Ratcatcher

Gripping it between his feet, he withdrew it through the window. He hung for a moment, arms burning and the sweat in his palms slicking the bark. He could feel himself losing his grip, and every instinct screamed to let his legs kick and scrabble at the air, anything to help him regain purchase, but if he did so he’d drop the box. He kept his feet clamped together and instead tried to swing his arm further over the trunk in a movement like a swimmer’s crawl stroke. As he did so his other hand gave way and he was falling.

Keep your feet locked together… With hands curved into hooks he caught the hub of the front passenger wheel and the jerk to his shoulders felt as if it had pulled them from their sockets. He hauled upwards with all his reserves, feeling the ton-and-a-half of vehicle begin its inexorable slide through the wedge, and now he was bracing his feet on the hub, awkwardly because of the prize still gripped between them. His hands were reaching up and getting hold of the trunk again and this time he didn’t let go. He swung up and on to the trunk and the box slipped from between his feet but he reached back and caught it one-handed before it fell.

He scrambled to the base of the branch and leaped to the safety of the slope as the Lexus dropped in virtual silence through the space below and landed directly on to the Toyota. The driver hadn’t killed the engine because the tanks went up in twin blasts that roared off the sides of the valley, the heat from the fireball sending up a shower of wood and rocks and spinning fragments of metal.

Purkiss lay prone on the slope, one arm shielding his head while he leaned on the other, staring at the box in his hand. A satellite navigation system, chipped and scuffed but in working order.

Behind the man the sea was wild, lashing ropes of spume against the rocks of the shore. He’d got there first and Venedikt didn’t like that, although Venedikt himself was a little early. The man stood quite still beside his car, a top-range Mercedes. On either side of him were four other men in civilian clothes but with a bearing unmistakeably military. Most had the wiry build of the Special Forces soldier.

Venedikt emerged from his own car and approached, Leok remaining behind the wheel. Two others fell into step beside Venedikt, one of them Dobrynin, his deputy. Behind him and to his right the van lumbered forward and came to a stop, shuddering under its own bulk like some ungainly prehistoric behemoth.

Like Venedikt the man was wearing a suit. Counter to expectations he wasn’t hiding his eyes behind a pair of dark glasses. Venedikt respected that, thought it showed the proper respect for him. The man was of medium height, far shorter than Venedikt, with a slight build. His pedigree was uncertain. His Russian was impeccable, down to the Muscovite accent, but he didn’t look Slavic: his black hair and black eyes and burnished complexion suggested southern European or Middle Eastern origins. Yet he was said to speak English like an American.

Venedikt glanced about without moving his head. They were in a grassy depression half a kilometre across, lined on two sides by rocks, on one by the sea, in a peninsula jutting finger-like into the Baltic. A bank of clouds had dragged across the sun and from the rocks there came no tell-tale glints on metal. Venedikt’s own snipers, two of them, were in position, invisible even to him. He assumed the same for the other man.

Venedikt stopped ten paces from the other man, refusing to do all the work. As if he sensed this the man gave a slight nod and stepped forward, his men keeping perfect time on either side. He extended his hand. Venedikt shook: it was dry, firm but not bone crushing.

‘Let me show you.’ The man’s tone was pleasant, conversational. No names, no hello, you must bes. He gestured behind and to his left, towards the rocks.

Venedikt walked alongside the man up the slope, their respective people massing discreetly around and behind them. The man, the dealer, stepped up to the rocks first and offered down his hand. Venedikt accepted and was surprised at the strength with which the smaller man hauled at his arm.

He stood staring at what rested beyond for a long time. He felt the urge, overwhelming, immediate, to walk around it, touch it, but he had to maintain dignity. His elation squirmed as he fought it down.

‘I’ll need to check it. Verify its authenticity.’

‘But of course.’ The man called back over his shoulder and said to Venedikt, ‘Come down. We’ll bring it out for you.’

Dobrynin, the man with the nose for deception, stood by as the dealer’s men brought the second part of the product down the slope. The authenticity of the larger component wasn’t in doubt; it was visibly what it was. But when the second part was hefted down, exposed in its box, the frisson of excitement that rippled through Venedikt’s group was unmistakeable. Dobrynin squatted beside the container and with eyes and hands began his examination.

Waiting in the van for the signal from Venedikt were two more of his people, their wrists chained to steel suitcases. Once Dobrynin was satisfied it would be the dealer’s turn to carry out his own inspection. Perhaps he would demand a full count, in which case it would take a while, even though the money had been laundered from krooni into large-denomination euros.

Dobrynin muttered for assistance and two of the dealer’s own men knelt and prised and lifted so that he could peer underneath. Venedikt tried not to hold his breath, tried to keep his back and neck from tensing in anticipation of the sign of a double cross, a movement on the part of the dealer or his men. Equally he tried to banish from his imagination the cry from the watchers, the massing of police cars and helicopters above the lip of the depression, the bullhorn commands to surrender. Beside him the dealer stood, feet slightly apart, hands folded neatly before him, almost prim, watching Dobrynin with something that looked like genuine appreciation of his thoroughness.

Dobrynin straightened and brushed off his trousers and hands. He paused in front of Venedikt, looking up into his face, before giving a nod of triumph. Venedikt felt the tension leave him in a great funnelling of breath.

He glanced at his watch, then up at the sky, allowing his neck to flex luxuriously. Step two was complete.

Two o’clock. Eighteen hours to go.

Seventeen

‘Boss.’ The relief in the syllable was almost comical. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Bit of a scrape.’

‘I heard gunshots.’

He thought about saying it had been a car backfiring, but couldn’t do it. He slumped, weary, his forehead against the cool glass of the booth. ‘It was a trap. The man chucked the bug out, then lay in wait. He’s dead. I’m okay, but I’m without a car or a phone. I’m calling from a public box.’

‘Where are you? I’ll come and pick you up.’

‘Too dangerous. They’ll be looking for me. No point letting them catch us both. I’m making my way back to town.’ A face appeared through the grimy glass inches from his own. Purkiss recoiled, but it was only a backpacker peering in. The adrenaline was dissipating but was still there, rendering him jumpy. He held up an index finger and the man stepped away, looking disgruntled.

‘Can you look up an address for me? It’s from the satnav in the man’s car. It comes up time and again as the starting point of his journey.’ He read it out, spelling each word, then said, ‘I’ll call you once I get a new phone.’

‘One more thing. Kendrick’s confirmed and is on his way. Same flight as you took yesterday. He should be here sevenish.’

He had made his way back towards the city with difficulty, keeping amongst the trees as much as possible to stay out of view of any search parties, but being forced back on to the road when the forest became impassable. He’d emerged at a bus stop just as a bus had come down the hill and had held up his hand hopefully. The driver hadn’t even slowed. The knees of Purkiss’s trousers were ripped and his face was pallid, and he supposed he would have been reluctant himself. Eventually a pick-up truck had stopped and the driver, with a good-humoured face beneath a peaked cap, had jerked his head at the back. Purkiss had climbed in and wedged himself between bundles of metal piping. When he’d spotted the phone booth on the outskirts he’d tapped the rear window of the cab and hopped off.

After his call to Abby he dialled again.