated politics. And all he ever told me was about his work translating technical manuals.”

  They both turned their attention to the screen as the second document opened. Unlike the first, this one was a spreadsheet with a series of columns with abbreviated headings across the top and numbers in the rows below. There were only two rows on the left side of the chart, with the respective headings RU and OS.

  “What the hell’s this?” Sophie said, staring at the screen along with Charlie.

  As he looked more closely, he noticed that each descending column was divided into two, with the symbols # and % at the top of each.

  “I don’t know.”

  “There must be a legend or something.” She scrolled up and down but found nothing to interpret the series of letters and numbers that might as well have been hieroglyphics, for all the sense they made.

  “Did the guy give you any way to contact him?”

  She too
k her finger off the mouse and sat back in the chair with a sigh. “I tried, but he wouldn’t even tell me his name. He told me he was honouring his promise to Steve.”

  Charlie could understand how a Muscovite, even a seasoned journalist — perhaps especially a seasoned journalist — would be reluctant to get too involved in the death of a foreigner.

  “He said it was dangerous, for both of us,” she added, obviously going through the same thought process. “That’s it,” she added, after a final series of clicks and keystrokes had satisfied her that the rest of the USB was empty. “So what now?”

  Charlie pointed at the screen. “Can I get a copy of that?”

  “I can email you.… Maybe not such a great idea.” She reached over for a leather courier bag and fished around in one of the inside pockets. “I’ve got an extra USB stick in here somewhere.”

  Charlie watched as she shoved the stick into one of the other ports, and he noticed the outside of the key was in the shape of a teddy bear. Sophie caught his expression and laughed. “What, you didn’t figure me for the teddy bear type?”

  “Honestly?”

  She grinned, then popped the stick out and handed it over. “Here.”

  He glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late and we’ve both had a busy night. Let’s sleep on it and circle up tomorrow. Maybe we can have another crack at figuring this out. Whatever it is, it must mean something.”

  She followed him to the door.

  “Thanks again for coming with me tonight.”

  “It was my pleasure, really.”

  As he headed toward the elevators, he was already thinking of how to decipher the information on the USB and use it to shed some light on Steve Liepa’s death. The night had been far from what he had expected, but he wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

  Chapter 14

  Charlie sat in the café on the top floor of the GUM building, drinking coffee and looking over the rail at the stores below. Once a spartan and poorly stocked department store where citizens queued for toilet paper and bread, the enormous building had been beautifully restored and converted into a lavish, multi-level mall where Moscow’s elite converged to buy the latest brand-name clothing, luggage, and skin-care products, all at dizzying prices.

  “This really is a spectacular building,” Sophie said, looking up at the domed glass roof that ran the length of the massive structure. The view looking down was just as impressive from their vantage point by the railing of a bridge-like strip that spanned the atrium below.

  “It’s nice, as long as you don’t try to buy anything,” Charlie cracked.

  “Not even a hat and gloves? I didn’t bring any.”

  He nodded, remembering that he was talking to a successful surgeon who probably made more in a month than he did in a year. Maybe spending two hundred bucks on a pair of gloves wasn’t unusual for her. “Sure. We can have a look on the way out, if you like.”

  They chatted for a while longer, and inevitably their conversation returned to the mystifying contents of the USB stick.

  “I did an online search for Surin last night after you left,” she said, sipping her cappuccino. “I can’t see any reason why he’d be of particular interest to Steve, or to anyone else, for that matter.”

  “I’ll see if I can find out anything at the embassy on Monday. Maybe Trade or Political will have heard of him,” Charlie said. He had done some web research of his own when he got back to his apartment the night before and found nothing of interest on Surin, either. It didn’t help that most of the results were in Russian. “And as for that chart, I don’t know what that’s all about yet, either, but we’ll figure it out.” He said this with more certainty than he felt. He had spent an hour on his laptop that morning going through the files, after which he was no further ahead.

  “What’s the plan for the meeting at the MFA?” Sophie asked.

  “I know I agreed that you should come first thing Monday, but I’ve got meetings all morning,” Charlie said. “So why don’t you drop by the embassy after lunch, and we can go from there.”

  She frowned, which Charlie took as concern over Monday’s schedule. He was about to inquire when she spoke again.

  “The meeting’s pretty much a waste of time, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if I was hoping to get to the bottom of Steve’s death.”

