Tim Stevens - Delivering Caliban

There were no recorded instances of disciplinary action against him, nor any suggestions of infractions that might have been quietly swept under the carpet. He was to all appearances clean. A model agent.

‘I ordered surveillance on his flat starting ten p.m. last night,’ said Gifford. ‘He wasn’t there. He hasn’t returned home since. And he hasn’t contacted anyone in the office, nor has he answered his phone. His phone location isn’t traceable, either, which means he’s probably ditched it. Or someone else has.’

*

Pope lived alone in a rented apartment on Vijzelgracht. Purkiss caught a tram to within a couple of streets away and covered the rest of the distance on foot, the cobbles on the road still slick with dew. Gifford had rung ahead to call off the surveillance on the apartment until further notice, so Purkiss had free rein.

Like many agents, Pope appeared to be remarkably lax about personal security. This, Purkiss knew, was because an agent was aware that anybody breaking into his home would be a professional and wouldn’t be deterred by the usual measures a homeowner might adopt, such as a gated entry system, triple locks and the like. Purkiss entered the narrow atrium through unlocked doors, climbed to the second floor and, although Pope’s door was locked with both a yale and a mortice mechanism, was able to bypass both within a minute.

He took the usual precautions, wary of a booby trap; but there was none. A swift reconnoitre of the apartment revealed a modest if not spartan bachelor’s abode, with few creature comforts. Briefly Purkiss remembered a similar flat, six months earlier on the Baltic coast. There, he’d found evidence of Claire’s killer. This time there was nothing of significance. He opened the laptop computer he found in a desk drawer but its password protection deterred him Gifford and his people could have a crack at it later.

Purkiss pulled out his phone and called Vale.

‘No sign of him. By the look of it, he’s been here in the last twenty-four hours. There’s some moisture in the kitchen sink and the bathroom.’

Vale pondered for a moment. ‘All right. Leave everything as it is.’

‘I want to pay a visit to these Americans. Jablonsky and Taylor.’

‘One moment.’ Vale’s voice became muffled. He came back: ‘Gifford agrees. We have their home addresses.’

It was a Sunday, so they might be at home. Purkiss rang off and exited the flat. He used his phone to locate the first apartment, Jablonsky’s, in relation to Pope’s. Twenty minutes’ walk away across the city centre. Jablonsky too lived alone, apparently. Purkiss had no fixed idea about how he would approach the man, or even if he would at all. Covert pursuit might be more productive.

Jablonsky lived down a cul de sac in a nondescript rim of residences off the shopping district. Purkiss’s antennae, which normally alerted him to surveillance, were silent.

The four-storey building housing Jablonsky’s flat loomed before him, crushed between two squatter structures. Purkiss peered up at the windows, trying to make out whether the curtains were drawn or whether the darkness was caused by shadow on the glass.

The shot came, muffled and dull, but unmistakeable to someone like Purkiss who’d heard his share of silenced gunfire.

Purkiss found the entrance unlocked and took the stairs three at a time, ears straining for clues. Another shot came as he reached the landing at the top, a third so close to the second they sounded like a pair of heartbeats. The door to Jablonsky’s flat was closed. Purkiss hesitated for a second, ear against the thick wood, then tried the handle as slowly as he dared. The door yielded quietly and he pushed it open and stepped through.

From where he stood a kitchenette was visible at a slant past a central pillar in the living room. A man’s back presented itself to him through the entrance to the kitchenette. Either his foot disturbed a loose floorboard or the man had an agent’s finely tuned sense of an opponent’s presence, but the man turned and ducked so swiftly that even if Purkiss had been armed he doubted he’d have been able to fire accurately.

The man had a gun, clearly, so Purkiss used his environment as cover, the chief component of which was the supporting pillar in the living room. In two steps he was up against one side, pressed hard against the stone. He darted a glance around the side and saw the man, shockingly close, a head of fair hair above a youthful face.

Pope, there was no doubt about it.

Purkiss leaped around the pillar to flank the man but Pope was anticipating this and bringing the gun up. Purkiss used a knife hand against the younger man’s wrist, driving the forearm against the edge of the pillar and sending the pistol spinning from his splayed fingers.

Pope reacted rapidly, clearly calculating that the loss of the gun had lengthened the odds against him, and ran for the door. Purkiss’s attention snagged on what he saw through the entrance arch to the kitchenette: a short, middle-aged man slumped on the floor against the refrigerator, a crimson bloom across his chest. Purkiss stepped in the direction of the kitchenette on the off-chance Jablonsky was still alive, and saw at once the state of the man’s head, one side completely blasted away. That would have been the double tap, which meant the first shot he’d heard from outside had caused the chest wound.

He took off through the door of the flat after Pope, spotting him rounding the corner as Purkiss himself made it outside, and pursuing him towards the Central Station.

*

An hour later, after the encounter at the station and as Vale pulled the car into the parking lot outside the hotel where Gifford had created the makeshift base, Purkiss said, ‘I assume Gifford’s checked out the rest of the Company’s agents here.’

‘In case any of them is the next target. Yes, indeed.’ Vale shrugged. ‘We don’t even know what we’re looking for. Why Jablonsky and Taylor were hit.’

‘You’ve got Pope’s laptop?’

‘Yes. Gifford’s people are taking it apart now.’

Purkiss pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. ‘Do the Company know yet?’

‘About the deaths? Hard to tell, but there’s been no sign so far.’

Up in the suite Gifford was pacing, a fist pressed under his chin. Otherwise his face betrayed no trace of stress. He gave Purkiss a quick appraisal as they entered, seemed satisfied.

Purkiss went over to the window and stared out, trying to keep his frustration under wraps. Amsterdam provided access to the whole of Europe, and its borders weren’t exactly secure. Pope could be out of the country by now. The airport would be monitored but it was unlikely he’d try leaving that way.

*

Two hours later, at a few minutes after noon, Gifford took a call. He listened mostly, muttered a few words, then turned to Purkiss and Vale.

‘They’ve cracked the laptop. No files of interest, so far. But the internet search history shows that yesterday Pope was looking at flight times from Schiphol to Hamburg.’

Purkiss stood. ‘I’m on it.’

Charlottesville, Virginia

Monday 20 May, 12.25 pm

A sensation of warmth on the back of Nina Ramirez’s neck was the first sign that someone was watching her.

They’d finished their first rehearsal in the Old Cabell Hall where they’d be performing in public in a fortnight, and it hadn’t gone well. Madison, the second violinist, had played sluggishly, and the rest of them had fallen into step. They made it through the Bartok piece, the third quartet, after which Ruth, their conductor, got up and strode towards them, hands buried in her huge hair.

‘Guys. Enough, already.’