by Tim Stevens
Purkiss stared up at the tower. Delatour had appeared in the window. He sighted down the RPG. It was aimed directly at Purkiss and Rebecca.
Purkiss threw himself into Rebecca, knocking her sideways, seizing her awkwardly with the Remington still clutched in his grasp and rolling with her, over and over, the rough rocky ground painful beneath them.
He felt the detonation of the grenade like a sonic punch to his entire body, the heat of the flame that roared behind him. A cascade of rock and stone rained down and he ducked his head, shielding Rebecca’s averted face beneath him. The shock of the blast was almost paralysing, but Purkiss hauled himself to his knees and grabbed Rebecca’s arm and dragged her upright.
Agony seared up his leg. He looked down and saw that his right trouser leg was on fire. Purkiss shook his leg, grabbed handfuls of gravel and sand and flung them over the flame until it had ebbed. He slapped the rest out with his hand.
Delatour would follow with another grenade, was likely taking aim at that very moment. Purkiss saw a shape from the corner of his right eye, whipped his head round, saw a third man a few feet away on top of the ridge with his rifle aimed and knew that this was it, that he hadn’t time to bring the shotgun across.
The man jerked like a marionette as the bullets stitched across his torso, lifting him off his feet before he slammed supine on the ground. Kendrick stood among the ruins to the left, the M16 in his hands. Once again his face was contorted in a grin.
‘Slow, Purkiss,’ he said.
Purkiss said, ‘Up there. Delatour,’ and as Kendrick swung the Armalite to bear on the tower, Purkiss scanned the side of the island nearest to him. There’d been four men approaching. They’d despatched three. The remaining one was unlikely to climb the hillock now, and would be regrouping with the others.
The M16 chattered and bucked in Kendrick’s hands. The wall of the tower around the window shot off chippings of wood and stone. Delatour might not get hit, but at least the return fire kept him from taking aim with the RPG.
‘Three down,’ said Purkiss, thinking aloud. ‘At least seven more, plus Delatour now. Eight against three.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the far side of the island. ‘We need to get to Gideon’s boats.’
‘Nah,’ said Kendrick. He’d stopped shooting, but continued to stare up at the tower. ‘I’m going to get that bastard up there. Fucking turncoat.’
‘No time, Tony.’ Purkiss grabbed at his arm. ‘You’ll waste ammo. And if you go up there, he’ll be waiting, or the others will pick you off.’
‘Shit.’ Kendrick’s grin had been replaced by an ugly clenched-teeth snarl. He glared up at the tower again, but lowered the rifle.
‘We spread out,’ said Purkiss. ‘They’ll be expecting us to come down the western side of the hill, over there, because that’s the side where the boats are. So we go down this side and work our way round.’
They spaced themselves along the top of the hillock, Kendrick glancing up repeatedly at the tower. There was nobody visible on the plain below. Purkiss scrambled down the side and waited for the others to do the same.
If they made their way round the northern aspect of the hillock, they’d pass beneath the façade and the tower. On the other hand, the men would probably be around the southern end since they’d approached from that direction.
Purkiss nodded. ‘Tony,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘You head round that way. You’ll be able to keep the tower in sight, and you’ve got the range to hit Delatour if he appears in the window. We’ll take the other way.’
Purkiss and Rebecca moved quickly along the circumference of the hillock, keeping close to its slope. The shotgun looked too large for her hands, but she seemed to handle it with familiarity, Purkiss thought.
The first of the men darted his head around a jutting pillar of rock in the hillside a few feet ahead. Purkiss fired the Remington reflexively, from the hip, blasting away a chunk of rock and dust, and he heard a cry of pain.
They charged forwards, Purkiss and Rebecca, and on the other side of the outcropping found the man reeling, clutching his bloody face where the shot had caught him, while a second man tried to shove him out of the way. Purkiss and Rebecca fired at almost the same time, hurling both men back against the rock.
Five down, thought Purkiss. Maybe five left, plus Delatour. Maybe more.