  Charlie considered the question for a moment. He had managed to tack the meeting onto one he had arranged weeks before to discuss another consular case involving a request to extend a visa, and he doubted it was the appropriate forum to make allegations of wrongful death, if that was what Sophie had in mind.

  “Have you had a chance to consider your theory any further?”

  “You mean am I sure he didn’t kill himself?” she said, finishing her coffee and setting the cup down before answering. “I’m sure.”

  “Based on the mark on his shoulder? I’m no doctor, but …”

  “Well, I am. And I know an injection site when I see one.”

  “I’m just saying —”

  “And I know my brother. He didn’t kill himself.”

  Charlie saw the familiar resolve in her eyes and knew she had made up her mind.

  “Then we’ll find a way to get to the bottom of it,” he said, breaking the silence that had descended over them. “But you’re probably right not to expect much from the meeting. I was wondering if I should ask Dontseva to come along.”

  “Sure, if you think she might be useful,” She began rummaging in her purse and pulled out a handful of postcards. “I meant to show you these,” she said, passing them across the table. “You asked when I’d last been in touch with Steve. This was it, after I met him in Berlin last spring.”

  Charlie flipped through the postcards — one from Berlin, two from Moscow, and a third with a picture of a skyline at night that he didn’t recognize. “Where’s this?”

  “Astana, Kazakhstan.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  “Work, I think,” Sophie said. “You can read them if you want.”

  Charlie scanned the handwriting on the Kazakh postcard, focusing on the text that followed the standard words of greeting from a foreign city: “Man it’s cold here, for summer, but I’m warming up to something new — something I’ve always wanted to do. Sometimes the answers are right in front of you.”

  He noted the date — July 31 — then flipped the card back over and looked at the picture again. It was a shot of a complex of glass-clad office buildings lit up against the night sky.

  “Do you know what he meant by this?”

  “The stuff about something he always wanted to do?” She took the card from him. “Not really. I know he always wanted to be a writer — a novelist. It would have suited him. But Steve was always talking in riddles.” She smiled. “I never knew what he meant half the time.”

  “That’s funny,” Charlie said as he looked at the backs of the other postcards. “They’re all postmarked from Berlin, even the Russian and Kazakh ones.”

  “Really?” Sophie perked up. “I didn’t notice that.”

  “He went back to Berlin after he had moved to Moscow for work?”

  She nodded. “I know he loved Berlin. It fit with his artsy side, and he liked the beer.” Again she smiled.

  Charlie watched as she lingered over the words scribbled on the backs of the postcards. “Maybe we should focus on getting Steve back to Canada first,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Russia’s a very bureaucratic society. If we start making inquiries that are … unconventional, we may find ourselves up against an administrative brick wall.”

  She looked back down at the postcards and nodded. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t have a lot of faith in having an independent investigation here. I need to arrange for a proper au
topsy as soon as possible. It may not give us all the answers, but I guarantee it will turn something up. Do they have private investigators here?”

  “I’m sure they do. I can ask Katya.” Sophie tucked the postcards back in her purse and began zipping it up.

  “I have another favour to ask you.”

  “Name it.”

  “I didn’t mention that the police gave me the keys to Steve’s apartment. I really need to go over there, but I’m a little …”

  “I’d be happy to come along for moral support.”

  “Thanks,” she said, glancing at the shops below them. “You can help me pick out a pair of gloves first.”

  Charlie squinted at the street sign affixed to the stone building at the far corner of the intersection. He had checked the address before leaving his office and he knew they were in the right vicinity, but he still found translating the Cyrillic alphabet a challenge.

  “I think that says ‘Golovin.’”

  Sohie looked the building over and grimaced. “It looks like a real dump.”

  “Good location, though,” Charlie offered. It was true that the second-floor apartment — located above what looked like a dentist’s office, from the oversized picture of a molar hanging in the ground-floor window — was only a few blocks from the Sukharevskaya Metro station, which itself was only a few stops from the Kremlin. From what he had heard, apartments inside the Boulevard Ring road were hard to find, and for that reason, often overpriced and undersized. He found Sophie’s impression accurate when they set foot inside the cramped lobby, which smelled vaguely of a mix of alcohol and urine. He led the way to the dimly lit staircase and up to the second floor, where a single door barred any further progress. Above the tattered plaque bearing the Cyrillic equivalent, someone had affixed a yellow sticky note with “2A Golovin” scrawled on it.

  “That’s Steve’s writing,” Sophie said, removing the note and holding it as though it were made of precious stone. “I’d recognize his chicken scratches anywhere.”