TWENTY-TWO
There were four, Purkiss noticed, in the instant after blind panic had immobilised him. Four small shapes, coloured green by the goggles, hurtling across the fields like ground-hugging guided missiles, yelping and screaming in harmonies that broke and formed and broke again. The rectangle of the farm was at its longest from north to south, from the gate end to the rear wall, which meant five hundred metres or so between Purkiss and Kendrick on one hand and the dogs on the other. A distance that was closing rapidly.
In the copse they were protected from the men on either side of them, who were unlikely to attempt a shot given the density of the trees. But the dogs would be upon them soon, and if they ran back to the wall and tried to climb over they might as well daub bullseyes on their backs.
Beside him Kendrick gripped a low branch, braced both feet on the trunk of the fir, and heaved until the branch peeled away enough that he could wrench the rest off. He broke the other end and stripped it to form a point. Purkiss lifted a fallen branch, heavier than Kendrick’s, and hefted it.
The baying was becoming more frenzied and the blood lust seemed to have affected the pack of men behind the dogs, who were shouting unintelligibly. By now Purkiss recognised the skinny bodies and streamlined snouts of Dobermann Pinschers.
He tore off the night-vision goggles – they were unnecessary now – and signalled Kendrick with a jerk of his head. They moved sideways towards the rim of the copse. Through the trees they saw a man waiting, rifle raised to chest height. If they separated and rushed him far enough apart he might be able to hit only one of them, but one down would worsen the odds exponentially.
They pressed themselves agains the widest tree they could find. With his mouth close to Kendrick’s ear, Purkiss told him what he wanted him to do.
The dogs were on the final approach now, two of them well in the lead, hurling themselves across the final hundred-metre stretch of field towards the copse, almost sobbing, moonlight flashing in the ropes of froth slavering from their maws. Purkiss counted down with his fingers and shouted ‘Go,’ and Kendrick emerged from the side of the tree. He lobbed his phone high and arcing and the man raised the gun to take aim at Kendrick, looked up, and for a second lifted the gun higher as if participating in an absurd clay-pigeon shoot. He took several trotting steps back, half-taken in, and before he could register fully that it wasn’t a grenade Purkiss hurled the club of wood so that it spun through the six or seven metres separating them and caught the man in the mouth. He staggered and Purkiss and Kendrick had already broken cover and Purkiss dived the last distance, low to the ground, and caught the man around the legs as he was trying to bring the rifle down again. The butt of the rifle glanced off Purkiss’s head, bringing tears to his nose, but he hung on. Above him Kendrick brought the man down with a blow to his face.
The noise of screaming was suddenly overwhelming because the dogs were upon them.
The first one slammed into Kendrick’s back like slingshot fired at close quarters, forty kilograms of bone and sinew, knocking him off his feet and keeping its place on his back, its agility terrifying, its jaws snapping and probing for his neck. From his position on the ground at the man’s legs Purkiss groped upwards for the rifle but it was out of reach. It was too late anyway because he felt movement behind him and he kicked out blindly, felt his foot connect with softness underlaid with bone and heard an outraged yelp. He didn’t wait to look back but lunged on his knees for the sharpened branch Kendrick had dropped. He pivoted and jabbed and got the dog in mid-leap, an awkward blow to the chest which struck the ribcage, and although it broke the dog’s momentum it only inflamed it further. The beast darted its head in around the stick and got its paws on Purkiss’s chest. He lost his balance and it was on him and over him, drool spattering his face like hot rancid hail, the whites of its eyes flaring in derangement.
