Tim Stevens - Jokerman

The bloodshot eyes stared past him between blistered lids. The man’s lips were ragged, bleeding flaps, the tongue a desiccated insect flopping behind them.

The man’s lower jaw moved.

Purkiss bent and put his ear to the man’s lips.

‘Water.’ It was no louder than a rustling of leaves.

‘You’ll talk?’ said Purkiss.

‘Yes.’

‘What’s your name?’

All Purkiss had to do was raise the bottle to catch the glittering sunlight, and the man would answer. It was like a classically conditioned, Pavlovian response.

‘Ericson.’ The man’s voice was still parched, still harsh, but no longer a mere whisper. Purkiss had let him drink half a litre, no more. It wasn’t purely tactical; too much and he was likely to vomit.

‘Who do you work for?’

‘Scipio Rand Security. Please give me some more water.’

‘In a minute.’ Purkiss held the bottle by the neck behind his back. The man, Ericson, was slumped against the wheel of the Audi. His hands were still tied.

‘What were your orders in regard to me?’

‘We were — ’ The man broke off, swallowed. ‘Told to make sure you went from the airport to… to our headquarters, and to accost you if you… seemed to be going somewhere else. More water, please.’

Purkiss tipped the bottle. Ericson gulped like a dog at a trough. Purkiss splashed a little over the man’s face and shoulders.

‘How did you know I was coming to Riyadh?’

Ericson shook his head. ‘I don’t know. We were just given orders.’

Purkiss made to open the driver’s door. Ericson gave a strangled gasp.

‘It’s true. Oh, Christ, I swear to you. I don’t… know.’

‘All right.’ Purkiss swung the bottle idly. ‘Scipio Rand. What’s its business?’

‘Security.’

‘I know that’s what it calls itself. But what does it do that’s not above board? That would cause it to send armed men to the airport, potentially to kidnap a visitor?’

Ericson fell silent, and for a moment Purkiss thought he was going to clam up again, until he realised the man was struggling to find a way to convey his meaning in as few words as possible. He fed Ericson some more water, a little more generously this time.

‘Scipio Rand provides a halfway house,’ the man managed, after a few seconds’ choking.

‘Explain,’ said Purkiss.

‘Transit,’ said Ericson, then shook his head in frustration. ‘Governments, and intelligence agencies, use our facilities here in Riyadh, and… elsewhere, to keep prisoners. Usually… ones on their way to some destination in another country.’

‘Which agencies?’ Purkiss let a note of urgency creep into his voice.

‘CIA and SIS, mostly.’ Ericson ran a crackling tongue over his lips, winced. ‘But the German and French outfits as well. The Turks, sometimes, and the Kuwaitis. Even the Russians, from time to time. It’s a… business thing. The money’s what counts.’

‘What work are you doing for the British at the moment?’

Again Ericson shook his head. ‘Nothing. But there was…’

This time Purkiss knew he’d broken off not because of his physical discomfort, but because he was heading into dangerous territory. Purkiss shook the water bottle before the man’s face, saw the pathetic shine in his eyes as he stared at the plastic.

Ericson went on hastily: ‘There was a time, back in 2006, when we were at our busiest. Weekly consignments of prisoners coming through. I was working there already, back then, and I was involved in the process.’

‘Prisoners from where?’

‘Iraq.’

Purkiss gave him some more water, wanting to keep the words flowing.

Ericson went on: ‘For a while, we were receiving batches of prisoners from Basra and Baghdad on a weekly basis. Sometimes single prisoners, more often groups of them. Captured combatants, suspected orchestrators of terror attacks in the country. We received them, held them if necessary, and shipped them out.’

‘Where to?’

‘Sometimes to Guantanamo, under the CIA. Some of them went to places like Egypt or Morocco. Renditioning. And others we shipped to Britain.’

Purkiss felt his pulse quicken. ‘Dennis Arkwright,’ he said. ‘Do you know him?’

Ericson closed his puffy eyes, nodded. ‘Arkwright was the liaison man from Britain. He was nominally an employee of Scipio Rand, but that was a cover. We didn’t know who he really worked for. I assumed he was with SIS or Five, though he didn’t look like an intelligence agent. More like a thug. He used to turn up here when we had a new shipment of prisoners come in, interrogate them briefly, and pick a few to be escorted back with him to the UK.’

‘Did anyone accompany him on his trips here?’ asked Purkiss.

‘No. He always came alone.’

Purkiss gazed off across the desert. Damn it, he’d thought it sounded promising at first, but it wasn’t really much at all. He was learning very little that was actually new.

‘These prisoners,’ he said. ‘How did they get here? Did Scipio Rand send escorts to Iraq to pick them up?’

‘No,’ Ericson said. He grimaced as he tried to make his arms more comfortable, secured as they were still behind his back. ‘They came with escorts of their own. Military.’

‘Coalition troops?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Ericson. ‘Though they were always British. And it was always the same pool of people. Different combinations at different times, but the same basic ten or so men.’

Something flickered at the periphery of Purkiss’s consciousness, something that darted away before he could get a grasp of it. ‘British soldiers,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ said Ericson, and coughed. ‘Paras, as it happened.’

Purkiss went still. ‘Paras. The Parachute Battalion.’

‘Right. I know that because a couple of our boys are ex-Paras, and got chatting with them. I think it was Two Para, but I can’t remember.’

Purkiss felt the excitement rising, crackling inside him.

He squatted down before Ericson, fed him water, allowing him to drink his fill this time.

‘Ericson,’ he said. ‘Do you remember any of these men? The escorts? Their names, what they looked like?’

Ericson’s head lolled back against the car, his eyes narrow slits against the sun. ‘God… I don’t know. I don’t think I can — ’

Purkiss began to run through random names he made up as he went along.

‘Peter Tallis.’

‘I don’t think — no.’

‘Chris Major.’

‘No.’

‘Derek Thompson.’

‘No. I’m sorry, I really don’t — ’

‘Tony Kendrick.’

Ericson’s lips moved silently, his eyes still almost closed.

After a second, he said, ‘Yeah. That name rings a bell.’

Purkiss stood up. He turned away from the sitting man, his eyes ranging across the broad, clear sky.

One by one, the pieces started to fall into place.

Purkiss thought about taking Ericson straight to one of the city’s hospitals, but decided he was more likely to be stopped and asked for an explanation if he did so.

Instead, once back within the city limits, he pulled in alongside a bus shelter on a quiet residential road where there was nobody about, hauled the man out of the back seat, dumped him in the shelter, and dialled the emergency number. After establishing that the operator spoke English, Purkiss gave the street address and asked for an ambulance for a man suffering from heat stroke.

He left Ericson propped in the shelter. His wrists were still tied, but his legs weren’t, and he could easily have walked away. It didn’t matter. He was no threat to Purkiss now. His employers at Scipio rand would already know Purkiss was at large, and would be looking for him. They’d have the airport staked out, and probably have a welcoming committee waiting for him there.