Delivering Caliban (John Purkiss 2)

by Tim Stevens

  ‘Come over to the window.’ Pope didn’t ask if the man was where he’d told him to be; he took that as a given.

  Keeping the phone to his ear, Pope rose and motioned Nina to come with him. She picked up her violin case and followed. Pope drew the drapes, opened the doors and stepped out, pulling her gently along.

  He saw, across the gap that yawned between the buildings, Giordano appear at the window, slightly below him, squinting up against the sun.

  *

  ‘Do you understand what’s happening?’

  Giordano said, ‘I don’t know precisely what you’ve got planned. I believe I can guess.’

  ‘Do you understand why it’s happening?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You kidnapped and forcibly experimented on people.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You killed to protect your secret.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You murdered my father, and her mother.’

  A beat. Then: ‘Yes.’

  Pope reached into his pocket. He said, ‘Can you see what I’m holding?’

  There was another pause. The sun glinted off the window and he could no longer see Giordano.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘It’s another phone. When I press the dial button, it will trigger the charge in a bomb in the basement of the building you’re in. You’re going to die, along with that organisation that sponsored you. You won’t know if Nina is going to die as well. I don’t know that.’

  ‘Why –’

  ‘You gambled with people’s lives, Giordano. Now it’s my turn to gamble. But you’ll never know the outcome.’

  Silence again. Giordano said: ‘May I speak with her?’

  Pope looked down at Nina. She was close enough that she would have heard her father. She nodded. He held the phone to her ear, ducking his head so that it was close.

  She said, ‘D –’ and stopped. Pope thought: she doesn’t know what to call him. Daddy, dad, father. It’s been so long.

  He heard Giordano’s voice, scratchy at a distance. ‘Nina. How are you?’

  For a moment Pope thought she was going to giggle at the banality of it. She opened her lips to speak, closed them again.

  ‘I have no right to say this. No right to give you any advice whatsoever. But you have to be strong. Like you have been, just for a little longer. And remember that I love you.’

  Pope watched her stare across the divide between the two buildings.

  ‘Nina, I don’t expect or deserve to hear you say anything in reply. But perhaps you’ll listen. You need to take a step back and consider all of this. Everything that’s happened. Do you understand? Just take a step back.’

  Pope caught something in the words, something not quite right. He glanced across, saw movement behind the glinting window. Straightening, he took the phone back.

  ‘Giordano.’

  The man didn’t reply.

  Pope heard the echo of his last words.

  Take a step back.

  In the instant it took him to grasp the meaning – it was not a vague piece of advice but a literal warning – Pope felt the rush of air and the blow to his head.

  Forty-Seven

  10.00 am

  A hands-free earpiece would have allowed Berg to guide Purkiss in real time, but on the other hand it would have been a distraction. So he said, simply, ‘I’m going down,’ and rang off.

  The balcony ended in a low wall, reaching up to Purkiss’s knees, which was topped by glass panels surmounted by a horizontal steel rail at chest height. Purkiss stowed the phone in his pocket and gripped the rail and swung himself over. For a heart-stopping moment he was suspended over the chasm below, and although his instinct told him not to look down, he needed something to aim at. Twisting himself so that his front was against the balcony wall, he felt his feet probe the air above the balcony on the floor below.

  By flexing his hips he developed a forward-and-backward swinging motion. On the forward movement he lunged forward with his legs and let go of the railing. He dropped on to the balcony below and for a moment thought he’d misjudged it, that his head was going to hit the railing. But he landed, half on his backside, crouching, jarred by the impact.

  The sky was filled with noise – helicopter rotors, sirens, shouting – and although he’d landed with a thump, he didn’t think it would have been audible on the balcony below. Nonetheless he paused for a few seconds, holding his breath, listening. Distantly he heard a low voice, a man’s. Pope’s? He couldn’t be certain.

  He took out his phone and typed a rapid text message to Berg: I’m on the balcony above Pope now. I’m standing up so you can see me. Is he directly below?