On the ground a few feet away Kendrick was roaring. The other two dogs had caught up and they lunged for Purkiss’s feet. He thrashed and jerked, not just to try and hit the snapping snouts but also to keep his legs moving as targets. He got the stick in both hands and used it as a bar against the throat of the dog above him, forcing its head up and away from his face. Dimly he heard a series of wet thuds and a prolonged and diminishing screech from out of his line of sight. It gave him a new impetus. Instead of trying to push the dog backwards and away from him, he rolled back on to his shoulders, carrying the animal over him and pushing hard with the stick when the dog had passed the point of no return, so that it toppled off him. Before he could rise, one of the others sprang to take its place. This time he was ready with the stick. He rammed it straight into the dog’s snarl, the animal’s momentum driving it on to the pointed end so that the back of its throat was impaled. It thrashed away, wrenching the stick from Purkiss’s grasp, and stumbled, choking, pawing at the fragment jutting from its maw.
The blast was shocking, jolting Purkiss almost to his knees again. It set off a high tinnital whine in his ears which was flooded out by a second explosion, a third. He peered about, disorientated, saw the fanned-out group of men yelling and charging across the field, the huddled and ungainly piles of dog pockmarking the ground around him.
In his ear Kendrick’s shout sounded distant in the aftermath of the shots. ‘Let’s go.’
Purkiss blinked, looked round. Kendrick’s left leg was black with blood below the knee, the trouser cuff shredded. The sleeves of his bomber jacket too were ripped, though his arms looked relatively unscathed. The collar of the jacket appeared to have protected his neck. The gun was an assault rifle, Purkiss saw, a Russian AK-74. Near Kendrick’s feet was the bloodied club he’d used to despatch the dog, which itself lay several feet away, its head almost flattened.
They sprinted back into the copse, Kendrick lurching, his injured leg dragging him back. When Purkiss showed signs of slowing Kendrick yelled, ‘Run, you idiot.’ Through the trees loomed the shape of the other man with the rifle, approaching from the opposite side, weapon raised. The clattering began an instant after Purkiss saw him, the man’s rifle switched to fully automatic fire rather than single-shot mode, and around them gouges and chocks were blasted out of the trunks and a shower of splinters erupted. Kendrick paused behind a tree, stepped out and quickly raised the rifle. He loosed off a burst of three shots. The man bellowed and dropped.
Purkiss reached the wall and his hands slapped against its hard smooth surface at the very moment the approaching group of men opened fire from the other side of the trees. The rain of gunfire smashed and chopped through the trees, making the whole copse shake and hiss like a single animate being. Ricochets whined off into the night like tiny fireworks. Purkiss jerked his head away as a stray shot sizzled past his face and chinked off the wall, sending slivers of stone across his cheek. He looked back and Kendrick crouched, waiting, the rifle in his hands. When two men appeared round the side of the copse he opened fire, fully automatic now, the impact flinging the men backwards and into one another. Another man had appeared round the other side and the man got a burst off which came close, so close, causing Purkiss to drop flat to the piney carpet at the foot of the wall. Kendrick threw himself flat on to his belly and fired from the ground. The man danced away in a grotesque pirouette and fell.
With a short run Purkiss leaped up and gripped the top of the wall and hauled his torso over the edge. He folded himself belly-down so that his legs were hanging over the outside and reached down to grab Kendrick’s hand. Kendrick passed up the AK-74 and Purkiss took it. With one hand he pulled on Kendrick’s, while with the other he pointed the rifle, all eight-plus pounds of it. Just as Kendrick was at the top of the wall and able to support himself another two men appeared round the trees, firing in mid-run. Purkiss squeezed the trigger, the recoil almost too much for him to control in a single-hand grip. The bursts went wild, over the men’s heads and into the trees, but it was enough to make them drop back. Purkiss flung the gun down to Kendrick who was already on the other side. He dropped down himself.
They ran, plunging into the mouth of the forest, lashed by branches and grabbed at by roots and cannoning here and there off trunks but not caring. They ignored the pain, oblivious to everything but the need to get away from the noises behind them, the shouts of the remaining men as they mounted the wall and gathered in pursuit.
*
Venedikt dragged a sleeve across his forehead, the sweat stinging in his eyes. From his right a man sobbed, one of the few hit who was alive. Another, more terrible sound, a low primeval howling, rose from further away, breaking off sharply as a shot came. One of the dogs, hanging on despite everything.
