Delivering Caliban (13 page)

Twenty-Three

Sussex County, New Jersey

Monday 20 May, 8.15 pm

There were four of them, spilling out of a black Range Rover that had pulled up past Nakamura’s Taurus on the driveway. Men in camo trousers and flak jackets hauling an assortment of weapons with them, the ratcheting clicks audible through the glass of the window.

Purkiss ran to the wall with the racked shotgun and hunting rifle. Kendrick had beaten him to it. The FBI agents stood at a crouch, handguns emerging smoothly from their jackets.

‘Four of them, armed,’ said Purkiss. Berg and Nakamura didn’t waste time going to the window. Instead they positioned themselves kneeling, guns aimed, Berg’s at the door and Nakamura’s at the window.

‘
Where’s the ammo?’ Kendrick snarled at Crosby, who was rocking on the couch, head bent, muttering. Kendrick strode over to him and tapped his forehead with the stock of the rifle.

‘
Where’s the fucking ammo?’

‘
Sideboard drawer,’ Crosby whispered.

Purkiss said, ‘Got any more guns?’

‘No.’

‘
Told you we should have been given guns,’ Kendrick yelled at Nakamura and Berg.

Purkiss hefted the shotgun. It was a Remington 870, a model he’d handled before. Shotguns weren’t his preferred weapon. He caught the handful of cartridges Kendrick tossed at him and thumbed them one by one into the tube magazine. Six in all.

The men wouldn’t come knocking at the door. They’d have seen the Taurus and realised Crosby had visitors. In any case, they hadn’t come in dressed suits, for a chat or even to threaten him. This was a hit.

To Crosby he said, ‘The back entrance,’ and Crosby indicated the doorway to the living room, curving his fingers to the left. Purkiss racked the Remington’s slide mechanism and stepped out into the corridor beyond, swinging to his left.

A short passage ended in a door with a pane of opaque glass through which the evening was visible. A dark silhouette rose into view, blurred by the glass but clearly raising its arms. Purkiss recognised the two-handed grip.

He pulled the triggers. The shotgun bucked in his hands as the pane erupted, the smashing glass a high counterpoint to the roar of the blast. From beyond there was a yell, then the emptiness of a back garden through the ruined gap.

Purkiss moved quickly to the door, pumping the gun again. He swivelled left, then right, peering through the remains of the door. A man lay on his back on the concrete of the back porch, a pistol several feet from his outflung hand. His flak jacket had absorbed some of the blast; so had his face. He was gone.

Behind him Purkiss heard hammering and yells. He ran back down the passage to the living room. Crosby sat, arms wrapped around his bony chest, rocking. Berg, Nakamura and Kendrick were fixed on the front door, which Kendrick had locked but which was taking a pounding.

‘The window,’ he yelled. Berg reacted quickly, spinning and raising her gun as the man’s head and arms appeared above the sill and the glass exploded as he fired. Berg fired back at almost the same moment. The man’s bullet smashed into the couch a few inches from Crosby’s legs. He flinched and wheezed.

The bashing on the door stopped. In the sudden silence the hissing from Crosby’s oxygen cylinder was startlingly loud.

They’re regrouping, thought Purkiss. They’ve seen how many of us there are in here.

He ducked his head back into the passage but there was nobody at the back door. A creak in the timbers made him look up. They could come from any direction: front, back, the roof.   

Kendrick was advancing at a stoop towards the front window. He crouched below the sill, then stood quickly, aimed the rifle, and loosed off a shot, ducking down again immediately.

‘
They’re back at the car,’ he said.

Berg said, ‘All of them?’

‘At least three.’

‘
What’re they doing?’

Kendrick mouthed a countdown -
three, two, one
- and stood again, fired, and ducked.

‘
Ah shit,’ he said. ‘
Down
.’

He dived to the floor, barging into Berg who was crouched behind him. Nakamura sprawled a second later. Purkiss, at the door, hurled himself across to the sofa and knocked Crosby off the end, then rolled off himself and dropped to his knees and hunched his back.

