Cronos Rising

by Tim Stevens

  The street was dark, the sputtering lamps neglected and desultory and casting more shadow than light. Along either side, rows of terraced houses brooded, many of their windows boarded over. In the distance, the contrasting brightness of the high street beckoned.

  Purkiss closed in. He was still wearing the running shoes he’d bought at the airport in Rome. The pavement was strewn with spilled litter, but he dodged it deftly, keeping his eyes on the man’s back.

  Once, the man would have heard him. Sensed him, rather.

  But this time, Purkiss reached him before he even began to turn.

  ‘Tony,’ said Purkiss.

  The man swung jerkily round. Despite the change in him, his arms came up instinctively. Purkiss caught the glint of a blade in his fist and took a step back.

  The outsized collar of the man’s coat made his head appear tortoise-like above it. Across his face the shadow revealed only one of his eyes. It gleamed as brightly as the blade. His mouth was hooked downward in a snarl.

  ‘Tony. It’s me.’

  Kendrick raised the knife so that the blade was vertical in front of his face. In his robe-like coat he resembled a demonic priest conducting a black mass, and about to offer a live sacrifice.

  The effect was enhanced by the grin that spread asymmetrically across his face.

  ‘Purkiss.’

  With startling dexterity, he flipped the knife and caught it by the tip. It disappeared inside his coat. He stuck out his hand and Purkiss grasped it, feeling the roughness of the palm. It was scarred rather than callused.

  ‘No man hugs,’ rasped Kendrick. ‘Or I’ll break your neck.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Purkiss. ‘I just showered.’

  For an instant, the smile fell from Kendrick’s face. Both of his eyes were visible now, the right one slightly obscured by a sagging upper lid.

  Purkiss wondered if he’d said the wrong thing.

  Then the grin was back. ‘Prick,’ said Kendrick.

  Purkiss jerked his head and they continued walking in the direction Kendrick had been headed, towards Stoke Newington High Street. The area had been gentrified over the last twenty years, or more accurately bohemianised, but it still had its surprisingly desolate patches, like the street they’d just come up.

  ‘Nearly got yourself killed,’ muttered Kendrick. ‘Trying to sneak up on me like that.’

  ‘I didn’t try. I had the drop on you. Could have floored you before you even knew it.’

  Purkiss wasn’t needling Kendrick for his own amusement. He wanted to get a feel for just how hair-trigger the man was these days.

  Tony Kendrick was a former serviceman with the British Parachute Regiment, whom Purkiss had met in Iraq nearly a decade earlier. Since Purkiss had officially left MI6 and gone freelance, he’d recruited Kendrick on an occasional basis when he needed an extra pair of hands on a mission.

  Fourteen months ago, Kendrick had been hit in the head by a ricocheting rifle bullet, fired by the killer known as the Jokerman. Although Purkiss had assumed initially the bullet was meant for him, it had turned out that Kendrick was the Jokerman’s target after all. Despite this, Purkiss continued to feel a twinge of guilt about what had happened.

  The bullet had sheared away part of the frontal bone of Kendrick’s skull, and taken a little of the frontal lobe of the brain underneath. The frontal lobes were associated with a wide range of human abilities, including attention, abstract reasoning, motivation and impulse control. Not to mention motor functions.

  Kendrick’s mobility had recovered relatively quickly afterwards, with the help of intensive physiotherapy and natural cussed determination on his part. The latter was an indication that his motivational faculties had remained largely undamaged, as well. But in the months after the injury, Purkiss had noticed on his frequent visits to Kendrick both in hospital and post-discharge, that the man had difficulty concentrating for any length of time. Also, his temperament had altered. Always a sardonic, irascible person, quick to react when slighted, he’d developed a placidity which was underlain with a disquieting tone of menace. And every so often, his rage would explode, in response to even a trivial remark, and he’d punch walls.

  After he was deemed fit to leave hospital, Kendrick returned to his flat in Hackney in East London. He lived alone, though his former girlfriend continued to visit and bring along their son, Sean. The girlfriend, whom Purkiss had first met soon after the shooting, confided to him that she was afraid to leave the boy alone with him.

