Arkhangel : A Novel (2020)

  ‘And you,’ he said, looking at me intently, as if making his mind up about something, ‘you’re the guy in the news, aren’t you? The one Interpol is after.’

  ‘I didn’t know they’d issued a Red Notice. But yes, I am.’

  I sipped my tea. If he tried to run for it, he’d be on the floor before he crossed the room; if he went for the Grach, his arm would be broken before his fingers closed on the grip. I blinked and smiled.

  ‘You shot up that bar yesterday, too, didn’t you?’

  ‘No. I was the one being shot up. The bar got in the way.’

  ‘Well, the whole joint is messed up. There are pictures online.’

  ‘How many dead?’

  ‘Eight. Plus two more in intensive care.’

  ‘My photo in the papers, and the attack in the bar. Who’s connecting them? The press or the police?’

  ‘Neither,’ he said. ‘But I’m right, aren’t I, Max McLean?’

  I nodded and put down my mug.

  ‘And the bike chase across town? I expect you looked that up, too. Has anyone released CCTV footage of that?’

  ‘I don’t think so. There’s some phone footage on the internet. Mostly rubbish. I didn’t know that was definitely you, though.’ He smiled, too. ‘You can’t see it clearly enough. Your face, I mean.’

  I felt dangerously close to being played. But the truth was that, unlike Doctor Rose, in Ashford, Baaz didn’t need convincing of anything. He’d lived it. And he appeared, unaccountably, to be enjoying it – whatever it was.

  ‘Baaz,’ I said. ‘I need to ask you something.’ He slurped his tea and shrugged. ‘Last night I told you to run. But you didn’t. You were waiting for me when I came out. And this …’ I looked around the room again, and gestured to the empty breakfast platter, choosing my words carefully, ‘this, hospitality. Don’t get me wrong. I’m very grateful, but …’

  ‘But I’m in deep shit, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you are. And I’m not sure I can help you, the way you’ve helped me. There’s nothing, I mean, I can’t …’

  ‘You saved my life,’ Baaz cut me off. ‘That’s why I didn’t run. And this,’ he said, lifting up his cup of tea, ‘is the least I can do. And besides, my auntie would kill me if she thought I wasn’t showing my friends proper hospitality. She takes that very seriously.’ I nodded. Baaz knitted his eyebrows, as if concentrating on solving a puzzle. ‘I know those men did what they did to me because of you. But I was breaking the law by being down there in the first place. So maybe that was my just deserts.’

  I had to laugh at that.

  ‘I don’t think even the Russians have the death penalty for trespassing. What were you doing down there, anyway?’

  ‘Mapping,’ he replied. ‘To be honest with you, it’s a bit of an obsession.’ He looked away from me, at the table, and began drumming the fingers of his left hand as he’d done in the tunnels. ‘You see, I can recall the routes very well.’ He tapped his temple with his index finger. ‘Bloody crowded, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, I remember.’

  ‘But there are no maps. Not proper ones. The last decent one was made in 2011; but there are so many floods and collapses, that it was out of date as soon as it was printed.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So that’s my challenge. For my dissertation. To come up with an algorithm that works with a map of the catacombs across all the levels – just like a map on a phone finds you the safest, most efficient route between multiple points, and doesn’t simply tell you if the one you’ve found is correct. It’s basically a three-dimensional, subterranean, travelling salesman problem. Only I’m plotting between tunnel junctions, not cities.’

  ‘And that’s hard, is it? To solve, I mean.’

  He looked at me as if I was an idiot.

  ‘OK. Imagine you are a travelling salesman and you want to visit a certain number of cities before returning to the place you started. But you only have a limited amount of fuel for your car, so you need to find the shortest route.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘If, say, there were, seventy cities.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, then the number of routes you would have to consider is more than the total number of atoms in the universe.’

  ‘You’re not wrong,’ I smiled. ‘That is hard.’

  ‘But not,’ he said, ‘if you’re using a quantum computer. That’s what I’m writing my algorithm for.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A quantum computer – one that uses qubits and not, you know, just bits.’ I shook my head. ‘Am I speaking Punjabi?’ He looked at me, earnestly.

