Nemesis

by Tim Stevens

A ground fog blurred the road ahead into opaque greyness, causing the automatic headlights of the Mercedes to flick on. The tarmac was cracked and potholed, testing the car’s suspension.

  Purkiss watched Asher’s impassive profile.

  He said, ‘So what’s your story, Asher?’

  The corner of the man’s mouth twitched in something approximating a smile. ‘I suspect you’ve already brought yourself up to speed.’

  ‘I mean, what do you get out of this? Your work for the Service.’

  Everybody who stayed with SIS for more than a few years was driven, in some manner. Plenty of people signed up each year, seduced by the James Bond notion of a life of intrigue and glamour. But those who stayed the course usually did so because they were working off some neurosis or other. They were either chasing some distant goal, or running away from a demon of some kind.

  Asher seemed taken aback by the question. ‘I’m good at what I do. I discovered that along the way. That’s what’s kept me going.’

  Purkiss understood that. He thought it probably applied to a lot of people, in various fields of endeavour. You drifted into a random career, and it ended up teaching you things about yourself you’d never considered before.

  ‘What was your entry point?’ Purkiss asked. He meant: how were you recruited?

  ‘I saw an ad.’ There was a shrug in Asher’s tone. ‘It was late 2002, in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. MI6 was actively touting for staff. I guess you could say I wandered in off the sidewalk.’

  The car’s engine was well-tuned, almost silent. The wheels hissed on the road surface.

  Purkiss listened, hard. Because there’d been two things of note there.

  No; three.

  He replayed the man’s words in his head, before time could distort the memory.

  Watching Asher, he said, ‘Have you ever thought about jumping ship? To Big Sister?’

  Big Sister was slang for MI5, or the Security Service. It was better funded and employed more personnel than SIS, the foreign intelligence service, hence the nickname.

  ‘No.’

  There’d been a pause there.

  A hesitation which had been driven not by consideration, but by incomprehension.

  Purkiss said, ‘You live in the States at all? Work there?’

  ‘You’ve read my dossier.’ Asher sounded exasperated. ‘You know I haven’t.’

  The road ahead curved gently to the left, around a rocky crag. No oncoming headlights broke the gloom. No lamps revealed themselves in Purkiss’s wing mirror.

  He shouted: ‘There. There,’ and jabbed a finger diagonally, aiming through the windscreen at a point slightly to Asher’s right.

  Asher turned his head instinctively, away from Purkiss.

  Purkiss lunged, jabbing the stiffened fingers of his right hand at the man’s throat, just below the jawline, targeting the carotid artery. At the same time he twisted his torso and brought his left arm across his body and gripped the steering wheel, steadying it.

  Asher reacted, quickly, but not quickly enough, bringing up his left shoulder too late to offset the force of Purkiss’s strike. His head jerked sideways and Purkiss felt the steering wheel nearly torn from his grasp.

  The car veered rightwards, the wheels scrabbling on the gravel which bordered the grassy verge alongside the road. The verge ended after a few feet in a low stone wall. Purkiss hauled the wheel anti-clockwise just in time to pull the front bumper away from the wall, the gravel spraying against the solidly piled stones.

  The Mercedes stalled with a jolt, the momentum snapping Purkiss’s chest hard against the safety belt. He’d already extended his legs into the footwell to steady himself.

  He wrenched the handbrake up and released Asher’s seatbelt and then his own and leaned into the man, ready to deal with a bluff. But Asher slumped against the door, his face pallid, his eyes half closed.

  Purkiss leant across him and opened the door and heaved him out onto the verge.

  *

  Beyond the wall, the ground dropped at a sixty-degree angle into the mist.

  The slope was scrubby and pocked with rock outcroppings. It wasn’t quite a ravine, Purkiss reckoned, but when he tossed a pebble into the murk he heard the clicks of its progress becoming ever more faint.

  He lowered Asher backwards over the wall so that his waist was balanced on the top. The centre of gravity was just far enough beyond the wall that if the man struggled, or tried a manoeuvre with his legs, he’d tip himself all the way over.

