Delivering Caliban

by Tim Stevens

‘I’ll also be in breach of the rules.’ He was a tired-looking fifty. In profile she could see he hadn’t shaved since at least that morning. His expression said: I don’t need this.

  Nina wavered, turning to look back down the aisle. The passengers nearest her were either asleep or lost in private worlds of sound embedded in their ears. One or two people gazed incuriously at her.

  She considered wandering back to her seat. Then she thought of the headlights behind, picking out her silhouette against the rear window.

  She hefted the violin case and leaned forward and muttered, as menacingly as she could manage: ‘I’ve got a gun. Stop the bus.’

  In the mirror the man’s eyes darted to hers, then to the case. He huffed a laugh. ‘Honey, that’s a musical instrument.’

  ‘That’s what it looks like.’ She touched the end against the back of his neck. This time in his eyes she saw, not fear, but resignation. A genuine crazy. At least I’ll be able to say I was forced, get danger pay.

  ‘Jesus. All right, all right, don’t shoot.’ His eyes widened a fraction as though he wondered if he’d goaded her too far. He set the indicator flicking and slowed, peeling off on to the side of the highway. Horns flared past.

  The doors hissed and concertinaed open. Nina said, ‘Thank you,’ and stepped down. The driver flinched away, as if she might take the opportunity now that the bus was stationary of doing him genuine violence.

  She dropped out into the cold, wet night, not looking back, suddenly gripped with panic. A rail lined the curve of the roadside; beyond it was a slope and darkness. As she hoisted a leg across the rail she glanced back past the end of the bus.

  The Toyota sedan had pulled in, lights still on. The doors were opening.

  She stumbled on the other side of here rail, feeling stony uneven ground beneath her feet, and began to scramble down. Near the bottom she dropped to her knees and rolled, holding the violin case away from her. The wet grass cloyed at her, trying to snarl her limbs.

  The slope levelled to dark, flat waste ground. Nina glanced back, saw two figures vaulting over the rail.

  She began to run, the awareness hitting her with the force of a blow that she’d just made a stupid, terrible mistake.

  *

  The blackness into which she was flinging herself was deepened by the garish orange of the lights along the interstate behind her. Faintly in the distance, much higher than her, she could see a slope leading up to another road. Even if she made it up there, she’d have to be the fastest hitchhiker in history to get a ride before they caught up with her.

  Nina hadn’t looked backwards since the first time, when she’d seen them crossing the rail. Two male figures, the details difficult to make out in the dark. Her ragged breathing and the scrabble of her sneakers on the rough ground blotted out all sound, so she couldn’t tell if they were still on the slope or inches behind her, reaching out for her even now…

  The bus driver wouldn’t have driven straight off. He’d be phoning his superiors, the police, whoever, to report what had happened. A kind of hijacking, she guessed it was. Again, nobody would arrive in time to help her. She was on her own.

  She thought of Rachel and Kyle, their bodies tossed around like dolls. They have guns. Oh God. Maybe they weren’t following her, but were simply taking aim. The image pitched her forward at a stoop, as if ducking would save her. But no shots came.

  She saw the ditch a couple of seconds before she would have run straight over the edge, and flung herself sideways, unable to arrest her momentum entirely, landing on one knee. It yawned blackly, a gulf in the ground half-filled with stagnant sump water that could probably be jumped with a decent run-up, but she had no time for that now.

  It was the end. Nina straightened to a crouch, dared to turn, holding her violin up before her as though its totemic power could offer her some protection.

  The men were fifty yards back, following at an unhurried pace, striding rather than running. Two black silhouettes. It made sense: they didn’t need to run, she wasn’t going to be able to get away and it was far more effective to allow her to exhaust herself while they avoided the risk of twisting an ankle on the clumpy ground.

  She began to sidle along the ditch, facing the men, keeping away from the edge. The men simply changed the angle of their approach so that they were heading straight for her again.

  One called out, his voice carrying clearly though the drizzle: ‘Nina Ramirez. Don’t run. You’re safe with us.’

  A laugh escaped the hand she’d clamped over her mouth. Safe. Yes. There was a certain security in death.