  The reply came back in an instant. A couple of steps to your right.

  It would be harder, this drop. He didn’t have the luxury of dangling his legs over the balcony below and developing the swinging movement to gain the momentum necessary to land him on the right side of the railing. He was going to have to do it in a single action.

  Purkiss closed his eyes, drew a long breath, and vaulted the railing, turning like a gymnast and jacknifing downwards.

  *

  This time the landing was awkward. He felt one flailing foot connect with something yielding – Pope’s head – and the other strike the railing so that his leg was bent backwards. Purkiss flung himself forward and hit the stone floor of the balcony, his outstretched arms absorbing most of the force.

  Pope had reeled back but was already reacting, lashing out with a kick that missed but made Purkiss scramble towards the glass doors, unable yet to regain his footing. The woman, Ramirez, had backed against the railing, hand to her mouth.

  Pope came on fast, lunging at Purkiss and getting a hand across his throat. Purkiss, on his back, rolled and brought his knees up so that Pope arced over his head, the momentum carrying him full-tilt into the glass doors.

  The crash was colossal, the glass showering down, and this time Ramirez screamed. Pope sprawled halfway through the ruined door, momentarily dazed. Purkiss clambered to his feet and groped at his waistband for the Glock, but the impact of the railing against his foot had hurt more than he’d realised and he staggered on that leg.

  Pope was up again and diving for Purkiss, his head butting into Purkiss’s face before Purkiss could bring his hands up. White flashes erupted in Purkiss’s vision and he felt the blood gout from his nose. He stabbed blindly with a half fist and felt Pope’s breath gasp against his ear. Dimly Purkiss realised he’d dropped the Glock, but there was no time to worry about that now. He punched again, and a third time, his fists connecting with the springiness of ribcage. Pope pressed against him the way exhausted prizefighters did. Purkiss got a hand up and aimed a hook at the side of Pope’s head. He felt it glance off solid bone. Pope stumbled backwards towards the shattered door.

  ‘Stop.’

  They faced one another across the breadth of the balcony, a distance of perhaps twenty feet. Pope leant forward, gulping, trying to drag in air. Purkiss clenched his teeth against the nausea he felt, the blurring of his vision.

  The voice had been Ramirez’s.

  Purkiss glanced to the right, even the eye movement sending his head reeling again. She was pressed against the full-length wall separating the balcony from the one next door.

  In her hands, pointed at Purkiss’s chest, she held the Glock.

  *

  ‘Please.’

  Purkiss took the first sideways step towards her, extending his right arm to reduce the gap further.

  Her eyes were white and wide. She lifted the gun jerkily, finding its weight unexpected, as was the case with most people who held a gun for the first time.

  He was fifteen feet from her, Purkiss estimated.

  In front of him Pope was beginning to breathe less raggedly, to straighten up. Purkiss saw his hand move inside his jacket.

  ‘No.’ The woman swung the gun across, again jerkily. Pope stopped moving but kept his hand in his jacket.

 
; ‘Nina,’ he said.

  ‘Take your hand away. Don’t take your gun out.’

  Pope lowered his hand. He said, ‘Nina. Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t speak.’ Her eyes darted from Pope to Purkiss.

  Purkiss edged another step closer. Once more she brought the gun across. Pope’s arm moved and she swung the gun back yet again to cover him.

  ‘Nina.’ Purkiss was closer and could afford to speak more quietly. ‘He’s going to let you die. He’s going to blow up the building opposite and it’s going to collapse. You’ll die, and so will lots of other innocent people. They haven’t finished evacuating yet.’

  ‘You know that’s not true.’ Pope’s voice too was calm. ‘You’ve trusted me. And I’ve shown that I deserve that trust.’

  Ten feet between Purkiss and Ramirez now. The next time Pope goes for his gun, Purkiss thought. That’s when I move.

