Mind Control: A Science Fiction Telepathy Thriller (Perceivers Book 2) (24 page)

“What if I do?” he said in a strong Russian accent.

Michael let his relief show. “Victor Rublev sent me,” he said.

Orlov bristled at the mention of the name. He hustled Michael inside. “
Pridi suda!
”

The door to Orlov’s apartment led straight into his living room, a small space with only room for a television, an armchair and a single person’s dining table near the curtained window. Like everywhere Michael had seen outside the city centre, it was dimly lit, with a single energy saving light bulb hanging from the ceiling in a yellow tasselled lampshade. The brightest area of the room was by the gas fire which had to be the best part of twenty years old and threw heat into the room with flickering blue fingers of flame. Above it, a mantelpiece was cluttered with photographs of children, at various ages from babies cradled in a woman’s arms to portraits in school uniform. They seemed to be of three individuals, two boys and a girl, with the oldest boy being about fifteen. In the middle of the clustered gallery was a single portrait of the same woman who was cradling the babies, a woman about ten years younger than Orlov.

It was all very different to Rublev’s opulent London home.

Orlov turned off the television and the background Russian chatter abruptly stopped. “How is Victor?” he said.

Michael swallowed. “I’m sorry to say that Victor died,” he said.

Orlov nodded. There was no surprise in his mind, only confirmation of something he suspected. He sat down in his armchair and let the cushions take his weight, as the news soaked into his consciousness. “How did they kill him?”

A normal person might have assumed he had died from a heart attack or had been run over by a bus. Like Rublev himself, Orlov automatically assumed it was murder. “Radiation poisoning,” said Michael. “Something was slipped into his tea, we think.”

“A slow and painful death. I am not surprised.” He sat and contemplated.

“He wanted me to tell you …” Michael tried to remember the words Rublev had used. “
Skazhi Andrei Orlov chto on bil prav
.”

“He only admits it when he’s dying,” said Orlov. “How much like Victor.”

“I think it means, tell Andrei Orlov he was right. Right about what?”

“Don’t throw your life away for a cause. Sometimes I think I should have listened to myself.”

Michael tried to perceive what Orlov meant, but there was just a feeling of melancholy.

Orlov tried to push the feeling away. “You don’t have telephones in London?” he said suddenly.

“Pardon?” said Michael.

“You could have told me this over the telephone, yet you travelled all the way to Moscow.”

“I was with Rublev when he died. It didn’t seem right to say something like that over the phone.”

“I have a feeling this is not all you have come to say,” said Orlov.

“No,” said Michael.

“Then sit down, young man.”

Michael looked around the room. The only other seat was the single dining chair. He pulled it out from the table and turned it around so it faced Orlov. Part of him wanted to come straight out and ask for his help, but he knew the man wouldn’t be ready to give it. He had to gain the man’s trust first.

“There were things I should have asked Victor Rublev before he died, but I didn’t get the chance,” said Michael. “His mind was confused at the end, but he had one clear thought of a young woman I think he might have known in Russia. He remembered her wearing a white summer dress painted with yellow flowers – do you know who she was?”

Orlov smiled. “Valeriya,” he said. “We were young then.”

“Was that when you were involved in protests against the Russian government? The internet says you and Victor Rublev were activists together.”

“Valeriya didn’t like it. She wanted to have a career, she didn’t want to get in trouble with the authorities. She told Victor, either marry her or be a troublemaker, don’t be both. He chose to make trouble. I think he regretted that.”

Regretted it until the day he died, Michael thought. “There’s been nothing on the internet about you for the last ten years. What happened? Did the movement go underground?”

“Is the internet all there is for you young people?”

Michael wasn’t sure how to answer.

But it turned out to be a rhetorical question. “I was young when people wrote about me on the internet,” said Orlov. “Then I got older.” There was more to his story than that, Michael perceived it, but he would need to look deeper to find out what it was because Orlov was making an effort to keep those painful memories hidden.

“You didn’t seem surprised when I said Rublev had died,” said Michael.

