A Friend in Deed

by G D Harper

  I was desperate for fresh air, but the smell of decaying rubbish was not much of an improvement. We stepped inside the hallway, the smell of dank cabbage clinging to me like a rash. If anything, the amount of graffiti had increased. We waited as the lift wheezed and rattled its way down to us. It arrived and the doors started to open, greeting us with the stench of urine. The doors stopped halfway and closed again. On the second attempt, the doors fully opened.

  ‘Can we not walk?” I asked.

  ‘Thirteenth floor. Don’t worry; you’ll be safe. Good solid Russian engineering.’

  I presumed he was being ironic.

  Dmitry pressed the lift button, which was encrusted with God knows what. Every button had a scorched halo charred into the metal around it, giving some indication of the state of the wiring beneath. I literally and figuratively held my breath until I stepped out onto the thirteenth floor, one long gloomy corridor with two rows of identical doors facing each other, each one only ten metres from the next. A mass of humanity crammed into a proletarian dumping ground, living a drab and cheerless existence. We stopped at the third door down. Dmitry knocked, and I forced myself to look positive.

  The door opened and a beanpole of a man greeted us. ‘Dobra den. You must be Richard. I am Sergey. Come inside.’

  His apartment was in marked contrast to the dreariness outside. Surprisingly tasteful, colour-coordinated furnishings, art house movie posters on the wall. I perched myself on the edge of a chair; Dmitry sat across from me. Sergey wandered over to a kitchenette in the corner of the room.

  ‘Coffee? Chai?’

  We both declined.

  He returned with some tea he had made for himself from a small samovar sitting on his work surface.

  ‘So, Dmitry tells me you are famous English journalist.’ He stared at me, like he was looking at a specimen under a microscope.

  ‘Scottish, actually. I want to know all about what goes on in the old carpet factory on Vladirskaya Street. Dmitry told me you used to work there.’

  ‘And did he tell you something else?’

  I looked blank for a second, then remembered the wad of cash in the hotel envelope.

  ‘Ah, yes, he did. Here you are, fifty thousand roubles. It’s all there.’

  Sergey took the cash, slipped it in a drawer without counting it and sat down on the third chair in the room. He ran a jerky hand through his hair.

  ‘So, what exactly do you want to know?’

  ‘Just a moment,’ I replied. I took the video camera out of my rucksack. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to record this in case I forget something.’

  Sergey shot a glance at Dmitry and then at me.

  ‘No camera,’ he said. ‘Not part of the deal.’

  News Today had told me how to deal with this. ‘Let me put it on a tripod on the shelf behind you. It will point at me, only show the back of your head. That way you won’t be recognised.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. Much too dangerous.’

  ‘If I ever need to use this footage, I’ll make sure that an actor voices the words you say and we pixelate any features that could identify you. You can trust me on that.’

  ‘They could identify the room we are in. Or you could forget your promise when you are back in London. I am taking big risk.’

  ‘I completely understand,’ I said. ‘In your position, I would be just as careful. If we take down the posters on the wall behind me it will be a blank wall, nothing to identify where we are. And you don’t have to worry about me forgetting to protect you. I promise I will. Not only because I owe it to you personally, but also to protect my sources. If people who talked to me got into trouble, I wouldn’t be able to do my job. I wouldn’t ask you to do anything I considered risky.’

  I could hardly believe I was saying this. I had no idea whether this would lead to Sergey being found out or not, and I was talking like an old hand, a world-weary, hard-bitten journalist bloodied by experience, rather than the complete neophyte I actually was.

  ‘Only if I get to see the video at the end, make sure of that,’ he said eventually.

  I tried to hide my astonishment that my duplicity had worked. I placed the camera and sat down on the chair, from where I could see the red light of the camera over Sergey’s shoulder.

  ‘Have a quick look through the viewfinder to make sure you’re happy with what I’m showing,’ I said.

  He looked through the lens and moved the camera an inch or two.

