Cronos Rising

by Tim Stevens

  He reached forward, his hand looming into the foreground, and the clip ended abruptly.

  Deacon turned her head to look at Purkiss.

  ‘Again,’ he said, and clicked the play icon.

  Ten

  She drove at moderate speed along the autobahn, heading west towards Bonn. After Purkiss had watched the clip a second time, he’d closed the laptop and said: ‘Get us out of here.’

  ‘Where, in particular?’ she’d said. Purkiss understood that the dynamic between them had shifted. Until now, she’d been in charge. But she seemed to have tacitly accepted that he was to take the lead now.

  ‘What’s the nearest major airport?’ he said, half to himself. ‘Excluding Frankfurt.’

  ‘Cologne and Bonn. About ninety miles from here.’

  Purkiss nodded.

  They rode in silence to begin with, Purkiss running over Vale’s clip in his head. Deacon left it a few minutes before she said: ‘Do you need medical attention?’

  ‘No. I’m fine.’

  He couldn’t risk going to a hospital, and the delays it would entail. The cramps in his belly were intermittent now, and his head was clearer. He glanced across at her.

  ‘Thanks, by the way. For earlier.’

  She shrugged, unsmiling. ‘My job.’

  Ninety miles to the airport gave Purkiss an hour to collect his thoughts, ask the questions he needed, formulate a strategy. It was difficult to know where to begin.

  ‘What do you know about all this?’ he said.

  ‘No more than you do. Less, probably.’

  ‘Vale said your handler is Gareth Myles.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said.

  ‘And he’s Service.’

  ‘Yes. He’s mentioned Quentin Vale a few times in the past. Says he has an unusual relationship with the mainstream Service. That he’s an outsider of sorts. Which presumably makes you one, as well.’

  ‘Never presume,’ said Purkiss.

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Myles sent me a text message yesterday afternoon, instructing me to collect a passport and a flash drive with that video, and then find you in Rome. He gave no indication why you were in danger, or who exactly it is that’s trying to kill you, other than to suggest that it’s the same people who brought down Vale on the airliner.’

  ‘You’re in contact with him?’

  ‘He contacts me. I have no way of getting in touch with him in between. If I reply with a text message it doesn’t get delivered.’

  ‘Seems like an odd way to work,’ said Purkiss.

  She shrugged again. ‘It’s for security reasons, I suppose. It protects Myles.’

  But leaves you out in the cold, Purkiss thought.

  He said: ‘What do I call you?’

  ‘Rebecca’s fine.’

  ‘I’m John.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You’ve got funds on you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because I’m without any for the time being.’ The pickpocket at the airport wouldn’t have found anything of interest in the wallet. His purpose in stealing it hadn’t been the usual, financial one, and the only form of identification in the pockets – Purkiss’s driving licence – listed a fake home address. They already knew who he was, clearly.

  ‘No problem.’ She peeled onto an offshoot of the autobahn towards Bonn and Cologne. ‘Where are we going?’

  Instead of answering, Purkiss began to summarise out loud. ‘Vale learns he’s in danger, and records that clip. He sends me to Rome to get me out the way. A few days later he boards the flight to Turkey. Possibly intending to find this Saul Gideon in the Aegean. The opposition destroy the plane and kill him.’

  He paused. Looked across at Rebecca.

  She said nothing.

  Purkiss said, ‘Just to clear up any misunderstanding: I know your role is to protect me. But I’d prefer it if you weren’t just a bodyguard. I need your input on this. Your ideas.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Something close to a smile played about her lips.

  ‘So. What’s wrong with that picture I’ve just described?’

  ‘The way they killed Vale,’ she said immediately. ‘It’s too elaborate. Too excessive. Bringing down an entire flight, disguising it as an ideologically motivated terrorist attack, just to get one person.’

  ‘Right,’ said Purkiss. ‘Which suggests two possibilities. Either, it wasn’t just Vale they were after. There might have been other targets on the flight. Or, the opposition wanted to conceal the fact that they were targeting Vale.’

