The Moscow Code Read online

  Ben, this one’s for you!

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  What am I doing here?

  That was the predominant question in Charlie Hillier’s mind as he sat alone in the beating heart of a city of twelve million people. Roused from his introspection by the arrival of a server, he smiled as she deposited an elegant cup and saucer on the little patio table and the delicious aroma of fresh coffee filled his nose. It was late September and the days of eating outdoors would soon be gone, but no one seemed to notice on this glorious Saturday afternoon, when the unfiltered sun was still strong enough to ward off the chill of autumn.

  All the restaurants and shops along the Arbat were bustling, and Charlie was well-placed to take in the passing crowd during a well-deserved respite from an afternoon spent touring the Kremlin. He had visited the armoury and a museum, then taken a guided tour of the grounds before ending up at the beautifully restored GUM shopping mall on the other side of Red Square. Formerly a state department store selling workers’ necessities, it now housed the most exclusive shops in Moscow, the windows of which Charlie could only peruse long enough for reality to kick in, and the prospect of spending two months’ salary on a coat had him moving on.

  Sipping the rich coffee, he watched as a svelte amazon in stilettos glided by, marvelling at her ability to navigate the cobblestones on four-inch heels as though padding barefoot over the softest berber. He turned at the sound of laughter from a nearby table, where two women sat smoking over empty cups — no one around him seemed to be eating much of anything, which explained why everyone seemed so tall and thin. The women could both be fashion models, but so could half the people out on the Arbat. If there was one thing Charlie had realized after a few weeks in Moscow, it was that beautiful women were as ubiquitous here as their cellphones and cigarettes.

  As he breathed in the potent mixture of Marlboros, perfume, and coffee, all tinged with the hint of gasoline that permeated everything in central Moscow, Charlie fought the instinct to reach into his pocket for a Cohiba, a holdover from the past two years, which he had spent in Havana. He had a sudden longing for the smell of the ocean, too — warm, pungent, and ever-present as it had been on that quirky little island. But that was the past. Moscow was home now.

  His transition to his new posting had been pretty smooth. Since arriving in mid-August, he had quickly settled into his apartment near the Moscow River and found a shortcut that reduced his walking commute to the Canadian Embassy on Starokonyushenny from twenty to fifteen minutes. It was just as well that he had sold his car to a colleague before coming to Moscow, from what he had seen of the traffic here. As for the subway, he had taken it in the evening a few times, but the constant streams emerging from every Metro station along his daily route were enough to convince him to avoid it during rush hour; he had heard that eight million Muscovites rode it every day, and he could believe it. The embassy itself was located in a quiet street in the diplomatic quarter, and though the staff seemed to like the location, the former aristocratic residence was not well suited to a modern office layout, nor big enough to accommodate the ever-increasing complement of Canada-based personnel coming to Moscow each year.

  Still, though his office was cramped and musty, and the wall plaster was a web of fissures, there was a certain character to the old building that Charlie found endearing. Unfortunately he seemed to be alone in that opinion, if the number of complaints on file was any indication, and it wasn’t even winter yet. He supposed that was when the reality of his first Russian winter would sink in to remind him that Moscow was a hardship posting, though for different reasons. For now, as he sat sipping his espresso and watching the endless parade of statuesque blondes on the défilé of the Arbat in the bright fall sunshine, Charlie wasn’t feeling too hard done by.

  Glancing at his watch, he directed his thoughts to the night ahead. It had been a few days since he’d received the email from an old high school buddy who was in town on business and suggesting a get-together. It had sounded like a good idea at first, but Charlie found himself questioning the wisdom of agreeing to the outing now that it was imminent. It had been more than twenty years since he had last seen Shawn Mercer, and it wasn’t as though they had been best friends, even back then. On the other hand, he had no other plans. And how often was he going to bump into a fellow Newfoundlander in Moscow?

  From the brief email exchange, it sounded like Mercer was an executive of some sort with a Calgary-based oil company, married with kids. It seemed at odds with Charlie’s recollection of Mercer the party animal, but he supposed that people change. It occurred to him that he would have to gloss over, if not completely avoid, the topic of his own failed experiment in marriage, a thought that brought a frown to his face. But just as a gloom had begun to descend on him, it was dispersed by a cloud of Chanel that preceded a stunning brunette in a canary-yellow minidress and matching platform sandals. As she sauntered by Charlie’s table, she cast a fleeting smile that he could have sworn was directed at him. Hope springs eternal.

  Picking up his newspaper, Charlie glanced at the image of a familiar face under the caption “The Duma’s Mr. Clean.” Even as a newcomer to Moscow, Charlie had heard plenty about Pavel Zhukov, the popular former Federal Security Service agent–turned-politician, and his highly public campaign to clean up politics in the Russian legislature. One look at the crooked grin, though, and Charlie had to wonder if the guy was legit. But that was the Russian contradiction, and not just in politics — the shadier you were, the more you were revered, at least from what Charlie had seen so far. His last-minute cross-posting, direct from Havana to Moscow — do not pass go, do not stop in Ottawa — meant that the usual pre-posting briefings and cultural and language training hadn’t begun until his arrival, and he was only now starting to get a sense of the city and how things worked here. Fortunately it had been a quiet summer at the embassy, and the new ambassador wouldn’t arrive until Monday. Charlie didn’t know much about her, other than the fact that she had been in communications and was a close friend of the Foreign Affairs deputy minister, which he figured could be good or bad. He would try his best to make a good first impression and hope that what he had learned on his last posting would take care of the rest.