  ‘Come with us now. You’re in danger, but there’s someone looking out for you. We’ve been sent to take you to him.’

  If she put enough distance between herself and them, she might – might – be able to run back to the Interstate. She’d be safer there, among the speeding cars and the lights. But she was stumbling sideways, less surefooted than they were, and they were easily closing on her.

  As they drew nearer Nina could make out something of their features. One man was the tall, tanned one she’d seen in the campus pavilion that afternoon. The other – she thought – was the one who’d been watching her from the steps of the rotunda a few minutes before. A few hours ago, only, and her life, precarious at the best of times, had dropped off the edge.

  The tanned man was the one who spoke. ‘Nina. Seriously. Stop running. Come with us. I swear to you, we mean you no harm.’

  She felt a sudden emptiness behind her and her heart lurched as she realised the ditch had curved a fraction so that she’d almost sidled into it. She began moving sidelong away from the edge, back in the direction of the interstate. The men tacked sideways to follow.

  Beyond them, blurred by the rain, another figure was visible, high on the slope.

  The tanned man said: ‘We’re unarmed.’ He held his arms wide from his body, his palms open.

  Behind him, the figure had broken into a run.

  Nineteen

  New York City

  Monday 20 May, 6.10 pm

  ‘Wrong approach,’ Purkiss said.

  They were clustered in a near-derelict office Nakamura had taken them to on the Upper West Side, with no air conditioning and the breeze of the Hudson River filtering through the cranked windows. There were a few chairs, a desk, a couple of cupboards with doors hanging off their hinges. Berg said it was FBI property awaiting useful employment.

  She’d brought a laptop with her from the car and set it up on the desk, using a dongle to get web access. There was no question of using their usual Midtown office, she explained. Their boss had ordered them off the case, and they’d be noticed.

  ‘But accessing FBI facilities electronically will get you noticed, too,’ Purkiss pointed out.

  Berg shook her head. ‘I’m not going in using my passcode.’

  ‘You’re hacking your own networks?’

  Nakamura: ‘Sure. All of us do it from time to time. Usually it’s to modify records we’re not allowed to officially change.’

  Berg hissed at him over her shoulder.

  Kendrick lounged at the window, alternately paying mild attention to the group at the desk and gazing down at the street, tense and coiled as a cat. Purkiss stood behind the two agents, watching the screen as Berg’s fingers flashed over the keyboard.

  After half an hour he turned away to pace.

  ‘Wrong approach, how?’ said Nakamura.

  ‘You’re looking for patterns. Patterns in these people’s movements, their behaviour. Ways and places and times they might have interacted.’

  Berg had entered the names of Pope, Jablonsky, Taylor and Grosvenor into the database she’d accessed and the screen was scrolling though the links. None so far, other than the obvious one, namely that they were all recognised intelligence operatives, the first a British agent and the last three CIA. They’d visited some of the same locales but not at the same time, as far as was known. At thirty two Pope was the youngest; the Americans’ ages
ranged from middle forties to late fifties.

  ‘And you’d go about it how exactly?’ Nakamura again.

  ‘Whatever their connection, it’s unlikely to be something overt, something that would find its way on to a database. The link’s going to be something more tenuous. Counterintuitive.’ Suddenly Purkiss remembered his conversation with the local Service man, Delatour, in the park. The bang on his head shortly afterwards must have done the equivalent of knocking the memory down the back of the sofa.

  He said, ‘Finances. Can you check that on them? Investments, stock portfolios, that kind of thing?’

  ‘Hell yeah.’ Berg tuned back to the laptop and tapped away happily.

  Purkiss left her for a moment and went over to Kendrick. ‘Any problems at the airport?’

  ‘Should there’ve been?’

  ‘Not really.’ Purkiss had been half-expecting Kendrick to get pulled out at the passport desk, but not because his face was on a database of known foreign operatives like Purkiss’s. In his dirty jeans and outsized camouflage jacket, and with his yellow pallor and khaki teeth, Kendrick looked like a drug addict.