  ‘Why?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps they wanted to avoid warning off other, future targets.’

  ‘Like yourself.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  He tried to recapture his train of thought. ‘So they’ve destroyed the plane, and taken out Vale. Next, they turn their attention to me. They either follow me to Frankfurt – unlikely, because why would they wait until I got there before making a move on me? – or they assume, correctly, that I’ll head for the airport to try to find out what happened, and they wait for me there. Just as you did.’

  Rebecca said, ‘Do you have any idea who the opposition are? Why they might want you and Vale dead?’

  ‘No.’ Purkiss thought back over the missions he’d conducted at Vale’s behest. There were so many potential grudges outstanding. So many possibilities.

  ‘So what’s our next move?’ said Rebecca.

  ‘We have two options. Either, we try to draw them out. Take one of them into custody and interrogate him. But that’s too risky. I’d have to expose myself somehow, and next time they’d likely do the job properly.’ Purkiss paused. ‘No. We have to do what Vale asked. Find this Saul Gideon.’

  ‘If they knew enough about Vale to anticipate his travel plans, they might be expecting you to do just that,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ Purkiss acknowledged. ‘But it’s the only other way.’

  ‘We fly to Athens, then,’ Rebecca said. ‘The Cyclades are adjacent.’

  ‘Not yet.’ Purkiss had been thinking about it ever since they’d set off in the car, and he’d made his decision. ‘First. We’re going back to London.’

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘Why?’

  ‘To collect some extra manpower.’

  Eleven

  By ten thirty in the morning on Wednesday, 29th October, the Ferryman had been in Ankara almost twelve hours, and the frustration was gnawing at him.

  He was a patient man by nature – his work demanded it – but he was aware that with every hour that passed without the target’s location being identified, the likelihood increased of the target’s escaping. The Ferryman had holed up after his arrival in a soulless chain hotel near the airport, but his sleep had been light, and several times he’d opened his eyes and checked his cell phone to see if a message had arrived.

  At eleven p.m. on Monday, confirmation had come through that the target was in Ankara. By that time, the plan to bring down flight TA15 was already in place. It could, the Ferryman supposed, have been cancelled at the last minute. Instead, Vale could have been permitted to arrive safely in Istanbul, and then tailed to the target’s address in Ankara, where it now seemed he had been heading. Two birds could have been killed with the proverbial single stone.

  But there was much that might have gone wrong. Vale was a seasoned professional. He might have evaded surveillance, and they might have lost him forever. Besides, there was an elegance to the TA15 plan, which the Ferryman had devised and set up on his own. It would have rankled to see such an innovative idea scrapped at such a late stage.

  Upon learning that the target was in Turkey’s second city, the Ferryman had immediately booked a flight to Ankara from Hamburg. He’d driven straight to Hamburg from Frankfurt, after his work at the airport there was done, and by the time he boarded the Ankara-bound flight the news media were ablaze with details of the atrocity.

  Now, as he had done since last night, the Ferryman awaited the message that wo
uld furnish with him with the exact address of the new target.

  He’d already procured the weapon, a South African Vektor CP1 automatic pistol chambered for 9 mm Parabellum rounds. It came with a suppressor. The gun was kept in a safe-deposit box at one of the large banks in Ankara’s financial district. Most of the major cities in Europe and Asia had such a weapon, or equivalent, in storage. It enabled the Ferryman and others like him to avoid the tiresome process of transporting firearms across national boundaries, and in particular through airports.

  Vale’s death had had to be disguised, to make it appear that he was collateral damage in a terrorist attack, rather than the specific target of a hit. But such deceit was no longer necessary. Vale’s associate, Purkiss, knew the truth about the killing, according to the Oracle, and there was no point in trying to make the Ankara hit look like anything other than what it was.

  The Ferryman had no interest in visiting tourist attractions, but he walked the streets of Ankara to keep himself occupied and limber while he waited for the message. It was a fine morning, clear though chilly. The centre of the city was overlooked by the steep hill with its great ruins, the remains of the old citadel. The Ferryman stuck to the centre because it would allow him to move quickly in whichever direction was necessary.

