Delivering Caliban (2 page)

Two

Purkiss cranked the window as much to bathe his head in the cool spring afternoon air as to disperse the nicotine fug. Beside him Vale’s hand on the wheel held a smouldering dog-end between the index and middle fingers.

He was aware Vale was looking across at him but he stared straight ahead. Images coalesced and dispersed, a surreal kaleidoscope: garish neon above as yet curtained windows in the Walletjes, laughing stoned faces, and everywhere the bicycles, looking in many cases too rickety to be roadworthy.

Vale said, not for the first time: ‘Are you operational?’

Purkiss didn’t answer; once was enough. He’d rung once his fingers were steady enough to dial. He could have made his way back to the temporary base Vale had set up but he’d decided to conserve some energy.

A last burst of speed had taken him away from the station, not this time in pursuit of Pope but out of the reach of whatever authorities were massing and descending on the scene of the fight. Once he’d cleared the canal to the south and lost himself among the shopping arcades he’d slumped against a wall and rung the number. He’d been mildly surprised that Vale had arrived in the car on his own.

‘
How is he?’ Vale meant Pope.

‘
In better shape than I am.’ He’d caught Pope hard on the side of the head with the rusty chunk of metal he’d thrown, but up close it didn’t look as if there was any serious damage. ‘Fit enough to be far away by now, and have left no trace.’

‘
We’ve been over the flat.’ Now he turned to look at Vale. ‘Bit of a mess, as you said.’

Vale was a rarity, if not unique: a black man in his sixties who’d held a senior position in the British intelligence establishment. Nowadays there were plenty of younger people from minority ethnic backgrounds. Vale on the other hand was a veteran of over three decades’ standing. He looked older than his years, hunched over the wheel, the cowl of his oversized coat like the rim of a tortoise’s shell across his neck. His face was seamed from years of tension and tobacco.

Purkiss had rung Vale’s number the first time after Pope had fled the flat, not saying anything except: ‘He’s done it. I’m after him.’ He’d trusted the older man to scour the flat and seal it, which he’d done. The police would need to find it eventually.

So would the CIA. They’d probably get there first.

‘Three shots.’ Vale made it a statement, one that sounded obvious, except that Purkiss knew he was fishing for further impressions.

Purkiss said: ‘Nine millimetre. A Glock, possibly. I didn’t get a good look. I made him drop it. That’s when he made a run for it.’

There had indeed been three shots, a double tap to the head after an initial belly hit to bring Jablonsky down. There was a significance in that sequence which danced on the periphery of Purkiss’s thoughts. He left it for the time being.

Something else was clamouring for his attention. When he focused on it, it became a klaxon exploding in his head.

‘You have to warn Taylor.’

‘
Too late.’ Vale was staring ahead now, navigating knots of tourists spilling across the road. ‘We went to his flat as soon as we got your call. Same method. Probably the same weapon.’

*

Purkiss had arrived at Schiphol Airport at six that morning. It always seemed to him faintly absurd to fly to Amsterdam when the total time in the air was usually less than that spent journeying to one of London’s airports and checking in; but Vale had ensured he was fast-tracked through the boarding process.

Vale’s call had come at midnight.

‘I need you in Amsterdam.’

Purkiss had been reading in his study at the time. ‘Where are you?’

‘On my way there from Paris.’

Purkiss closed his book and sat up, alert.

Vale went on: ‘I’ve booked the five a.m. London City flight. Meet you this side.’

‘
I’ll be there.’ Purkiss was already striding to pack. ‘Anything you can give me at this point?’

‘
It involves the Cousins.’

The Cousins were the Americans, specifically the CIA. The Company, in the organisation’s own parlance. Purkiss didn’t press for more; there was a limit to the information that could be safely conveyed over the phone.

The KLM flight had touched down in a cool red dawn. Schiphol, a major hub, was already bustling. Vale was easy to spot, standing by himself in the arrivals hall, stooped and impassive but inwardly itching for a cigarette, Purkiss knew. A nod was the only greeting they exchanged.

