Tim Stevens - Delivering Caliban

‘Caliban. Nothing’s coming up.’

She cross-referenced it with a range of years — 1995 until 2000 — but there were no hits. Jablonsky’s name went into the mix, as did Crosby’s, Taylor’s and Grosvenor’s. Still nothing. She added “Holtzmann Solar”. All that appeared on the screen was the connection with the stocks and shares the CIA agents had owned and sold.

‘Damn it.’

‘It’s too direct,’ said Purkiss. ‘Try Holtzmann Solar’s bank accounts. See where they send their money.’

A few hits came up, mainly in connection with investigations into fraud within the company. Nothing suggested there had been any suspicions on the FBI’s part of money being salted away to avoid the gaze of the IRS or anyone else.

Abby , thought Purkiss, this is where we need you . Abby Holt had been a computer genius, one of a rare breed who was equally adept with the hardware and software aspects of computing. She’d have thought of a way in.

Purkiss thought best when he was moving. He stood and stepped away from the group and began pacing, long strides to the counter of the diner and back. He played Crosby’s words over again in his head, until one phrase snagged him.

Something that was going to prove invaluable in the field of interrogation.

There was an echo there. Interrogation… it had come up in another conversation since his pursuit of Pope had begun.

Purkiss took out his mobile and hit the speed dial button.

‘Vale.’ The reply came after a single ring.

‘Quentin, it’s me.’

‘What’s been happening?’

‘What have you heard?’ Purkiss wasn’t being deliberately elliptical. Raw data about how much of the mission was leaking through to the outside world could often prove useful.

‘The Service man at the New York embassy, Delatour, said he saw you being taken down by two men. There are reports of a car crash a few minutes later in Lower Manhattan. Other than that, nothing.’

‘They were CIA, but rogue ones. Possibly part of a black ops cell.’ Purkiss gave Vale a brief rundown, including the fact that four more men had been killed up at Crosby’s cabin. He didn’t mention the two FBI officers, merely that he was receiving help with his research.

Vale said, ‘I can get a search done myself on Holtzmann Solar, see if the Service or Security have anything on them.’

‘There’s something in particular I’m calling about.’

Vale waited.

‘Remind me what the Amsterdam spook, Gifford, said about Pope. I have the gist, but run through what you remember of what he told us.’

‘Pope’s early life? Grammar school, political science at Bristol — ’

‘Later than that. What sort of work has he done in the Service, that kind of thing.’

‘Surveillance, data analysis…’

‘Interrogation work?’

‘Let’s see. No, not that I remember. A people person, but not in that way. Good at charming people in social situations, but as far as I know not the persuasive type that would be much use during forced debriefings.’

Purkiss shook his head at the euphemism. ‘In that case, was Pope himself interrogated? Did Gifford mention anything about that?’

Vale rustled paper for a few moments — his cigarettes, Purkiss knew — and said: ‘I’m working from memory here, and I’m an old man. But no, I can’t remember anything like that — ’

‘Hang on.’ An old man. Pope’s old man…

‘His father.’

Vale said, after a beat, ‘Ah, yes. You’re right. His father, Geoffrey, was something of an expert on interrogation.’

Purkiss felt a fist of hope clench in his chest.

*

‘This might take a while.’

Berg’s hands were blurring over the keyboard. On the monitor streams of data were flooding by. Personnel files with introductory biographies, histories of drug development, political connections and donations. As per standard operating procedure with all big corporations, Berg said, the FBI had done routine and extensive background checks on Holtzmann Solar. Nothing even remotely underhand had emerged.

Purkiss didn’t expect the search to reveal much. He’d suggested Berg carry it out because he needed something to distract them while he waited for Vale to ring back.

The café owner put his head round the door at one point, caught Nakamura’s expression and withdrew back into whatever den he had set up in the back.

Purkiss paced some more, ignoring the looks of irritation he got from Kendrick and Nakamura. He, Vale, Gifford… none of them had considered the personal angle when trying to find a link between Pope and the people he’d killed. They’d been blinded by the political dimension to the killings: spy murdering spy, and from a nominally allied agency to boot.

Purkiss’s phone buzzed. He stepped away. It was Vale.

‘John. I’ve emailed you Geoffrey Pope’s dossier, but here’s the gist. He was semi-freelance for the last couple of years of his life. Senior enough that he was given a free rein to investigate what he liked, as long as he didn’t bring the Service into disrepute. The last record of his work was when he went undercover in the US in early 1997. There are no details of the cover he assumed, but he’d dropped hints that he was investigating something in the field of interrogation science.’

‘Any connection with Holtzmann Solar?’

‘No. Nor with the CIA, that we can find. But the circumstances of his death are relevant.’

Gifford had said Pope senior had been killed in a flying accident.

Vale went on: ‘His body was found in the wreckage of a light aircraft in the sea off the Atlantic coast of Guatemala, on November the fifth, 1998. Days after the region was hit by the worst hurricane on record.’

Langley, Virginia

Monday 20 May, 4.45 pm

‘Give it to me.’

Giordano had been on the way back from the canteen when his phone rang: Naomi, saying there’d been developments. Adrienne had packed him a tuna salad for a mid-afternoon snack in a Tupperware container. He’d eaten it dutifully, then told himself he needed extra fuel for what was proving to be a stressful time, and had gulped down spare ribs and fries standing up at a counter in the canteen, feeling like an office worker sneaking a cigarette in the rain. Adrienne would understand, if she ever found out. Not that she would.

Naomi and Kenny were already in his office.

‘Two of our agents, involved in a fender bender in Lower Manhattan. One injured slightly, the other okay.’

‘Names?’

‘Melvin Barker and Louis Campbell,’ said Kenny, trying to keep his oar in the conversation.

‘Don’t know them.’ Giordano held out his hand. ‘Give me that.’

Naomi handed him the printed pages. Less-than-focused photos showed the two agents’ faces, the Crown Vic with its side smashed in, sitting like a rock around which the river of traffic flowed.

‘We’re in a wrangle with local law enforcement, trying to get them to back off and leave this to us,’ said Naomi. ‘They’re muttering about us overstepping our mark. It doesn’t help that Barker and Campbell are claiming this is nothing more than a hit-and-run, an accident. The NYPD Commissioner in Manhattan is saying, if that’s the case, why not let the boys in blue handle it?’

‘It’s not an accident.’ Giordano made it half sound like a question.

‘Probably not, because several witnesses claim a guy was dragged out of the backseat of the car just after the crash happened. Tall, dark hair, hands cuffed behind his back. Two of the witnesses positively IDed the guy as the Brit, John Purkiss, when they were shown a selection of identikit pictures.’