Tim Stevens - Ratcatcher

Behind them a couple of the policemen were shouting something. One of them tried to come forward, but he cringed back as a rain of shots spackled off the steps. The police seemed torn between returning the fire from above and covering Purkiss and his colleagues, especially as the firing from the roof didn’t appear to be aimed at them. Kendrick crouched behind some steel bins and started to lay down covering fire, aiming diagonally upwards at the fire escape door. Purkiss hoped to God he didn’t start shooting at the police.

The alley didn’t, as Purkiss had thought before, end blindly. There was a narrow gap, wide enough to fit a single person, leading through to a street at the back of the hotel. Elle pointed at the gap and nodded. Purkiss waved her ahead of him and yelled at Kendrick, ‘Come on.’

The shooting from above had stopped. That was a bad sign, because the police would now be free to come after them or, worse, start firing. Purkiss grabbed two dustbin lids and held them up as makeshift shields. He winced as a bullet smashed into the wall of the alley. Another sang off one of the lids, the impact almost knocking it from his hand. He waited till Kendrick disappeared through the gap, then crammed himself through. Ahead Elle was sprinting, not waiting for them. He understood that she needed to get to the car and start it up.

They weaved and cannoned through the maze of streets, bouncing off the rain-slicked walls. Purkiss was aware of a terrifying claustrophobia. He felt hemmed in on all sides by the clusters of people, the coloured lights, the vehicles. He had no idea where he was running, kept his gaze on Elle several yards ahead, who was a faster runner than he’d realised. He saw a screaming couple recoil from them. As if for the first time he noticed the rifle in Kendrick’s grip. He yelled, ‘Get rid of that.’ Kendrick snarled something bestial in reply and kept hold of the gun.

And they were at the car, its exhaust already alive and growling. They piled inside. Elle looked in the mirrors, pulled away gently and kept the speed slow, maddeningly so. Much as Purkiss wanted to shout at her to put her foot down, he understood the need to be unobtrusive. He turned in his seat and stared back through the rear window. High on the roof of the hotel he saw helmeted figures swarming under the spotlights, the occasional prick of light from a gunshot. On the streets below people were massing in fear and wonder, craning their gazes upwards, like peasant villagers staring up at a Gothic castle where terrible deeds were being perpetrated.

Never in front of his men would Venedikt lose control. To do so would be humiliating, unmanly. It would also be tactically unwise, because every display of fear and doubt in the leader would kindle such feelings in his followers, where they would be magnified a thousandfold.

‘We believe all eight are dead, sir.’

It was sir now, not Venedikt Vasilyevich . Dobrynin had been making and taking phone calls. Now he stood before Venedikt, his mutilated hand grasped in the other, the only sign of his nerves.

‘Eight.’.

‘Yes. Braginsky and Ivanov from the room, the remaining six on the roof.’

‘All dead.’

‘None in custody, as far as we know. The police have not been seen to take anybody away yet. The only ambulance has been to attend to an injured policeman on the ground.’

‘And no Purkiss.’

‘No, sir. He and the other two have escaped.’

Venedikt felt the urge to probe his temples with his fingertips but resisted. Control .

‘And we don’t know if Purkiss learned anything from any of the men.’

‘No, sir.’

The office was spartan, unused before now. He would have preferred that they hadn’t had to use it. Now, perhaps, they would have to move again. But where to? He watched Dobrynin’s face, the grave, calm expression. On the periphery of Venedikt’s vision the wall clock said ten past one.

Seven hours.

‘It’s a setback.’

Dobrynin stood poised, waiting for the next.

‘A setback. But no more.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Dobrynin exhaled, audibly, grasping the meaning. We stay put. We proceed as planned.

Venedikt waved him into a seat. With pen and paper they made rapid calculations. Eight men down. A third of their number. It was a setback, indeed, a serious though not a fatal one.

After Dobrynin had left Venedikt walked outside and stood in the sharp cold, relishing the tingle of the fine rain on his upturned face. The row of disused hangars in the distance resembled the tailbones of some gigantic fossilised prehistoric beast. Only one, the nearest, was illuminated, the men moving about moth-like under the arc lights. They had worked swiftly, transporting everything to the new location within ninety minutes.

No. The energy and manpower that would have to be spent in moving everything again would be better directed towards another goal. Finding Purkiss, and neutralising him.

First, Venedikt needed to speak to his English ‘friend’. The word was increasingly bitter in his mind. The ‘friend’ was playing games with him. It was time for a reminder of who was in charge.

He stepped back into his office and took out his phone.

‘Nothing.’ Purkiss wanted to thump the dashboard in frustration. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

Beside him Elle said, ‘We took down several of them. And the police may have taken some of them alive. Might find out something useful.’

‘That doesn’t help us. Or Abby.’

The cacophony of the hotel was fifteen minutes behind them, an occasional emergency vehicle still blasting past. Purkiss had rattled off the little he’d learned. The farmhouse base was being shut down — no doubt his and Kendrick’s appearance there and subsequent escape had triggered this — and the target the next day was going to be the Russian president.

‘An ethnic Russian group planning to kill the leader of what presumably they regard as their home nation,’ said Elle. ‘Two possibilities. Either they see him as too conciliatory, too liberal, or it’s meant as a provocation, intended to harden Russian attitudes towards the Estonian government and people.’

‘I’d go for the second,’ said Purkiss.

In the back Kendrick was agitated, shifting about in his seat as if it were heated, hands playing over the AK-74. He said, ‘What’s on the agenda?’

Elle answered. ‘We hole up, take stock. I’ve a safe house a couple of miles away.’

Purkiss knew it was standard procedure. Every agent in the field arranged his or her own safe house, the whereabouts of which was unknown to anybody else, even trusted colleagues. They couldn’t return to her usual flat in case Teague showed up.

‘So he hates the Russian president too,’ said Purkiss. ‘Teague.’

She shook her head, her eyes weary. ‘Not that he ever mentioned. But I don’t know. God. Nothing’s certain any more.’

The safe house was a second-floor flat in a nondescript suburban area. Purkiss had a notion they were west of the Old Town. He trooped upstairs with the others two, fatigue pulling at his limbs.

The living room was barely furnished and cold as only a room left unheated for months can be. Elle flicked the boiler into life, went into the kitchenette. Purkiss sank onto a reconditioned sofa and Kendrick seated himself at the tiny dining table. He placed the rifle across it and began to strip it.

‘Thing about these old Soviet weapons,’ he said, ‘you can treat them like shit. Leave them out in the rain, drag them through swamps, bury them under an avalanche. They go on working like loyal old mutts.’

The aroma of coffee began to replace the mustiness. Purkiss put his hands round the mug Elle handed him and drank gratefully. She’d provided sandwiches as well, huge doorsteps of granary and ham and cheese.