"Moscow-Xinjing" by Boris Akunin, summary Automatic translate

This book is a historical detective story published in 2024 with elements of documentary chronicle. The text is structured like a novel with a decipherable theme: a fictional plot about fictional detectives is followed by a factual section detailing the true biographies of real historical figures. This work is part of the fiction series "History of the Russian State in Stories and Novels." It artistically complements the historical works of Boris Akunin. This story is the tenth in the cycle. Other well-known books in this series include "The Fiery Finger," "God and the Rogue," "The Widow’s Cloak," "The Nut Buddha," and "Peace and War."

Missing Millions

The events begin in Washington. High-ranking officials from the US State Department and Treasury secretly hire a private detective agency. PanAm’s newest amphibious aircraft, the Hawaiian Clipper, has disappeared without a trace over the Pacific Ocean. On board were three million dollars in gold certificates. They were intended for Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to purchase British bombers. The government promises to pay the detectives an unprecedented fee of 10 percent of the missing sum. Two main forces are suspected: Soviet intelligence and Japanese military intelligence.

Agency owner Mary Larr takes on the Soviet trail. This elderly, incredibly experienced woman possesses a distinctive mark — a mole on her forehead. Mary is proficient in Eastern meditation and mind control techniques, and can literally view episodes from the past as if they were film. Her son, Adrian, will handle the Japanese investigation. Raised in England, he has a keen understanding of Asian culture, loves entertainment, and works as a tattoo artist in New York. His mother has entrusted him with the mission to the Far East.

Moscow secrets

Mary Larr arrives in the USSR disguised as a wealthy American elderly woman. She is accompanied by her black assistant, Prudence Lincoln, an expert in fingerprinting and the creation of useful spy gadgets. The Americans immediately find themselves under close surveillance by the Cheka. Vera Zhiltsova, an attractive and calculating captain of state security, oversees the surveillance. A naive Komsomol member and translator, Roza Bylinkina, is assigned to the guests. Mary had hoped to meet with Gleb Bokiy and Alexander Barchenko, the heads of the secret NKVD department, whom she had met seven years earlier in London. It soon transpires that both Cheka officers were victims of the Great Terror and were executed long ago by their own comrades.

The Chekists quickly arrange a fake meeting for Mary. The date is scheduled at a secret apartment. Zhiltsova cold-bloodedly kills Roza Bylinkina with a poisonous injection right before the American woman’s eyes. The state security captain plans to pin the blame for the Komsomol member’s death on Mary. The arrested detective is taken to a secret NKVD prison, disguised as a quiet country sanatorium. The head of the Special Group attempts to blackmail the foreigner. Vera offers a deal: the American will become her personal agent abroad, in exchange for sparing her life.

Escape from the sanatorium

Mary Larr easily takes the initiative. At night, the American spy paralyzes guards with her bare hands, using pinpoint strikes to their nerve centers. She patrols the closed wards and discovers General Yevgeny Miller, kidnapped by White Russian security officers. The veteran officer refuses to flee, preferring to die with dignity in captivity. After beating and intimidating the sadistic commandant, Mary escapes the fenced-in forest prison. The detective drastically alters her appearance with chemicals, transforms herself into an ordinary Soviet citizen, and sets up counter-surveillance on Vera Zhiltsova herself.

Having learned Zhiltsova’s home address, Mary takes aim at her right in her apartment. The Chekist immediately betrays her boss and lover, Mikhail Frinovsky. It was Frinovsky, the powerful Deputy People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, who organized the operation in the Pacific Ocean. Zhiltsova helps Mary gain access to the roof of her boss’s elite home on Kropotkinskaya Street. The American woman enters the nine-room apartment, breaks into the mechanical safe, and photographs a top-secret report to Stalin. The document directly confirms the hijacking of the plane by an NKVD agent nicknamed "Falcon." Taking the folder containing the evidence, Mary disappears, leaving Zhiltsova with nothing.

Manchu debut

Meanwhile, Adrian Larr arrives in Hsinking, the new, sprawling capital of the puppet state of Manchukuo. He is accompanied by Masian, a tough Chinese woman skilled in street fighting and covert force. Adrian immediately connects with an old school friend, the Japanese prince Tomohito. The prince introduces the American to the city’s slums, luxurious opium dens, and rowdy dance halls. The young man deliberately attracts the attention of Japanese police agencies by squandering money and having affairs with prostitutes. He hopes to track down General Kenji Doihara, the head of Japanese covert operations.

The plan works, but the Japanese act with extreme brutality. Doihara’s agents set up a street ambush, faking a kidnapping for ransom by a local gang. In the ensuing shootout, bullets kill Masyan. Meanwhile, the gangsters kill a Russian woman with whom Adrian had been spending time. The American is arrested and taken directly to Kwantung Army headquarters. General Doihara personally interrogates the captive. The Japanese commander admires the young man’s composure. The American plays hussar roulette with the general without batting an eye. Doihara decides to recruit the talented American into his personal intelligence unit.

The General’s Apprentice

Adrian begins an accelerated training in the intricacies of espionage. His mentor is the famous Chinese spy princess Yoshiko Kawashima. The young man skillfully feigns submissiveness and genuine admiration. Having lulled his mentor’s vigilance with a powerful sedative laced in a drink, Larr discovers the secret code for the general’s safe. That night, Adrian sneaks into Doihara’s office, entering the building through a drainpipe. Having calculated the correct combination based on a Japanese Showa calendar written backwards, he unlocks the steel vault.

In a secret compartment, Adrian finds a folder containing the plan to intercept the Hawaiian Clipper. It turns out that the Japanese had instructed an agent codenamed "Hattori Hanzo" to force the plane into the water near the naval base on Ulithi Atoll. According to the documents, they killed all passengers on board and stole millions. After photographing the documents with a miniature camera, Larr leaves headquarters. He anticipates a triumphant return to New York, hoping to become rich and never work again. Both expeditions have uncovered ironclad evidence of guilt on both sides, leaving the solution to the plane’s disappearance open to the two superpowers.

The end of the flight

A separate short chapter describes the thoughts of Hawaiian Clipper pilot Lev Terletsky. Having fallen into massive gambling debt to the American mafia, the aircraft’s commander planned suicide. While in flight, Kuomintang courier Watson Choi goes mad and shoots almost the entire crew. In the ensuing shootout, passengers and crew kill each other. Left completely alone on the falling plane, Terletsky levels the plane and decides to take the millions for himself. He plans to fake a crash, sink the seaplane off the coast of Hong Kong, and begin a new life of luxury using someone else’s flight attendant documents.

Historical transcript

In the final section of the book, the author reveals the historical background of the plot. The real passenger plane, the "Hawaiian Clipper," did indeed disappear without a trace in the summer of 1938. Its pilot was Lev Terletsky, a former Russian White Army officer who had carried out numerous heroic flights.

All the Cheka leaders mentioned in the text — Mikhail Frinovsky, Gleb Bokii, and the fugitive agent Genrikh Lyushkov — are genuine historical figures. Japanese General Kenji Doihara actually conducted secret sabotage operations in Manchuria and plotted against the USSR. Princess Yoshiko Kawashima also existed in reality and carried out special missions for Japanese military intelligence in divided China. The mystery of the disappearance of the aircraft and three million dollars remains unsolved for historians to this day.