“When Valeriya left him, he became more militant than I had ever been. Then his father died and he inherited all that money – his father did well with the fall of communism, you know. He used the money to leave Russia, turning his back on his country and all of his friends. He said he could have more influence in Britain, the land of free speech, but I think he was running away. To be honest, I haven’t spoken to him in many years. It would not have done me any good if I had. Consorting with enemies of the state is frowned upon in my country.”

There was regret in Orlov’s mind. Michael couldn’t be sure if he regretted losing touch with his friend, turning his back on the cause he championed in his youth, or getting involved in the whole thing in the first place.

“But you haven’t come here to chat to a man more than twice your age about his memories,” said Orlov.

Michael smiled at the man’s intuition. “No.”

“You could start with telling me your name.”

“Oh,” said Michael, realising he had forgotten to introduce himself properly. “I’m Michael Sanderson, I’m … it’s complicated.”

“But you want my help – yes?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t usually give my help to young English men who appear out of nowhere on my doorstep. But I believe you have a saying in Britain: if you don’t ask, you don’t get. So, ask.”

Michael paused, thinking about where to start. “My father is … well, my father knows a lot about perceivers. Have you heard about perceivers?”

“We have the news in Russia,” said Orlov. “In our own way.”

“I think the Russian authorities kidnapped my father because of what he knows. I thought you might still be involved with the dissident movement, I thought you might be able to ask some questions.”

“If Russian agents did what you say, then do you think they would have told anyone about it?” he said.

“No,” said Michael. Now that he had said it out loud, it sounded ridiculous. “But I thought you might have some contacts, people you could ask. I don’t know …” Michael felt embarrassed at asking what now sounded like a stupid question. “I didn’t know anybody else in Russia. I can’t even speak the language. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Orlov rose from his seat. “I am sorry to hear about your father, but I left all that behind me many years ago. I cannot help you.”

Michael perceived he genuinely felt sorry for him, but his mind was made up and there was no persuading him. Looking round at the shabby living room designed for one person, he realised how stupid he had been to think that one man living on the outskirts of Moscow could help him with what amounted to international espionage.

Orlov showed him to the door.

At the last minute, Michael decided to make one last appeal. “If you think of anyone or anything that can help me, can you ring me?” He fished in his pocket for something to write his telephone number on, but all he had was the taxi driver’s card. He turned the card over to reveal its blank side. “Do you have a pen?”

“Yes, I have a pen, but I don’t need to write anything down.”

“Just in case,” said Michael.

Orlov sighed. “Stay there.”

Michael stood poised with the taxi driver’s card in his palm, ready to write down his number, while Orlov went back to his armchair and plunged his hand down the side of the seat cushion. After a little rummage around he pulled out, not a pen, but a mobile phone. One which would have been the latest model only a year ago. He came back to Michael, tapped a couple of things on the screen and handed it to him. “You can type your number in here.”

Michael did as he was asked. “Thank you,” he said, handing the phone back. “If they killed Rublev in the middle of London, I daren’t think what they will do to my dad if they’ve brought him to Russia. If you think of anything – anything at all that could help – please call me.”

“I won’t,” said Orlov, putting the phone in his trouser pocket. He showed Michael to the door and – as they said goodbye, and Michael thanked him again – he perceived that Orlov was true to his word. He didn’t want to get involved with anything that could put him on a collision course with the Russian authorities. He had accepted Michael’s phone number to be polite, but he had no intention of calling Michael or ever speaking to him again.

CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO

THE HOTEL ROOM
in Moscow was very plush, and so it should be from the amount of money Michael had paid for it. It had an enormous double bed big enough for four of him, a pristine carpet, desk, chair, sofa and television. If it wasn’t for the fire evacuation sign written in Russian, as well as in English, French, Spanish and German, it could have been any expensive hotel room in any city across the world.

It might as well have been somewhere else in the world for all the good it had done him. He had one lead – Andrei Orlov – and that had come to nothing.

