Delivering Caliban (19 page)

Thirty-Five

Interstate 95, between Washington D.C and New York

Tuesday 21 May, 2.05 am

Berg’s phone trilled on the dashboard. She put it on speaker.

They’d been driving for over an hour, the interstate appearing as vast and as empty as any road Purkiss had seen, despite the steady flow of cars. The signs said they were nearing Philadelphia.

Nakamura’s voice came across. ‘Just picked up a police report from Philly. Car smash here on 95 heading north, with one guy dead. The other driver left the scene. Get this. The cops say the dead guy didn’t die in the crash. Witnesses saw him get out the car and start arguing with the other driver. Next thing he’s on the ground. And the cops found a gun in the abandoned car, a Glock.’

Berg said, ‘Huh. But it still doesn’t mean –’

‘Same witnesses say the driver left the scene with someone else. A skinny teenage boy, or possibly a young woman.’

‘
That’s them.’ Purkiss sat up, feeling the adrenaline spike. ‘Ramirez, and probably Pope.’

Berg said, ‘Danny, do you have a licence plate on the abandoned car?’

‘Waiting on it from the local cops.’

‘
It’ll be up ahead,’ said Berg to Purkiss. ‘Keep your eyes open.’

In a minute Nakamura’s voice returned. ‘Cops ran the plate through DMV. It’s from a car rental place in Charlottesville.’

‘Our girl all right, plus whoever’s with her,’ said Berg. ‘Danny, get a –’

‘
Description of the person who rented it. Yeah, I’m already on it, Berg. Eat my dust.’

Berg grinned. She glanced across at Purkiss.

‘Good feeling, huh? When you’re closing in. You’re kind of like a cop. You know how it is.’

She put her foot down a little. Nakamura’s Taurus was a couple of cars behind, keeping up easily in the relative lightness of the traffic.

Nakamura came back on the line. ‘Rental place is an all-nighter, but the guy there wasn’t on shift when the car was rented. However, he checked the records and it was booked out to a Douglas Torrance. British licence holder. The photo from his licence is being scanned and sent to me. I’ll forward it so Purkiss can see.’

He rang off. When the phone sounded again Berg said, ‘That’s a text,’ and Purkiss took it and looked at the screen.

The photo was blurred and distorted from being first photocopied and then scanned, but there was no doubt who it was. Pope.

‘
Our guy?’

‘
Yes.’

*

Berg and Purkiss spotted the flashing lights at the same time.

Purkiss had been lost in thought. So Pope had taken the girl, but hadn’t killed her despite having had ample opportunity to do so. Did she know something he needed to find out? But if so, where was he taking her? Why hadn’t he simply interrogated her where he’d snatched her? Or was she in some way his accomplice, travelling with him voluntarily? That made even less sense.

‘There,’ said Berg.

Across the highway a petrol station cut a familiar sight, a single large haulage truck in the forecourt. Less familiar were the two cars with active flashers parked, it appeared, across both points of entry and exit.

‘Worth a look,’ said Purkiss. Berg turned off and as she did so, rang Nakamura. His voice came across the speakerphone.

‘
Nothing about it on the police frequencies.’

The slip road, or whatever they called it over here, led to a traffic circle beneath the highway. Berg navigated it, the Taurus close behind, and came off on the road running past the service station. As they approached Purkiss saw two men crouched near the closer car. Plain clothes, with no external markings on them or their vehicle to suggest they were law enforcement.

Both men were armed with handguns. One was talking into a mobile phone. They turned to look at the two cars as they drew up.

One of the men, the one without the phone, strode over as Berg killed the engine. She opened the door and the man said, ‘Police business. Get back in the car and drive away.’

Purkiss was about to climb out himself when he saw movement in the window of the building beyond the pumps. He peered through the windscreen. Two figures, there: a man holding a smaller person, a woman, in front of him.

He eased open the door and slipped out, staying low to the ground. Behind him he heard Berg snap, ‘FBI. Let’s see some ID.’

Purkiss moved behind the car, through the headlights of the Taurus which had pulled up behind, and began to make for the grass verge that ran along one edge of the forecourt’s perimeter, towards the side of the building.

*

The verge was deep in shadow and he made it without challenge. Only once did he glance at the window on his way. A fair-haired man, holding a woman with his arm across her neck, a gun pressed to her head. The features weren’t distinguishable but he knew it was Pope and Ramirez.

A fire door was set in the back wall of the low, long building. He reached for it, then thought better. It would be alarmed, especially at this hour. Purkiss moved along the wall until he saw a small window. He ran a few paces and jumped, catching the ledge and hauling himself so that he perched on it. The glass was opaque but he could make out a restroom beyond.

Purkiss stripped off his coat, the one he’d borrowed from Nakamura, and balled it around his fist. Gripping the open fan window above him for stability, he pressed the covered fist against the glass of the larger window, increasing the pressure steadily until he felt and heard a tiny crack. He eased off, then pressed again. The glass splintered and gave way, fragments shattering on the porcelain below. Purkiss held his breath. Distantly, from the other side of the building, he could hear angry voices shouting, Berg’s predominant.

