Everything has been building to this, as all secrets are revealed in the thrilling conclusion of MOSCOW RULES!
On a mission to fulfil a request for his employer on the streets of Moscow, Marc Dane finds himself dragged into a deadly scavenger hunt for a prize that could cause chaos in the wrong hands…
In Part 9, after a deadly confrontation in the snow and ice, Marc has nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide – but the hunt for a KGB spymaster’s secret files still has one last twist in the tale…
Read on for the final chapter…
MOSCOW RULES part 10 – KEEP YOUR OPTIONS OPEN
A tougher guy – a real operator, a true-blue tier one type – would have pulled the old dear out of the car and got away at a high rate of knots; but Marc Dane was exhausted and running on less than two hours of sleep, so he fell into the back seat of the grumbling Volga sedan with a weary grunt.
He was dimly aware of Galina guiding the car like a racing driver, catching glimpses of trees whipping past as she kept her dainty foot down. “Stay out of sight,” she told him, without looking back. “The police will pay no attention to an old lady on her own.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“A safe place,” Galina replied, her voice like smoked honey. “Trust me. The answers are coming.”
Answers. The word followed him into the semi-darkness, searching for something to connect with. Answers to questions like: what was all this in aid of? How am I going to get out of Moscow alive? And why was Sergei Morozov’s elderly widow driving a getaway car?
After what seemed like hours of speeding, the road evened out and Galina eased off on the gas. The car pulled on to a gravel drive and halted, and the woman spared Marc a winning smile. “We are here,” she said. “Would you be an angel and help me out?”
Marc’s innate Britishness made it impossible for him to refuse a request from a nice old pensioner, and he shook off his fatigue long enough to exit the car and open Galina’s door for her. She had brought them to a rural train station in the middle of nowhere, little more than a couple of snow-covered platforms, a signal box and a waiting hall in the heart of a flat, white forever that disappeared into the hazy distance.
Marc provided a hand that Galina used to pull herself out of the car, and then she led him into the station proper – where, mercifully, it was warmed by the heat of a crackling wood stove, atop which there was a big samovar of hot black tea.
An old man sitting on a nearby bench, who looked almost but not quite like Sergei Morozov, saluted Marc. He rose from a heavy brown overcoat pooling around him. and embraced Galina. The old couple exchanged quiet words, then Galina excused herself.
Marc couldn’t take his eyes off the man. It wasn’t Morozov. It could not be Morozov. Too many people, allies and enemies alike, had certified that the body in the coffin Marc had seen go into the ground at Novodevichy was definitely the former KGB spymaster. He was dead. That was a fact.
“What is wrong, Mr. Dane?” said the old man. “You look as if you have seen a ghost.”
“You…” Marc struggled to find the right words, and then gave up. “You crafty old bastard.”
“Worse has been said of me,” he replied. “I apologise for drawing you into this. But I am afraid, I had very few avenues left open to me, at the end.” The old man absently ran a hand over his wispy beard and moustache, and looking closely, Marc saw they were very good fakes. That and the big spectacles, the darkened hair, and Sergei Morozov resembled a man ten years younger than his actual age.
Marc shook his head, and went to the samovar, pouring himself a tall glass of the tea. “I am the Idiot,” he said. “Lucy was right, you were playing a game all along. But not just on me. On everyone.”
“You look tired.” Morozov sat on the bench once again. “When you get to my age, it sometimes feels as if that is all one can feel.” He looked away. “I have done more for my nation and my people than any man could have…or should have. But they would never let me go, do you understand? Even with the fiction of a retirement, my duty could only end with my death.”
“Lose your taste for it, did you?” Marc sipped his tea and eyed the old man. Looking at the slight, stooped figure, it was hard to picture him at the height of his powers as a Lion of the Lubyanka, as the King of Ghosts. In a very real sense, this elderly gent was the embodiment of an enemy Marc had been training to fight for his entire adult life – but here and now, he just looked like someone’s grandad.
“This used to be a game of cunning, for intelligent men.” Morozov’s voice hardened with resentment. “We kept it clear of civilians and non-combatants. We were precise.” He shook his head. “But now the work, it lacks any grace and subtlety. It has become a playground for belligerent thugs and other crude minds. The wilderness of mirrors is filled with criminals instead of craftsmen.” He looked up at Marc. “So, yes, Mr. Dane. You are right, I did lose my taste for it. I wanted to hang up my sword.” His gaze drifted to where his wife stood warming herself by the stove. “Live what last remaining years I have with love, not fear.”
“You faked the tram running you down on the street. You made sure there were witnesses.” Marc tried to plot out the scheme. “How? Literally everyone believes you were either killed in an accident or assassinated on purpose.”