  ‘First time in New York?’ said Purkiss.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Kendrick. ‘Done Disney in Florida before, though. Sean.’

  Kendrick had a seven-year-old son from a long-defunct relationship. The boy’s mother had unhappily ceded fairly generous visiting rights. Purkiss preferred not to speculate as to why, or what pressure might have been brought to bear.

  At the desk Berg called, ‘Got something.’ Purkiss walked back over, Kendrick in tow.

  She nodded at the screen. ‘A match, kind of. All three Company people had stock portfolios. Not Pope, or if he does or did, there’s no record. Obviously there’s a lot of common companies they own shares in.’

  Purkiss ran his eyes down the list. Software companies, health insurance providers, banks. Internationally recognised names.

  ‘But here’s the thing,’ Berg went on. ‘Grosvenor and Taylor both had significant shares in Holtzmann Solar. And I mean significant. More than half their portfolio, in both cases.’

  Purkiss knew Holtzmann Solar, or at least the name. A pharmaceutical company, one of the heavy hitters if not quite in the top league in terms of turnover. Born in Zurich but with its global headquarters now right there in Manhattan, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  ‘How about Jablonsky?’

  ‘Not that I can see. Still, though. It’s a link.’

  Purkiss thought for a moment. ‘Okay. How about searching for other Company operatives with similar investments.’

  ‘Done. Database is working on it right now.’

  He’d told the two agents everything, back in the car: how he’d been summoned to Amsterdam because Pope’s name had been mentioned in the phone conversation between Jablonsky and Taylor; his walking in on Pope killing Jablonsky; the wild goose chase to Hamburg, including the surveillance at the airport by Americans. Berg had listened expressionlessly – Purkiss hadn’t been able to see Nakamura’s face as he was driving – but she’d glanced across at her partner, once, and Purkiss had understood the look: we’re getting in deep here, into something that might destroy us.

  Berg had run a separate search on Holtzmann Solar and it yielded results first. She scanned it, scrolling down rapidly. ‘Its global revenue was a little over ten billion dollars last year, putting it in the top twenty pharma companies worldwide. Products across the board, for both human and veterinary use. Its biggest sellers look to be cardiac drugs and psychotropics. Antidepressants, antipsychotics, that kind of thing.’

  Purkiss said, ‘Any government contracts?’

  ‘Not that I can see. The usual drug trial contracts with the state hospitals, emergency departments and that kind of thing. Hold on.’ Berg brought up another window. ‘Here we are. No other Company employee on our records has anything like the same investment in Holtzmann Solar. But here’s an ex-employee who sold his stock in the firm ten years ago. Dennis Crosby. Retired now, lives in rural Jersey.’

  The face staring out from the screen was fleshy and nondescript. The man could have been anywhere between thirty-five and fifty. Purkiss said, ‘Looks young to be retired.’

  ‘Health grounds. Let’s see. Nope, doesn’t say why. That means the Company’s taken special care to keep it a secret. And believe me, they try and keep everything from our prying eyes, so it says something when they actually succeed.’

  Purkiss looked at her, then round at Nakamura. ‘Looks like I’ll be taking that road trip, after all.’

  *

  Crosby was listed as living in Sussex County in north-western New Jersey. Berg estimated the trip at ninety minutes, tops. Before they left the office, Nakamura slipped his hand inside his jacket pocket, drew out a handgun. He stripped it on the desk, reassembled it quickly.

  Kendrick watched. ‘Glock 23?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Rifle man, myself.’

  Nakamura stared at him. ‘Not much good in your average FBI situation. Believe me.’

  ‘Why not? Scares the hell out of people. That’s half the battle won already.’

  Nakamura snorted.

  Kendrick said, ‘So do we get guns, or what?’

  ‘No chance,’ said Berg. ‘We’re operating outside our zone already. If we let foreign civilians carry firearms we’re finished.’

  Kendrick muttered, ‘Ironic though, isn’t it?’

  ‘What’s ironic?’ said Berg.

  ‘Well, the enemy are armed, but Purkiss and I don’t get to carry weapons.’

  ‘That’s not what irony means,’ said Nakamura.