  Considering that he had been destined for a boring headquarters position in consular policy, Charlie felt lucky to be posted anywhere at all. There was a general shortage of qualified consular personnel, but the sudden illness of the previous candidate for the Moscow job had been a lucky break. Being a much bigger operation, here there would be half a dozen
people doing the work that Charlie and his Havana colleague, Drew Landon, had shared in Cuba. He wasn’t entirely sure what area he would be asked to focus on, but Charlie was hoping for less administrative work and more consular. For now, he was content to try to fill in the considerable gaps in his knowledge of the mysterious and sprawling old city he would call home for the next two years or more. As for his former home, though there was little in Ottawa for him anymore, he had been buoyed to discover just a week ago that he would be returning in mid-October for a conference. Fall was his favourite time of year, and he hoped he wouldn’t be too late for the colours of Gatineau Park.

  Abandoning his half-hearted perusal of the newspaper, Charlie stretched and stifled a yawn, drained after the long walk around the Kremlin. Looking at his watch, he decided he had plenty of time to head back to his apartment for a quick nap before meeting Mercer at seven. He felt a creeping unease as he weaved his way back toward the river, but wrote it off as fatigue and the gathering of clouds in the near distance. By the time he reached the now-familiar Obydensky Lane, the sun was gone, swallowed whole by an immense cloud dark enough to portend turbulent weather ahead.

  Chapter 2

  Charlie walked into the extravagant lobby of the Marriott Royal Aurora and took a seat on one of the plush couches, opposite a trio of sharks in bold pinstripes huddled around a laptop. Just around the corner from the Bolshoi and the exclusive shops of Tverskaya Street, the hotel attracted upscale business travellers, both Western and Russian. He unzipped his jacket and leaned back, taking in the multicoloured stained glass of the atrium ceiling, which was centred by a clear, circular skylight. A peal of laughter brought him back down to ground level, to a group gathered by the entrance to the restaurant across the lobby. He was focused on a platinum blonde in a white fur coat and patent-leather boots when he heard his name from the other direction.

  “Charlie Hillier. How the hell are ya?”

  Charlie stood as the other man approached. The face looked familiar, but it seemed surrounded by much more flesh than he remembered. As Shawn Mercer stuck out his hand, Charlie had one overwhelming impression — someone had shoved an air hose up his high school friend’s ass and left it running.

  “Shawn?”

  “Who the fuck d’you think it is?” Mercer gave him a playful shot in the arm.

  “How are you doing?” Charlie said as they shook hands. “I was trying to do the math, and I figure it’s gotta be …”

  “Twenty-four years,” Mercer said. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? When I heard you were living here, I couldn’t resist looking you up.”

  “How did you know I was in Moscow, anyway?”

  “I was on the plane from Frankfurt with one of your colleagues. Susan …” Mercer fished out a business card.

  “Filmon,” Charlie said, nodding. “I worked with her back in Ottawa a few years ago. She was here for the week.”

  “Lucky you,” Mercer said. “A real piece of ass.”

  Charlie couldn’t deny having had a similar thought upon first meeting Filmon, though he would never have voiced it, much less in terms that suggested his colleague was a slab of beef. His recollection of Mercer, the thinner version, was filling in, and it seemed his job and family hadn’t changed him much after all.

  “You wanna grab a drink?” Mercer jerked a thumb toward the lobby bar. “We can figure out where we’re going from there.”

  “Sure.” Charlie followed him into the crowded bar to a table in a quiet corner. They were just settling in their seats when a server arrived.

  “What’s your poison, Charlie?” Mercer asked, smiling at the woman, his eyes lingering around her chest.

  “I’ll have a beer — a Russian one.”

  “CC and ginger for me,” Mercer said, waiting for the woman’s awkward smile before adding, “That’s Canadian Club and ginger ale, and make it a double.” He watched as she walked off toward the bar. “You see the rack on that?” He shook his head, then turned to face Charlie. “So, you’re a diplomat now, are ya?”

  “I guess so.” Charlie smiled. It had taken him a while to get comfortable with the description and to stop launching into an explanation of how his job really wasn’t what most people had in mind when they thought of diplomacy. He enjoyed his consular work, and he was good at it. So what if he was forced to spend half of his time responding to complaints about clogged toilets in staff quarters or refereeing disputes between the embassy drivers? He was still an accredited diplomat. “How about you? I saw from your email that you’re with Petroline.”

  “Yeah, I started my own exploration business out in Calgary ten years ago and got bought up last year. You could say it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “So you’re here to tap into the Russian market?”