The barrage was like the grinding of an impossibly vast engine, the shots ripping through the log walls and screaming through the living room, smashing furniture and shattering ornaments into cascades of glass and porcelain, sizzling like bees above Purkiss’s head beneath his clasped hands. He felt something wet spray across his back and heard a scream and opened his eyes to see Crosby upright and doing an odd dance, jerking and spinning like a fish on a line.
He stood up, tried to make a run for it
, and even as Purkiss watched, Crosby’s head burst sideways and his scarecrow’s body was flung across the sofa and over the back.

The gunfire went on, and on, and Purkiss tried to flatten himself on to the floor because some of the slugs were coming through very low now, either knocked off course by the log wall they had to pass through or because they were being fired deliberately low, which meant the men were advancing. He saw in his restricted, floor-level world Nakamura crawling in the direction of the front door, Berg haplessly wanting to sit up but unable to risk it, Kendrick squirming like a salamander towards the cover of an armchair which was itself a blooming tree of ripped and puffed upholstery and wood chippings.

The back door
, Purkiss thought. None of them would be coming in there because they’d risk getting hit by friendly fire from the front.

He shouted at the others but the cacophony was too great. Grabbing the shotgun he crawled on his elbows towards the doorway. On the way there he saw the oxygen cylinder, half-hidden under Crosby’s body behind the sofa.

He slid across on his belly and grasped the ring at the top of the cylinder and dragged it free, Crosby collapsing hard on to the floor. Purkiss heaved both cylinder and shotgun through the doorway and sat with his back against the frame. The gunfire was coming in five-second bursts now, one gun keeping the momentum going while the others were reloaded.

Into the relative quiet Purkiss shouted, ‘Kendrick.’

Kendrick looked round, disorientated, saw Purkiss at the door.

Purkiss tapped the oxygen cylinder.

Kendrick stared for a second, then nodded once, getting it. Purkiss stood, lifted the shotgun in one hand and hoisted the cylinder across his other shoulder, and ran.

The back door, ruined by the blast from the shotgun, gave way to a kick. A scrubby back yard was bordered by the high forest. He stepped over the body of the man he’d hit with the Remington earlier ran close to the wall, following it to the right of the door. At the corner, a narrow concrete path ran along one side of the house to the front.

Purkiss reached the front corner and, keeping low, risked a glance round. Across the scrap of lawn the remaining three men were clustered between their Range Rover and the front of the house. They were spread out and advancing unhurriedly, each holding an assault rifle. Armalites of some variety.

Purkiss gauged the distance. Ten yards. Perhaps twelve. He gripped the oxygen cylinder by the ring, hefting it. Because of the angle he would have to use his left arm, his weaker one. 

He waited until all three of the uninjured men had reloaded and stood spread out before the cabin, one kneeling and two erect, firing again in what was clearly meant as a final, punishing assault. Then he stepped slightly beyond the corner of the building and swung his left arm up and over his head.

The oxygen cylinder spun almost in slow motion, describing a high parabola and dropping just as one of the men spotted Purkiss at the corner and yelled, bringing the spewing end of his rifle to bear. Before the seam of fire could stitch its way across the corner of the cabin the cylinder landed in front of the guns.

Purkiss heard the chink of bullets against its side and actually heard it hit the ground a split-second before it exploded, the sucking whoosh propelling fragments of its casing outwards like a starburst, one whipping into the timber above his head. A sheet of flame surged and dwindled as suddenly and the screams began, terrible even to Purkiss’s ears. He’d dodged back to avoid the shrapnel but glanced back and saw one man on his back on the ground, clawing at the dancing sprites of fire eating away his chest and belly and nipping at his hair; another man stumbling aside, his rifle still gripped in one fist, his other arm brushing in confusion across his eyes. The fourth one had landed on his belly on the lawn and kept his wits about him and was crawling forward like a commando, grasping his weapon.

Along the front of the cabin from Purkiss, he saw Kendrick lean across the sill of the shattered front window and take aim with his rifle. The stumbling man had orientated himself once more and raised his rifle. Kendrick loosed off two shots, hitting the stumbling man in the chest and knocking him off his feet, and the screaming burning man on the ground who convulsed and then stopped his shrieks. Kendrick ducked out of sight as the crawling man on the lawn pointed his rifle upwards at the window. As Purkiss stepped out the man swung the gun to aim at Purkiss. Purkiss racked the shotgun and fired, but he was too far away for a clear shot and was already diving back behind the corner as the muzzle of the rifle erupted again.