He thought eating something would fuel his brain to come up with more ideas, but the room service he had ordered sat largely uneaten on the bed next to him. He’d munched on a couple of chips, but the potato had sat claggy in his mouth and it was difficult to swallow. Not that it was the fault of the chips, it was his own stupid fault for coming to a foreign country and expecting to investigate an international kidnapping as if he were James Bond.

He thought of calling Patterson back in London and asking if he could put him in touch with the British security services in Moscow. But he doubted even they could help.

He turned on the telly. Being a tourist hotel, it was fed with satellite channels, including a sports channel which the last person in the room must have been watching. It was showing a British football match. For a moment, he thought that serendipity had arranged for Manchester United to be playing at Old Trafford, but as he looked closer he saw that it was Chelsea versus Liverpool – and Chelsea were doing rather well, leading 2-1 approaching full time.

Yeah, he might as well have stayed in England.

His phone rang. He picked it up from the pillow where he had dropped it. The display had only a strange-looking phone number on it. A Russian number, he suspected.

“Hello?” he said, answering.

“It’s Andrei Orlov,” said the caller.

“Andrei Orlov?” Suddenly full of surprise and hope and bewilderment. “I didn’t think you’d call me. I mean, thanks for calling.”

“I lost my father five years ago,” said Orlov, his tone matter-of-fact. “Cancer. I understand the pain. I called an old friend. Your father is Brian Ransom – yes?”

“Yes!” said Michael, desperately wanting to ask if Orlov knew where he was, but holding himself back.

“I can see why my government might think he was valuable to them. Perceivers scare them.”

“You will help me?”

“No, not me,” said Orlov. “But my friend might be interested. He says, can you meet him?”

“Yes!” said Michael, his heart pounding even faster now. “I can meet him. Where?”

“I can give you the address. Do you have a pen …?”

~

MICHAEL HAD CALLED
Boris, the football-loving taxi driver, using the number on his business card, but Boris had been reluctant to take him to the address Orlov had given him. The place was, as far as he could figure out from the man’s wild gestures and loud exclamations in his native language, a Russian bar for hard-drinking Russians and not somewhere for foreign tourists. But the bar was his one possible hope of finding his father and that was where he insisted Boris take him.

As he walked in, Michael understood the taxi driver’s concern. Even back in London, he would not have voluntarily gone into a dive like the one he had just entered. The light level was low, probably to disguise the state of the place as much as to give it atmosphere, and there were less than half a dozen people sitting huddled over tables down one side of the long, thin building. All of them, he perceived, were at different stages of inebriation. Only a barman – a tall thin man with a ridiculously big and bushy moustache like a circus strongman – was totally sober. He eyed Michael curiously for a moment, then beckoned him over.

At first Michael wondered if this was the ‘friend’ Orlov had arranged for him to meet, but a cursory scan of the barman’s thoughts revealed he was just a barman.

“English?” said the barman.

He wasn’t sure if he was being asked if he was English or if he could speak English. Either way, the answer was the same. “Yes,” said Michael.

“Up,” said the barman, sticking out an index finger and pointing above his head. “Stair.” He mimed his index and middle fingers walking up an imaginary set of stairs, and nodded towards the back of the room where a set of wooden stairs were half hidden by shadow.

“I’ll sit on this table, and they can come down and find me,” he told the barman, deciding the relative safety of downstairs where there were people was a better option. To indicate what he meant, he pointed at the table nearest the window and started to walk over.

“
Nyet!
” said the barman. “Up. Stair.” He pointed above his head and did the walking motion with his fingers again.

There was no point arguing with him. Michael perceived the only English the man could speak was the few words he had already uttered. There was probably a reason Orlov’s friend didn’t want to meet in a brightly lit public place. So, against his better judgement, he went to the darkest corner of the bar and climbed the stairs.

Michael kept his perception wide open as he climbed the stairs, determined to be ready for whatever or whoever was up there waiting for him. Apart from the bubbling of inebriated Russian thoughts from the customers downstairs, he perceived nothing.