Ratcatcher

shredder.

‘Where did you get all the gear?’ said Purkiss, seating himself in the room’s only armchair.

‘Some fantastic shops down the road. I told you it’s one of the most wired cities on earth.’ She gazed at the equipment with a mother’s joy. ‘Cheapish, as well. The expenses bill won’t hurt you too badly.’

She’d been unusually downbeat when she opened the door to him. When he asked why, she said it was because she hadn’t yet cracked the memory stick he’d found in Seppo’s flat.

‘It’s the most diabolical protection system I’ve ever come across,’ she said, staring at the tiny piece of plastic. ‘Five hours, and a couple of promising-looking results, but still nothing.’

‘I can give it to someone else,’ he offered. She gave him a look that would have stopped a tank in its tracks.

Her phone went and she listened and said, ‘Kendrick. He’s coming up, says not to attack him when he knocks.’

Purkiss got the door. Kendrick was in cargo trousers and a bomber jacket. No jeans, which was sensible because Purkiss had said there might be outdoor work, and it looked like rain, and wet denim was terrible for mobility.

Kendrick pointed at his own chin. ‘You’ve got rid of the facial hair. Wise move.’

‘Really? I thought it made me look quite the part.’

‘It made you look like a Cypriot whoremonger.’

The rope burn on his neck was red and raised, and Purkiss remembered with a sense of dislocation that less than forty-eight hours earlier they’d been on board the yacht in the Adriatic.

Kendrick saw him looking and ran a finger along the mark. ‘Looks like you’ve seen a little action yourself.’

‘Garrotte.’

‘Ouch.’ He nodded across at Abby. ‘Don’t fancy yours much.’

She ignored him and busied herself at her monitor.

Kendrick said, ‘This has got something to do with the fun and games tomorrow, I take it.’

‘Yes. Pull up a pew and I’ll fill you in.’

‘Got guns?’

‘No.’

‘You should have said. I’d have brought some.’

Kendrick was former Colour Sergeant Tony Kendrick, Second Parachute Battalion, or 2 Para. He’d been in 16^th Air Assault Brigade during Operation Telic in Basra in the autumn of 2003, shortly after which Purkiss had met him for the first time when he himself was stationed in Iraq for six months, helping to establish the fledgling Service presence there. By the time Purkiss left the Service to work for Vale, Kendrick was already out on the street, drifting and kicking his heels. Both men had spotted an opportunity, and they had come to an arrangement that benefited them mutually: extremely hazardous freelance work in return for an exceptionally generous fee. Not that Kendrick would ever admit it was generous.

Purkiss brought them up to speed as they sipped Abby’s venomously strong tea and the hard drives whirred, quietly busy. Outside the first rain began to spatter against the panes. It was the first time Abby had heard the full story, the part about Fallon in particular, and she said, genuine sympathy in her eyes, ‘You poor man. If I’d known how personal it was…’ She left the thought unfinished because there wasn’t anything she could have done.

‘Thanks,’ said Purkiss, because there wasn’t any more he could say.

‘Jesus,’ said Kendrick. He was sitting on the bed, booted feet propped on the stool at the dresser.

‘What?’

‘The man killed your girl.’

‘Yes.’

‘It was my girl, I’d be out there, mad as a snake, finding the bastard. Not sitting on my arse in some crappy hotel room.’

‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

‘Should’ve called me sooner.’

‘I didn’t know what this involved until this morning. This Kuznetsov… whatever his connection with Fallon, we’re going to have to go through him first. And he’s got his own private army.’

‘Any idea of numbers?’

‘Those British agents are delving into that,’ Purkiss said. ‘We can’t know if everyone in Rodina Security is involved. My guess is that it’s a select few, not the whole firm, though how many exactly is anybody’s guess. Twenty? More, perhaps. Certainly I’ve had a whole load of them on my back.’

‘The more the merrier.’ Kendrick had his middle-distance stare on, was cracking his knuckles, grinding his teeth. Purkiss didn’t want him to peak too soon.

He said, ‘Here’s the plan for this evening.’

The Jacobin sat at the computer, headphones on, listening to the dispatch from the SIS contact at the embassy in Moscow.

‘Takeoff time’s confirmed at twenty thirty-five hours. President and entourage en route to private airfield now. The usual one near Sheremetyevo.’

The Jacobin listened a while longer, then thanked the contact, ended the connection, turned to the other two at their desks and said, ‘On schedule. President’s expected to land just before ten p.m.’

‘Anyone think the attack might come tonight?’

None of them did. The security was too tight, the landing zone outside Tallinn too closely guarded a secret. A late supper with the Estonian president was expected, again at an undisclosed location. No, the danger was going to present itself in public.

The Jacobin peeled off the headphones, ran a hand through tired hair, said, ‘And where the hell is Purkiss?’

Neither of the others offered an opinion.

They rolled their chairs over to one of the computers to share information. The Jacobin listened as the facts and figures were rattled off, pretending that the information was new. Rodina Security was a private concern with ambitions to go public. It was solvent, had survived an audit two years earlier by the tax authorities, and had no record of trouble with the law, if one discounted the fact that just under twenty per cent of its staff, including its managing director, had criminal records. It employed thirty-four people, twelve in administrative and clerical capacities and the rest as security personnel. All thirty-four were of ethnic Russian background.

On the screen Kuznetsov’s face appeared alongside a potted biography. The Jacobin studied it. It was a face which the word craggy seemed to have been coined to describe. Dark eyes glowered from beneath a domed brow on which the hair had been cropped back; the mouth and jaw were set like a boxer’s. A brutal face but not a stupid one. Kuznetsov wasn’t stupid. He was boorish, crass even, but he was cunning as a whip.

The Jacobin was under no illusions as to Kuznetsov’s intentions after the event. The man despised the English. He’d never pretended otherwise. The Jacobin would be caught up and swept away, drowned in the tide of history, as Kuznetsov would put it in one of the mangled, half-remembered Marxist platitudes he’d picked up from what passed for his reading. But the Jacobin too was making history, of a very different kind. And in it there would be no place for Kuznetsov and his ilk.

Kuznetsov hates the English. There was something relevant there, something that nagged at the Jacobin’s attention but scurried away when focused upon. It would come in time. Of more immediate import was the question from earlier. Where the hell was Purkiss?

It was nearly eight o’clock by the Jacobin’s watch. Two hours, and if Purkiss hadn’t surfaced by then, it would be time for the trump card.

Twenty-One