by Tim Stevens
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.’
Twenty-Five
Langley, Virginia
Monday 20 May, 4.45 pm
‘Give it to me.’
Giordano had been on the way back from the canteen when his phone rang: Naomi, saying there’d been developments. Adrienne had packed him a tuna salad for a mid-afternoon snack in a Tupperware container. He’d eaten it dutifully, then told himself he needed extra fuel for what was proving to be a stressful time, and had gulped down spare ribs and fries standing up at a counter in the canteen, feeling like an office worker sneaking a cigarette in the rain. Adrienne would understand, if she ever found out. Not that she would.
Naomi and Kenny were already in his office.
‘Two of our agents, involved in a fender bender in Lower Manhattan. One injured slightly, the other okay.’
‘Names?’
‘Melvin Barker and Louis Campbell,’ said Kenny, trying to keep his oar in the conversation.
‘Don’t know them.’ Giordano held out his hand. ‘Give me that.’
Naomi handed him the printed pages. Less-than-focused photos showed the two agents’ faces, the Crown Vic with its side smashed in, sitting like a rock around which the river of traffic flowed.
‘We’re in a wrangle with local law enforcement, trying to get them to back off and leave this to us,’ said Naomi. ‘They’re muttering about us overstepping our mark. It doesn’t help that Barker and Campbell are claiming this is nothing more than a hit-and-run, an accident. The NYPD Commissioner in Manhattan is saying, if that’s the case, why not let the boys in blue handle it?’
‘It’s not an accident.’ Giordano made it half sound like a question.
‘Probably not, because several witnesses claim a guy was dragged out of the backseat of the car just after the cras
h happened. Tall, dark hair, hands cuffed behind his back. Two of the witnesses positively IDed the guy as the Brit, John Purkiss, when they were shown a selection of identikit pictures.’
‘God damn.’ Giordano thought for a moment. ‘Any of these witnesses see who dragged him out?’
‘None that can keep their stories straight.’
‘All right. Get me a car to New York. Like, yesterday.’
‘Sir.’
Kenny disappeared. When Giordano saw Naomi lingering he said, ‘What?’
‘What are you planning, boss?’
‘To talk to those two goons. Barker and Campbell. Find out why they’re lying about Purkiss. If they’re embarrassed about having lost him, why the hell don’t they just own up and say so? Their car was rammed. Could have happened to anyone.’
After a beat she said, ‘Come with you?’
‘No.’ When he saw her expression, Giordano said, ‘Look. You’d be a great help. But I need you here, co-ordinating things. In case any new intel comes in.’
‘Sure, boss.’ He waited for her to say whatever, an expression the young seemed to use like punctuation these days and one that never failed to set his teeth on edge. But she didn’t.
*
Giordano heaved himself into the leather backseat of the car, a Pontiac with bulletproof glass and body armour. He always felt faintly ridiculous travelling in a vehicle that seemed designed more to protect a president than a Company officer, even one of Giordano’s seniority. The driver was some guy named Dave or Mike whom Giordano had seen before and usually made pleasant small talk with. Not this time.
He checked his watch. Five thirty p.m. He’d be in Manhattan by nine forty-five if Dave-or-Mike put his foot down and there were no unforeseen traffic snarlups. The New York office was under strict instructions to keep Campbell and Barker there until he arrived.
Four and a quarter hours. Purkiss could be long gone by then.
But Giordano thought he knew what the Brit was doing in New York; and if he was right, Purkiss would still be there.
*
Giordano called Adrienne. Didn’t look as if he’d be home tonight. No, he wouldn’t be bunking down at Langley. He’d find somewhere comfortable in Midtown, maybe with a view of Central Park, on the Company’s dime. Yes, the tuna salad had been delicious, as had the fat-free yogurt snacks. No, no cholesterol-laden treats in between.
He hated to lie to her.
Perhaps, if this was wrapped up by the morning, he’d amble down Fifth Avenue and visit one of those terrifying shops that made him, a scion of the nation’s intelligence establishment, feel like a straw-chewing rube with cow flop on his heels. He’d turn his mind away from the figure on the price tag and get Adrienne something nice. Something that showed he did think of her, did find time for her alongside his work. Though an expensive present might make it seem like he was trying too hard. Giordano had no feel for the intricacies of gift-giving and social rituals in general, and he was the first to admit it.