  ‘Americans don’t understand irony,’ said Kendrick smugly. ‘Well-known fact.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Nakamura. ‘You send us some of that swell irony appreciation of yours, and we’ll send you some of our dentists.’

  Kendrick smirked; though with his mouth closed, Purkiss noticed.

  Purkiss debated calling Vale but decided against it, just as he’d decided not to consult him earlier before telling Berg and Nakamura the full story. Vale allowed him a lot of latitude, and it was the way Purkiss preferred to work: close support to begin with, but once he was deep into the job, a hands-off approach.

  They emerged into the street and climbed into the Taurus, Nakamura again taking the wheel.

  Twenty

  Sussex County, New Jersey

  Monday 20 May, 7.40 pm

  As always Purkiss was struck by America’s contrasts, the suddenness with which the metropolis gave way to colossal wildness. His image of New Jersey was that of seaside resorts and decay, so he was taken aback to find himself surrounded by soaring pine forest, lengthening shadows casting darkness across the road as the car wound round the side of a mountain.

  Kendrick said, ‘Bloody woods again.’

  Berg’s eyes appeared in the mirror. ‘Problem?’

  ‘He prefers cities,’ said Purkiss.

  Berg said, ‘Jersey’s where I’m from originally. Newark.’

  ‘Small town girl,’ said Nakamura.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Danny’s from the Bronx, as you can probably tell. Though you’re British, you may not know accents.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t sound Chinese,’ said Kendrick.

  Purkiss winced.

  Nakamura said, ‘How’s that again?’

  ‘I said, I didn’t think you sounded Chinese. You sound American.’

  ‘Why would I sound Chinese?’

  ‘Well –’ Kendrick glanced at Purkiss for help. Purkiss shook his head.

  The silence drew out for twenty seconds, to breaking point. Then Nakamura laughed. ‘Ah, for Christ’s sake. My grandparents were Japanese.’

  ‘Right.’ Kendrick didn’t look embarrassed, just a little bewildered.

  The satellite navigation system indicated that Crosby’s address was a standalone property part of the way up a mountain in the Skylands area. He’d retired a decade earlier at the age of forty-two, around the time he
’d offloaded his Holtzmann Solar stock; Purkiss presumed the cashing in had helped fund whatever retirement home he’d bought himself. He’d been single with no children at the time he’d left the Company. The FBI database said nothing more about him.

  ‘Here,’ said Berg. Nakamura braked more sharply than he’d probably been intending. The gate was set back in a stone wall to the right of the road. An unkempt driveway scrabbled up a slope towards a log cabin, barely visible in the dusk through a dense thicket of trees.

  Purkiss got out. The gate was a normal one, not electronic, and slightly gone to rust. He unlatched it and opened it to let the Taurus through.

  They parked halfway up the driveway and walked the rest of the distance. A battered pickup truck squatted in front of the cabin. The front porch was illuminated by a single bulb.

  Kendrick muttered: ‘Boondocks.’

  When they were ten yards from the front door it opened and a man emerged, a shotgun in his hands.

  *

  ‘What in the hell do you want.’

  Purkiss’s first thought was: this man is dying. He was skinny to the point of emaciation, the skin drooping off his face like wax down a candle. His shirt hung off bony coat-hanger shoulders, and his trousers were cinched in so severely that the waistband was bunched and folded. The shotgun over his forearm looked too heavy to be supported, like a steel girder draped across a broom handle.

  Berg stepped forward, shield held out before her. ‘FBI. We need to speak to Mr Dennis Crosby.’

  Purkiss saw it in the man’s eyes, which had appeared small and blue before but were now large in contrast with the rest of his face. He was Crosby, the man from the photo on the FBI database.

  ‘What about?’ The voice was a whispered rasp. Purkiss could see his fingers, burnt yellow by nicotine.

  ‘You Crosby?’ said Nakamura.

  ‘What do you want?’ the man said again.

  ‘You need to put the gun down, sir.’ Berg put a hand on her hip in a practised gesture, the movement partially opening her jacket to display the shoulder holster.