They worked their way rapidly round to the western side of the hillock. Kendrick emerged from the other direction, walking sideways some distance away from the base of the hill, his gaze trained on the tower. Purkiss scanned the rocky plain.
‘Where are the others?’ said Rebecca.
‘They’ll know we’re headed for the boats,’ said Purkiss. ‘They’ll be waiting for us down there. So we need to try and find where their transport is moored.’
They struck out northwards across the long extension of the islet, Purkiss and Rebecca spaced apart in parallel at the front, Kendrick behind them, walking backwards, the M16 trained on the tower. At one point Purkiss heard the sharp report of a single shot from the assault rifle, and he turned his head.
‘Saw him there,’ muttered Kendrick. ‘In the doorway. He was having a look out to see if the coast was clear. I’ll get him next time.’
The islet sloped towards the north so that the edge could barely be described as a cliff. The ground dipped sufficiently over the final fifty yards or so that the hillock, and the tower, disappeared from view. It meant they could no longer keep tabs on the tower, but it meant also that Delatour wouldn’t be able to see them to launch another grenade.
They found the boats, two of them, on a flat stretch of rock in a tiny cove. They were inflatables, both of them, with outboard motors and each capable of carrying probably six people. It suggested to Purkiss that his initial estimate had been correct, and that there were indeed ten of the men, or at most twelve.
He pulled the cord on one of the motors and it barked into life, the sound carrying out across the water and, presumably, back across the island. He nodded to Kendrick, who put two single shots from the M16 though the floor of the second boat.
They launched out, Purkiss at the tiller. He steered them north, intending to put as much distance as he could between them and the islet before thinking about where exactly they were headed.
It took little more than a minute for the throb of a second, sleeker engine to reach Purkiss’s ears. He scanned the sea all around, and saw the boat approaching at speed from the west.
Gideon’s boat. The men must have heard the motor, or guessed what Purkiss and the others had in mind, and set off in pursuit.
*
The first shots came when the speedboat was more than two hundred yards away.
The water around the boat sizzled and churned under the multiple impacts. Purkiss flattened himself as best he could while keeping his hand on the tiller. Rebecca lay prone at the bottom of the boat, alongside Kendrick.
It was an inflatable dinghy, and they had no hope of outrunning the faster vessel.
Purkiss made the kind of gut-driven decision which in calmer, more reflective circumstances he would never have considered.
He waited for a lull in the firing, then grabbed the Remington and heaved himself belly-first up onto the side of the boat and braced his feet and leaped overboard.
He’d angled himself forward and outward so as to avoid the propellor, but even so he felt its foamy churning frighteningly close as the water engulfed him.
For what seemed like ten seconds, too long, he twisted and tumbled, struggling to orientate himself in the muffled, green-grey murk of his new environment. The sunlight was thin, and it meant the shapes on the surface were only vaguely outlined.
But he made out, his eyes burning from the salt water, the dark outline of the approaching speedboat.
From above, he heard the distorted sound of automatic fire, and he knew it was Kendrick. Purkiss kicked his legs, needing to put distance between himself and the oncoming boat.
When he’d got
far enough away that it would be worth the risk, with his lungs on fire as they protested for air, Purkiss kicked once more with his legs extended straight below him, driving himself to the surface.
His head broke free in a shower of spume. He registered the speedboat almost adjacent to him now, the dinghy further away but with the gap closing.
Treading water hard, Purkiss lifted the shotgun and took aim. As he squeezed back on the trigger, one of the men on board saw him and brought his rifle across.
The blast from the Remington hit the speedboat’s motor at a range of ten feet. Shards of metal tore away and the boat juddered, tipping to one side so that a man toppled overboard. The boat continued forward but veered out towards the open sea, black smoke trailing from the wrecked motor.
Five seconds later, as the remaining men on board turned to continue firing while trying to keep the boat under control, the motor exploded. A ball of orange and black flame rocketed vertically upwards and outwards, the sound thumping and cracking across the surface an instant later.
Purkiss looked round, reorientating himself once again. He saw Kendrick standing in the dinghy, his mouth wide in a berserker’s roar, the rifle shuddering in his hands. Amid the chopping of the water, Purkiss could make out at least one body, possibly two.
