FORTY-ONE
From his position circling a couple of hundred metres away, the Jacobin had cursed, out loud, at the ineptitude of the man on the boat. Instead of striking the engines or the cockpit, the grenade from his launcher had blasted off the Black Hawk’s tail rotor. The damage would ultimately prove fatal, but it would be a slow death, and Purkiss would have time to abort the strike as long as the controls remained intact. Seconds later, the explosion in the distance confirmed the Jacobin’s fears. He couldn’t see it, but the hiss of water that followed it meant that the target had been missed.
When it became clear the chopper was going to land on the boat, the Jacobin had taken evasive action, speeding further out across the sea. By the time he’d circled back, he’d begun to believe Purkiss hadn’t made it out alive. But there he was, head dwarfed by the bobbing debris, and there were his friends, too.
The Jacobin felt no disappointment, only emptiness. That, and a professional’s urge to salvage what was possible from the situation, always with the future in mind. To clean up. On the horizon the cavalry was stirring, an awe-inspiring flotilla by the sound of it. It meant he had to work quickly.
*
With no time to turn and dive, Purkiss shoved his hands upwards against the water, the movement pushing him down. He ducked his head at the same time, resisting the urge to keep his eyes lifted to the arrowing point of the advancing keel. Once down as far as he could go he tipped on to his back to avoid the deadly churning of the propellors. He recoiled as they chewed the water inches from his face.
By the time he opened his eyes the hull had almost disappeared. He remained submerged, fire in his chest. In a moment he saw the dark shape loom into view again, turning for another pass.
He timed his move precisely so that he was rising to emerge on the side of the hull just as it passed overhead, before it could pick up enough speed to elude his grasp. His hands shot out of the water before his head did and he caught two fingers in a steel ring on the side, some sort of anchor for rigging. Although he felt as though his fingers were being wrenched out of their sockets he hung on, used his grip as a brace to swing his other hand up. He seized the rim of the boat, launched himself out of the water like a gymnast on a bar, and dropped hard into the boat. He was on his haunches, shuddering with the effort and above all the unimaginable cold.
Purkiss rose to stand, thigh muscles screaming, and faced the boat’s skipper. Then he gave in and let himself drop into a sitting position, because he wasn’t prepared for this. It was too much on top of everything else.
The cliché left his mouth like a breath.
‘It’s you.’
*
The Jacobin pressed home the advantage then, his surprise cancelled out by Purkiss’s own. As Purkiss dropped his hand to the gun tucked in his belt, the Jacobin kicked out sideways. His shoe caught Purkiss high in the chest. Purkiss rocked back on his haunches.
The Jacobin let go of the wheel and moved in with feet flailing, a berserker’s fury driving him, but even so he knew he was weakening and so did Purkiss, who was himself sapped. The Jacobin used gravity to aid him, dropping on to Purkiss with an elbow aimed at his throat. Purkiss rolled and took it on the shoulder, stood and brought a knee into the Jacobin’s chest – just there – and his scream of pain was barely a wheeze. He rolled in turn and started to rise. Purkiss aimed a kick at his face which would have sent him overboard with his skull shattered, but the Jacobin was skilled in countering this particular move. He slapped the foot aside and caught the ankle and flipped it upwards. Purkiss lost his balance, landed heavily on the floor of the boat, hitting his head.
The Jacobin brought a foot up for the killing stamp onto Purkiss’s exposed neck. Purkiss swiped the Jacobin’s leg out from under him and it was his turn to land hard. Purkiss had slid to the other end of the boat and had the gun out.
And it was over.
*
‘You should have let them put the chest drain in. You’d be in better shape.’
Purkiss’s words sounded to him thick. Before his eyes swam two men, two boats.
‘I did.’ Between words Rossiter gave a little start, like a hiccup. He sat against the wheel of the now-drifting boat, both hands pressed against the left side of his chest. Much as Purkiss had seen him in the flat, after the stabbing.
‘I had the drain, gave it half an hour. Then got them to remove it and discharged myself.’
‘Because you had my friend, Abby, stowed away.’
‘In the boot of my car, yes.’