  ‘Is that okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, without checking. I just wanted this to be over. I settled down to start the interview. ‘So, tell me a little about yourself.’

  ‘I studied journalism in the city of Perm, came to Moscow two years ago, looking for a job. After a month of doors slammed in my face, I got a phone call asking me to come for interview. Very strange call, not from head-hunters, and not for any job I had applied for. Went along to Vladirskaya Street, waited in reception area inside. Cameras everywhere on the walls, lots of security men in uniforms. And they looked professional, not like the usual big okrannik guy you would see outside offices. My interview was short, all they asked about was my background, who are my parents, brothers, sisters, all the places I lived. A big test of my English language skills. Next day I was told I’d got the job.’

  Sergey had become more and more animated as he talked and I noticed he was now blocking the camera from seeing me. I shifted the chair, had a surreptitious glance to check I could see the red light again. I smiled a reassurance. ‘And what exactly was your job?’

  ‘I sat in an open-plan room; desks crammed together, you could see everything that everyone else was typing. There were sixty, maybe eighty of us there, all young, early twenties. Our job was to set up email accounts in the West, our location hidden by proxy servers. We were to join social media groups, make comments on news articles, set up blog accounts. Write twenty articles a day; make fifty posts; the same number of likes and shares; all saying positive things about this Act Now! party in UK. There was a central database of stories we were to use, some directions on the opinions we were to express and then we were told to get on with it.’

  ‘Do you know who was behind this? Could it have been your government?’

  ‘I don’t see who else it could have been. This was only one part of the operation, and it was huge. The office was separated by partitions. Once you had been there a few months, had some experience, you could go to the second group. There, you had to find people in UK you could groom to help you, use them to find new groups to join, even find some to write this stuff from inside the UK, if the bosses thought they could be trusted.’

  I leant back in my seat. ‘Couldn’t it have been a wealthy benefactor who wanted Act Now! to succeed? Lots of political parties play dirty tricks to win elections.’

  ‘But why have the operation in Russia? The paymaster has to be part of Russian establishment. Maybe some oligarch wanting to have influence, but why go to so much trouble?’

  I shrugged. ‘People can go to great lengths to get what they want. Was everything you did to support Act Now!?’

  ‘Yes. Every article was sent to supervisors for checking before you posted it. They measured everything, how much you wrote, how many people responded to it. If you fell behind what everyone else was doing, you were fired. And if you turned out to be a superstar you got selected for the elitnyy klass, the elite. They were in another part of the building, with even heavier security, their own entrance out to the street. That was where Igor worked.’

  ‘Igor?’

  ‘Igor is my friend. My boyfriend.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I can see you are not Russian,’ Sergey said, smiling for the first time. ‘Russian men are not so relaxed about gay relationships. I met Igor in a bar near here, we find we both worked as part of the operation, but he had moved to the elit
nyy klass, so I never saw him at work. But he told me what he did there.’

  ‘And that was?’

  Dmitry chose this moment to light up a cigarette. I looked sideways at him, careful not to interrupt Sergey’s flow. Sergey leaned over and handed him an ashtray.

  ‘The elitnyy klass were in big league. There’s a parallel operation in St Petersburg. There they build fake websites to get inside computers of Act Now! opponents. Once they do so, Igor and the other elitnyy klass get to work.’

  ‘The people in St Petersburg. They build fake websites to get you past firewalls?’

  ‘Yes. Then once someone’s computer is hacked the elitnyy klass guys go through their files, looking for useful information. But Igor’s job was especially creative.’ There was a gleam in Sergey’s eye for a second. ‘Igor’s job was to watch and wait, look at all the emails someone was sending and receiving. Practise becoming these people, writing like them, talking about the things they talked about. And once his bosses were satisfied he could pull it off, he would start corresponding as them with other parts of their political organisation, using a false email address that was only slightly different from the real one. Draw people into making incriminating statements, incite them to do something dodgy we could later expose, spread confusion and disinformation. Then delete the false emails that started it all, so that all that was left was the incriminating evidence. You needed to be an artist to pull it off, and Igor was one of the best.’