  At ten forty-five the phone vibrated in the Ferryman’s pocket.

  ‘Yes.’

  The Oracle said, ‘I have an address for you.’ He recited it. There was no triumph in his voice, but the Ferryman was sure the man felt it.

  ‘Understood,’ said the Ferryman.

  ‘You should also know that Purkiss has been located,’ said the Oracle. ‘Artemis has identified him at Frankfurt Airport. They’re taking action as we speak.’

  The Ferryman was aware of a sense of a journey coming to an end. ‘That’s good.’

  They ended the call. The Ferryman entered the address he’d been given into the navigation facility on his phone.

  *

  The address was within walking distance, in the Cebeci district. Most of the residences lining the narrow streets looked like either apartment blocks or houses converted into flats, perhaps for students. The Ferryman passed a large cemetery, and saw the street he wanted ahead to his right.

  Ordinarily he’d prefer to stake out the location of one of his targets, obtain as careful a picture as possible of the potential exit points. Evaluate the likelihood of booby traps. But given the urgency of this particular hit, the Ferryman knew he had to move in fast.

  The building was a converted house, with what appeared to be four flats judging by its two-storey structure. He did a first pass, walking briskly by the front door, a man in a business suit carrying a briefcase. From the corner of his eye he noted the panel in the wall beside the entrance: there were four buttons, confirming his estimate of the number of apartments.

  The address the Oracle had given him was apartment 1B, which suggested the ground floor.

  The Ferryman walked round the block, saw the fenced-off garden at the back of the house. He paused by a slight gap between two of the wooden panels in the fence and looked through. The garden was a little unkempt, and probably used communally. A gate in the back fence seemed to be latched from the inside when he tested it.

  He had two options. Either climb over the fence, which would attract immediate suspicion if anyone was watching. Or, simply, ring the doorbell.

  The Ferryman decided on the latter. If the target was expecting an attack – and it was possible Vale had warned him to be on his guard – then he’d be more likely to mount a counter-offensive if he saw the Ferryman climbing over his rear fence. He might not answer the door, but at least that would put the Ferryman on the alert.

  At the front door once more, the Ferryman pressed the buzzer to flat 1B. He heard it sound from within the building. The window beside the door was double-glazed and drawn across with heavy drapes. They didn’t twitch aside.

  The Ferryman had transferred the Viktor CP1 from his briefcase to his inner jacket pocket during his walk to the address. The jacket had a specially modified pocket, deep enough to accommodate the gun with the suppressor screwed on to the end. He kept his hands well away from his jacket, so as not to present too obvious a threat.

  Approaching footsteps from within made him take a step back from the door. A moment later it cracked ajar. Bright, slightly nervous eyes peered through the gap. It was a woman, middle-aged, small and mousy.

  ‘Good morning, madam,’ said the Ferryman. His Turkish was fluent, though accented. ‘May I please speak to your husband? I have some pressing, and very happy, information to impart to him.’

  The door opened a fraction further. The woman wore an apron dusted with flour, and looked hot and flustered. From beyond her wafted the aroma of baking.

  ‘My husband isn’t home,’ she said. ‘What’s this about?’

  The Ferryman had tried this cold-calling approach before, and in his experience one had a very narrow window of opportunity before the door was closed in one’s face. He didn’t push his luck.

  Stepping forward, he brought the gun out of his jacket as smoothly as a conjuror brandishing a rabbit from a hat. Before the woman could close the door, or even open her mouth, he barged through the doorway and pressed the barrel against her forehead and shoved her backwards and kicked the door shut behind him.

  With his free hand he grabbed her by the back of the neck and pulled her close, so that his face was inches from hers.

  ‘Your instinct is to scream,’ he murmured softly. ‘I understand that. Don’t. If you keep quiet, you won’t come to any harm.’