  Before dragging him the few feet to the wall, Purkiss had searched him. There’d been a tiny .22 pistol, flat as a saucer, strapped to Asher’s right ankle beneath his sock. Purkiss pocketed it.

  He leaned across Asher’s waist, pinning him to the top of the wall, and reached down and knuckled his breastbone hard.

  The arms flailed, vaguely at first, then in a more focused effort to push away whatever was causing the pain in the front of his chest. Purkiss saw the head lift, the reddened, vein-engorged face try to bend towards him.

  ‘A fifty-foot drop,’ Purkiss said. ‘At least. Plenty of rocks on the way down. If you don’t break your neck, you’ll almost certainly break one or more limbs. And you’ll be stuck down there, until I make my way down and find you.’

  The eyes peered wildly up at him, the features grotesquely distorted by gravity. The man’s tie flopped over his mouth and he spat it away.

  ‘You’re not SIS,’ Purkiss continued. ‘Nobody in the Service for twelve years refers to it as MI6. You had no idea what I meant by Big Sister. And you’re not even British. Your accent’s first-rate, but your idiom is off. You said sidewalk. And I guess. You’re American.’

  He felt the torso writhe beneath him. He eased off, allowing the squirming movements to tip the body a few millimetres further over the edge.

  ‘Not a good idea,’ Purkiss said. ‘You need to be clear on this, Asher. If you try to bluff, or stonewall me, I will let you fall. I want Rossiter. Want to find him more than anything else I’ve wanted in a long time. I need to find him quickly. I haven’t time to mess about.’

  Gravity had pulled Asher’s upper lip back in a snarl. His eyes rolled, seeking the sky, the wall, Purkiss’s own face.

  ‘I’ll fabricate a car crash,’ said Purkiss. ‘You were killed. I was injured. It’s foggy up here. Nobody will ever be able to prove anything different. You’ve read about me. You know far more about me than I’ll ever know bout you. You know what lengths I’m reputed to go to. So - and I’ll ask this just once - who are you?’

  The exposed teeth clamped together, and Purkiss thought the man was going to swear at him, or plead with him, or both.

  Asher hissed: ‘I’m CIA.’

  Eight

  Asher stared straight though the windscreen. His jaw worked intermittently, as though he was tasting something. Purkiss had noticed the thin smear of blood at one corner of his mouth, and thought the man had bitten his tongue at some point.

  He hadn’t soiled himself. That was to his credit.

  Purkiss sat back against the passenger door, facing Asher. He didn’t think the man would risk a sudden move.

  A solitary lorry had rumbled past, a couple of minutes earlier. It had slowed for the briefest instant before its driver seemed to decide that the Mercedes didn’t look like it had crashed, or broken down.

  Other than that, they were alone.

  ‘The Company is involved because of the missing physicist,’ Asher said. ‘Mossberg.’

  He hadn’t abandoned the accent entirely, but it had slipped a little, so that the American rhotic Rs were evident, the vowels a little longer than before. His tone was matter-of-fact, without a trace of humiliation.

  That was another point in his favour.

  Purkiss waited.

  ‘The exchange, Rossiter for Mossberg, was brokered by Washington,’ said Asher. ‘Your Prime Minister made the final decision, of course. But he did so after consultation with the President. And the President persuaded
him that Mossberg was of high enough value to both of us, the US and Great Britain, that it was worth losing Rossiter in return.’

  When he said no more, Purkiss asked, ‘What’s so important about Mossberg?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that,’ said Asher.

  Purkiss sighed inwardly.

  Asher turned his head to look at Purkiss.

  ‘No. I mean, I genuinely can’t. Because I don’t know.’

  Purkiss watched his eyes. Looked for tell-tale signs in the rest of the face, a twitch or a tightening. Saw no minor movements of the hands indicating a suppressed attempt to cover up the mouth after a lie.

  He thought Asher was telling the truth.

  ‘The Company persuaded MI6 to let them in on this investigation,’ Asher continued. ‘Hence my presence here. Waring-Jones assumed you’d be suspicious if you knew I was CIA, so a legend was quickly created for me that established me as an MI6 operative. I guess it wasn’t convincing enough.’

