Ratcatcher

by Tim Stevens

  The noise of screaming was suddenly overwhelming because the dogs were upon them.

  The first one slammed into Kendrick’s back like slingshot fired at close quarters, forty kilograms of bone and sinew, knocking him off his feet and keeping its place on his back, its agility terrifying, its jaws snapping and probing for his neck. From his position on the ground at the man’s legs Purkiss groped upwards for the rifle but it was out of reach. It was too late anyway because he felt movement behind him and he kicked out blindly, felt his foot connect with softness underlaid with bone and heard an outraged yelp. He didn’t wait to look back but lunged on his knees for the sharpened branch Kendrick had dropped. He pivoted and jabbed and got the dog in mid-leap, an awkward blow to the chest which struck the ribcage, and although it broke the dog’s momentum it only inflamed it further. The beast darted its head in around the stick and got its paws on Purkiss’s chest. He lost his balance and it was on him and over him, drool spattering his face like hot rancid hail, the whites of its eyes flaring in derangement.

  On the ground a few feet away Kendrick was roaring. The other two dogs had caught up and they lunged for Purkiss’s feet. He thrashed and jerked, not just to try and hit the snapping snouts but also to keep his legs moving as targets. He got the stick in both hands and used it as a bar against the throat of the dog above him, forcing its head up and away from his face. Dimly he heard a series of wet thuds and a prolonged and diminishing screech from out of his line of sight. It gave him a new impetus. Instead of trying to push the dog backwards and away from him, he rolled back on to his shoulders, carrying the animal over him and pushing hard with the stick when the dog had passed the point of no return, so that it toppled off him. Before he could rise, one of the others sprang to take its place. This time he was ready with the stick. He rammed it straight into the dog’s snarl, the animal’s momentum driving it on to the pointed end so that the back of its throat was impaled. It thrashed away, wrenching the stick from Purkiss’s grasp, and stumbled, choking, pawing at the fragment jutting from its maw.

  The blast was shocking, jolting Purkiss almost to his knees again. It set off a high tinnital whine in his ears which was flooded out by a second explosion, a third. He peered about, disorientated, saw the fanned-out group of men yelling and charging across the field, the huddled and ungainly piles of dog pockmarking the ground around him.

  In his ear Kendrick’s shout sounded distant in the aftermath of the shots. ‘Let’s go.’

  Purkiss blinked, looked round. Kendrick’s left leg was black with blood below the knee, the trouser cuff shredded. The sleeves of his bomber jacket too were ripped, though his arms looked relatively unscathed. The collar of the jacket appeared to have protected his neck. The gun was an assault rifle, Purkiss saw, a Russian AK-74. Near Kendrick’s feet was the bloodied club he’d used to despatch the dog, which itself lay several feet away, its head almost flattened.

  They sprinted back into the copse, Kendrick lurching, his injured leg dragging him back. When Purkiss showed signs of slowing Kendrick yelled, ‘Run, you idiot.’ Through the trees loomed the shape of the other man with the rifle, approaching from the opposite side, weapon raised. The clattering began an instant after Purkiss saw him, the man’s rifle switched to fully automatic fire rather than single-shot mode, and around them gouges and chocks were blasted out of the trunks and a shower of splinters erupted. Kendrick paused behind a tree, stepped out and quickly raised the rifle. He loosed off a burst of three shots. The man bellowed and dropped.

  Purkiss reached the wall and his hands slapped against its hard smooth surface at the very moment the approaching group of men opened fire from the other side of the trees. The rain of gunfire smashed and chopped through the trees, making the whole copse shake and hiss like a single animate being. Ricochets whined off into the night like tiny fireworks. Purkiss jerked his head away as a stray shot sizzled past his face and chinked off the wall, sending slivers of stone across his cheek. He looked back and Kendrick crouched, waiting, the rifle in his hands. When two men appeared round the side of the copse he opened fire, fully automatic now, the impact flinging the men backwards and into one another. Another man had appeared round the other side and the man got a burst off which came close, so close, causing Purkiss to drop flat to the piney carpet at the foot of the wall. Kendrick threw himself flat on to his belly and fired from the ground. The man danced away in a grotesque pirouette and fell.