  He wondered if she’d have been able to scream even if she’d wanted to. Her chest had swelled with an intake of breath and she seemed to have forgotten how to release it.

  ‘Where’s Saul Gideon?’ said the Ferryman.

  Her eyes seemed to fill half her face. Her hands came up on either side of her head and shook as if she had the ague.

  ‘Are there children?’ said the Ferryman, in the same placid tone.

  He didn’t know if she shook her head deliberately or if it was part of the tremor that was now racking her entire body.

  He moved the gun so that the barrel was pointing up under her chin. ‘Children,’ he repeated.

  ‘At at at at school,’ she gasped.

  The Ferryman was relieved. He scanned the cramped corridor behind her. Listened hard, over the sound of her whimpering, for suggestions of another human presence in the apartment.

  He turned her round by the shoulder, firmly but not roughly, and said: ‘Walk forward and turn right through that door.’

  They entered a combined living and dining room. It was clean but drab, the furnishings modest. On the sideboard he saw a row of framed photographs. Mostly children, two boys and a girl aged between seven and thirteen.

  In several of the photographs, the woman stood beside a man. He was dark, Turkish-looking. Around her age, perhaps forty.

  Too young.

  The Ferryman scanned the rest of the room. A wedding photo had pride of place above the television set. A younger, slimmer version of the woman beamed in the arms of the same man.

  ‘Where’s Saul Gideon?’ he repeated in her ear.

  The woman tried to turn her head to look at him but he pressed the gun against the back of her neck and she faced forward once more. ‘I... I don’t know who that is.’

  Over the years, the Ferryman had honed his ability to detect when a person was telling the truth until he could be more than ninety per cent certain. It was harder with professionals, of course, who were trained in the art of lying, and in many instances born with a natural propensity for it. But this woman was no professional.

  She couldn’t help him.

  The Ferryman stepped back and pulled the trigger, the sound of the shot muffled by the suppressor so that it might have been produced by a heavy book falling flat onto a hard surface. The Parabellum bullet hit the woman in the nape of the neck, the projectile expanding
disproportionately because of its hollow tip. The effect was to blow the woman’s head apart.

  Despite his position several feet behind her, the Ferryman couldn’t avoid a fine sprinkling of gore reaching his suit trousers and his shoes. He ignored it for now. Instead, even as the woman’s body spun and hit the floor, he began to move swiftly through the apartment.

  Within five minutes, he’d established that there was nobody else there. He searched all three bedrooms, the adults’ and the children’s. In the dressing table’s drawer, he found a set of passports for the family. The pictures matched those in the frames in the living room.

  The target, Saul Gideon, didn’t live here.

  The Ferryman gave his suit trousers and his shoes a perfunctory clean in the kitchen, enough that the stains wouldn’t be noticeable except under close inspection. He didn’t bother to wipe the surfaces he’d touched to remove his fingerprints. His prints, and his DNA, were indeed stored on a number of databases. But the Turkish police wouldn’t immediately consider an international connection to the murder.

  Out in the street, after a quick inspection to ensure nobody was there waiting for him, he began to walk back towards the city centre. As he strode, he took out his phone and dialled.

  The phone was answered within ten seconds. ‘Oracle.’

  ‘The address was wrong,’ said the Ferryman neutrally. ‘A Turkish family. No trace of the target.’

  The Oracle took this news in silence. Then he said: ‘Another ruse.’

  ‘It would appear so, yes.’

  Again, a pause.

  The Oracle said, ‘There’s a further complication. Artemis failed to take down Purkiss.’

  The Ferryman listened to the account of what had happened at Frankfurt Airport. He heard about the woman who had come to Purkiss’s assistance.

  ‘The objective has changed,’ said the Oracle. ‘I need you to find Purkiss, of course.’

  He explained.

  The Ferryman understood.

  Twelve

  The man was ten feet ahead of Purkiss, a hunched figure in a dirty overcoat at least a size too big. He walked with a gait that was difficult to characterise: half-lope, with the occasional stumble.