by Tim Stevens
The third option was the most immediate.
Grabasov reached for the bottom drawer in his desk, the one he kept locked most of the time.
He drew out the pistol.
Standard practice was to drink oneself into a semi-stupor first, but Grabasov - Clay - regarded himself as a professional to the last. The irony of failing to carry out this final task would be supreme.
He rose and carried the gun to the window, where the city lay resplendent before him.
He had a preprepared suicide note on his computer, one he’d composed soon after taking up his position and which he’d regularly updated over the years. The current version cited pressures of work, and fears about the financial performance of the bank. It was standard operational procedure for an agent in his position. You always protected the Service, to the end.
In the end, he thought, I did some good. There’s no gainsaying that.
He raised the pistol, his reflection ghostlike in the glass.
Twenty-eight
The old man licked away the last of the pureed food from the spoon. His eyes swam past Rebecca’s, half-recognising her, she thought.
She’d been away just over a week, but in his world it was a long time.
Her boss, Docherty, had welcomed her back with relief, after the customary questions about whether she felt ready to return to work yet. Her brother had regained consciousness after his head injury and was making good progress. So she’d resumed work at the nursing home this morning, and she was surprised how quickly she settled back into its quotidian rhythms, despite all that had happened in her life since she’d taken her emergency leave.
‘Ready for dessert?’
The old man’s gaze didn’t drift back to Rebecca. Instead, it stayed fixed on a point past her shoulder.
She turned, laying down the spoon.
Purkiss stood in the doorway.
The juxtaposition of his presence and the mundane setting of the nursing home jarred her so that she felt momentarily as if she was dreaming.
‘Rebecca,’ he said.
*
Purkiss’ first question to Vale had been: ‘The fourth one of you. Helen Marchand. Was she ever stationed anywhere Kendrick might have encountered her?’
‘Quite possibly.’ Vale shrugged. ‘She trapped a number of Service personnel who were involved in military liaison. She was an attractive woman. Men would have remembered her, especially someone like Kendrick.’
It explained why Kendrick had been so sure he’d met Rebecca before.
‘She was Rebecca’s mother,’ Purkiss said.
‘Yes.’
The next question Purkiss decided to keep for later. He said instead, ‘What was your real reason for taking down Cronos fifteen years ago, or whenever it was?’
Vale nodded. ‘It wasn’t that he was trying to turn us into a fifth column, as Gideon told you. Cronos was Henry Ashington. That’s how he was known to the Service, anyway. His real name was Viktor Fyodorov.’
Purkiss listened in absolute stillness.
‘We - the four of us, together: Gideon, Helen, Clay and I - discovered this about him in the mid-1990s. Fyodorov had been a KGB agent, a mole who’d penetrated SIS in the sixties and had been in place ever since. Cronos, the creator of the gods, was an enemy asset. Which meant that the four of us had been working for a member of the KGB for twenty years.’
‘Why?’ said Purkiss. ‘What was his intention, when he set up the project with the four of you?’
‘Deep cover, I believe,’ Vale said. ‘By setting up a group of agents within SIS, whose job it was to police the Service and cleanse it of rogue elements, he was cementing his position as a loyal British Intelligence officer. He was above suspicion. But we learned, piece by piece, of his connection with the KGB. And we couldn’t turn a blind eye, John. We had to stop him, even if it meant the end of the work we were doing with him. The noble, honourable work.’
Vale fell silent for a few moments, his eyes far away. Then he blinked and looked at Purkiss.
‘What made you suspect that Gideon and I weren’t telling you the truth?’
‘It just seemed implausible,’ said Purkiss. ‘A man in Clay’s position, deeply buried as a mole within the Moscow establishment... why would he risk it all with a project to take over SIS? But I think I understand, now, in the light of what you’ve just explained. Clay was trying to get rid of you, and Gideon, and me, because he needed to eradicate all trace of his past. If it ever emerged that he’d once worked for the KGB, however unwittingly, SIS would pull him from his post immediately and his reputation, and career, would be destroyed. He was acting out of self-preservation.’
Vale spread his hands. ‘And that’s the long and the short of it.’ He paused. ‘John, you have to understand that I couldn’t tell you any of this before. It might have affected your judgement. If you’d known that I, the man you’ve worked with for over five years, was a former KGB asset - again, I emphasise an unwitting one - you might have walked away. And Clay would have found me, and killed me, and eventually you as well.’
He lit a cigarette, his first since Purkiss had got him alone.
‘I don’t know what you intend now, John. I hope you’ll continue to work with me. But I’ll fully understand if you choose not to.’
Instead of responding directly, Purkiss said, ‘Another question.’
Vale waited.
‘What happened to Cronos?’
*
Purkiss pulled the armchair to the side of the bed and sat down. He felt Rebecca’s presence at his side.
The old man’s rheumy eyes roamed over Purkiss’s. There was no human connection there. No comprehension.
‘Dementia?’ Purkiss murmured, without looking at Rebecca.
‘Yes. Alzheimer’s.’
This time Purkiss turned his head. Rebecca looked as Vale had: resigned, calm, as if this moment had been inevitable.
‘You grandfather?’ It was a guess on Purkiss’s part, but an educated one. There was a tenuous resemblance in the old man’s creased, slack features, a thread carried down the generations.
Rebecca said, ‘Yes.’
It explained her day job, Purkiss thought. A nursing home assistant was an odd cover for an SIS agent, even a sleeper. But he understood that part of her responsibility was as the old man’s guard.
Vale had told him, in answer to his last question back in the Athens hotel: ‘We kept Cronos under house arrest. Just the four of us, without involving any official SIS channels. Helen Marchand was his daughter. She organised most of it, ensuring that he was provided with all the comforts he required. He was an old man by then, pushing eighty, and his absent-mindedness progressed until the signs of something more serious became apparent. Eight years ago he was transferred to a nursing home.’
‘Where?’
Vale shook his head. ‘I’m not going to tell you that, John. I don’t need to.’
Vale’s last sentence had a double meaning, Purkiss reflected.
Purkiss said, ‘So you kept him alive out of compassion for Helen?’
‘Not just her.’ Vale’s tone was soft. ‘He might have been a KGB agent, but Cronos - Ashington, Fyodorov, call him what you will - was a good man. He did good work for the Service, even if his ultimate motives were hostile. He was, in a sense, father to all of us, not just Helen. And we owed him. As did our country. There was never any question of murdering him.’
Purkiss gazed at the ancient face for a full two minutes, noting every line, every fold, every mottle.
At last he straightened. Beside him, Rebecca stared up into his face and he studied hers.
For the first time, he saw a defiance there, a slipping of the mask of calm.
Purkiss said, simply, ‘Carry on.’
He turned and walked out, a weight bearing down upon him, weariness dogging his every step.
THE END
John Purkiss will return in 2015 in NEMESIS
FROM THE AUTHOR
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BOOKS BY TIM STEVENS
John Purkiss series
Ratcatcher
Delivering Caliban
Jokerman
Tundra
Haven (short story)
Spiked (short story, exclusive to mailing list subscribers)
Cronos Rising
Nemesis (coming in 2015)
Martin Calvary series
Severance Kill
Annihilation Myths
Redemption Road (coming in 2015)
Joe Venn series
Omega Dog
Delta Ghost
Alpha Kill
Sigma Curse
Epsilon Creed (coming in 2014)
Shorter stories and novellas
Reunion
Snout