Mind Control: A Science Fiction Telepathy Thriller (Perceivers Book 2) (23 page)

There was no news, however, about Ransom.

A knock on the door jolted Michael from his thoughts. His phone slipped from his lap and landed on the floor, corner first. He picked it up and examined the corner which had been saved from a massive dent by the carpet, but it did not bode well for the future of his very expensive gadget.

He perceived the person outside was Pauline.

Opening the door, he saw that she was dressed in regulation greys with her hair put neatly away in a bun, as had become her routine. Sympathy poured from her mind. Like all of them in the building, she had seen the news that Ransom had been kidnapped outside his own trial and seen Michael had come back to Galen House with a bloodied shirt. The others understood that Michael had tried to stop the kidnappers, but she was the only one who knew why. She felt sorry for him and her concern was uncomfortable for him to perceive.

“Norm the Norm asked me to remind you that you have toilet cleaning duty today,” she said.

With all the crazy things going on in his life, trust Norm the Norm to be worried about the most trivial. “God!” Michael leant back against the doorframe. “I’d forgotten all about that.”

“I thought he might let you off under the circumstances,” said Pauline. “But apparently not.”

“It’s military bollocks,” said Michael. “Discipline has to be maintained.”

“Yeah, but …”

“The man’s a soldier at heart. He fought in real wars where you keep fighting even though your friends are dying around you. I don’t think he’s going to let me off cleaning a few toilets.”

“Alex cleaned them yesterday and I cleaned them the day before, so they’re probably not that bad.”

“You don’t know some of the disgusting things men do in the toilets after they’ve been eating army catering,” said Michael.

Pauline wrinkled her nose at that. “Having been in there the day before yesterday, I actually do.”

He found a smile from somewhere inside of him which he hoped would let her know he appreciated the sentiment. “Tell Norm the Norm I’ll be there soon.”

“Okay,” said Pauline. “Are you sure you’re all right? I mean, there seems to be something going round in your head.”

“You’re a good perceiver, Pauline,” said Michael. “I can see why they recruited you.”

He closed the door on her and perceived her disquiet at being dismissed. But he couldn’t worry about her now. He went back to contemplating his phone.

~

MICHAEL KNELT DOWN
in front of the toilet and felt something wet soak into the knee of his trousers. He tried to tell himself it was water splashed onto the floor from the flushing mechanism, but as he looked down at what remained of the puddle beneath him, he saw a yellow stain around the edge where it had started to dry. Even though it was the men’s toilets and there were plenty of urinals, someone had decided to take a pee in one of the cubicles and missed.

I can’t stay here
, Michael thought.

Not while Hetherington and Lucas were in Russia plotting to do God-knows-what with their knowledge of perceivers.

Not while his father was being held by people who were planning to do God-knows-what with him.

Not as if he knew what the hell he could do about it.

He dunked his cloth into the slightly soiled bucket of water next to him, squeezed it and wiped it over the toilet seat, thinking about Russia. All arrows led to that vast country. A country where the British police had no jurisdiction, where the British government had precious little influence and where Michael couldn’t even speak the language. He needed a way in, someone on the inside who could help him, and he thought back to Victor Rublev.

Skazhi Andrei Orlov chto on bil prav
, the Russian had thought as he was dying. It translated as ‘tell Andrei Orlov he was right’, according to an online translator. Michael probably should have done something about it at the time, but he was too busy persuading Patterson to investigate Rublev’s murder and infiltrating Hetherington’s gang, so he had almost forgotten about it. But now the thoughts were back in his mind.

Michael snapped off his right rubber glove, recoiling as some liquid flicked back onto his face. With his naked hand, he pulled his phone from his pocket and ran a search on the name ‘Andrei Orlov’. Hundreds of results came up, but there were only a few that cross-referenced with Victor Rublev. Michael allowed his body to move from kneeling up to sitting down and leant his back against the side of the toilet cubicle. He realised he had just sat in the urine patch, but tried not to think about it soaking up into the seat of his trousers. With his buttocks damp, he read about the exploits of Rublev and Orlov when they were in their twenties and the many times they were arrested at anti-corruption protests.