Keeping his hand covered with the coat he broke away as many pieces of the glass as he dared, tossing the shards away behind him into the weeds. When he’d created a gap big enough to fit through he put the coat back on again and crawled through, sending further splinters skittering into the restroom. He dropped to the floor and paused at the door, drawing the Glock.

A short passage led from the restroom to the shop beyond. Purkiss stopped at the springloaded door at the end of the passage and looked through the glass panel at eye level.

Across three or four aisles, Pope stood at the window, looking out. Almost hidden in front of him was a woman’s slight figure. Pope’s right hand held a gun steady against the side of her head.

With his fingertips Purkiss pushed against the door. The springs were well oiled and there was no sound as the door opened. He passed through quickly, controlling the closing movement.

Pope presented his back to Purkiss. A single shot would have to suffice to take him down; one from closer range would be better. Pope was turned slightly to his right, holding the girl directly in front of him, so an approach from the left would be less likely to risk hitting her. Purkiss ducked and edged along the aisle towards the front of the shop.

Ramirez screamed.

The noise was like a gunshot, and for a fraction of a second Purkiss was immobilised as if he’d been hit. He heard her voice – behind us, there’s a man behind us – and at the same instant saw the CCTV monitor above the counter, his frozen figure gazing back.

Careless.

Pope was fast, spinning and opening fire as Purkiss emerged at the end of the aisle and brought his own gun up. Purkiss was forced to drop again as the bullets smashed into the shelves around and above him, ripping through packets and tins, sending a billow of flour and sugar overhead. Purkiss rose again and took an instant to aim before firing, aiming not at Pope – he’d swung the girl round, not quite in front of him, and the risk of hitting her was too great – but at the window behind him while making sure his aim was high enough to avoid the petrol pumps beyond. Purkiss ducked once more as the window exploded outwards, the shock and noise meant to disorientate Pope even fractionally.

Purkiss came round the end of the aisle at a crouching run, aware of shouting drawing closer through the shattered window, and saw Pope with his gun raised, looking back through the window hole. A body lay near his feet, a civilian. Pope’s free hand was on the woman’s shoulder. She cowered, clutching something in front of her – an instrument case – and staring at Purkiss.

‘
Ms Ramirez,’ he yelled. ‘Come over here.’

Pope looked across at him and simultaneously pulled the woman closer to him and brought the gun to bear. Purkiss ducked behind the shelves again, felt the shot sing over his head. How many was that, so far? Five or six? Pope’s gun looked like a Hockler; that could mean up to fifteen rounds. Ten left, plus whatever he had spare.

Gunfire crashed and sprayed the wall at the back of the shop, blasting away plaster. Purkiss risked a raise of his head and saw the back of Pope’s head again: he was facing through the shattered window, firing back. Two shots; a third.

Ramirez’s white, frightened face stared back at Purkiss again.

Purkiss beckoned her. Her eyes widened.

‘
He’ll kill you,’ Purkiss called. ‘Get over here. I’ll get you away.’

‘
Don’t listen to him, Nina.’ Pope half-turned, still focused on whomever was out there. Another salvo of shots came and plaster dust erupted from the ceiling.

‘
Get over here now. You’ll get killed at any moment.’

She broke free then, only her head visible and moving over the top of the aisle. Purkiss moved to the front to meet her at the end.

‘Nina.’
Pope’s voice had risen to a roar.

She was six feet from Purkiss now, but she stopped and glanced back. He reached forward and grabbed her wrist roughly, yanking her past him and behind him. She was still clasping that case. He moved to the end of the aisle she’d emerged from and peered round.

Pope’s shot whined past his cheek and drove him back.

A high-pitched, repetitive rising tone started up, cutting across the aftershock of the gunfire. The rear door alarm.

Purkiss moved back around the fronts of the aisles to where Nina was hovering. He put his hand on her head and pushed her down, feeling her flinch, just as the door into the back passage opened and a man emerged. He’d come in through the fire door.

Thirty-Six

Interstate 95, between Washington D.C and New York

The man held a gun in a two-handed grip.

‘Give me the girl.’

‘
Drop the gun,’ said Purkiss, the Glock levelled.

‘
Send the girl over here.’

Purkiss shot him in the chest, a double tap, sending him back hard against the wall. He gripped Ramirez by the collar and hauled her up. He’d been intending to send her out through the fire door on her own while he dealt with Pope. Now that wasn’t an option.

Keeping himself slightly ahead of her he shouldered open the door into the passage. Halfway down was the restroom he’d come through, and at the end was the open fire door. Behind them he could hear the gunfire continuing.

Purkiss ran to the door and looked out. Nobody there. He pulled the woman stumbling after him and made her follow him hugging the wall to the corner and around the side. They encountered nobody.