Purkiss had known Vale a little under five years, since shortly before Purkiss had quit the Service. Indeed, Vale had been instrumental in persuading Purkiss to leave and work for him. Their relationship had changed six months ago when Purkiss had discovered that Vale had lied to him: about Purkiss’s dead fiancée, Claire, and about the man who’d killed her. They’d continued to work together, and Purkiss continued to respect the older man’s professionalism and commitment. He had to admit that he even liked Vale, sometimes.

But he no longer fully trusted him.

When they reached what Purkiss had assumed would be Vale’s rental car, Purkiss was surprised to see another man behind the wheel, somebody he didn’t recognise. Forties, thin and balding, with wire-rimmed glasses. Purkiss slid in behind him, Vale taking the front passenger seat.

‘John Purkiss, Kevin Gifford,’ said Vale. The man, Gifford, reached back awkwardly to proffer his hand. Purkiss shook it.

‘
Mr Gifford is head of the Service’s local station here.’

It struck Purkiss how long he’d been away. There’d been a time when he knew the names of all the Service station heads in western Europe. He said nothing, sat back waiting as Gifford steered the car out into the daylight. Purkiss assumed the man had waited in the car in case he was too conspicuous in the arrivals hall. Which meant he and Vale were wary of surveillance. The CIA?

They drove in silence until the car reached the motorway leading into the city. Gifford glanced across at Vale, and Vale produced a small digital recorder from his pocket, held it up and thumbed the
play
button. 

Two male voices, one louder than the other, were in conversation. The accents were US. Purkiss thought the louder one sounded New York, possibly Jersey. Bursts of distortion interrupted the speech periodically.

‘Got an ID on this Brit guy. You’re not going to believe it.’

  ‘
Who?’

‘
Darius Pope.’

A pause, then an explosion of static, and:
‘Jesus Christ.’

‘
Yeah.’

‘
You mean, like –’

‘
Exactly, Yeah.’

Static again.

‘Ah, shit. Ah, god damn it.’

‘
He’s based here, in the city. He’s an agent.’

‘
You’re kidding me.’

‘
No. Right under our noses.’

‘
He’s an agent?’

‘
Uh-huh.’

‘
Six?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
Jesus –’

‘
Here’s what we do.’

‘
We’ve got to tell the chief.’

‘
Not yet.’
More static.
‘– check him out. Follow him see what he does. Catch him in something so we can be hundred per cent sure. Or as near as damn it, anyhow.’

This was followed by five seconds’ worth of white noise. The New Yorker’s voice came back, patchily.

‘– surveillance detail, but it’s the best I can do at short notice... turn him in.’

‘
Yeah.’

‘
Got to go.’

A click. Vale thumbed off the recording.

From the driver’s seat Gifford’s voice was a dry rasp, as though he was in the habit of shouting a lot. ‘That was, as you’ll have gathered, a recording of a mobile phone conversation. One or other of the parties was driving at the time, hence the disruption to the signal. The man with the more distinct voice, the one whose phone was being tapped, is called Andrew Jablonsky. The other one’s Gregory Taylor. Both are Company operatives based here in Amsterdam. The recording was made at around nine yesterday evening.’

Gifford paused to ease into the correct lane for the off-ramp. Purkiss didn’t ask the obvious question because he knew the answer was coming anyway.

‘Darius Pope is one of ours, a Service operative at my station. Recently moved here, four months ago. Backup and odd-job work, for the moment.’

‘
A rookie?’ said Purkiss.

‘
No. An experienced field agent, if undistinguished. Solid. Did two years in Hamburg before the transfer.’

‘
What’s he done?’

‘
We’ve no idea.’ Gifford’s voice had taken on an edge, as if to say:
that’s your job to find out
. ‘But Jablonsky and Taylor clearly know him, and want to keep him under surveillance. They talk about obtaining proof of something, and possibly turning him in.’

Purkiss understood why he and Vale had been called. For over four years their remit had been to investigate suspected and confirmed rogue elements within British Intelligence, and to deal with them without public fuss as far as that was possible. Set traps for the rats, and spring them.

Claire.
Her face rose without warning in Purkiss’s mind’s eye. He clenched his teeth, stared out the window at the bright morning.

Now it appeared the Americans, the Company, might themselves have discovered something illicit about a Service agent.