Michael was going to search further when his phone rang with the unpleasant sound of the default ringtone.

“Hello?” said Michael, not knowing who it was because he hadn’t got around to storing anyone’s details in his contacts list.

“Hi, Michael, it’s Tony Patterson again.”

Michael felt both anticipation and dread. “Any news?”

“CID traced the car they think the kidnappers transferred Ransom into from the cab,” he said.

“Where is it?”

“It was recorded getting on a ferry for France at Dover.”

“Can you intercept it at the other end?”

“I’m sorry, Michael, it’s too late,” said Patterson. “The ferry reached Calais yesterday. The kidnappers obviously worked to get him out of the country as soon as possible. He was gone before we even had a chance to alert the ports.”

“France? Why France?”

“CID’s guess – and I agree with them – is that flying a kidnap victim against his will on a commercial airline was going to be near impossible, so they had to drive.”

“Drive to Russia?”

“Seems likely. From mainland Europe, the journey is all over land. Interpol have been alerted, but the kidnappers have a head start and could have taken any number of routes to get there.”

Patterson continued to talk about how they were going to do their best and how Interpol had good relations with other police forces on mainland Europe, but Michael heard none of it.

He knew then what he had to do. He had to go to Russia.

CHAPTER TWENTY–ONE

THE LIGHTS SHINING
from the buildings could have come from any city in any developed nation as they streaked by on the roadside while the taxi drove through the streets at night. Only the traffic signs in an unfamiliar language reminded Michael that he was not at home anymore. That, and the perceptions from the taxi driver whose mind rambled away in Russian at breakneck speed. The bearded man, who wore a flat cap to cover his apparent baldness, couldn’t speak English, but turned out to be a big football fan. He kept shouting out random football-related words in order to form some kind of connection with his passenger.

“Manchester United!” he said in a heavy Russian accent.

“Yes,” replied Michael, nodding and hoping the man would take the hint that he wasn’t in the mood to talk.

“Five-nil!” He laughed, as if it was a great joke. “Five-nil!”

“Yes,” said Michael, trying to think of something that would pacify him and realising how little he knew about the English national game. “Old Trafford!” he said, remembering the name of Manchester United’s football ground from somewhere.

“Yes, yes, Old Trafford,” The taxi driver laughed. “Manchester United! Old Trafford!” He laughed some more and went back to concentrating on the road as they drove into a tunnel.

The black of night disappeared as the streaking lights of buildings were replaced by the glowing overhead bulbs that turned the tunnel’s grey concrete into a dirty yellow. Its walls and roof enclosed him just as the taxi cab enclosed him, a bubble within a bubble, a tiny space of safety within a scary foreign city. He tried to relax back into the seat and let the soporific rumbling movement of the drive soothe the knots in his stomach, but it did not work. The constant reminder of how rash it was to jump on a plane to Moscow wouldn’t leave him. He didn’t know the city, he didn’t know the language, he didn’t know anybody there, he didn’t even know for sure that the kidnappers had brought Ransom to Moscow. All he had was a ten-year-old address for Andrei Orlov pulled off the internet and information that Victor Rublev had been murdered.

Michael had spent more money he didn’t have by checking into a tourist hotel in the city centre where he could be sure there was someone who spoke English. A man on the reception desk with impressive language skills had arranged for a taxi, and was able to tell the driver to take Michael to Orlov’s address, by showing him the webpage on his phone with it written out in Cyrillic lettering.

They emerged from the tunnel and kept driving until the wide Moscow streets narrowed and the lights from the buildings became fewer and less bright. Like driving out of the centre of London to some of the poorer suburbs, the outskirts of Moscow had the feel of somewhere yet to see the benefit of regeneration. In London there would be rows of terraced houses interspersed with the occasional tower block from the sixties, whereas in Moscow it was almost entirely square concrete apartment blocks from the Soviet era. All of them looked the same. It was a reminder of the communist ideal of everyone being equal, which meant they all had to live in unattractive, homogenous buildings at the side of old, dimly lit streets.