  ‘Was? Does he not work there anymore?’

  Sergey’s face had a pinched expression. ‘Someone found out about the two of us. I thought where I was working was new Russia, where no one cared whether you were gay or straight. But some things never change. We were a security risk, they told Igor. Kicked him out of elitnyy klass, had him back in the main building, writing shitty blog posts all day. Me, they fired the same day they found out. So now I am back to finding a job again. I need the money you gave me. I’m not proud of that, and I’m not proud of being part of that shrashkina kontora, that con operation. But I need to eat.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I meant it. Despite my initial disquiet at Sergey demanding payment, he seemed genuine enough. We talked for another ten minutes while Sergey told me more details of the operation he used to be part of. He could describe everything, and never contradicted himself. Either this was an elaborate hoax that he had pulled off, inventing and then remembering every piece of minutia, or it was real. As best I could tell, he believed what he was saying to me.

  Finally, I ran out of questions. I stopped filming and the three of us played back the interview, Sergey chewing on his fingernails as he watched. When it finished, he gave a resigned nod.

  I wished him good luck with his job search and got ready to leave. Then, trying hard to sound casual, I said, ‘Would you speak to Igor for me? I’d love to hear his description of elitnyy klass, now that he doesn’t work in that department. I could pay more, maybe even two hundred thousand roubles, for his side of the story.’ I was being rash, but if he said yes, I was sure it would be worth it. ‘Might give the two of you the money to find a breathing space to try something new.’ I felt like shit.

  Sergey’s gaze ping-ponged between Dmitry and me.

  ‘If he spoke to you,’ he said, ‘it would be even more dangerous. But I will ask him. He’s disgusted by his job, hates them for what they did to us. We both want to start a new life, away from this shrashkina kontora. Your money would help. I’ll ask him. If he says yes, I’ll tell you his price.’

  ‘I go back to London tomorrow evening. Can you find out today and let me know? If he agrees, I can meet him before I go.’

  Sergey agreed to try. We said our goodbyes and headed off to the lift. The grimy corridor compounded my feeling of revulsion at what I was doing. Inveigling first Sergey, now Igor, to be so foolhardy as to agree to be interviewed. I promised myself that whatever I did with this information, I’d keep it as discreet as possible.

  Dmitry seemed pleased with what Sergey had told me and laughed when I said how uncomfortable I had felt about talking him into doing the interview.

  ‘Old Russian proverb,’ he said. ‘If you are afraid of wolves, don’t go into the forest.’ He sounded upbeat, almost chummy, like I’d passed some test. ‘Tonight, I was going to show you fun side of Moscow, take you to drink best Siberian vodka. But my little girl is sick, and I need to be home with my wife to look after her. We do it next time. I will tell you when I hear from Sergey. If you meet with him tomorrow, great. If not, I find you someone else to talk to.’

  I climbed into Dmitry’s car and prepared for my kippering on the gruelling trip back to the hotel. We had just set off when I spotted a red Metro sign at a crossroads.

  ‘If you have to be home, I can take the Metro?’

  Dmitry looked over. ‘Yes, Strogino station. But tricky for you, I think?’

  ‘I’m sure it will be okay. I saw there was a station close to the hotel. Point me in the right direction and I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Okay. You brave. Take this line to Ploshchad Revolyutsii, then change to the red line and get off at Komsomolskaya. Your hotel will be front of you when you exit. Are you sure?’

  Dmitry helped me buy a ticket and I set off on my adventure. The escalator took me deep underground, far deeper than in London. I stood on the platform and stared at the map on the wall, the station names in both Latin and Cyrillic alphabet. I could see why it had taken us so long to get here; my hotel was on the other side of Moscow. A rush of air and then, with an ear-splitting roar, the train appeared, row after row of massive rectangular steel carriages. I got on and stood in the carriageway. A pair of sullen babushkas sat on the seats across from me clutching heavy-looking plastic bags. A bored teenager sat next to them, flicking through a tawdry gossip magazine.