He trod water as he watched the dinghy turn in a slow arc and head back towards him, Rebecca steering.
*
They searched the islet from end to end, but Delatour was gone.
It didn’t take Purkiss long to discover how he’d made his escape. Gideon’s yacht, which had been moored alongside the speedboat, was missing. Delatour must have heard, or sensed, that his associates had been defeated. He’d cut his losses and run.
In Gideon’s bunker, they found little of interest apart from dry clothes, which Purkiss put on. Gideon himself lay on his back in the tower room, his lips drawn back in his ruined face, as if he’d been angry and defiant to the last. Without fully understanding why he did it, Purkiss used his phone to take a photo of the dead man. With Kendrick’s help, he hauled the body down the ladder and into the bunker, where he laid it out on the bed.
It seemed more appropriate than leaving him out there for the birds to devour.
‘We need to get moving,’ Purkiss said. ‘Delatour may come back, or send reinforcements.’
‘He killed one of his own associates,’ Rebecca observed without emotion. ‘Back in the hotel.’
‘Yes,’ said Purkiss. ‘It cemented his cover. He must have been the one who tipped them off in the first place that we were at the hotel. And he would have signalled them as soon as he knew the name of the island. They wouldn’t have been far away, because I’d led him to believe we were going to Ressos and he would have directed them there in the first instance.’
The internet connection on the computer in the bunker was slow but serviceable. Rebecca pulled up a detailed map of the archipelago. The closest apparently inhabited island was Kythnos, seven kilometres away.
‘So Delatour’s working with this Oliver Clay,’ said Rebecca as they headed back to the boat.
‘Assuming Gideon’s belief is correct, that Clay’s behind this,’ said Purkiss. ‘Delatour needed us to lead him to Gideon.’
‘That just leaves you,’ she said. ‘As their target.’
‘Unless there are others whom we, or Gideon, don’t know about.’ Purkiss started the motor once more. He was relieved the boat hadn’t been damaged in the shooting. ‘But yes. I take your point. They’ll be after me now, possibly exclusively.’
They cruised across the water. Kendrick sat with the M16 cradled in his lap, as if he was nursing a baby.
Purkiss watched as Rebecca took out her phone.
‘What are you doing?’ he said.
She held his gaze as she put the phone to her ear.
‘Calling my control. Gareth Myles.’
‘I thought you couldn’t contact him directly.’
‘I lied,’ she said.
Twenty-two
Twice a day, Kyrill Grabasov had his office suite swept for audio surveillance. It was standard procedure for a man in his position to be bugged by the FSB, the Russian domestic security police, and so he was cautious and oblique in everything he said within his office’s four walls, despite the sweeps.
But now, he felt the urge to minimise further the risk of being overheard. So he let his cell phone ring in his pocket while he made his way swiftly down to the lobby.
He found a relatively quiet street corner and took the phone out and dialled.
The Ferryman answered at once.
‘Gideon is terminated,’ he said.
Once more, that punch of triumph in Grabasov’s chest.
He said, ‘Good.’
‘Purkiss is still at large. And Artemis is dead.’
The Ferryman gave a concise account. Grabasov felt a mild frustration set his nerves on edge, but not the overpowering anger he’d experienced before, when Gideon had hoodwinked him in Ankara. The loss of Artemis – he’d been among his men on the island – was of little consequence.
‘You have any leads as to Purkiss’s whereabouts?’ he said.
‘No.’ The Ferryman paused. ‘But Gideon told Purkiss about Clay, and about his belief that Clay is responsible for events.’
Grabasov watched a pedestrian crossing the road remonstrate with a driver who’d braked sharply to avoid colliding with her. He considered what the Ferryman had said.
The Ferryman continued: ‘I think I know a way to make Purkiss come to me.’
*
Grabasov took a walk after the call ended, to stretch his legs and think.