A beat passed. Purkiss felt a flare of panic. Had he passed out for a while? But to the south, the mass of approaching traffic had advanced only slightly.
So many questions. ‘Where’s Teague?’
‘Dead, in the bathroom in my flat.’
‘He was on to you.’
‘Yes.’ He broke off, gasping, his voice softer afterwards. ‘I surprised him in my flat, as I told you. But he was there looking for incriminating evidence.’
‘You’ve failed.’
‘I have.’
Purkiss didn’t ask the obvious question. Why did you do it? He found he didn’t care. Gingerly, to stop his vision blurring further, he craned round. The speed boat had covered more distance than he’d realised. Kendrick and Elle were specks in the water.
Rossiter said something. Purkiss said, ‘What?’ partly because he’d only half heard, partly because he had difficulty believing what he had heard.
‘You can’t take me in.’
‘You’re asking me to let you go.’
‘Of course not.’ He broke off, waxen, breath coming in hissing jerks between his teeth. ‘You have to kill me.’
Purkiss waited.
‘Kill me and dump me. Quickly.’
‘Why?’
‘The Service can’t be implicated in any of this.’
Purkiss coughed a laugh. ‘Bit late for that.’
‘It doesn’t have to be. Work with Elle, come up with a narrative. It was all Kuznetsov’s doing. The Service wasn’t involved at all.’
‘The Service wasn’t involved. You’re not Service. You’re a traitor.’
‘It won’t be seen that way.’ Despite the pain in his voice he was managing to put urgency in it. ‘The Service will be tainted. It’ll damage our standing. Weaken us irrevocably.’
‘Our. Us.’ Purkiss shook his head. ‘You really are something else, Rossiter.’
‘Kill me.’
‘No.’
‘You’d like to.’
‘More than anything else.’
Another beat. Then Rossiter said, ‘I can make you.’
*
The first of the helicopters had arrived and were circling above the carnage like crows over roadkill, the gusts from their rotors ruffling the water. Without being asked, Rossiter had reached across from where he was slumped and given the engine some throttle to move the boat further away.
‘Claire – your Claire – was mine.’
For a moment Purkiss misunderstood, thought he was hearing soap opera dialogue.
‘Best agent I ever had. Bright, ruthless, utterly loyal. A master of subterfuge.’
Purkiss listened, the gun weighing down his hand.
‘You know what I’m getting at, don’t you.’ Rossiter seemed to grin, but it was a grimace as he shifted position. ‘She was the one who carried out the hit on the Iranian, Asgari. She told you she was investigating Fallon. Other way round. He was investigating her.’
Rossiter’s voice was dwindling, the rushing blood in Purkiss’s temples drowning it out.
‘I was running her. Recruited her a couple of years after she joined the Service. She had passion, she had commitment. As you well know, John.’
One of the helicopters was taking an interest in them now that others had joined the scene. The crackle of radio static cut the air.
‘Fallon was on to her, but he wasn’t sure of my identity. Knew there was someone running her, of course, and I was on his list to be investigated. But there were several others, and he began with the people he was certain of. Claire was one of them.’
Purkiss hadn’t checked the magazine, wasn’t sure how many bullets were left. Focus on that, focus on anything but what he’s saying.
‘She loved you, John. Thought you’d be an ideal recruit, wanted to approach you eventually, open up to you about what we were doing. I agreed with her. You’d have done us proud. But for now, I advised her to keep her activities from you. It was her idea, a masterstroke, to make you believe Fallon was the one needing investigation. It got you on her side against him, allowed her to gain the benefit of your skills.’
He was remembering what Fallon had said, in the basement.
‘Fallon was searching your flat that night when she came home and surprised him. She was a fighter, John, you know that. He did what he had to.’
Fallon had said, and Purkiss had thought he was quibbling self-exculpatingly over semantics, that he’d killed her but not murdered her.
‘It was self defence. She could well have killed him that night.’
A searchlight cut through the haze of slatey smoke, pinning them. Purkiss stood, the boat rocking even as it stayed stationary. He raised the gun.
‘It isn’t true. None of it.’
‘But it is true.’
‘No it isn’t. But this is for suggesting it is,’ said Purkiss.
He fired twice, three times.