“Let an old spy preserve some of his mystique,” said Morozov. “How I did it does not matter. But what came next, that was the thorny part.”
“The ledger.”
“The ledger,” repeated Morozov, following with a curse under his breath. “At first it was my armour, my shield against every enemy who tried to unseat me. But eventually…” He paused. “What is that British aphorism? It became the millstone about my neck. It kept me alive for so long, but I knew if I were to die unexpectedly, there would be a mad scramble to find it. Chaos in the ranks of the FSB and beyond! Rykov and that moron Gurik would stop at nothing to find the fabled Morozov File…” He chuckled humourlessly.
Marc fixed the old man with a steady eye, and he voiced the suspicion that had been pulling at him since this whole mess had kicked off. “How do you think they’ll react when they figure out it doesn’t exist?”
Morozov raised his head to meet Marc’s gaze and the old man’s expression betrayed nothing. But he didn’t need to; Marc knew he was right.
“The ledger isn’t real,” he went on. “It never was. You created a useful fiction to protect yourself, you laid a false trail for people to follow. You left a file full of unbreakable nonsense code at the end of a treasure hunt. The ultimate disruption operation.”
“You are quite perceptive,” Morozov allowed. “I see now why Ekko Solomon holds you in such esteem. He is a good judge of character.” He made a beckoning motion. “Please, I enjoy stories like these. Tell me more. Tell me how you believe it would play out.”
Marc sat down, and put himself in Morozov’s place. “You knew the moment you were declared dead, everyone who ever wanted to stick a knife in your back but couldn’t do it for fear of what you had on them, they’d come running. They’d be willing to tear Moscow apart looking for that file…” Then he thought about his own part in things. “Which is why you needed an outsider to muddy the waters. You knew Solomon would send a Rubicon agent to the funeral because he couldn’t come himself. Did you know it would be me?” Morozov didn’t reply, and Marc carried on. “You wanted the FSB and whoever else to be at each other’s throats, because you wanted them distracted. You needed a smokescreen to cover your escape, so while everyone is searching for this non-existent thing, you and the missus could just… Slip away.” He gestured towards Galina. “How am I doing?”
“Very entertaining.” Morozov pulled back his sleeve with an age-spotted finger and consulted the time on the face of a heavy cosmonaut’s wristwatch.
“I see a big flaw in that plan, though,” Marc noted, and that drew him a sharp look from the old man’s hawkish eyes.
“How so?”
“You said you were tired of the game. But that’s a lie, isn’t it? You love it, almost as much as you love her.” Marc nodded at Morozov’s wife. “That’s your biggest weakness, Sergei. Anyone else would have been on a beach in Fiji by now, with a new identity and a nice pina colada. But you couldn’t help yourself… You had to stick around to watch it unfold, despite the risk.” Marc leaned in. “You like being the puppet-master, yeah?”
Emotions passed across the old man’s features – a flash of fear, then anger, finally settling into cool arrogance. “As I noted, you are quite perceptive.”
“Husband?” Galina called out from beside the window. “It’s time.”
“Of course.” Morozov rose to his feet, and as he did, Marc caught the sound of a diesel engine. “You will forgive me, but we have a train to catch.”
“Let me help you with that.” Marc picked up the suitcase at Morozov’s feet and followed the elderly couple out to the icy platform. A light was visible through the snowy haze, growing brighter as a hulking passenger locomotive took form, slowing as it approached. “Heading east?” Marc went on. “Risky.”
“They will not expect it,” said Galina. “Rykov and Gurik are linear thinkers.”
“We won’t meet again,” said Morozov. He offered his hand and Marc shook it. “Tell Solomon his cause is righteous. Men like he and I have done much harm to the world. Perhaps that balance can still be redressed.”
“Yeah,” Marc sighed, feeling the weight of the past few days settling heavily upon him. “I’ll pass that along.”
The train rolled to a halt and a lone conductor got off to help Galina aboard, but no-one else disembarked. Morozov hesitated, giving Marc one final, measuring look. “You think this has been a wasted effort,” he said.
“I’ve got nothing to show for it,” Marc noted.
“No. You do not go home empty-handed,” said the old man, shaking his head. “You have something men in our line of work value more than diamonds, Mr. Dane. You have information.”
“About what?”
Morozov leaned in and spoke quietly. “Aleph. You saw them first-hand, their mercenaries walking through Moscow as if they owned the city, defying Russian state security, doing as they wished and answering to no-one. Their star is rising, my friend, and they are unopposed.”
Marc frowned, unable to escape the feeling that he was missing something vital. “Aleph are private military contractors, they’re just guns for hire. They do as they’re told, they don’t initiate action.”