  The train shot off with tremendous acceleration, almost throwing me off balance. I flung myself onto one of the hard plastic seats – just in time, because suddenly there was an equally tremendous deceleration as we burst into the next station. I peered outside to check the station name, but couldn’t see any signs. Then we were off again, the announcement saying something in Russian which I thought included the name of the next station, Molodyozhnaya. Bloody long names. I had to calibrate as we arrived at each station, trying to figure out where I had to change. The train got busier as we headed into the centre of Moscow, the regular passengers seemingly unperturbed by the rollercoaster ride, taking it all in their stride, like old seafarers riding the storms with their sea legs and stoic resignation.

  At Ploshchad Revolyutsii there was a massive exodus, and I found myself on the platform waiting for the crowd to clear, looking for the red line signs. Nothing. I headed up the nearest short flight of stairs and into a long corridor. Breathtaking. Red and yellow marble arches resting on low plinths, each faced with a contrasting stone. Every arch flanked by a pair of huge bronze sculptures: soldiers, farmers, industrial workers. I’d heard about these Moscow Metro stations and it was surreal to finally stumble across one of them purely by chance. I dawdled along, only half-looking for my train. There were arches and statues everywhere, fifty or sixty at least, an incongruous backdrop to the swelling crowds hurrying past them without a glance as the early evening rush hour got underway.

  Finally, I found what I thought was a sign for the red line, only to end up back on the same platform I had disembarked on ten minutes before. Fewer statues and a few more signs would be helpful. I cursed inwardly and tried again, climbing the stairs, concentrating this time. A two-minute walk and I was at the red line platform as the roar of a train announced its arrival. Then I was on my noisy, rattling way to Komsomolskaya.

  Just as Dmitry had promised, the huge Gothic tower of the Hilton loomed ahead of me when I exited the station, like something out of Ghostbusters. I walked up to the hotel, ridiculously smug that I’d managed to navigate myself back safely. I decided to head up to
my room, write up some notes and wait to find out what the score was going to be about meeting up with Sergey’s boyfriend. If it was going ahead, then I’d have to check with Alex at News Today that it was okay to be paying whatever he said his price would be. The Metro had helped me put some distance between myself and the tawdriness I had felt earlier when talking to Sergey. Moscow was a tough city, and people here did tougher things than that to survive.

  I couldn’t find my key card so I went to the desk to get a new one, the receptionist giving me that slightly unsettling lascivious grin that young Russian women have, the one that comes with full eye contact. I showed her my passport and she made me a new card. ‘Here you are,’ she said, making it sound like she’d be right behind me in five minutes. ‘And you have a letter waiting for you.’ She handed an envelope to me and flashed that come-hither smile again, like we were sharing some intimate confidence.

  That put an abrupt end to my musings. No one in Moscow knew I was here except Dmitry and Sergey, and I had just said goodbye to them. I managed a strangled ‘Thank you’ as I took the envelope, walked over to a lobby chair, sat down and opened it.

  A plane ticket, made out in my real name. Business class on the next flight back to London. I turned the ticket over, then looked inside the envelope. No message, but it could not have been clearer. Someone knew who I really was, knew I was in Moscow and wanted me gone.

  I sat there, gasping for air. For a few stupid seconds, I thought it was a prank, maybe a test of some sort by Dmitry. But that didn’t make sense. I looked at the ticket again; the flight was in three hours. Being brave enough to ignore the warning didn’t enter into my thinking even for a second. I went back to the receptionist, her Slavic charm now irritating rather than endearing.

  ‘There’s been a change of plan,’ I said. ‘I have to return to London. Can I get a taxi to Sheremetyevo airport?’

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ she replied. ‘Straight away?’ Ashen-faced guests being issued with death threats were apparently a regular occurrence.