Pressed against the wall, Purkiss counted the seconds: on three he’d swing round again and use the shotgun. Into the silence he heard Kendrick’s voice. ‘Purkiss? You okay?’

He’s coming out the front door
, thought Purkiss.
He thinks I hit the crawling man.

‘
Stay back,’ yelled Purkiss, and stepped back past the corner, levelling the shotgun.

Kendrick was staring at him, halfway through the doorway. Behind him, below the front window, the crawling man had the rifle aimed.

Kendrick saw Purkiss’s eyes and began to turn. It was too late.

The shots came, two, three, and Purkiss almost closed his eyes against the scream.

Kendrick had turned and dropped to one knee. Past him, the crawling man sprawled, blood gouting from his chest. Nakamura leaned through the front window, his Glock still trained on the  man.

For a full six seconds nobody moved, the tableau frozen in the sudden silence.

Twenty-Four

Sussex County, New Jersey

Monday 20 May, 9.20 pm

‘
We call it in.’

‘
We don’t.’

The argument had been raging between the two agents for ten minutes. The four of them were roving about the property, Purkiss and Kendrick in silence. There was nothing useful among any of Crosby’s possessions, nothing by way of identification on any of the dead attackers.

It was time to go.

Berg and Nakamura stood facing off like a bickering couple.

‘I could pull rank here, Danny.’

‘
We’re way out of line,’ said Nakamura. ‘We’re acting without authority. Rank doesn’t come into it.’

Berg pulled out her mobile phone. Nakamura took a step closer.

‘Berg, god damn it –’

‘
I’m calling it in anonymously, okay?’ she snapped. Nakamura raised his hands in a
whatever
gesture.

Purkiss walked down to the Taurus and gave it a once over. No bullet holes, and the tyres looked intact.

As Kendrick approached Purkiss saw his hands were shaking a little. He said, ‘You okay?’

‘
Yeah. Christ, it hits you, doesn’t it? Afterwards.’

In the car, Nakamura at the wheel once more, Kendrick said, ‘Kind of liked your shooting back there.’

‘Huh.’ But Nakamura looked pleased.

Nakamura took the driveway quickly and turned on to the hillside road, heading back the way they’d come. It was an isolated location but not so remote that the noise wouldn’t have attratced attention. The emergency vehicles began to flash past them after five minutes.

Purkiss said, ‘We need access to your database again. As soon as possible.’

*

They found access at a diner in the first small town they reached on the way back towards New York. It had a light evening crowd, mainly student types.

Berg approached the owner, a surly man in his sixties, and held her shield high, speaking a few quick words. Within minutes the rest of the patrons had been cleared out. They muttered angrily but looked fascinated at the same time. Purkiss and the others looked a mess. Dust and wood splinters coated their hair and their clothes. Perversely, Purkiss looked the most presentable of all of them; Nakamura had found a sweater in the boot of his car which Purkiss put on to replace his jacket, which was streaked with Crosby’s blood. The sweater was both too short and too wide for him

The two waitresses had hung up their aprons and were on their way out. The owner turned the CLOSED sign outwards and locked the door. He said, ‘Help yourself to coffee.’

‘
Thanks,’ said Berg. ‘You’ll be reimbursed.’

He disappeared into a back room. Berg opened her laptop on one of the tables near the back, where they could all view it. She used the code the owner had given her to get into the diner’s WiFi network and accessed the database within a minute.

‘Caliban. Nothing’s coming up.’

She cross-referenced it with a range of years – 1995 until 2000 – but there were no hits. Jablonsky’s name went into the mix, as did Crosby’s, Taylor’s and Grosvenor’s. Still nothing. She added “Holtzmann Solar”. All that appeared on the screen was the connection with the stocks and shares the CIA agents had owned and sold.

‘Damn it.’

‘
It’s too direct,’ said Purkiss. ‘Try Holtzmann Solar’s bank accounts. See where they send their money.’

A few hits came up, mainly in connection with investigations into fraud within the company. Nothing suggested there had been any suspicions on the FBI’s part of money being salted away to avoid the gaze of the IRS or anyone else.