  ‘No, we’re still in English. I think.’

  ‘OK, it’s just sometimes I forget. It drives my teachers crazy, huna?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘OK, well a, classical, er, normal computer uses binary digits. It doesn’t matter how big the computer is or how powerful, everything comes down to ones and zeros. You can have a very fast machine, but it can only do one task after another – sequentially. Never mind the travelling salesman problem – a ten-character password would take even a supercomputer three years to crack. But a quantum computer is completely different. It uses qubits. They’re, like, subatomic. They can be either ones, or zeros, or a simultaneous superposition of the two.’

  I held my hands up. ‘In English, please.’

  ‘Ah, sorry. I mean they can be both one and zero at the same time.’ He scratched his beard. ‘Mystical, really.’

  ‘That’s one word for it.’

  ‘So,’ he continued, ‘two qubits can be in any quantum superposition of four states; three qubits, eight states. But a normal computer can only ever be in one of those states at any one time.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  ‘It means you can do every step in a big calculation simultaneously.’

  ‘Like your travelling salesman … thing?’

  ‘Yes, although there are already algorithms exactly for …’

  ‘OK,’ I cut him off. ‘I get it. With enough qubits you could solve really hard problems really fast.’ He nodded. ‘Like adding up on a calculator rather than your fingers.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘It’s the difference between illuminating a room with a candle and a stadium with a floodlight.’

  I didn’t understand anything about the physics, or the maths, of what he was saying. But the implications were obvious. ‘So, cracking the ten-digit password?’

  ‘With a quantum computer? Instantaneous,’ he grinned.

  ‘And they exist, these computers?’

  He snorted and gulped down the last of his tea.

  ‘No way! That’s just sci-fi. Last month IBM revealed a working fifty-qubit quantum computer. But get this: it can only maintain its quantum state for ninety microseconds. There are loads of issues to resolve. Decoherence, scalability, noise …’

  I held my hand up to stop him.

  ‘The main issue to resolve right now, Baaz, is that I have literally no idea what any of those things mean, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘So, let’s keep it simple. If anyone could resolve those issues and build a working machine …’

  ‘If anyone could demonstrate quantum supremacy, and build a proper machine – with, say, ten thousand qubits?’

  ‘They’d break all known cryptography. Right?’ Confusing as it was, I felt I was at least beginning to understand the basics.

  ‘Wrong. They’d break most known cryptography. Some algorithms would be resistant, though. But if you could solve the dihedral hidden subgroup problem, you could use quantum to break lattice-based cryptosystems.’

  ‘That’s not Punjabi, Baaz.’ I looked at my passport on the table. ‘It’s not even Greek to me. Give it to me in simple terms.’ I rolled my shoulders. ‘Please.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, scratching his head, ‘with the right algorithm, you could say that quantum isn’t the bomb – it’s all the bombs. Imagine. You could empty every bank accou
nt everywhere in the world; crack all security, access anything online, anywhere, anytime. You’d have unrestricted access to everything – from the thermostat on the fridge to the thermonuclear arsenal.’

  ‘Just like that? With one machine?’

  ‘Yes. With one machine that doesn’t exist and an algorithm that hasn’t been developed. A computer is just hardware. It won’t work without software. Like buying a PC without installing an operating system. You know, like Windows. Useless.’

  ‘So that’s what you’re doing? Writing an algorithm for a computer that doesn’t exist?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘I get a grant, too. Absolute con job.’

  I smiled. But rather than smiling back, Baaz suddenly looked serious again.

  ‘Max,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘I have a question for you, too.’ He paused. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way … but … er, it’s just that you’ve been accused of murder and there’s a gun on my table and a bunch of commandos are after us and, well …’

  ‘It’s OK. Fire away.’

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  I finished my tea, too, and drew breath. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t tell him – or anyone – anything at all. Nothing true, anyway. But these were not normal circumstances.

