The Moscow Code

by Nick Wilkshire

  Oligansky paused, looked at the paper, then back at Charlie. “I could have a forensic accountant identify the company, you know.”

  Charlie nodded, trying to maintain an unconcerned expression as he wondered whether he had overplayed his hand. He was about to find out. “Maybe, but you have to ask yourself why you’d go to the trouble, not to mention risk being connected to the murder of a diplomat and a visiting surgeon. It’s unnecessary and it’s just not good business.”

  Oligansky thumbed the corner of the paper as Charlie and Sophie held their breaths. Finally he spoke. “And the name of the company?”

  “Not until we’re at the gate,” Charlie said with a shake of his head, prompting a chortle from Oligansky.

  “You amuse me, Mr. Hillier,” Oligansky said, then gave a nod to the man nearest the side door to open it. They all stepped out onto the sidewalk, twenty feet from the embassy’s security gate. If the diplomatic guard outside noticed that two of the men held guns, he didn’t show it and seemed content to stay in the relative safety of his little hut.

  “All right, Mr. Hillier. Give me the name and you can go, but I don’t have to tell you what will happen if you break your silence, yes?”

  “We get it, believe me,” Charlie said. “It’s a Cypriot company named Kvartal.”

  “Kvartal?” The big man shrugged and Charlie wondered whether this was the moment that he would give the nod to his men to fill them with bullets before casually hopping back in the van and driving off. Instead, he extended his hand and Charlie reciprocated, albeit reluctantly. Oligansky enveloped his hand in a bone-crushing grip.

  “I hope you enjoyed your time in Moscow, Mr. Hillier. Never come back.” He turned and got back in the van, followed by the two bodyguards, who slid the door shut. As the van moved off, Charlie stood there for a moment as if frozen in place.

  “I can’t believe that just happened,” Sophie said, jarring him back to reality. He took her by the hand and hurried to the front gates before Oligansky changed his mind.

  Epilogue

  Charlie sipped his cappuccino and read the paper in the corner of the Mayfair coffee shop that had become his favourite in the past few days. And an eventful few days it had been. Once he and Sophie had walked through the gates of the embassy in Moscow, they hadn’t come back out, except for the escorted ride to the airport and the hastily arranged flight to London the next morning. He had been through a quick debriefing in Moscow, but the Department had decided to go a little deeper as soon as he got to London. He had lost count of the number of hours he had spent meeting a long list of people at the Canadian High Commission to explain what he had uncovered in Moscow and the south of France. He took it as a good sign that they had let him take a room in a nearby hotel after the second day. Whether someone was watching his movements, even now, he wasn’t sure, but he did feel pretty sure he was out of the woods, at least when it came to his employers. The French police also seemed prepared to accept his version of the events leading to the death of Tatiana Evseeva, corroborated as it must have been by Sophie Durant. Which left only the Russians to worry about, until this morning …

  He had been in a debriefing when word had come from Moscow that things were happening. First, Alexander Surin’s body had turned up in a Dumpster outside his favourite restaurant, along with those of a couple of executives from UPI. The official story was a mugging that had gotten out of hand. It was followed shortly after, however, by word that Dmitri Bayzhanov had been arrested while trying to board a flight to Kiev, which left no doubt in Charlie’s mind what was happening — Dima the Great was putting his information to good use. Charlie didn’t think much of Bayzhanov’s chances of ever seeing the outside of a prison again, if he survived at all.

  Pavel Zhukov was the real question, though. How would Oligansky walk the delicate tightrope between using what he had and not angering Zhukov’s powerful friends in the Kremlin? Charlie had a feeling if anyone knew how to play it, Oligansky would.

