Ratcatcher

planning, and Purkiss was trying to put a stop to it at this late hour.

On the worst nights — perhaps one in every ten — the Jacobin’s dreams were painted in vast, terrible vistas of devastation: charnel pits engorged with the stick bodies of concentration camp inmates, strontium-blighted cityscapes of black ruin, fields of mud and blood and bone. The Jacobin would wake, sweat-slick, fist crammed into mouth, driving back a scream. The terror would ebb after a few minutes, but the shaking in the hands would persist. The Jacobin didn’t mind; welcomed the dreams, in fact. When one had committed oneself to a refusal to give an inch, the dreams stiffened one’s resolve.

The figures were burned in the Jacobin’s mind. Two and a half thousand operational strategic warheads, two thousand operational tactical warheads, seven thousand stockpiled warheads of both varieties. It was the best estimate of the Russian nuclear arsenal, not at the height of the Cold War but today, more than two decades after the fall of the Soviet empire. There was no chance, none at all, that the growing economic and geopolitical resurgence of the old enemy would not be accompanied eventually by the flexing of its military muscles, whether directly or through terrorist proxies. And no chance that the nuclear stockpile would remain unused. Meanwhile the governments of the EU and the US were embracing detente, rapprochement, a host of French terms that failed to disguise the English one they were meant to replace: appeasement.

As the evidence of the country’s growing aggression and arrogance had accumulated — the Litvinenko murder, the crushing of Georgia — there had been those within the Service who had pressed for a more assertive approach to the Russian Bear: greater numbers deployed in Moscow and Petersburg to bolster the existing networks there, targeted assassinations, pressure on the politicians to adopt a more publicly pugnacious stance. These courageous voices had been shouted down by others, less courageous. Russia is an ally in the War on Terror. We rely on Gazprom’s oil. And, more honestly if hardly more excusably: Look at the state of the economy. There’s no money left. The mealy-mouthed justifications nauseated the Jacobin.

After the morning of Saturday the fourteenth everything would be different. Within a week, within days, the Kremlin would have made its move, and the weasels in Whitehall and Washington would no longer be able to cower in their burrows. And leading the fightback would be the Service, reenergised, with a reacquired sense of purpose.

The old man, the landlord, had opened the door in a fury. His anger quickly dissolved into terror. By the end he was grovelling. He’d been useful, not for revealing where he’d sent Purkiss — this was already known to the Jacobin — but for what he’d said about the questions Purkiss had asked. The picture was becoming extremely complicated.

The call came from Kuznetsov. ‘My men are in place. He’s trapped.’

That was quick. The Jacobin was impressed, but didn’t betray it. ‘They underestimated him last time. Make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

‘You have my word.’ Was there snideness in the tone? Kuznetsov’s true attitude towards the Jacobin had become increasingly apparent in the last week.

‘Non-lethal force only.’

Kuznetsov said nothing.

‘I mean it, Kuznetsov.’

‘It causes delay, and ties up my people who are needed elsewhere. A quick despatch is far more efficient.’

The Jacobin gripped the phone, fighting down the frustration. ‘I told you, I need to extract information from him. Crucial information that could scupper the whole enterprise if we let it.’

‘If he is as dangerous as you say, then we’re better off with him dead.’ The call was disconnected.

The Jacobin paced, channelling the anger, trying to divert it like lightning into the earth. The pig-headed idiot had ideas above his station, was going to let his ego wreck everything.

From across the nearby bay a horn sounded, low and prolonged like a moan.

Eleven

He’d identified four of them so far but suspected there were more. The bull-necked man was barrelling his way through the throng, hanging back when Purkiss changed direction so that he could track him. On either side of the entrance there were two of them, their stares like spotlights trained on a lone sprinter across a prison yard. And behind the bar the woman, Lyuba, was ignoring the shouts of drinkers trying to get her attention and stood with folded arms, her gaze naked as the others’.

He fished the card out of his breast pocket and read the number by the light of his phone.

It was going to be impossible to make himself heard over the cacophony. On the other hand, he couldn’t risk heading back into the restrooms where it was marginally quieter, because he’d be trapping himself down a cul de sac. He thumbed in the text message and hit the send key.

The bull-necked man was trying to drive him towards the two at the entrance and he headed deep into the heaving mass of clubbers but it was hazardous because he didn’t know how many of them would be waiting further back in the depths of the dance floor and if one of them had a syringe like earlier they could slip it in before he’d realised what was going on and he’d be down and then they’d have him. He felt himself borne along by the press of bodies. This, as well as the strobing lights and the endless grind of the music, triggered panic in his stomach. He thought about screaming. Nobody would notice, and it might offer him some release.

The phone in his pocket vibrated. He looked at the screen, saw the words: On our way. Fifteen minutes.

Our? There was no point dwelling on what this meant, because he had to concentrate on staying conscious and keeping his wits about him for a quarter of an hour. It was no time at all and yet an eternity.

There was another possibility to consider, a wild card he had no control over. The body might be found in the cubicle in the next fifteen minutes and the place locked down. It would reduce the immediate danger, but would generate problems of its own. His best bet was to make his way to one of the walls and keep against it, limit the directions from which the enemy could approach without restricting his potential escape routes. Purkiss squirmed his way over to the far wall. Once there he turned and took stock.

The bull-necked man was approaching, his progress remorseless through the sea of bodies. From over to the left, one of the men who’d been guarding the entrance was advancing, too, sidling along the wall. Purkiss eased to his left instinctively but ten feet or so in that direction was a corner and that was the last place he wanted to end up.

Purkiss breathed deeply, sucking reserve oxygen into his lungs and his bloodstream. He flexed his limbs, bounced on his toes, preparing himself. Two of them at close quarters, in his weakened state, were going to be a problem, to say the least. If they had syringes they wouldn’t even necessarily be filled with a sedative, as before. The man in the toilet cubicle had been trying not to subdue him but to kill him.

It murmured through the crowd like a ripple or a Mexican wave, a word he didn’t recognise at first until he realised another word was filtering through in counterpoint, this one in Russian: police. The collective mood of the crowd shifted, most people continuing their frenetic leaping but considerable numbers moving fast towards the restrooms, the back of the dance floor, the fire exits. Near him a boy swallowed painfully, forcing down whatever had to be hidden. Another hopped on one foot, trying to stuff the illicit goods into his other shoe. The bull-necked man and his colleague halted their advance, looking about and then craning back towards the entrance.

Purkiss ran, diving into the crowd and not caring that he was treading on feet and elbowing chests, somebody yelling in his ear hey, man, don’t panic, they’ll notice you. She was there inside the entrance, Elle Klavan, with another man, and they were holding up ID of some sort while one of the bar staff stood nearby frowning in bewilderment. Purkiss stopped short. She shouted in Estonian and he turned. The bartender he’d first spoken to when he arrived got him in a bear hug from behind. Purkiss kicked and struggled, but not too hard. Elle Klavan and the other man came forward, handguns drawn. Purkiss shouted in Russian ‘Enough,’ and the man