  ‘I work for the British government,’ I told him. ‘Or at least, I think I still do. I was sent to do a job. It went wrong. And now, apparently, the world and his wife are after me.’

  ‘And “the world” is the Russians and “the wife” is your boss?’

  For a twenty-something-year-old kid, he was remarkably perceptive. I pursed my lips and stared at him.

  ‘And?’ he asked.

  ‘And that’s pretty much it.’

  ‘No,’ said Baaz, excitement building in his voice, ‘I meant why are they after you?’

  ‘Good fucking question, Baaz. Good fucking question. I don’t know why.’ The billion dollars, the bad deal with Lukov … those were things definitely not to share. ‘Actually,’ I said, having an immediate half-change of heart, ‘that’s not completely true.’

  I reached over and plucked the soggy hundred-dollar bill off the table and laid it out in front of him. Baaz gestured to me for permission. I nodded and he picked it up.

  ‘That is why,’ I continued. ‘Part of why. The note. It’s special. It’s from a cache of notes the bad guys have; and it’s the only one we have. I have. A lot of people have died because of it. You and me both, too, nearly.’

  ‘So we’re the good guys, then?’ Baaz was grinning. He was refreshingly straightforward.

  ‘Yes, Baaz,’ I reassured him. ‘We’re the good guys. Scout’s honour. But it’s more than that. This note is valuable in some way that I don’t really understand.’ He turned the bill over.

  ‘What does it say?’ he asked.

  ‘Arkhangel. It means “Archangel” in English. Like St Michael, you know?’

  ‘I know as much about archangels,’ he said, ‘as you do about Guru Gobind Singh.’

  ‘Fair play,’ I admitted. ‘But Arkhangel is also the name of a village in Russia.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘No, you don’t. It’s not just any village. It’s the village where my mother was born.’

  He scrutinized the bill up close.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he exclaimed, ‘I don’t believe it!’

  His shining eyes darted between Benjamin Franklin’s gaze and mine. It was as if a Eureka moment had lit him up from the inside. My heart leapt. The thought half formed that maybe he’d seen, understood, something I’d missed, that he understood what the note meant.

  ‘What?’ I asked. ‘What is it?’

  ‘This whole thing,’ he said, fizzing with excitement, ‘is so totally James Bond.’

  My shoulders slumped. ‘All right then, Q. Tell me this. All this kit you have for trading …’

  ‘And studying,’ he said quickly.

  ‘And studying. Can you use it to make calls, too? Encrypted calls.’

  ‘Of course.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘The actual call can’t be hacked. Not at all. Even if someone captured the data stream, it would be useless to them. Unless the person you want to call has malware on their system that records the audio of the call separately from the call itself, it’s completely safe.’

  ‘And how likely is that?’

  ‘It entirely depends,’ he said, ‘on who you want to call.’

  It was a chance I was willing to take.

  ‘OK then,’ I said. ‘Set it up while I go to the bathroom.’ I stood up and retrieved the banknote, feeling the tear in my thigh again. ‘When you need a lifeline, there’s only one thing to do.’

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked, clearing away the breakfast things.

  ‘Phone a friend.’

  19

  ‘Hal-lo?’

  ‘Ezra?’ The line sounded dead. Not even a hiss. It was the fifth time I’d tried his number. I adjusted the headset. ‘Ezra, it’s Max.’ There was a long pause. ‘Max McLean,’ I added, uncertain how solid the connection was.

  The call from Paris to Sierra Leone had been relayed through three separate servers – all of which had been changed for each new attempt to get through. Then the line came alive with what sounded like the fumbling of a hands-free set being connected.

  ‘Good to hear from you, my friend. I thought maybe you were dead.’

  I breathed out a sigh of relief. ‘Almost,’ I said. ‘But not quite.’

  ‘Al tid’ag, there’s plenty of time yet.’

  Ezra Black’s voice was unmistakable. He peppered his English with Hebrew, and his English accent sounded at times more French than Israeli. But when any Israeli told me not to worry, I wondered immediately what was wrong. There was another awkward pause.