Vale was watching him in the mirror. As if reading his thoughts he said: ‘We need to deal with this ourselves. Exposure of one of ours by the Cousins would be an enormous embarrassment. God knows there’s enough one-upmanship already.’

To Gifford, Purkiss said: ‘Have you set up surveillance on Pope yourselves?’

‘
That’s the problem.’ This time it was Gifford’s eyes he saw in the glass. ‘Pope’s disappeared.’

Three

Instead of taking Purkiss and Vale to the Service headquarters, Gifford had set up a temporary base in a suite on the fourth floor of a nondescript chain hotel south of the Leidseplein. Purkiss didn’t ask, but assumed his technical status as an outsider meant that he had to be kept away from the ‘official’ Service HQ, which was itself unofficial as its personnel were operating without Embassy protection.

On the way to the hotel, Purkiss asked, ‘Why did you have this Jablonsky under surveillance?’

‘
Routine.’ Gifford sounded surprised. ‘We always have the Cousins tapped. It helps to rotate the targets from time to time, makes it less likely we’ll be discovered.’

‘
Presumably they do the same to you.’

Gifford gave a tight laugh. ‘They try. We catch them at it. We’re too good. Had years of practice before they got in on the game.’

Or perhaps that was what the Company wanted Gifford and the rest of the Service to think, thought Purkiss.

In the suite’s living room Gifford seated them before a portable screen on which was amplified the display from a laptop.

‘Darius Pope. Born fourth of February, 1981. Grammar school boy in Aylesbury, Bucks – bit of a rebel, came close to expulsion – then political science at Bristol. Bright, but not dazzling. Joined the Service September 2005. Here’s the thing. His father was Geoffrey Pope, a Service veteran. Master interrogator... you might have read some of his writings on the subject?’

Purkiss hadn’t.

Gifford went on: ‘All our intel indicates the teenaged Darius hated the old man. Geoffrey was killed in a flying accident when the boy was 17. So perhaps Darius joined the Service to prove a point to his late dad.’

The rest of Pope’s story was, as Gifford had said earlier, undistinguished. He’d built up a decent reputation as an intel gatherer and later as a patterns analyst. Good looking and with obvious self assurance, he’d been rather too obtrusive for undercover work. His transfer to Amsterdam from Hamburg had been based on nothing more than a personal request, as he said he felt he wanted a change of scene.

There were no recorded instances of disciplinary action against him, nor any suggestions of infractions that might have been quietly swept under the carpet. He was to all appearances clean. A model agent.

‘
I ordered surveillance on his flat starting ten p.m. last night,’ said Gifford. ‘He wasn’t there. He hasn’t returned home since. And he hasn’t contacted anyone in the office, nor has he answered his phone. His phone location isn’t traceable, either, which means he’s probably ditched it. Or someone else has.’

*

Pope lived alone in a rented apartment on Vijzelgracht. Purkiss caught a tram to within a couple of streets away and covered the rest of the distance on foot, the cobbles on the road still slick with dew. Gifford had rung ahead to call off the surveillance on the apartment until further notice, so Purkiss had free rein.

Like many agents, Pope appeared to be remarkably lax about personal security. This, Purkiss knew, was because an agent was aware that anybody breaking into his home would be a professional and wouldn’t be deterred by the usual measures a homeowner might adopt, such as a gated entry system, triple locks and the like. Purkiss entered the narrow atrium through unlocked doors, climbed to the second floor and, although Pope’s door was locked with both a yale and a mortice mechanism, was able to bypass both within a minute.

He took the usual precautions, wary of a booby trap; but there was none. A swift reconnoitre of the apartment revealed a modest if not spartan bachelor’s abode, with few creature comforts. Briefly Purkiss remembered a similar flat, six months earlier on the Baltic coast. There, he’d found evidence of Claire’s killer. This time there was nothing of significance. He opened the laptop computer he found in a desk drawer but its password protection deterred him Gifford and his people could have a crack at it later.

Purkiss pulled out his phone and called Vale.

‘No sign of him. By the look of it, he’s been here in the last twenty-four hours. There’s some moisture in the kitchen sink and the bathroom.’

Vale pondered for a moment. ‘All right. Leave everything as it is.’

‘I want to pay a visit to these Americans. Jablonsky and Taylor.’