After only a few minutes into the outskirts of the city, the driver pulled up alongside the kerb. Keeping the engine running, he turned round to Michael and asked him something in Russian.

“Are we here?” said Michael. “How much?” He reached into his pocket where he had a bundle of rouble notes.

“No,” said the driver in English. He mimed putting a telephone to his ear with his hand and slowly repeated a couple of Russian words which were close enough to English for Michael to understand. “
Telefon
.
Adres
.”

Michael pulled his phone from his pocket and reactivated the screen with Orlov’s address on it. The driver read it, nodded and pointed to the block near where he had stopped. But he didn’t look happy. “
Tochno?
”

“It’s okay,” said Michael, smiling to try to convey that this was where he wanted to be. He put his phone away and pulled out his Russian currency. He held out the notes to the driver and hoped the man was honest enough not to overcharge him.

The taxi driver chose a couple of notes and Michael got out of the cab, where it was a couple of degrees colder than it had been an hour ago in the centre of the city. He was under the impression that Russia was always freezing, but it was approaching summer in that part of northern Europe and it wasn’t that cold. Just as well, as he was only wearing a jacket over his jeans and shirt. He pulled out his phone and switched to the screen with Orlov’s address translated into English and tried to work out how to find the right apartment. As he did that, he noticed the driver hadn’t left yet and was calling out to him in Russian.

Michael turned to see the man had wound down his window and was beckoning him over. Perceiving him, he realised the driver was concerned for his safety in the area where they had stopped. Michael knew he should be concerned too, but was trying to ignore his own instinct.

The driver was still yammering away in Russian, so Michael walked back to the cab to try to reassure him. “It’s okay,” he said. “Really.”

The driver caught hold of Michael’s hand and pressed something into it. Michael looked down and saw it was a business card written in Russian. The driver jabbed at it with his finger, pointing to a telephone number printed in the bottom right hand corner in Western Arabic numerals. “
Telefon
,” he said. “
Kagda ti gotov. Telefon
.”

“I’ll call you when I’m finished, sure,” said Michael, using a combination of perception and body language to understand what he was saying.

“Boris,” said the driver, tapping his chest with his hand. “
Menya Zovut
Boris.”

“Thank you, Boris,” said Michael. “
Dosvidanya
.”

He laughed at hearing Michael’s badly pronounced Russia.

“
Dosvidanya!
” he said.

He rolled up the window and drove off, leaving Michael alone in the remote area of Moscow that scared even the local man who had taken him there.

~

THE INSIDE OF
the apartment building was as grey as its outer concrete shell, with barely functioning lights that brought gloom to the communal areas. On the second floor, an ageing corridor was merely a conduit to the doors that led into individual apartments. Doors that were thin enough for the noise of TVs and radios to bleed through to the outside.

Michael stopped at number 27, a black-painted door that was neither at the beginning of the corridor nor at the end, and listened to the chatter from the television. His perception told him there was a human consciousness inside, but he couldn’t be certain it was Orlov or if Orlov was alone. If he widened his sensitivity, the interference from other people in the block drowned out what was coming from number 27.

The only thing to do was knock.

He waited, listening for noises of movement as he perceived that someone was alerted to his presence.

A man, with a complexion as grey as the walls, opened the door. In his late thirties or early forties, he still had much of his natural blonde hair which was overdue a cut and was tucked behind each ear to keep it back from his face. Dressed like someone’s granddad, he wore a floppy cardigan over his shirt and trousers, which he’d tied around the waist with a knitted belt. Michael perceived that uncomfortable feeling of someone who was irritated to see him.

“Andrei Orlov?” said Michael in what he hoped was close to the correct Russian pronunciation.

The man’s mind recognised his own name. “
Kto vi?
” he said.

“Do you speak English?” said Michael, realising what he had to say was going to be really difficult if he did not.