  ‘So, what’s up, buddy?’ he continued. ‘Did you find my plane yet, or what?’

  ‘Oh, come on man, you were paid for that.’ Baaz looked at me, uncomprehending. He could only hear one half of our conversation. ‘Paid more than it was worth, too. A lot more.’

  At the other end of the line, the faintest suggestion of laughter – or the closest Ezra got to it.

  ‘OK, but I liked that plane.’

  ‘Seriously, Ezra. I’m in shit. I need a favour.’

  ‘OK.’ The lightness in his voice evaporated immediately. ‘Tell me what you need, then. Seriously.’ He rolled the r and protracted the ou in such a way that, if I didn’t know better, I’d have guessed he was from the Jura, not Jerusalem. ‘One day you can do something for me, eh?’

  I didn’t doubt that he was serious about that, either. Ezra ran a private security company in Sierra Leone, headquartered in the capital Freetown. And although he’d been out of the Israel Defence Forces for nearly two decades, his paramilitary police training operation in West Africa was still very much bankrolled by the Israelis. The last favour he’d done me had nearly killed me. Baaz set down more tea and switched on the table lamp. It was overcast outside and half-dark indoors. The blinds were still drawn.

  ‘I’m in France. There’s an Interpol Red Notice on me and …’

  ‘Interpol?’ Ezra cut me off. ‘What do those tembelim want with you?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘It always is, eh?’

  ‘The Russians are after me. Possibly the Brits, too. And the Yanks. Not even Grumpy Jock can help. So, I came to see Lukov, but …’

  ‘Lukov?’ he spat down the phone. ‘That aluka? I swear to you one day I will kill him. No, I won’t kill him. I’ll just fuck him up. Death is too good for that ben zona!’

  ‘You’re too late,’ I said. ‘The leech bled to death yesterday while we were having a drink. In Paris. In public. Sniper. Pro job. Tricky headshot. Russians, most likely. Or the Brits. Or, you know, literally anyone.’

  ‘Ken, or one of his kalat da’at women.’ Ezra cleared his throat. ‘But that is serious, my friend. That piece of shit was untouchable.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You are sure,’ h
e added, ‘the bullet was meant for him, and not you?’

  ‘No,’ I said truthfully, ‘I’m not.’

  ‘So. This favour. I sense it’s going to be a good one.’

  He was right about that.

  ‘I need to get out of France and into Israel on a hot Greek passport.’

  ‘You should work for the Mossad, my friend. It would be so much nicer. They give you proper passports. And they don’t shoot their own operators, eh?’

  ‘Eh.’

  ‘From the Israeli side it’s OK. Send me a picture of the passport. Say nothing to no one. Just show them your passport. That’s it. Barur?’

  I told him it was crystal clear.

  The four-and-a-half-hour flight, he said – a private charter from Paris to Tel Aviv – would take twenty-four hours and cost sixty thousand US dollars to arrange, including ground transportation. He would send a car to me in Paris tomorrow that would take me straight to the aircraft at Le Bourget – a business airfield seventeen klicks north-east of where I was holed up. As with most other private flights, the paperwork would be handled prior to boarding. At Ben Gurion I would be met airside by Ezra’s man – who would navigate Israeli immigration for me, and take me to a hotel.

  ‘But, Max,’ he cautioned me, ‘about the French, I can do nothing.’

  In the background I could hear the sounds of Ezra’s world breaking into the call – hard, high cricket-song and the chatter of monkeys. It brought back memories of the heat, the unceasing sweat, the smell of exhaust fumes and rotting vegetation. I imagined Ezra’s eyes, unreadable beneath heavy, drooping lids.

  ‘It’s very, very unlikely the French will interfere,’ he went on. ‘It’s a private place, Le Bourget. Only businessmen and air shows. They never check flights like this. Never, never. But if this Interpol shtut blows up and they do, then you’d better pray that Bulgarian fuck did his job with that passport, my friend. It’s a risk you take. About this I have to be absolutely clear.’