  ‘It’s not that I think he’d hurt him,’ she said. ‘He’s just... different towards him. Talks to him as though he’s another adult, rather than an eight-year-old kid. Cracks dirty jokes.’

  Purkiss hadn’t hired Kendrick again since the shooting. The man was comfortably off financially – Purkiss had checked – and was in no fit state for the kind of work Purkiss might require of him.

  They made their way along the high street, which was still crowded at eight in the evening despite the October cold. The café where Purkiss had sent Rebecca was in sight ahead.

  Kendrick stopped. He turned to Purkiss.

  ‘You taking the piss?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said on the phone, a job. You having a laugh with me?’

  Purkiss said, ‘You’ve known me nearly ten years, Tony. Would you describe me as a master of comedy?’

  Kendrick tipped his head. ‘Can’t argue with that.’ He gazed off into the distance, as if the recollection of the past had unsettled him.

  ‘I’ll explain once we’ve sat down,’ said Purkiss.

  *

  Purkiss had chosen the café for its relative quiet. It was a greasy spoon, not the typical coffee shop found in the area with a clientele of raucous young trend slaves. And it had booths, American-style, rather than tables, which allowed a degree of privacy.

  Purkiss watched Rebecca appraise Kendrick as they made their way over to her. Her expression gave nothing away.

  ‘Rebecca Deacon. Tony Kendrick,’ said Purkiss.

  Kendrick stood by the booth and stared at her. He didn’t leer, didn’t let his eyes crawl over her. It was the unselfconscious gape of a child who’d seen something new and intriguing.

  At last, he sat down next to Purkiss and across from Rebecca, still staring.

  Purkiss said: ‘Okay.’

  He and Rebecca had discussed this beforehand. He would tell Kendrick everything, holding nothing back. She hadn’t argued. Even now, having met the man, she didn’t cast warning glances at Purkiss, or ask to have a word with him in private. Purkiss appreciated that. She was professional enough to respect his judgment.

  But he had his own doubts, still, about involving Kendrick.

  He’d phoned him as soon as the plane from Cologne and Bonn Airport had touched down at Heathrow, using a public phone in the arrivals terminal. Kendrick was home, as he usually seemed to be. Purkiss told him to ring back from a public box outside. The chances that Kendrick was under surveillance were small, but not negligible. Even if the people who had killed Vale weren’t targeting Kendrick, they might know he was an associate of Purkiss’s.

  Purkiss and Kendrick had arranged the rendezvous here in Stoke Newington. And Purkiss had mentioned that he needed Kendrick’s help.

  All through Purkiss’s account, Kendrick continued to watch Rebecca. When she shifted in her seat, his eyes followed her. She didn’t look rattled, but merely glanced at Kendrick from time to time, her eyes mainly on Purkiss as he spoke.

  Purkiss had reached the point at which Vale’s video message began when Kendrick blurted: ‘I know you.’

  Purkiss stopped. ‘Say again?’

  The grin was back, for the first time since Kendrick had sat down. ‘You.’ He tipped his head at Rebecca. ‘We’ve met.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said pleasantly.

  ‘Yeah.’ Kendrick wagged his finger at her. He turned to Purkiss. ‘We have.’ He screwed up his face almost comically. ‘Where the bloo
dy hell was it, now?’ To Rebecca: ‘You used to go out with that bloke. That squaddie. What was his name...’

  ‘We’ve never met, Mr Kendrick,’ she said again.

  Purkiss said, ‘Tony. Think you’ve made a mistake.’ He paused. ‘Have you been taking in what I’ve said?’

  Kendrick waved an impatient hand. ‘Yeah, yeah. Your mate got killed on the plane. The black geezer. They tried to kill you.’ He slapped a palm over his forehead, where the skin graft had taken hold over the artificially reconstructed area of skull beneath. Purkiss had noticed that was a habit of his. ‘Christ, it’s going to annoy me now. Give me a clue, love. Where have I seen you?’

  Purkiss said, ‘Stay focused, Tony. This next part’s important.’

  This time, Kendrick seemed to be paying attention, even glancing at Purkiss as he spoke. Before Purkiss had finished, Kendrick interrupted. ‘So we’re going to Greece.’