  ‘Step back,’ she said to Purkiss, the gun still aimed in Pope’s direction.

  ‘Nina –’

  ‘Back.’

  Purkiss watched her lips moving even after she’d said the word. Her eyes flicked up and to the side, as though she was listening.

  ‘Go away,’ she said, glancing to her left.

  ‘Nina,’ said Pope. ‘Shoot him.’

  Pope’s arm moved.

  Purkiss hurled himself at Ramirez, his hand grasping for her wrist.

  She stepped back, brought the gun across to bear on him, and fired.

  Forty-Eight

  ‘She’s confused.’

  The snide man’s voice.

  ‘She doesn’t know why Daddy warned her.’

  The hateful, hateful woman’s.

  ‘Did he want to protect her from the man from above?’

  ‘Or did he want her to get out the way so the man could kill Pope?’

  ‘She doesn’t know if any of them are on her side.’

  ‘She thinks they might all be against her.’

  The gun was cold and huge and heavy in her grip. She needed both hands even to raise it to shoulder height. She’d had to let go of the violin, which was propped against the wall beside her.

  Both men were hurt. Over to the right, Pope was breathing with difficulty. His hair and his face and hands were speckled and streaked with blood from the tiny cuts he’d suffered going through the glass door.

  In front of her along the balcony wall, the other man, the tall one with dark hair – yes, the one from the gas station earlier, who’d tried to take her away – had a broken nose and blood all over his face and front.

  Nina was aware of the men saying things to her, their voices overlapping; and of herself replying, though she didn’t know what her words meant.

  ‘She’s wondering if she should shoot them both.’

  ‘She doesn’t think she can shoot either of them.’

  ‘How could she ever use a gun?’

  ‘She must be mad.’

  Laughter from both.

  ‘Which one will she choose?’

  ‘Pope or the other?’

  ‘The other or Pope?’

  ‘Pope will take her away and free her.’

  ‘The other man’s working for Daddy.’

  ‘She needs to decide.’

  ‘Pope’s going for his gun.’

  ‘The other man’s going for her.’

  The gun roared and bucked in her hands, flinging itself upwards and driving backwards painfully against her palm like a horse being broken in. The shock of the noise and the force from the gun sent her staggering back against the hard stone wall.

  The dark-haired man dropped.

  *

  Later the scene would play itself out again and again in her memory:

  The dark-haired man sprawling prone at her feet.

  Pope coming forward, his own gun emerging from his jacket.

  The dark-haired man grabbing the violin case by her legs and swivelling and bringing it up.

  The flash from Pope’s gun followed by the blast, and the jerking of the violin case.

  The dark-haired man rising to his feet and meeting Pope and swinging the violin down and across and down again, wood splintering and the strings shrieking their agony.

  *

  No, she thought, falling to her knees on the hard surface.

  Forty-Nine

  Purkiss flung the wrecked instrument to one side, the contents of the leather case flopping about like broken bones within an outer skin.

  Pope faced him, clutching his upper arm. Purkiss thought it was probably broken. Pope’s gun lay six feet away where it had spun after the blows from the violin had knocked it free.

  With his good hand Pope reached inside his jacket once more, wincing. He held up a phone.

  ‘Back off.’

  The link to the detonator.

  Purkiss stepped back. Behind him and off to one side, Ramirez crouched, rocking. She’d dropped the Glock.

  Purkiss’s own phone buzzed. Keeping his eyes on Pope, who was backing round and sideways towards the balcony wall, he fished out the handset. Risked a quick glance at it.

  He put it away.

  At the wall, Pope squatted and picked up the phone he’d been holding when Purkiss had dropped on him from above, wielding it awkwardly in the same hand as the other phone. He thumbed it and spoke into it.

  ‘Giordano? It’s time.’

  Pope turned his back on Purkiss for the first time, staring across at the Loomis Building. He held the first phone high and pressed.

  Pressed again.

  He turned back to look at Purkiss. Purkiss shook his head.