  Mercer grinned. “Petroline’s been in the Russian market since the Iron Curtain came down. I’m here to expand our interests.” He paused to leer at two women in evening gowns passing the table and leaving an intense trail of perfume in their wake. “They told me Moscow was full of hotties, but I had no idea.… Good thing I didn’t bring the wife along. You married, Charlie?”

  “No,” he replied. He was relieved for the distraction caused by the arrival of their drinks.

  “Then you’re in the right place.” Mercer tapped his glass off Charlie’s. “Say, how’s Brian doing?” Mercer asked, taking a slurp of his drink.

  “Good.” Charlie was trying to remember the last time he had been in touch with his brother and what the news was.

  “He’s still in St. John’s and still with Karen?”

  “Yeah, they’ve got a couple of kids.” He felt a pang of guilt at how little he knew about his only nephews.

  “Lumber business still treatin’ him right?”

  Charlie nodded and reached for his glass. One piece of information his brother was always keen to share was his annual sales figures, which made Charlie’s AS-7 salary pale in comparison and explained the McMansion that Brian and Karen had custom-built on an oversized lot on Pine Bud Avenue in St. John’s.

  “Have you got kids, Shawn?” he asked, eager to switch topics.

  “Yeah. Couple of ’em.” Mercer pulled out his wallet and opened it to a pair of school photos.

  “They’re cute.”

  “Don’t be fooled.” Mercer flipped the wallet shut with a snort. “Hellions, both of them. But they’re worth it.” He grinned and picked up his glass. “Who’da thunk it back in high school, Charlie, that twenty years on, we’d both be sitting in a bar in Moscow, of all places.”

  “It’s a small world, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  Charlie sat at the bar in Night Sky, squinting to make out his watch face in the red glow of the smoky club. It couldn’t be 3:00 a.m., surely? The place was still packed, mostly with gorgeous women, which was presumably why Mercer had insisted on coming to the Tverskaya landmark after dinner. Charlie glanced toward the washroom, where Mercer had disappeared some time ago, and was debating going after him when he heard his name being yelled over the din. He looked up and saw Mercer waving from the lounge area upstairs, like a stranded hunter signalling a search plane. He waved back, collected his drink off the bar, and made his way up the circular staircase. At the top, he looked around and spotted Mercer at a corner booth with two women.

  “Over here, Charlie!”

  “I was starting to wonder where you’d gotten to,” Charlie said when he reached the booth.

  “Meet Elena and Svetlana,” Mercer said, introducing the two blondes as Charlie sat down.

  “Hi, I’m Charlie,” he said, as Svetlana leaned forward to offer him her hand, and the plunging neckline of her dress fell away to reveal most of her surgical enhancements.

  “Svetlana, and this is my cousin Elena,” she said as Charlie shook the hand of the woman next to him. She was younger and prettier than her co
usin and had obviously not resorted to cosmetic surgery yet. “Shawn has told us all about you, Charlie,” Svetlana went on, cozying up to a glassy-eyed Mercer. Charlie had lost count of the number of beers he himself had consumed at the club, but he had fallen well behind his old classmate, whose last drink had been a Grey Goose and Red Bull. He also noticed with some alarm a smattering of white powder on Mercer’s lapel and the front of Svetlana’s dress.

  “You are a diplomat, yes?” Elena placed her slender hand on Charlie’s arm and moved closer on the bench, so that he could feel the warmth of her hip against his.

  “Are you girls from Moscow?” he asked, deflecting the question and wishing Mercer wasn’t so hammered. There was something about these girls that made him wary, and the last thing he wanted to get into was his official capacity at the embassy.

  “St. Petersburg,” Svetlana said, as the house music thumping around them morphed into a familiar refrain. “Oh, I love this song! Come on, Shawn, we must dance.” She stood and helped extricate a wobbly Mercer from the booth.

  “Will you dance with me, Charlie?”

  He looked into Elena’s blue eyes and knew he couldn’t refuse.

  “Sure.”

  They made their way onto the crowded dance floor, and Charlie’s initial discomfort soon faded, aided by Elena’s sultry dancing style, which emphasized her long, graceful curves and made her all the more alluring. He also found it difficult not to be aroused by her habit of swaying in close and crushing into his waist as she ran a soft hand down his arm. It was so enjoyable that Charlie had zoned out the rest of the dancers, not to mention the room and the music, when Mercer staggered into him and broke the spell. He watched as Svetlana pulled Elena by the arm toward the far end of the dance floor.

  “Where are they going?” he said as Mercer continued an uncoordinated shuffle next to him, apparently oblivious to his dance partner’s absence.

  “What the fuck?” Realizing he was dancing with himself, Mercer squinted into the distance and spotted the women, then stumbled after them through the crush of bodies and into a narrow hallway leading to a dimly lit area with sofas. Approaching the nearest sofa, Charlie noticed a couple in the far corner, barely visible in the muted light, entwined in an in­­timate embrace. When he looked down again, he saw Svetlana sitting on Mercer’s lap, their mouths crushed together. He felt Elena’s hand pulling him down onto the opposing couch.