  ‘Yes. I want you to come along. I need backup.’

  Kendrick slapped the table with both palms. ‘Done. Could use some sunshine. Get out of this shithole for a while.’ He stood up abruptly. ‘You need guns?’

  Purkiss winced inwardly. He indicated with his head. ‘Sit down. And keep your voice down. We need to make some plans.’

  ‘What about the guns?’ said Kendrick in a stage whisper.

  ‘No guns. We’re flying, remember.’

  Kendrick said, ‘Pansy.’

  Thirteen

  They returned to Kendrick’s Hackney flat so that he could collect a few things. His passport was, thankfully, still current. Purkiss kept a selection of fake passports for his own use, two of which he’d already taken from the locker at Heathrow where he stored them for emergency use.

  Rebecca had booked a direct flight for them to Athens shortly after they’d landed. She included Kendrick’s name in the booking, on Purkiss’s assumption that the man would agree to join them. Rebecca drove them back to the airport in a rental car. She’d climbed behind the wheel without discussion, as if part of her role as Purkiss’s protector included chauffeur duty.

  Purkiss glanced at Kendrick in the mirror from time to time. Mostly, he stared out the window, his lips moving quickly and rhythmically as if he was singing silently to himself.

  Once, he lunged forward without warning, grabbed the back of Rebecca’s seat. ‘Colchester,’ he said excitedly. ‘Nineteen ninety-six, ninety-seven. Something like that. You were garrisoned there.’

  ‘I’ve never been in the military,’ said Rebecca. ‘And I would have been fourteen or fifteen years old at the time.’

  Kendrick sagged back, his face twisting in disappointment and annoyance.

  Purkiss gazed out at the M25 motorway as they headed westwards to the airport. He felt on edge, in a way that was unusual for him. He’d taken on missions with ill-defined objectives before. If he was honest with himself, he relished the challenge of solving a puzzle, of finding the kernel of focus in the haze of data and contradictions he was first presented with.

  This time, it was different. He’d received his instructions from Vale, as was normally the case, but this time they’d been issued from beyond the grave. And they weren’t instructions, as such, so much as vague warnings and suggestions. He had no idea who the opposition were this time round: how many they numbered, whether they were a private outfit or had the backing of one or more governments.

  And he had begun to realise that he didn’t really know who Rebecca Deacon was.

  She’d appeared in a timely manner; there was no doubt about that. If she hadn’t intervened when she had, Purkiss would most likely be dead by now. Her background story seemed plausible, and the fact that she’d shown him the video-clip message from Vale bolstered her credibility, not least because Vale had vouched for her explicitly during his monologue.

  And yet. And yet... Purkiss supposed it made sense that Vale had other people he turned to, other assets like Purkiss. But it seemed odd that Deacon had never been brought in to help Purkiss before. During the Jokerman job, for instance, or the Caliban business in New York the previous spring.

  Plus, there was Rebecca’s caginess about her handler. Gareth Myles, she and Vale had called him. Why, if the situation was now as fraught as it seemed to be, was this Myles remaining so aloof? Uncontactable by even Rebecca herself, who had to rely on his contacting her before she could communicate with him? Surely it made sense for him to be as available as possible, in order to provide whatever logistical support she and Purkiss needed?

  And then there was Kendrick, and his reaction to Rebecca. His conviction that he’d met her before. Despite his oddness, the lingering damage his injury had done to his brain, his memory had always seemed to Purkiss to have remained intact. It was something he’d discussed with the neuropsychiatrist who’d assessed Kendrick in the hospital, during the long weeks of rehabilitation. The doctor had told Purkiss that lesions which were confined to the frontal cortex typically left the long-term memory unimpaired. His tests of Kendrick had confirmed this to be the case.

  Kendrick seemed so sure Rebecca was familiar to him.

  Purkiss eyed Rebecca’s profile beside him, her face alternately lit and obscured as the streetlights lining the motorway strobed by.

  Trust.

