Tim Stevens - Delivering Caliban

Behind his back Purkiss’s cuffed hands scrabbled for the door release. His fingers found the lever, snapped at it; but the central locking system was in place. He wouldn’t get another kick in and the man’s arm was burrowing more deeply into his jacket. In a few seconds he’d have the gun.

Beside Purkiss’s ear the window exploded inwards, nuggets of safety glass hailing past his face. Some sort of small battering ram was knocking out the remaining fragments of the window. Once more hands were grabbing at his shoulders. He heaved himself forwards to allow them to reach under his arms, pressed downwards with his feet to help lever himself up and back. Awkwardly he half-pushed himself and was half-hauled through the window frame. For a moment he was horizontal, suspended crazily from the car; then the hands righted him and he stood blinking in the middle of a downtown Manhattan street, a cacophony of yells and horns raging around him.

‘Come on.’

Two people, once again, a man and a woman this time propelling him forwards and towards the pavement. Like the two men in the park they wielded shields in leather folders, held up like crucifixes against a crowd of vampires.

The FBI agents, Berg and Nakamura.

Berg dragged at the rear door of a Ford Taurus parked up on a yellow line on the pavement and said, ‘Get in.’ Behind her a man was approaching, running across the street, weaving among the stalled traffic.

Nakamura yelled, ‘Watch out,’ his arm coming up, a pistol levelled.

Purkiss said, ‘No, he’s with me.’

The man reached them. Thin, unkempt, with bad teeth and the sallow eyes of a wolf.

Berg stared at him, then back at Purkiss. Then she said: ‘In. Both of you.’

Purkiss dropped into the seat, shifting over to make room for Kendrick. Nakamura took the wheel.

*

The noise dwindled behind as they plunged into the bustle of Lower Manhattan. In the front passenger seat Berg took something from her pocket and handed it back.

‘The cuffs.’

It was a universal key, something Purkiss wasn’t surprised to see in the FBI arsenal. Kendrick took it and sprung the cuffs after a few seconds of fiddling. Purkiss rubbed the feeling back into his wrists.

He said: ‘Where are we going?’

Berg said, ‘Haven’t decided yet.’ She turned in her seat to look at him. ‘Those guys say who they were?’

‘No. They had CIA ID, though.’

‘Their names are Barker and Campbell. And yes, they’re Company, all right.’

‘Then why are we running away? Why not arrest them? Assuming they’ve done something arrestable, of course.’

Nakamura laughed. Berg said, ‘They’ve certainly done something arrestable. Apprehending a foreign national on US soil. That’s our jurisdiction, not theirs. The reason we’re not arresting them is because we’ve been warned off.’

‘By whom?’

‘Our own high command.’

Purkiss took a moment to absorb this, found that he couldn’t. He glanced at Kendrick. ‘Thanks.’

‘Any time you need your arse wiped.’

As soon as he’d seen Kendrick running across the street, Purkiss had grasped what had happened. Kendrick hadn’t been able to make a move in the park when he’d seen Purkiss being taken down by the two men. He’d followed the Crown Vic in his rental car and had rammed it at what seemed to be an opportune moment. And had turned out to be one.

He’d rung Kendrick from Hamburg as soon as Vale had told him about the New York killing of the third agent, Grosvenor. Kendrick had been available immediately, so Purkiss had booked him on the Heathrow-to-JFK flight that he himself would be connecting with. The US was a vast arena and Purkiss decided he’d do well with backup.

Tony Kendrick was an ex-paratrooper whom Purkiss had met in Iraq some eight years earlier. He was a civilian now. Purkiss hired him on a freelance basis when he needed an extra pair of hands, or an extra gun. There’d been three of them once: Purkiss, Kendrick and Abby.

A police car shot past, siren squealing. Purkiss thought he knew where it was heading.

Berg said: ‘We’ve got questions for each other. I’ll go first. We know you’re here on a job, Purkiss. No bullshit this time. We just can’t figure out what it is. Danny here and I — ’ she nodded at Nakamura — ‘were at JFK on another job, looking for a suspect in a different cae who we thought might turn up from abroad. While we were there we noticed those two CIA guys, Campbell and Barker, hanging round. We got curious. We knew them for Company, and then when you arrived at the passport desk and they took an obvious interest in you, we moved in. We’re jealous of our turf, Purkiss. The law’s clear. Here in the US, the Company butts out. And if the Company decides to start following people here, it becomes our business.

‘So we shook you down a little, didn’t get anything out of you as expected, then let you go. Campbell and Barker took off after you, so we followed. You’re good — you nearly lost them, and us — but we picked you up again on the subway and were on to you when you reached Battery Park.’

Nakamura took over: ‘You met up with some guy there, we don’t know who. Then we saw the two Company assholes take you down. We called in for authorisation to make a move. Berg’s idea. Big fuckin’ mistake. Our boss tells us to back off. Walk away. Says it’s an internal CIA matter. Like Berg says, we’re jealous of our turf. So we decide to ignore him. Next thing, this guy — ’ he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Kendrick — ‘comes out of nowhere and rams you. And we haul you out.’

‘And we’re officially in violation of direct orders from our superiors. A firing offence, at best.’ Berg shook her head, as if amazing herself. ‘So. Your turn. And Purkiss?’

‘Yes.’

‘Make it good. Because I am having a really bad day.’

Outside Charlottesville, Virginia

Monday 20 May, 11.10 pm

Pope had asked for the fastest car the rental firm had available, short of a sports vehicle. He’d chosen a Mercedes E-class saloon.

His preferred means of travel, the train, wasn’t an option because there were no more running that night. Neither could he take a bus, because speed was of the essence.

He veered through the snarl of North Virginia traffic, reaching interstate 95 within an hour. She had an hour’s head start on him. At this rate he would make Washington by midnight, around the time her Greyhound was due to arrive.

He’d done a quick scout of the station to see if she was there waiting for a bus or a train, then checked the schedules. No trains since this afternoon, so she wouldn’t have left that way.

At the bus station ticket office he said, ‘I’m looking for my girlfriend. I think she may have taken a bus this evening.’

The woman behind the screen eyed him with distaste. He smiled.

‘Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. She’s running away and I’m stalking her.’ He held up his phone. Onto it he’d loaded a photo of Ramirez for recognition purposes, one he’d taken in her flat. It showed her with her grandmother, grinning at the camera. He held the phone out, her photo showing on the screen. ‘Her phone. She’s left it behind. I think she went to Washington and she’ll be going insane knowing she’s left this behind. If she’s gone there, I need to catch up with her.’

The woman looked at the picture, then at him. She smiled back. Pope wondered if she’d need stitches.

‘Yeah, she was here. Bought a ticket for the nine o’clock ’Hound to Washington. Should be around one third of the way there now.’

He beamed. ‘Thanks so much.’

The rental place was down the road.

*