  ‘The legend was fine,’ said Purkiss. ‘As I said, it was your use of idiom that tipped me off.’

  For the first time he saw a reaction, a minute narrowing of the eyes. He recognised the clench of shame in Asher’s face.

  ‘So what now?’ said Asher.

  Purkiss nodded through the windscreen. ‘Get going.’

  Asher looked at him.

  ‘To the site of the exchange,’ said Purkiss. ‘We’re here now. We may as well finish what we came here to do.’

  *

  The road, the rocky slopes and scatters of woodland, became ever more desolate as they progressed.

  After a full five minutes of silence, Purkiss said, ‘What’s your take on Mossberg? Why’s he so valuable?’

  ‘I told you. I don’t know.’

  ‘I didn’t ask if you knew. I want your opinion.’

  Asher drew deeply though his nose, seeming to relax a little. ‘The obvious answer is that he’s a professor of physics. He’ll have knowledge of Moscow’s nuclear facilities and programmes.’

  ‘Doesn’t make sense,’ Purkiss said. ‘The Russians wouldn’t hand him over if he had any really useful information for us.’

  ‘Right.’ Asher paused. ‘You know anything about Mossberg’s background?’

  ‘No. Waring-Jones didn’t see fit to tell me.’

  ‘Mossberg was serving a fifteen-year prison sentence in Moscow for falsifying scientific data. He fiddled the results of a research study he was conducting into reactor safety standards. His conclusions were that many Russian nuclear reactors were at an unacceptably high risk of melting down. It turned out his research had proven no such thing. He was being overly cautious.’

  ‘Scientific fraud isn’t a criminal offence,’ Purkiss said. ‘Even in Russia.’

  ‘But his findings caused Moscow to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrading their reactors,’ said Asher. ‘When they discovered the money had been wasted, the Russians prosecuted Mossberg for defrauding the public purse. Something like that.’

  Purkiss took a few moments to absorb it.

  ‘And you know all this how?’ he said.

  Asher had regained some of his confidence. ‘The Kremlin assumed at first that Mossberg was a CIA plant. He’d travelled to the US many times, and he had contacts in the scientific community over there. How exactly he’d pose a threat to Russian security by improving their nuclear safety standards is hard to work out. But if they hadn’t picked up his fraud before completing the upgrades of the reactors, the cost would have run to billions of dollars. So I guess Moscow viewed Mossberg as a possible economic saboteur. Anyhow. The Kremlin accused Washington of being behind Mossberg’s fraud. Washington denied it, of course. There was no evidence to link Mossberg to either the CIA or MI6, and in the end the Russians had to just drop it. But they jailed Mossberg for fifteen years. He was three years into his sentence when the exchange was proposed.’

  ‘Who proposed it?’ said Purkiss.

  ‘We did. Washington. And, like I say, we persuaded your government to hand over Rossiter in return.’

  Purkiss ran through it in his mind, trying to establish if it added up. ‘Perhaps Mossberg really was CIA. And this is a way of bringing him back.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Asher. ‘It’s a possibility. It’ll certainly convince the Russians that they were right all along. Why else would we be so eager to get our hands on a disgraced former academic who’s rotting in a Moscow cell?’

  ‘But you don’t believe that.’

  Asher tilted his head. ‘Even if Mossberg was one of our assets, it still doesn’t explain why we’d be willing to sacrifice somebody like Rossiter to get the guy back.’

  Purkiss looked out the window, at the thickening layers of pine forest. ‘Unless Mossberg knows something the Russians don’t know he knows,’ he said. ‘Unless there’s some crucial piece of intelligence we need to get hold of, and the Russians are unaware he has it.’

  ‘That’s my thinking,’ Asher said. ‘It’s plausible, at least.’

  *

  The security cordon around the site was as tight as if a live bomb had been discovered there and not yet disarmed. As soon as the Mercedes came within half a mile of the area, a line of military personnel appeared as if from nowhere, melting out of the trees, and halted the car.