  He looked out the window at a woman walking by with a yellow Selfridges bag, her auburn hair tied back in a ponytail. He glanced instinctively at his BlackBerry to see if Sophie had sent him any word from Toronto, but his inbox was empty. She had flown back with her brother’s ashes twenty-four hours ago, after giving her version of events to Charlie’s debriefers, no doubt saving him a lot of explaining. She had insisted on staying in touch, and he knew she must be busy making arrangements for Steve’s funeral, but he didn’t hold out much hope. After all, she was bound to forever associate him with her brother’s death, not to mention having barely avoided the sort of long drive with Russian mobsters from which no one ever returns. Why was it that every woman he cared for ended up in the same predicament lately?

  He had been told he might be able to return to Canada in a few days, and while he was relieved that neither the French police nor his own employers seemed to want him behind bars, he was in no particular rush to return to Ottawa. And to what? he asked himself as he sipped the last of his coffee and contemplated another. His posting in Moscow was ob­­viously done, and they hadn’t told him what, if anything, was on offer back at HQ. Maybe they were trying to decide about giving him some sort of discharge, though whether of the honourable variety or otherwise, he wasn’t entirely sure.

  His heart jumped when he saw the flashing light of his BlackBerry, but it sank again when he saw not Sophie’s address, but Rob Brooker’s. He clicked on the link Brooker had forwarded of an article in the day’s Moscow News and read with increasing interest about the mayoral race set to begin in the New Year. But rather than an announcement of Zhukov’s withdrawal, which Charlie half expected, it seemed that Zhukov’s campaign was due to kick off in the next couple of weeks with the benefit of a new influx of campaign contributions. Charlie smiled as he clicked on the second link announcing that the Petr Square development had been sold to a consortium linked to Vladimir Oligansky, who was described in the article as a prominent Moscow-based developer.

  So there it was, he thought, as he waved to the server. All’s well that ends well … sort of. Oligansky maintains his turf and actually gains a prize development in exchange for supporting Zhukov’s mayoral bid. Call it a market correction, or a strategic alignment, all done according to the Moscow Code. He wondered if even Steve Liepa could have foreseen the strange turn of events.

  Maybe I’m safe after all, Charlie allowed himself to think as he ordered another cappuccino and scanned the coffee shop for anyone out of place.

  He put the BlackBerry back down on the table and decided to leave it alone. Sophie Durant had other things on her mind right now, and so should he. Like what he was going to do when he was finally allowed to go home. The thought alarmed him at first, especially if it meant taking a desk job under the indirect control of his ex-wife. Maybe it was time to do something else. He hadn’t been much help to Steve Liepa, after all.

  His mind wandered to the last time he had seen his brother Brian, and Brian’s offer to have him join his business occupied Charlie’s mind for a brief moment. But soon his mind was back on Liepa. Hadn’t he uncovered why Liepa had been killed? Hadn’t at least some of Liepa’s killers been punished in one way or another as a result of his efforts?

  Sophie Durant was another question. He was pretty sure she would have preferred a different result, but he also knew that he had helped her find some closure. Maybe there was hope for him yet, he decided, as a fresh cappuccino arrived and the sun began to shine outside.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to everyone at Dundurn, including (but not limited to) Kirk Howard, Margaret Bryant, Michelle Melski, and especially to my editor, Allison Hirst. Thanks also to Allister Thompson for improving the manuscript, to David Jacques and Oriana Trombetti for reading and commenting on earli­­er drafts, and to Tara Snell for the title. Special thanks to my medical consultant, Dr. Greg Brown, for sharing his know­ledge and enthusiasm.

  The last
word goes to my wife and first reader, Tanya. Thanks for not (always) ignoring the sign on the door!

  Copyright © Nick Wilkshire, 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other­wise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Image credits: Saint Basil’s Cathedral © Bernt Rostad

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Wilkshire, Nick, 1968-, author

  The Moscow code / Nick Wilkshire.

  (A foreign affairs mystery)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4597-3714-3 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-4597-3715-0 (PDF).--

  ISBN 978-1-4597-3716-7 (EPUB)

  I. Title.

  PS8645.I44M67 2017 C813’.6 C2016-907704-7

  C2016-907705-5

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and the Government of Canada.

  Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

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