“Things change,” said Morozov. “The pattern of our dark world has altered. You and Rubicon saw to that when you demolished the Combine. Aleph have seized the initiative.” He stepped up on to the train, as a horn hooted, signalling an imminent departure.
“We couldn’t track where their orders were coming from,” Marc pressed. “Who are they working for?”
“Nobody,” said Morozov. “An army of highly-trained, technologically-sophisticated soldiers with no loyalty to any nation-state, and no ethical code. They have grown weary of fighting other men’s wars, I think. They want to start a few of their own.” He gave Marc a final nod as the train began to pull away. “Move against them now, while there is still time,” he called. “Before they move against you.”
Marc watched the train vanish into the mist, and the cold prickled down his spine as he weighed a dead man’s warning.
SIX DAYS LATER
“Sir?” The willowy French woman picked her way down the wooden boardwalk over the sand, careful to avoid the places where planks had broken or smears of oily grime collected. “A moment?”
She was dressed completely wrongly for the locale. The tiny Greek fishing village was a place for ordinary people, tough men and women who worked with their hands at the business of bringing in the daily catch. The kind of folk with sun-cured skin and calloused hands, whose entire wardrobes – perhaps even their homes – wouldn’t be worth the price of the expensive outfit worn by the executive secretary.
And yet, even if she did seem better suited to one of the brash, multi-million dollar yachts floating in the resort marinas up the coast, she was still highly competent and very motivated. She didn’t allow the circumstances to affect her performance, and that kind of person was one that Kastas Laskaris valued greatly.
He leaned back in an old wooden chair, and waved off the other men who had been working with him around the buckets of mackerel. They melted away without a single word from him, even though Laskaris seemed the same as any one of them at first glance.
But to a careful observer, the differences were there. Laskaris carried himself like a soldier, not a fisherman. The muscle beneath his baggy shirt was toned and chiselled by a punishing regime of nutrition and exercise designed to sculpt him into as perfect a form as his body would allow. Rough-hewn, but handsome enough to be a Hollywood leading man, his looks still couldn’t quite hide the air of cruelty that danced in his eyes. He moved with fluidity, absolutely assured in every motion, turning to look at the woman.
“Marguerite,” he murmured. “I told you to remain in the villa.”
“This will not wait, sir,” she replied, bobbing her head respectfully. She gestured, and for the first time Laskaris saw the two men trailing warily behind his secretary.
He knew their names – Yevgeny Borodin and Avgar Dova, the two operatives from the failed Moscow operation – and their downcast expressions made it clear they were adequately cowed by their summons to meet him.
“Ah, of course. That will be all,” said Laskaris, and Marguerite took her cue to leave. He glanced at the men and pointed to the empty chairs around him. “Do you know how to clean fish?”
Borodin and Dova exchanged wary glances, then shook their heads.
“I’ll show you. Sit with me.” Laskaris handed them wickedly sharp knives, then he set to gutting the mackerel, his own blade whispering through the meat of the fish in swift cuts. Watery blood stained his hands as he worked, and after a moment, the two mercenaries began to copy his actions. They were inexpert and slow, but neither of them dared to refuse their commander’s orders.
“The ledger,” he said, at length. “The handful of pages you recovered are worthless.”
Borodin licked his lips and ventured a reply. “The situation became… complex, sir. The FSB interfered, and the other contractor, the Englishman from Rubicon…”
“No excuses,” said Laskaris, and he sighed. “The operation was doomed from the start. There was no file. It was a ruse.” The two men exchanged another look – perhaps they thought that would let them off the hook – so he continued on to disabuse them of that assumption. “That does not justify your substandard performance. Aleph expects better. There are consequences for inadequacy.”
He sighed, looking toward the blue waters of the Aegean and the flotilla of kaika fishing boats moored up on the nearby quay. It was so peaceful here. It gave him a clarity that he could not find anywhere else.
Laskaris put down his knife and stood, and the two mercenaries rose as well, each still holding the blade he had given them. “I want proof you are strong enough to continue to work for me,” he said. “I don’t accommodate failures. I want survivors.” He turned his back on them and made a vague gesture. “Decide which of you that is to be.”
Laskaris walked away, turning toward the villa up on the hill overlooking the village. Wiping the blood off his hands, he pulled a slim smartphone from the pocket of his work shorts and spoke into it. “Marguerite. Assemble all the information we have on the Rubicon group.”
“Yes, sir.”
He glanced back toward the quay. One of the men was already on his knees, clutching at a spurting knife wound. “I want a complete tactical evaluation,” Laskaris went on, “and termination options by the end of the day.”