The air was hazed with the stench of blood and ordure and the muzzle gases from the weapons. In front of Venedikt the last two men clambered up the wall. Six of them. In a straight firefight it would have been enough. Now, in pursuit of two men through terrain in which agility and the ability to hide were important, they no longer had the upper hand.
He forced down the rage and thought quickly. Dobrynin was heading towards him at a lope, pushing his own gun into his belt with his undamaged hand.
‘We have lost four, Venedikt Vasilyevich.’
Venedikt listened to the dwindling clamour in the forest.
Dobrynin said, ‘I await your instructions.’
Venedikt drew a deep breath. ‘Start the move.’
*
Kendrick staggered against a trunk and slid down, his face waxen. Without speaking he waved Purkiss onwards. Purkiss strained to see back through the trees. There had been no human sound other than their own for – how long? Ten minutes? – and it might be safe to stop. In the sudden relative quiet now that their boots were no longer churning the forest floor he had the impression of another sound, ahead of them. He took a few steps more and saw it, below them and a hundred yards ahead. A road, with a solitary car sweeping by.
‘No.’ He grabbed Kendrick beneath the arm, hauling him to his feet. Purkiss had already taken the rifle and strapped it across his own back. He’d noticed an extra magazine clip in Kendrick’s belt, and assumed he’d had the presence of mind to take it off the man along with the rifle. ‘A bit further.’ He hoisted Kendrick’s arm across his shoulders.
More slowly now, their momentum broken, they scrambled across the sloping terrain down towards the road, a narrow single-lane curve of tarmac that disappeared into blackness at each end. The evenness of the road surface was jarring at first and Purkiss almost lost his footing. On the other side they disappeared again into the trees. Purkiss took them another fifty yards till he found a ditch. He said, ‘All right.’
Kendrick sank so that he was half-supine. Purkiss sat on a rock, rested his forearms on his knees. Getting to the other side of the road had been of tactical importance. If their pursuers made it this far, they might assume the two of them had followed the road in one or other direction.
Kendrick winced himself into a position where he could inspect his leg. Oozing puncture marks were visible in the calves and shin, and a couple of ragged holes had been torn from the muscle. No arterial damage was apparent, though Purkiss knew they wouldn’t have made it this far if there had been.
‘‘King dogs,’ Kendrick managed through dry lips. ‘I normally like them.’
Purkiss checked his phone. No signal.
‘How do you think they got on to us?’ said Kendrick. ‘Reckon they saw us come over the wall?’
‘They might have. But we couldn’t see the men patrolling the wall, which suggests they were too far away to have spotted us.’ Purkiss stood unsteadily and walked up the slope a few paces. The display showed a single bar: a weak signal. Before he could dial, Abby’s number came up as a missed call, fifteen minutes earlier. There was no message.
Again he was about to key in her number when the phone rang. Once more it was Abby’s number.
‘Abby?’
Silence for a moment, then, ‘John.’
A man’s voice. Low, muted. Unmistakeable.
‘Fallon?’
‘I have your friend.’
The connection was poor, and occasionally a consonant was lost; but there was no doubting the voice, with its trace of Irish.
‘Don’t go to the police, John, or the Service, or anyone else. If you do, I’ll kill her.’
‘Fallon, damn you –’
He was gripping the phone so tightly it almost sprang from his sweaty fingers. There was a band around his throat, choking off not only his words but his breathing as well.
‘Remember, John. No outside involvement.’
‘Listen –’
‘I’ll be in touch.’
Purkiss dropped the phone. He clenched his fists and raised his face to the canopy of trees and the night sky beyond. The choking feeling left him.
It was completely unprofessional because the danger of being hunted down was still present, but through clamped teeth he roared, a long deep primal sound that bounced off the depths of the forest and sent small things skittering in fear.