  The text from Berg had read: You’re right, it was in the truck. Bomb guys have disabled it. What’s going on up there?

  Pope dropped both phones.

  ‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s finish this.’

  *

  Pope moved with the speed and ferocity of the terminally wounded animal with nothing to lose.

  His right arm was useless so he used his legs, spinning towards Purkiss with a reverse kick that would have broken Purkiss’s neck if he hadn’t been ready for it. Purkiss ducked forward into the blow, blocking the kick with his forearm and wrapping the arm under Pope’s raised leg and running him forward so that he lost his balance and crashed back against the glass panels that formed the top half of the outer balcony wall.

  The panels gave way, slowing Pope’s momentum so that he didn’t pass straight through them but was caught on the edge, slumped across the low wall, half hanging out over the drop below. Purkiss followed him, grabbing his ankles and heaving him further over the rim. Pope’s good hand grappled at the top of the wall and caught it as he swung over.

  Purkiss leaned over the rail. Pope hung by one hand from the wall, his feet scrabbling at the sheer wall below the balcony. The street loomed and spun, nineteen floors below. Police cars were massed there, uniforms pressed against them like barnacles.

  Purkiss looked at Pope’s upturned face. He didn’t register the expression there.

  Instead, he saw the terrified face of the girl, Nina. He saw Nakamura, the FBI man.

  He saw Abby, his friend, whom he’d let down.

  He saw a man last seen on a boat in the Baltic, a man who’d just told him the truth about his fiancée Claire’s death, and life. A man Purkiss had allowed to live, but shouldn’t have.

  Purkiss propped his foot on the wall and ground his boot against Pope’s fingers in a twisting motion.

  Pope released his grip, and dropped in silence.

  *

  ‘We have to go now.’

  He’d given her five minutes. The police would be on their way up and he’d wanted to spare her the chaos of their arrival.

  She’d tried to go over to the rail and look down. Gently but firmly he’d held her back, but when he realised how insistent she was he let her go. There wouldn’t be much to see by now, anyway; the body would have been covered.

  He stood by her at the rail, close but not touching, and repeated
himself: ‘Nina. We need to go.’

  When she again didn’t respond, Purkiss said, ‘Thank you. I know you missed me on purpose.’

  She raised her face to him. Her eyes were bright with wonder.

  ‘When you fired the gun.’ The range had been too close for even an amateur to miss, unless they did so deliberately. The bullet had ricocheted off the wall behind him.

  Still staring at him, she whispered: ‘Why?’

  His phone sounded and he raised a hand, stepped away. It was Berg.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yes. What’s happening?’

  ‘I’ve got Giordano. He came quietly, and it wasn’t the sight of Kendrick that scared him. The son of a bitch was just waiting there for us.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll either get a commendation or go to jail. Maybe both. You coming down?’

  ‘In a moment.’

  ‘I’ve given the cops your description so they don’t shoot you. The girl okay?’

  ‘Yes.’ Physically, anyway. ‘Berg, thanks.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He put the phone away. Nina was still watching him.

  ‘You asked why,’ he said. ‘Why did this happen? Pope let his need for revenge take over his personality. He let it blot out all else, including his humanity.’

  This time he took her by the arm and drew her away. He didn’t look at her face, because he was aware he hadn’t answered her question. That by why, she’d been asking something else.

  Fifty

  London

  Tuesday 28 May, 2.00 pm

  ‘The supreme irony,’ said Vale, ‘is that he’s done us a favour.’

  They were walking the steep slope of Greenwich Park, the Royal Observatory on the skyline ahead. The day was mild, the lunchtime crowds out enjoying the sun.

  It was their final debriefing. The formal meetings had taken place in assorted offices across the capital – none of them Vale’s; Purkiss didn’t know if the man had one – and the paperwork had been taken care of. One last meeting of minds, always outdoors somewhere, and then Purkiss wouldn’t see or hear from Vale until the next operation.