  With a short run Purkiss leaped up and gripped the top of the wall and hauled his torso over the edge. He folded himself belly-down so that his legs were hanging over the outside and reached down to grab Kendrick’s hand. Kendrick passed up the AK-74 and Purkiss took it. With one hand he pulled on Kendrick’s, while with the other he pointed the rifle, all eight-plus pounds of it. Just as Kendrick was at the top of the wall and able to support himself another two men appeared round the trees, firing in mid-run. Purkiss squeezed the trigger, the recoil almost too much for him to control in a single-hand grip. The bursts went wild, over the men’s heads and into the trees, but it was enough to make them drop back. Purkiss flung the gun down to Kendrick who was already on the other side. He dropped down himself.

  They ran, plunging into the mouth of the forest, lashed by branches and grabbed at by roots and cannoning here and there off trunks but not caring. They ignored the pain, oblivious to everything but the need to get away from the noises behind them, the shouts of the remaining men as they mounted the wall and gathered in pursuit.

  *

  Venedikt dragged a sleeve across his forehead, the sweat stinging in his eyes. From his right a man sobbed, one of the few hit who was alive. Another, more terrible sound, a low primeval howling, rose from further away, breaking off sharply as a shot came. One of the dogs, hanging on despite everything.

  The air was hazed with the stench of blood and ordure and the muzzle gases from the weapons. In front of Venedikt the last two men clambered up the wall. Six of them. In a straight firefight it would have been enough. Now, in pursuit of two men through terrain in which agility and the ability to hide were important, they no longer had the upper hand.

  He forced down the rage and thought quickly. Dobrynin was heading towards him at a lope, pushing his own gun into his belt with his undamaged hand.

  ‘We have lost four, Venedikt Vasilyevich.’

  Venedikt listened to the dwindling clamour in the forest.

  Dobrynin said, ‘I await your instructions.’

  Venedikt drew a deep breath. ‘Start the move.’

  *

  Kendrick staggered against a trunk and slid down, his face waxen. Without speaking he waved Purkiss onwards. Purkiss strained to see back through the trees. There had been no human sound other than their own for – how long? Ten minutes? – and it might be safe to stop. In the sudden relative quiet now that their boots were no longer churning the forest floor he had the impression of another sound, ahead of them. He took a few steps more and saw it, below them and a hundred yards ahead. A road, with a solitary car sweeping by.

  ‘No.’ He grabbed Kendrick beneath the arm, hauling him to his feet. Purkiss had already taken the rifle and strapped it across his own back. He’d noticed an extra magazine clip in Kendrick’s belt, and assumed he’d had the presence of mind to take it off the man along with the rifle. ‘A bit further.’ He hoisted Kendrick’s arm across his shoulders.

  More slowly now, their momentum broken, they scrambled across the sloping terrain down towards the road, a narrow single-lane curve of tarmac that disappeared into blackness at each end. The evenness of the road surface was jarring at first and Purkiss almost lost his footing. On the other side they disappeared again into the trees. Purkiss took them another fifty yards till he found a ditch. He said, ‘All right.’

  Kendrick sank so that he was half-supine. Purkiss sat on a rock, rested his forearms on his knees. Getting to the other side of the road had been of tactical importance. If their pursuers made it this far, they might assume the two of
them had followed the road in one or other direction.

  Kendrick winced himself into a position where he could inspect his leg. Oozing puncture marks were visible in the calves and shin, and a couple of ragged holes had been torn from the muscle. No arterial damage was apparent, though Purkiss knew they wouldn’t have made it this far if there had been.

  ‘‘King dogs,’ Kendrick managed through dry lips. ‘I normally like them.’

  Purkiss checked his phone. No signal.

  ‘How do you think they got on to us?’ said Kendrick. ‘Reckon they saw us come over the wall?’