  Credentials presented and approved, Purkiss and Asher were escorted the rest of the way until they were directed to pull over near a rough gravel track. A small army of forensic technicians swarmed over some kind of clearing at the end.

  Stepping carefully so as not to interrupt the forensics people, the two men picked their way across the ground.

  Asher said, ‘The backup team came from that direction. South-west.’ He indicated a ridge to the north. ‘The helicopter must have come that way. And there are tracks, apparently, on the ground from due south. The land attack consisted of men on foot. They probably arrived by sea and landed somewhere along the Forth, then headed inland.

  The ground of the clearing was stained erratically with mulberry-dark blotches. Purkiss recognised the chips and gouges in the rocks as caused by bullets.

  The bodies had all been removed.

  Purkiss closed his eyes. Tried to picture it. Rossiter, standing somewhere here, hooded and shackled. The meeting between the two parties. Perhaps a handshake.

  Then: the sudden onslaught, carried out efficiently and mercilessly.

  He said, ‘Rossiter’s people not only knew about the exchange, but knew precisely where it was taking place.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Asher said. ‘A leak somewhere.’ There was a trace of contempt in his voice. Purkiss wondered if he was expressing disdain at the British security measures.

  ‘Probably,’ said Purkiss. ‘But not necessarily where you think.’

  Asher’s brow creased. ‘Come again?’

  ‘I mean, there may have been another way they identified the site of the exchange.’

  He stepped away from Asher, far enough that he could be certain he was out of earshot. From the corner of his eye he saw the man watching him.

  Purkiss took out his phone.

  When Vale answered, he said, ‘Quentin. I need you to find out when and where Rossiter had that bug implanted in his arm. Which staff were present.’

  After a moment, Vale said, ‘Ah. Yes, I see. I’ll see what I can dig up.’

  ‘Also,’ Purkiss said, before Vale could hang up. ‘Asher’s not one of us. He’s CIA.’

  He explained tersely. When he had finished, Vale took a moment to reply.

  ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘Keep it to yourself for now, all right?’ Purkiss sensed that Asher had taken a step or two closer. ‘I haven’t decided yet whether to confront Waring-Jones or not.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  Purkiss put away his phone. He walked back to Asher, said: ‘Housekeeping.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  They prowled around the site for half an hour, but Purkiss felt the frustration building. He hadn’t expected to
spot any clue that the forensics team might have missed, but he’d been hoping for... something. Some flash of insight. Some intuitive hunch.

  He felt nothing.

  On the walk back to the Mercedes, Asher said, ‘So what are you going to do about me? Complain to Waring-Jones?’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

  Asher turned and gazed back at the ridge, as if he expected the helicopter to make a reappearance. ‘You know, I could still be of use to you. I could use the Company’s resources to help.’

  They’d been driving for ten minutes when Purkiss said, ‘You can stay on board.’

  ‘Good.’ After a pause: ‘May I ask what made you decide that?’

  ‘Because the CIA are going to want to stay involved in the circumstances, regardless of whether or not you’re removed from the case,’ said Purkiss. ‘At least you’re the devil I know. Otherwise, they’ll forever be sending new people into the field, getting in my way.’

  ‘I like your thinking,’ said Asher.

  Nine

  The junior FSB officer saw the flicker of light on the monitor an instant before the faint, insistent tone started its pinging.

  He wheeled his chair over and hit the key to freeze the image on the screen.

  He was twenty-five years old, and was one of a group of neophytes in the service known not-altogether-affectionately as the kindergarteners. His ambition was to reach sufficient seniority that he’d be posted to one of the country’s foreign embassies, in Western Europe preferably, where the lifestyle appealed to him. But for now, he was assigned to shift work, monitoring the banks of international surveillance channels which were active twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

  It was work of the most mind-numbing tedium. Which was why it was considered essential training.

  And, every once in a while, something truly significant came up.

  The particular monitors he was in charge of showed a streaming feed from the airport surveillance cameras in London, England. There were a lot of them, not only in the major ports of Heathrow and Gatwick, but also in the capital’s lesser points of airborne entry and exit. That was why there were no fewer than ten personnel, all kindergarteners like him, manning the screens.