Further shots came from the front of the building, and it took Purkiss a moment to realise that he’d let himself be misled, that the shooting at the moment didn’t involve Pope, because Pope had followed them through the fire door. His shape loomed at the corner they’d just passed and he had his gun raised, but wasn’t shooting because Ramirez was between him and Purkiss. Purkiss fired past her and Pope flinched back.

Purkiss dragged Ramirez to the corner ahead and round to the front of the building. The forecourt was littered with spent shell casings. A body lay near the front door of the shop. Purkiss and Ramirez moved further out and he saw movement through the shop’s wrecked front window.  Berg and Kendrick, stalking between the aisles, Berg recoiling as a shot came by her.

Purkiss backed away from the building, shielding Ramirez, his gun aimed at the corner where he expected Pope to emerge. He heard a voice behind him near the pumps –
Purkiss
– and glanced round.

Nakamura sat beside one of the pumps, his lips drawn back in a grimace. His hands clutched his lower leg, soaked black in the shadows.

‘Bastards shot me.’

‘
You dying?’

‘
Fuck that.’

Keeping his gaze on the corner of the building, Purkiss said, ‘Ms Ramirez. Nina. Stay with this man. He’s an FBI agent. He’ll protect you.’

He risked a glance at her to make sure she understood. Then he began moving back towards the side of the building. Through the window, the cat and mouse appeared to be continuing.

Pope wasn’t round the side. Purkiss advanced to the back, darted a look round. He wasn’t there, either.

Purkiss thought it likely that Pope had run out of ammunition, which was why he hadn’t come after them immediately when they’d made it round the front. He also assumed Pope was going back for the gun belonging to the man Purkiss had shot inside the shop.

Purkiss made his way to the fire door, peered through. No sign of anybody in the passage.

Two shots came, close together, from the front of the building. Not from within.

From far away Purkiss heard his name being called, as a grinding rumble started up.

Purkiss ran, sprinting round the other side of the building to complete a circuit. As he came round the corner he saw three things at once:

Nakamura had crawled on his belly away from the pumps and was lying prone, his gun extended awkwardly in shaking hands.

Ramirez had stepped off to the side and was huddled with her instrument case, frozen in headlights.

The gargantuan truck, the only vehicle in the forecourt, had turned in a wide arc and was doubling back, heading straight towards the pumps. At the wheel, high in the cab, was Pope.

Purkiss was running even as he raised the gun and fired at the windscreen, but the first shot glanced off the frame above it and after that the Glock’s hammer clicked down emptily, once, twice.

He continued running, aiming in a direct line for the truck, blotting out the horror of what was about to happen, of what was now happening as the front wheels reached Nakamura’s prone and haplessly scrambling body and rocked over it, whipping him underneath, the cab rising and dropping almost imperceptibly as he disappeared and his scream was cut off.

Purkiss drew level with the driver’s door of the cab and dropped the useless gun and leaped up and got a grip on the handle, pulling it open and hanging for a moment in the air, swinging off the door, before hauling himself into the seat – Pope wasn’t there, he’d bailed out through the passenger door – and seeing the pumps looming as he scrabbled for whatever served as a handbrake in a behemoth like this. He found the handle and pulled on it with all his strength, at the same time spinning the steering wheel into the direction of the slide that was already beginning.

The truck roared as it fishtailed sideways, the dozen-and-a-half wheels setting up a banshee howl as their rubber clawed and grappled at the tarmac. Through the window now Purkiss saw the pumps rushing at him:
it was too late, he was too close…

Purkiss yelled as he wrenched at the wheel with both hands, trying to drive it beyond its limits. He felt the world tilt, the tarmac tipping crazily up at him, and in a split-second he understood what was happening and let go of the wheel and braced himself for the impact.

The truck slammed on to its side in an explosion of metal and glass, the window erupting beside Purkiss’s head and showering him with granular fragments. He managed to keep his torso far enough from the door that his body avoided absorbing the full force of the collision with the tarmac, but the impact jarred him all the same, sending a bolt of agony through his shoulder and chest. He closed his eyes, waiting for the tell-tale smell of fuel followed by the sudden burst of fire which would bring the end.

*

The sudden silence made Purkiss wonder if he had, in fact, passed over into unbeing, without having realised it; but of course that made no sense. He opened his eyes.

He was cramped at an angle in the cab, his feet at the door, the rest of him diagonally across the front seat. Above him was the passenger door. He reached up, feeling the pain lance through his shoulder again, pushed the door open like a trapdoor and hauled himself out.

The truck lay on its side like a massive, slain beast, its rear doors open and its innards – children’s toys, Purkiss noticed distantly – spilled out across the forecourt. The roof of the cab had slammed against the pillar to one side of the nearest pump.

Through the shattered shop window, Berg and Kendrick stared out. Two men stood beside them, close together, their postures truculent. Cuffed, Purkiss thought.

Behind the truck, the terrible thing that had been Nakamura was difficult to discern as anything in particular.

Ramirez and Pope were gone.