  ‘They might have. But we couldn’t see the men patrolling the wall, which suggests they were too far away to have spotted us.’ Purkiss stood unsteadily and walked up the slope a few paces. The display showed a single bar: a weak signal. Before he could dial, Abby’s number came up as a missed call, fifteen minutes earlier. There was no message.

  Again he was about to key in her number when the phone rang. Once more it was Abby’s number.

  ‘Abby?’

  Silence for a moment, then, ‘John.’

  A man’s voice. Low, muted. Unmistakeable.

  ‘Fallon?’

  ‘I have your friend.’

  The connection was poor, and occasionally a consonant was lost; but there was no doubting the voice, with its trace of Irish.

  ‘Don’t go to the police, John, or the Service, or anyone else. If you do, I’ll kill her.’

  ‘Fallon, damn you –’

  He was gripping the phone so tightly it almost sprang from his sweaty fingers. There was a band around his throat, choking off not only his words but his breathing as well.

  ‘Remember, John. No outside involvement.’

  ‘Listen –’

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  Purkiss dropped the phone. He clenched his fists and raised his face to the canopy of trees and the night sky beyond. The choking feeling left him.

  It was completely unprofessional because the danger of being hunted down was still present, but through clamped teeth he roared, a long deep primal sound that bounced off the depths of the forest and sent small things skittering in fear.

  Twenty-Three

  It was a setback, nothing more. All thoughts of trying to get some sleep gone, Venedikt stood motionless, watching his men at work. The doors were hauled open and the preparations began for the transfer.

  Rather than fury he felt a quiet pride in his foresight. There had always been a possibility that the farm would be discovered, and to fail in the mission at this late hour because of having failed to anticipate this possibility would have been a shame too enormous for him to bear. An hour’s swift work, and it would be as if nothing had happened.

  He could, Venedikt supposed as he stepped aside to give more room to two of his people who were running at a stoop and laying the charges, have committed more men to the pursuit of Purkiss and his colleague. To his mind that would have been irresponsible, would have left the rest of the farm dangerously underprotected. In any case, a larger group wouldn’t necessarily have managed to hunt Purkiss down.

  Venedikt’s phone rang.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve warned Purkiss off. You don’t need to relocate.’

  ‘Warned him.’

  ‘I have his friend. The contact he had here in the city. I’ve told him she’ll die if he alerts the authorities.’

  Venedikt watched a truck reverse into position and wheeze to a standstill. Two men came running to drag the rear doors wide. ‘It’s not enough.’

  ‘He cares for this woman. He won’t do anything to jeopardize her safety. I know him.’

  ‘But we’re still exposed here. He might come back.’

  ‘If he comes back you’ll be ready for him. And the woman dies.’

  ‘It’s my decision to make.’

  ‘I know it is. And if you choose the upheaval of relocation, it’s more of a problem for you than for me. But it is my problem too, because it increases the risk of something going wrong with the operation, of your being discovered along the way.’

  Venedikt sucked hard on his teeth. He hated to change his mind once he’d made it up, especially at the urging of another whom he did not respect. Especially when that person was an English. But the possibility that they were still secure, could proceed as planned without the disruption of changing bases... it was attractive.

  He said, ‘I’ll stay put for the time being.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Any change in circumstances, any hint you get that Purkiss is alerting anybody else, you let me know immediately.’

  There was no reply. Venedikt thought that showed contempt.

  He stepped forward, raised his hand, and gave the orders. One or two of the men glanced at him but they were all finely trained, obeyed without question. He went to look for Dobrynin who was supervising the wiring of the farmhouse. The charges, the detonators, would remain in place, just in case circumstances changed.

  *

  After an age they were surprised by another road. Again they crossed it, its surface slick with the drizzle that was beginning now that the cloud cover had ceased its drifting. The compass on Purkiss’s phone told him they were heading east-south-east, but they were still far from anywhere that looked familiar. Soon they would have to leave the cover of the forest and chance the road.

  Beside him Kendrick kept pace, hobbling slightly, his leg bound with strips torn from his shirtsleeves. His mouth moved, bitten-off mutters barely audible over the tramp of their feet.

