Ratcatcher

‘I’m not joking, Fallon.’

‘I know you’re not.’ A beat. ‘We need to come up with a plan.’

‘I’ve got one already.’

Thumb poised over the green “call” key, the Jacobin stared at the number on the display. It was one he’d never used before, that of the Kaitsepolitsei, the Security Police.

He’d be assumed to be a crank, so confident would the KaPo be about its security arrangements, until he revealed how the assassination was going to be carried out; then he’d be taken seriously, and although he wouldn’t stay on the phone long enough to be traced, there was no question the summit would be aborted. Then what? It would be a victory of sorts, a major summit derailed by a terrorist threat, but a Pyrrhic one, as the intelligence services of both Estonia and Russia would spin it as a successful example of international cooperation. The summit would simply be rescheduled. And, there was a real risk of Kuznetsov’s being tracked down and captured, in which case he, the Jacobin, would be named, and SIS would be implicated after all.

After a long moment the Jacobin hit “cancel” and put the phone away.

Purkiss paused, the muscles burning in his thighs and his belly, sweat slicking his hair to his forehead. Six inches, he estimated. Half a foot of progress after five minutes of struggle.

If his arms had been fastened behind the back of the chair it would have been easier. He could have used them to give him forward momentum. Instead, his wrists were pressed between the small of his back and the back of the chair, secured to each other with plastic ties, the toughest bonds of all. He was able to achieve forward motion only by bracing the balls of his feet on the concrete floor of the basement, and thrusting his pelvis forwards using all the strength in his abdominal and anterior thigh muscles and those of his hamstrings. Each such thrust caused the feet of the chair to scrape a fraction of an inch forward, an almost comically poor return on his efforts.

Facing him, Fallon urged him on, silently. They would have reached each other more quickly if Fallon had been inching forward similarly, but Fallon’s ankles were tied to the legs of the chair and no amount of rocking would budge him.

In between surges of exertion, Purkiss felt the blood hammering in his ears. He tried not to listen out for footsteps coming down the stairs, because if he heard them there’d be nothing he could do about them. Whoever came through the door would notice the progress he’d made, however meagre, and would move him and Fallon so far apart that all bets would be off.

Purkiss squeezed his eyelids shut against the sweat sting once again. He visualised the run-up to a long jump. Not just any long jump, but one that traversed a ravine, dark and bottomless. In his mind’s eye he was loping up a grassy verge towards a small peak, the air cool and rarefied about him. As he approached the peak he picked up speed so that the lope turned into a sprint, and the nub of rock was coming on fast. He put everything into the final push, embracing the terror that leapt at him as his feet left the rock and cycled in the empty space over the terrible yawn of the chasm. Impossibly, defying the laws of physics, he was across and rolling and clear.

Fallon grunted something. Purkiss opened his eyes, disorientated for a moment. Looking down and around he saw he’d progressed an entire foot. Not bad.

‘Bastard.’

‘Die, damn you. Die now.’

It wasn’t difficult for Purkiss to make his share of the shouting sound heartfelt.

They’d waited till Purkiss had got within two feet, his chair slightly to the side of Fallon’s, before letting rip: nonsensical bellows alternating with profane curses. In the midst of it Fallon leaned forward as far as he could and tried an experimental butt. His forehead nudged Purkiss’s nose.

The bootsteps came, then, at a dash, more than one pair, and in counterpoint to their rhythm the frantic jangling of keys. Purkiss glared into Fallon’s eyes and gave a nod.

Fallon tilted his head back as if to sneeze and brought his face forward so that the frontal bones of his skull smashed into Purkiss’s nose, snapping his head back against the chair. White light exploded up beneath his eyes, crowding out all sound and sight. Apart from the blood: there was a lot of blood, he was gratified to see. He flailed his head from side to side, flinging cords of gore-streaked mucus against the nearest wall and against the opening door. As the first man stepped through, Purkiss threw his head back and arched his spine and rolled his eyes up and bit down on his tongue hard enough to draw more blood. He began to jerk his legs assymetrically.

Near his ear, one of the men yelled an oath involving somebody’s mother. Purkiss felt hands grip his shoulders. He let the spasms ebb as the men, two of them, he thought, shouted in Russian that they needed to get him on the floor. The cords around his torso slackened and were unwound. He risked a glance and saw one of the men punch Fallon in the face, one-two, rocking his head to either side in turn. The man holding Purkiss tried to control his descent, but Purkiss let himself be dead weight and slipped through the man’s grasp. He hit the floor, his head cracking audibly against the concrete. The man snarled at his companion to leave the bastard alone and come and help him. Purkiss lay twitching on the floor, listening to the rising panic in the men’s voices. He was wondering whether to void his bladder for added realism when one of the men said, ‘Get him upstairs,’ catching him under the arms while the other man took his feet. Only his wrists were fastened behind him now, no hood this time.

As they lugged him up the steps, the slumped Fallon and the basement receding through the doorway, Purkiss made his move.

Thirty-Four

The hangar echoed with the clang and scrape of tools, the footfalls of the men. They moved about, checking fluid levels, the pressure of the oxygen system, all things that had already been investigated but needed reviewing now that the move from the farm had taken place, in case there had been any changes in transit. Dobrynin with his technical knowledge took charge.

Venedikt walked slowly round the Black Hawk, keeping out of the men’s way, gazing at the low-slung structure in something approaching rapture.

He hadn’t pressed the arms dealer, the man of obscure nationality and ethnicity, on the detail of where he had procured the helicopter. It was none of Venedikt’s concern. But the man had at one point spoken of a contact in Turkey, and Venedikt knew the Turkish Army was one of the international clients to whom the Sikorsky company exported its most famous chopper. Dobrynin had confirmed it was a basic UH-60A model, with the crucial modification of wing stubs.

Venedikt had examined the helicopter already, had twice seen it in flight when Leok, his pilot as well as driver, had taken it from the site of purchase to the farmhouse and again when he had taken off from the farmhouse en route to the current backup location. Now, with no pressing problems to distract him, Venedikt was able for the first time fully to appreciate its beauty, the terrible power that seemed contained in its silent length and beneath the canopy of its rotor like a demon trapped in an amulet, awaiting release.

The Black Hawk was far and away the more expensive of the two purchases he had made from the dealer, but if anything it was less important, less of a catch, than the other.

Leok, seated in the cockpit, conferred with Dobrynin, who stood alongside. Squatting and examining the front wheel was Lyuba. She’d been a helicopter pilot and mechanic in the unit, and had come recommended to Venedikt on this basis. She had, he acknowledged, delivered them the prize of Fallon, even if inadvertently. She was to be afforded the honour of being included in the final leg of the operation. The mission. The word was better, gave a sense of the purpose driving their plans.

There had been those among his men — and he counted Lyuba as one of his men — who’d wanted Fallon and Purkiss despatched with a bullet each. It was their bodies that were necessary, they’d argued. But bullet wounds would raise suspicions. Far better to allow the two men to perish in the conflagration that was to follow. Venedikt had prevailed, of course. None of the arguments had been meant as serious challenges to his authority. But he understood the fury of his men. Purkiss had reduced their