‘
One moment.’ Vale’s voice became muffled. He came back: ‘Gifford agrees. We have their home addresses.’

It was a Sunday, so they might be at home. Purkiss rang off and exited the flat. He used his phone to locate the first apartment, Jablonsky’s, in relation to Pope’s. Twenty minutes’ walk away across the city centre. Jablonsky too lived alone, apparently. Purkiss had no fixed idea about how he would approach the man, or even if he would at all. Covert pursuit might be more productive.

Jablonsky lived down a cul de sac in a nondescript rim of residences off the shopping district. Purkiss’s antennae, which normally alerted him to surveillance, were silent.

The four-storey building housing Jablonsky’s flat loomed before him, crushed between two squatter structures. Purkiss peered up at the windows, trying to make out whether the curtains were drawn or whether the darkness was caused by shadow on the glass.

The shot came, muffled and dull, but unmistakeable to someone like Purkiss who’d heard his share of silenced gunfire.

Purkiss  found the entrance unlocked and took the stairs three at a time, ears straining for clues. Another shot came as he reached the landing at the top, a third so close to the second they sounded like a pair of heartbeats. The door to Jablonsky’s flat was closed. Purkiss hesitated for a second, ear against the thick wood, then tried the handle as slowly as he dared. The door yielded quietly and he pushed it open and stepped through.

From where he stood a kitchenette was visible at a slant past a central pillar in the living room. A man’s back presented itself to him through the entrance to the kitchenette. Either his foot disturbed a loose floorboard or the man had an agent’s finely tuned sense of an opponent’s presence, but the man turned and ducked so swiftly that even if Purkiss had been armed he doubted he’d have been able to fire accurately.

The man had a gun, clearly, so Purkiss used his environment as cover, the chief component of which was the supporting pillar in the living room. In two steps he was up against one side, pressed hard against the stone. He darted a glance around the side and saw the man, shockingly close, a head of fair hair above a youthful face.

Pope, there was no doubt about it.

Purkiss leaped around the pillar to flank the man but Pope was anticipating this and bringing the gun up. Purkiss used a knife hand against the younger man’s wrist, driving the forearm against the edge of the pillar and sending the pistol spinning from his splayed fingers.

Pope reacted rapidly, clearly calculating that the loss of the gun had lengthened the odds against him, and ran for the door. Purkiss’s attention snagged on what he saw through the entrance arch to the kitchenette: a short, middle-aged man slumped on the floor against the refrigerator, a crimson bloom across his chest. Purkiss stepped in the direction of the kitchenette on the off-chance Jablonsky was still alive, and saw at once the state of the man’s head, one side completely blasted away. That would have been the double tap, which meant the first shot he’d heard from outside had caused the chest wound.

He took off through the door of the flat after Pope, spotting him rounding the corner as Purkiss himself made it outside, and pursuing him towards the Central Station.

*

An hour later, after the encounter at the station and as Vale pulled the car into the parking lot outside the hotel where Gifford had created the makeshift base, Purkiss said, ‘I assume Gifford’s checked out the rest of the Company’s agents here.’

‘In case any of them is the next target. Yes, indeed.’ Vale shrugged. ‘We don’t even know what we’re looking for. Why Jablonsky and Taylor were hit.’

‘
You’ve got Pope’s laptop?’

‘
Yes. Gifford’s people are taking it apart now.’

Purkiss pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. ‘Do the Company know yet?’

‘About the deaths? Hard to tell, but there’s been no sign so far.’

Up in the suite Gifford was pacing, a fist pressed under his chin. Otherwise his face betrayed no trace of stress. He gave Purkiss a quick appraisal as they entered, seemed satisfied.

Purkiss went over to the window and stared out, trying to keep his frustration under wraps. Amsterdam provided access to the whole of Europe, and its borders weren’t exactly secure. Pope could be out of the country by now. The airport would be monitored but it was unlikely he’d try leaving that way.

*

Two hours later, at a few minutes after noon, Gifford took a call. He listened mostly, muttered a few words, then turned to Purkiss and Vale.

‘
They’ve cracked the laptop. No files of interest, so far. But the internet search history shows that yesterday Pope was looking at flight times from Schiphol to Hamburg.’

Purkiss stood. ‘I’m on it.’