  There had been no telephone signal now for half an hour. Purkiss checked the display periodically. The time was just after eleven p.m. Nine hours until the summit, and he didn’t care.

  He had let Abby down.

  Guilt was a phenomenon – not a feeling, that was too slight, too ephemeral a word – with which he was familiar. In the weeks and the months after Claire’s death it had lived with him constantly, on the good days a weight pressing down on his head and driving him into the ground, on the bad an internal parasite clawing and sucking the innards of his chest and his abdomen into a compact ball. Now it was a slash from a scalpel blade, so pure and shocking that it was cold rather than painful.

  When he’d told Kendrick, the first thing Kendrick said was, ‘Shit. Jesus,’ and the second was, ‘How?’

  Purkiss knew the answer. The memory stick in Seppo’s flat, the one he’d conveniently been allowed to find, the one with the password that even Abby couldn’t crack – there it was, you idiot, the giveaway – hadn’t been a memory stick at all, but a tracking device. Fallon had been on to Abby and her whereabouts from the moment Purkiss had given her the stick.

  They got moving at once after that, Kendrick binding his own wounds with concentrated grimness, Purkiss pacing about helplessly, understanding how caged animals felt. Kendrick didn’t say it’s not your fault or anything like it. It wasn’t his style. When they were ready to set off he hefted the rifle – he’d insisted on taking it back from Purkiss – and said, very low and very precisely: ‘I tell you what, Purkiss. If you see this Fallon, you better kill him quickly. Because if I get my hands on him first, he’s mine.’

  They used their goggles in the deeper parts of the forest now that there was no moonlight, and saw a startlingly wide variety of cowering and scampering shapes. As they walked Purkiss cast his mind back to his movements after he’d found the memory stick. Had he inadvertently revealed the location of anyone or anywhere else significant? He didn’t think so. Fallon would have tracked him to the nightclub, and perhaps that explained why Lyuba Ilkun had been able to summon her colleagues so quickly after he’d talked to her. They had already known he was there.

  It still didn’t hang together. The surprise the man at Rodina Security, Dobrynin, had shown at the mention of Fallon’s background in the Service, as well as his involvement in the events planned for the following day, suggested Fallon wasn’t working with Kuznetsov’s group. But presumably Fallon had alerted
the group to Purkiss and Kendrick’s presence on the farm after he’d grabbed Abby, and had either forced her to tell him where they were – he doubted it, it wasn’t the sort of thing Abby would do unless under extreme duress, something he didn’t want to think about – or, more likely, had seen the farm displayed on Google Earth on her computer and had put two and two together. Which suggested that he was in some way helping Kuznetsov. And where did the traitor among the three British agents come in? Was he – or, conceiveably, she – working with Fallon, as well as with Kuznetsov?

  Damn it, they needed to get back to the city, and they were making maddeningly slow progress. Purkiss began heading up a slope towards the road again. Kendrick said, ‘We hitchhiking?’

  ‘If need be.’

  ‘Going to be difficult.’

  Purkiss half turned and looked at Kendrick, at his bloodied legs and lank hair and stubble. Most of all at the rifle.

  ‘You reckon?’

  Hitchhiking wasn’t in fact an option – with the gun it would be more like hijacking – but Purkiss wanted to get to the exposed higher ground of the road because he was more likely to get a phone signal there. After a few seconds he was rewarded with one bar’s worth. He checked the map facility, got the name of the road they were on and that of another one branching off half a kilometre ahead.

  ‘Klavan.’ She answered before the first ring had finished.

  ‘It’s me, Purkiss.’

  ‘John –’

  ‘I’m in the middle of nowhere, out in the forest to the east of the city. Things are blowing up a bit. Fallon’s been in contact with me.’ At his side he sensed Kendrick’s warning growl. He held up a hand. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Driving the routes the presidents are going to be taking tomorrow, trying again to work out where an attack might come from. There’s not much more we can do. For God’s sake, John, where did you run off to? What have you discovered?’