He’d known the Ferryman, Delatour, more than four years. In that time, he’d been impressed. Delatour was an efficient killer, with an ultimate success rate of one hundred per cent. He was shrewd, adaptable, and resourceful.
But he’d been outmanoeuvred by Purkiss this time. And while that didn’t mean he wouldn’t get him eventually – indeed, he’d up his game in order to do so – his idea sounded to Grabasov a fanciful one. It made assumptions about Purkiss’s mindset, his character, which were largely speculative.
Then again, there was Purkiss’s track record to consider. Grabasov wasn’t privy to the finer details of the missions Purkiss had pulled off, but his methods portrayed a man with certain convictions.
In any case, Grabasov couldn’t think of a more obviously workable plan. And the longer they took to locate Purkiss, the more likely it was that he’d disappear forever.
Grabasov looked at his watch. Ninety minutes until his meeting at the Kremlin, with the President.
He set off back to the office to prepare himself.
Twenty-three
The hotel was a quiet one, elegant rather than overtly commercial. The coolness of the lobby was matched by the muted whites and blues of the décor, and there appeared to be few guests about.
They’d flown in to the private Alexion Airport in Portocheli on a chartered plane from Kythnos. Heading straight back to Athens was too much of a risk. Rebecca had organised the flight, while Purkiss had done a surveillance check and Kendrick had paced the airport terminal restlessly. Purkiss had made him leave the Armalite behind, dumped in the sea with the magazine removed, near where they’d abandoned the dinghy on the shore of Kythnos island. He’d told Kendrick to do the same with the Walther pistol. Kendrick hadn’t been happy.
‘What if he’s waiting for us?’ he said, sounding like a thwarted adolescent.
‘He won’t be,’ said Purkiss. ‘And we’re going flying. You’d never get those things through.’
Rebecca hadn’t said any more about her phone call earlier, and Purkiss hadn’t asked. She’d murmured softly into the phone, saying that Saul Gideon was dead and asking for a rendezvous.
‘He’ll meet us in Portocheli,’ she said simply after hanging up.
It might be a trap, Purkiss thought. But that was unlikely. She was too open about it.
After their arri
val in the town, Rebecca paid cash for a rental car. She took the wheel, as was her custom, and the three of them rode in silence to the hotel.
They took the stairs to the second floor. Rebecca led the way to a door numbered 27. She hesitated outside, then knocked softly.
‘Come in.’ A man’s voice.
Purkiss stepped past Rebecca, pushed the door open himself.
The smell registered with him first. Acrid and thick, it was immediately familiar, triggering Purkiss’s olfactory cortex and sparking instantaneous connections with memories.
A man sat on the edge of the room’s single bed. His height and his stoop were both noticeable even though he was seated. His dark skin was offset by his grey hair, still remarkably thick despite his age.
Between his ochre fingers a cigarette burned.
‘John,’ said Vale.
*
Rebecca closed the door behind them. Vale might have given her a signal to do so, but Purkiss hadn’t noticed.
His disorientation was so intense he felt his consciousness threaten to shut down.
Vale’s yellow eyes shifted past Purkiss’s shoulder. ‘And Mr Kendrick.’
Kendrick stepped forward. ‘You’re that black fella,’ he said, his tone almost accusing. ‘Purkiss’s boss.’
‘Correct,’ said Vale gravely.
‘You’re supposed to be dead.’
‘Yes.’ Vale rose stiffly to his feet. He pressed his cigarette out in the ashtray which lay on the bedspread beside him, and walked over to the dressing table. ‘Water?’ A bottle stood beside several glasses.
Purkiss ignored the question. He said: ‘Quentin. What the hell.’
It wasn’t just relief that was tightening his chest. It was anger, too.
Vale poured himself a glass, drank, and began lighting a new cigarette. After the first inhale, he said: ‘I’m Gareth Myles. Rebecca’s contact. Or, I’ve taken his name, at least.’ He paused, his face sombre. ‘The real Gareth Myles is dead. He boarded flight TA15 instead of me. He was a similar age to me, and of a similar racial background. It was relatively straightforward to produce a passport with a picture that resembled both of us.’