by Tim Stevens
‘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 apa
rtment, 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.’
Four
Charlottesville, Virginia
Monday 20 May, 12.25 pm
A sensation of warmth on the back of Nina Ramirez’s neck was the first sign that someone was watching her.
They’d finished their first rehearsal in the Old Cabell Hall where they’d be performing in public in a fortnight, and it hadn’t gone well. Madison, the second violinist, had played sluggishly, and the rest of them had fallen into step. They made it through the Bartok piece, the third quartet, after which Ruth, their conductor, got up and strode towards them, hands buried in her huge hair.
‘Guys. Enough, already.’
She bawled them out in her usual mild way, exasperated rather than furious. They agreed that they’d call it a day rather than dig themselves in deeper, but would schedule an extra rehearsal to make up for it. Dispirited, they packed up their instruments and decided not to go for a coffee, since all they’d do would be mope about their crappy performance.
Nina decided to take a stroll around the university grounds, something she liked to do whatever mood she was in. Three years ago she’d graduated, but although she had no postgraduate connection with the University of Virginia she loved it like a home: its carefully preserved beauty, the way that everywhere you went you sensed the history that had soaked into the very walls and boulevards.
She’d passed the Rotunda when the heat flared at the back of her neck.
Nina had learned not to turn suddenly when that happened. Whoever was watching would be gone and she’d feel – and look – foolish. The trick was to pretend nothing was amiss, then try to catch the watcher out of the corner of your eye. Sometimes they were still there when you looked, just for an instant. Usually they weren’t.
As nonchalantly as she could, Nina shrugged her shoulder as though hefting the violin case slung across it, turning her head slightly as she did so. Her glance took in the Rotunda. Students milled in small groups on the steps, but there was nobody looking in her direction. Nobody doing so overtly, anyhow.
Heart hammering, her mouth like ash, she turned her back deliberately on the building and set off across the lawn, passing Jefferson’s statue with its blank stare.
*
Nina had formed the string quartet shortly after graduation, together with two other alumni and Joe, their cellist, who was older. Ruth, their manager, was a former tutor of Nina’s and still taught at the university. She was as supportive of Nina as ever, while making it quite plain that she believed her former pupil was destined for greater things than a small-town quartet and needed to stretch herself a bit.
Then again, Ruth didn’t know everything about Nina.
Since graduating Nina had lived in the same tiny rented apartment downtown. She’d had offers from potential flatmates, and would have been able to afford a bigger place had she chosen to share, but she preferred to be on her own, needed her own space. Her grandmother, with whom she’d lived here in Charlottesville since she was eleven, had died a week after Nina’s graduation ceremony. It was as if she’d hung on until her granddaughter had reached the point where she could fend for herself.
Her grandmother had left her enough to live modestly but comfortably for ten years, and now Nina had a small but growing income from the quartet, which was getting highly favourable notices in the Charlottesville press. Enough money to be content with, a place to call home, a small but close circle of friends, her music, and her violin. Nina would, if asked, have said truthfully that s
he was happy.
Her pulse had slowed by the time she was halfway across the lawn, and she decided to meander down the pavilions and enjoy the ingenuity of their serpentine walls. It was almost lunchtime and students were starting to spill out of classrooms and congregate in couples and groups. They looked, for the most part, scarily young.
Twenty-six, girl, and they see you as old.
Overhead the sky was a flawless expanse of cornflower. The air held the merest bite of coolness, something that would disappear for good in the coming weeks as the spring heat settled in. The sinuous walls separated the pavilions’ individual gardens from each other. Nina tipped her head back and drew in the scents of honeysuckle and rose.
A man stood on the path ten yards ahead, facing her.
Staring at her.
He stuck out because of his height – six feet four, perhaps – and the dark suit he was wearing. He had his hand to his ear and was talking into a cell phone. As Nina approached – her stride hadn’t faltered; she’d learned to avoid doing that, too – she realised he wasn’t looking at her, was simply gazing off into the distance as people sometimes do when on the phone.
She drew near and, as she passed him, glanced at his face. He was maybe forty, deeply tanned, his skin seamed by thin white scars which stood out in contrast.
She caught the liquid flash of his eye as he peered at her.
Once again terror choked her throat, though she walked on.
This time you have to look back, she told herself. He’s real. He won’t disappear.
Nina took six more steps. Then turned.
The man was gazing back at her over his shoulder.
She held his stare and after a second he glanced away, continuing his phone call. Nina walked backwards, keeping her eyes on him, but he didn’t turn again.
Despite herself, Nina broke into a stumbling run.
