Tim Stevens - Delivering Caliban

‘Though you’d be home at this hour.’

‘I’m not having you Langley boys showing me up.’ Krugmann nodded at the intern to close the door. He shoved a mug of black coffee across the desk at Giordano. ‘Just got a call. The shit’s hit the fan.’

Giordano waited.

‘Where to god damn start… Remember how the shootings of our agents up in Skylands were called in by an anonymous person calling herself a federal agent?’

‘Barbara Berg.’

Krugmann stared. ‘How the hell’d you — ? Yeah. Berg. She’s called in to her superiors here in Manhattan, saying she’s the one who called the killings in earlier, and saying she’s arrested two Company operatives on charges of attempted murder. Names of Druze and Sandford. Mean anything?’

‘No.’

‘Both based in Richmond, it seems. Anyhow, this Berg says two other Company guys were shot dead while she was making the arrests. Laymon and James. These two are from the Philadelphia office.’

Krugmann gave it to him in as ordered a fashion as could be asked for. Berg and her partner Nakamura were following a tipoff about a missing woman in Charlottesville, VA, who’d apparently fled the scene of a double homicide. They found links to the former agent Crosby and obtained further intel from him before they were attacked by a group of what turned out to be CIA men. Subsequent evidence led them to a service station outside Philadelphia where they found four men who turned out also to be CIA, laying siege to a gunman holding the missing woman Ramirez hostage. When Berg pointed out the CIA men weren’t authorised to act on domestic soil the Company men had attacked her and her partner, and attempted to storm the service station and kill both the gunman and his hostage. Berg and her partner killed tow of the CIA men and arrested a further two. The gunman escaped with his hostage and killed the partner, Nakamura, in the process.

There was no mention in the account of John Purkiss.

Krugmann pinched his eyes shut for a long moment, massaging his forehead with the fingertips of one hand. ‘It makes no god damn sense, Ray. None at all. This Berg goes rogue for a while, calling things in anonymously, running around like Rambo killing Company guys. All supposedly after being tipped off about some missing person crap hundreds of miles away. Then she comes out of the cold to say there’s a kidnapper on the loose with a hostage.’

‘What does the Director say?’ Giordano meant the FBI Director.

‘Nothing at the moment. He’s pissed off with us, and I can’t say I blame him. Whatever this agent of his, Berg, has done, she seems to have caught so far eight of our people in the commission of various felonies. If I were the Feebs I’d be looking for revenge, starting with keeping us as far out of the loop as possible.’

‘They’ll have to involve us sooner or later.’

‘Yeah. Once they’ve flushed out whatever rotten apples remain in our barrel.’ Krugmann cracked his knuckles. ‘You’ll need to get back to Langley, I believe. This doesn’t just involve New York any more.’

‘You’re right.’ Giordano stood. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to my office for some privacy. I should be getting a call from the Chief at any moment.’

‘That you certainly will, my friend.’

*

Giordano slumped heavily in the office chair, his phone on the desk in front of him. It began buzzing immediately. He glanced at the number. The Chief.

He let it go to voicemail.

He did the same with a second call from the Chief. Then with one from Naomi.

Giordano stared at the wall, idly tracing a fine crack in the plaster from its source. He too had calls to make. Plenty of them. Ordinarily a decisive man, he didn’t in this case know where to start.

The phone sounded again, the vibration nearly sending it off the desk.

He didn’t recognise the number.

Giordano picked up the phone and hit the green button. He listened.

‘Raymond Giordano.’ A man’s voice. Accented, though he couldn’t tell with what.

‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Darius Pope. Does the surname ring any bells?’

And it all made sense, like a kaleidoscopic picture shifting into focus.

Giordano waited still. The voice — the accent was English — said, ‘Tell nobody of this conversation. Be in the Board Room annex of the Holtzmann Solar head office, in the Loomis Building in Manhattan, at ten o’clock this morning. Make sure you’re there alone.’

Giordano opened his mouth to speak, and it was as if his indrawn breath prompted the man to interrupt: ‘Just so that you’re aware of what will happen if you don’t follow my instructions to the letter.’

He paused, as if to make sure he had Giordano’s full attention.

‘I have your daughter.’

Manhattan, New York City

Tuesday 21 May, 7.35 am

Kendrick’s footfalls echoed off the bare walls in a rhythm that started to grate on Purkiss. He was standing at the large, tall window facing eastwards, watching the red sun emerge above the distant Jersey horizon.

‘Would you stop that,’ he said.

Kendrick glared. ‘You pace.’

‘I pace. I don’t prowl.’

He could see Kendrick was getting the urge, which he usually did at this stage of an operation: the craving for chemical stimulation. Normally Purkiss looked the other way, but this time he wouldn’t. There was no question of Kendrick’s stalking the early morning New York streets, looking for a fix.

‘How long’s she been?’ said Kendrick.

‘An hour.’

Berg had dropped them back at the abandoned office they’d used earlier when they’d been in the city the previous afternoon. She’d gone on to her headquarters to meet her boss and debrief.

They had debated it feverishly on the hundred-mile journey back to the city. This time they’d taken one car, Nakamura’s Taurus. The local cops had arrived within minutes of Pope’s disappearance, and Berg had taken control, giving them a brief summary and leaving them to convert the area into a crime scene and to take the two men Berg had arrested, Druze and Laymon, into custody. She’d liaised with the local FBI office in Philadelphia and arranged for them to escort the two men back to Manhattan for questioning. Apart from their names, which the men had acknowledged when Kendrick had found their drivers’ licences on them, they’d refused to speak without legal representation. A check on their licences confirmed they were both CIA.

Purkiss and Berg both agreed that New York was Pope’s likely destination. He’d appeared to be heading there before. It was possible, of course, that he intended to travel beyond the city and further north, but they had no way of knowing this. Pope had taken one of the cars belonging to the CIA men, but although

The debate was over how much to report in and how much to withhold. Berg had been in favour of making a full disclosure, of telling her superiors everything she knew, including about Purkiss’s involvement.

‘This is too big for us,’ she said. ‘Multiple CIA agents operating illegally, a British spook running amuck, killing and kidnapping… it needs the whole Bureau behind it.’

‘They’ll sideline you,’ said Purkiss.

‘No they won’t.’

‘They certainly will. You’ll be deemed unfit to proceed further. You’ve fired your weapon multiple times, you’ve almost been killed just as often. You watched your partner being crushed to death.’

She jerked her head round angrily, making the Taurus swerve. ‘Hey. No need to rub it in.’

‘I’m just trying to make a point. I know how organisations work. Yours, mine… they’re all the same. You’ll be thanked for bringing this serious matter to the bosses’ attention, they may even pardon you for going renegade earlier. But they’ll want to take it away from you and run it themselves.’