  It was something he had a problem with. He’d learned the art of mistrust early on in his career in intelligence, when he’d realised it was an adaptive, not to say life-saving, strategy. But it was only in the last couple of years, since he’d discovered the truth about his late fiancee Claire, that Purkiss had come to understand just how corrosive mistrust could be when those closest to you came within its orbit. He’d doubted Hannah, his former girlfriend; and even, once, Vale himself.

  Vale. Purkiss felt a sudden anger clutch at his innards. He’d always believed his employer and mentor would die eventually of a heart attack, or of a stroke, or cancer. Vale would have accepted any one of these verdicts philosophically, fully acknowledging that he’d brought it upon himself through his forty-a-day cigarette habit. He’d have passed over with a gloomy wryness, and Purkiss would have saluted him.

  Instead, the man had boarded a passenger plane, and had been smashed to pieces on the unforgiving ground at high speed. Despite his level-headedness, his professionalism, he must have been terrified in the last seconds, either hurtling down in the wrecked shell of the aircraft or sucked out through the ripped fuselage to plummet alone. He may even have screamed. Soiled himself.

  The lack of dignity bothered Purkiss the most.

  Vale hadn’t deserved that.

  *

  Rebecca and Purkiss had neatened Kendrick up in his flat, casting aside his ratty overcoat and persuading him to put on a shirt and leather jacket and a clean if musty pair of cargo trousers Purkiss had found buried in the bottom of a wardrobe. The airlines were on heightened alert since the TA15 attack, and any passenger looking like a down-and-out would be given short shrift.

  Purkiss felt his back tense as they walked through the terminal to the check-in desk. For a moment his gut twisted, and he wondered if he’d ever be able to visit an airport again without his somatic memory reminding him of the poisoning in Frankfurt. But they breezed through the procedure without incident, and even made it past the security scanner unmolested, although Kendrick had to point out to the staff that he had a metal plate in his head which might set off the alarm.

  ‘I’m a cyborg, really,’ he said cheerfully to the female security guard, before whipping a pair of plastic sunglasses from his pocket and intoning robotically: ‘I’ll be back.’

  The woman smiled tolerantly. Purkiss was relieved. In the United States Kendrick’s behaviour might have provoked a major incident, and got them all arrested. Over here, his quip was seen as just another wearying example of the British propensity for stupid, childish jokiness in every conceivable situation.

  Purkiss studied the flight information screen. He noted the departure gate, and the expected boarding time. Fifty minutes from now.

&nbs
p; ‘We have a bit of a wait,’ he said. ‘Let’s get a coffee.’

  They found a seating area outside a row of competing shops. Rebecca rose automatically.

  ‘No,’ said Purkiss. ‘I’ll go.’

  He walked to the counter of the nearest outlet and stood in the queue. He’d wanted to watch Rebecca and Kendrick on their own. See if she responded differently to him when Purkiss wasn’t there.

  But Kendrick sat with his legs outstretched, staring at the floor, his lips pursed, while Rebecca rested an arm on the back of her chair and gazed out over the departure lounge. There was no interaction whatsoever.

  That in itself might be significant, Purkiss thought.

  He reached the counter, ordered three coffees. Turned away with the paper cups secured in a cardboard holder.

  His glance snagged on a face in the queue behind him.

  The man looked straight back. His eyes followed Purkiss even as Purkiss broke contact and walked away.

  Purkiss processed the data on the way back to the table.

  White man. Pale. Late thirties. Spectacles. Thinning, fair hair, receding up the forehead. Inexpensive shirt and blazer. Looks like a middle manager, or a literary agent.

  He focused on the face. Applied his internal memory grid, linking the features with the words and letters to which he’d applied them.

  Domed forehead. First letter: D.

  Glasses. They reminded Purkiss of a pair worn by David Letterman, the talk-show host, on one of the shows he’d watched on a visit to the US as a younger man. Letter.

  D-letter.

  He had the name.

  Purkiss reached Kendrick and Rebecca and laid the cup-holder down on the table. He saw Rebecca look past his shoulder, watched her posture tense.

  Kendrick said: ‘Hey. We’ve got company.’

  Purkiss turned. The man from the queue was walking over.

  ‘Delatour,’ said Purkiss.

  *

  The man blinked, once.