Abby
, thought Purkiss,
this is where we need you
. Abby Holt had been a computer genius, one of a rare breed who was equally adept with the hardware and software aspects of computing. She’d have thought of a way in.

Purkiss thought best when he was moving. He stood and stepped away from the group and began pacing, long strides to the counter of the diner and back. He played Crosby’s words over again in his head, until one phrase snagged him.

Something that was going to prove invaluable in the field of interrogation.

There was an echo there. Interrogation... it had come up in another conversation since his pursuit of Pope had begun.

Purkiss took out his mobile and hit the speed dial button.

‘
Vale.’ The reply came after a single ring.

‘
Quentin, it’s me.’

‘
What’s been happening?’

‘
What have you heard?’ Purkiss wasn’t being deliberately elliptical. Raw data about how much of the mission was leaking through to the outside world could often prove useful.

‘
The Service man at the New York embassy, Delatour, said he saw you being taken down by two men. There are reports of a car crash a few minutes later in Lower Manhattan. Other than that, nothing.’

‘
They were CIA, but rogue ones. Possibly part of a black ops cell.’ Purkiss gave Vale a brief rundown, including the fact that four more men had been killed up at Crosby’s cabin. He didn’t mention the two FBI officers, merely that he was receiving help with his research.

Vale said, ‘I can get a search done myself on Holtzmann Solar, see if the Service or Security have anything on them.’

‘There’s something in particular I’m calling about.’

Vale waited.

‘Remind me what the Amsterdam spook, Gifford, said about Pope. I have the gist, but run through what you remember of what he told us.’

‘
Pope’s early life? Grammar school, political science at Bristol -’

‘
Later than that. What sort of work has he done in the Service, that kind of thing.’

‘
Surveillance, data analysis...’

‘
Interrogation work?’

‘
Let’s see. No, not that I remember. A people person, but not in that way. Good at charming people in social situations, but as far as I know not the persuasive type that would be much use during forced debriefings.’

Purkiss shook his head at the euphemism. ‘In that case, was Pope himself interrogated? Did Gifford mention anything about that?’

Vale rustled paper for a few moments - his cigarettes, Purkiss knew - and said: ‘I’m working from memory here, and I’m an old man. But no, I can’t remember anything like that -’

‘
Hang on.’ An old man.
Pope’s old man...

‘
His father.’

Vale said, after a beat, ‘Ah, yes. You’re right. His father, Geoffrey, was something of an expert on interrogation.’

Purkiss felt a fist of hope clench in his chest.

*

‘This might take a while.’

Berg’s hands were blurring over the keyboard. On the monitor streams of data were flooding by. Personnel files with introductory biographies, histories of drug development, political connections and donations. As per standard operating procedure with all big corporations, Berg said, the FBI had done routine and extensive background checks on Holtzmann Solar. Nothing even remotely underhand had emerged.

Purkiss didn’t expect the search to reveal much. He’d suggested Berg carry it out because he needed something to distract them while he waited for Vale to ring back.

The café owner put his head round the door at one point, caught Nakamura’s expression and withdrew back into whatever den he had set up in the back.

Purkiss paced some more, ignoring the looks of irritation he got from Kendrick and Nakamura. He, Vale, Gifford… none of them had considered the personal angle when trying to find a link between Pope and the people he’d killed. They’d been blinded by the political dimension to the killings: spy murdering spy, and from a nominally allied agency to boot.

Purkiss’s phone buzzed. He stepped away. It was Vale.

‘John. I’ve emailed you Geoffrey Pope’s dossier, but here’s the gist. He was semi-freelance for the last couple of years of his life. Senior enough that he was given a free rein to investigate what he liked, as long as he didn’t bring the Service into disrepute. The last record of his work was when he went undercover in the US in early 1997. There are no details of the cover he assumed, but he’d dropped hints that he was investigating something in the field of interrogation science.’

‘
Any connection with Holtzmann Solar?’

‘
No. Nor with the CIA, that we can find. But the circumstances of his death are relevant.’

Gifford had said Pope senior had been killed in a flying accident.

Vale went on: ‘His body was found in the wreckage of a light aircraft in the sea off the Atlantic coast of Guatemala, on November the fifth, 1998. Days after the region was hit by the worst hurricane on record.’