He got a bottle of mineral water from the minibar in the back of the Pontiac and opened his briefcase. From it he pulled a sheaf of printed papers. He wasn’t a complete Luddite like any others of his generation, but he was old enough to experience discomfort from reading words on a screen for too long, and far preferred the printed word. Giordano had done the printouts himself, on his own printer, once he’d received the email. He’d got it not from Naomi but from another source.
John Purkiss. Everything the Company had on him, gleaned from contacts they had inside the British Secret Service. One of the many interesting things about Purkiss was his odd status with SIS. It wasn’t clear from the information on the printouts if Purkiss was still an employee of the organisation or not. What was clear was that his role was an unusual, perhaps unique, one. He was in effect SIS’s Internal Affairs, a one-man department tasked with cleaning the organisation’s stables. His existence was suspected by many but apparently known of by relatively few; and in the legend that had grown up he was known as the Ratcatcher.
Which meant he wasn’t in the US to kill Company men, and had probably had no hand in the Amsterdam killings either. He was here to find the perpetrator. And that meant the killer was British Intelligence.
Which threw up a whole assortment of new questions.
Like most veteran spooks, Giordano appreciated the profound value of proxies. Proxies to fight your wars, to buffer your losses. He’d cut his teeth as a young operative in the end game of the Cold War back in the late seventies and early eighties, when the Company and the Soviets had slugged it out in Angola and then Nicaragua at one remove. Spying had always used middle men, down to the simplest cut-out in the transmission of a coded message. But proxies could be used in other ways, too.
Purkiss looked like a professional. In which case, Giordano intended to make use of his skills. Let the Brit do the legwork and lead him to the perpetrator.
Twenty-Six
Interstate 95
Tuesday 21 May, 12.40 am
The display on the dashboard said it was nearly a quarter to one. Nina didn’t know where they were, paid no attention to the signs that flashed by, the landscape beyond the road. They’d bypassed Washington, that she was sure of.
Beside her Pope hadn’t spoken for a full ten minutes. The silence had gone beyond uncomfortable and felt now like a canvas shroud.
Nina needed the bathroom, but wasn’t going to break the silence with a banality like that. She clasped the violin closer.
As if reading her mind – again – Pope said, ‘We need to stop for petrol.’
Even though he was English, the word sounded jarring to her ear.
After about a mile the red lighting of a Texaco forecourt grew through the rain. He turned off the road and pulled up beside a pump. Switched off the engine.
His face was turned to her. ‘You can go inside, to use the ladies’ room. If you need to.’
Nina suddenly wished she’d glanced at the fuel gauge while the engine was turned on. Had he really needed to stop, or was he testing her, to see if she’d run away or tell the attendant she’d been kidnapped or something? But she hadn’t been kidnapped, and there was no reason to think she had. She’d been rescued, after all.
‘Sure,’ she said quietly, and snapped the seatbelt free. After a moment’s hesitation she left the violin in the footwell.
There was no pump attendant at this hour. Inside the shop she watched Pope through the window, working the pump. The bored-looking college boy behind the counter gave her a quick once over, then nodded at the restroom doors.
Afterwards she lingered in the shop, staring out at Pope. Thinking about what he’d said, and what she’d have to confront.
Her father hadn’t killed her mother. It was beyond the ability of her mind to consider. They’d fought, she remembered, especially after coming to the island. There’d been times, she recalled now, that her mother had pushed Nina behind her, said things to her father like this is no life for her, she needs to be with other kids her age; but she was certain her mother had never been hit. As an older child of ten or eleven, when adults’ lies were easier to detect than ever, Nina had never listened to awkward excuses for black eyes or bruises, because there had been none.
And yet... what did she really know about her mother’s death? Her father had told Nina she’d died in the storm, in what she later came to learn was Hurricane Mitch. Her grandmother had confirmed this on the few occasions she’d alluded to it. Nina had never thought to question the story, never considered there might be any reason to investigate the circumstances of her mother’s disappearance herself. Had her grandmother been involved too in a cover up? Or had the old woman herself been lied to?
Pope went up to the window to pay rather than coming into the shop, almost as if he respected Nina’s right to be alone with her thoughts. She walked back outside, feeling the midnight chill bite her. Back in the car she waited.
He started the engine, sat for a moment without pulling
away.
‘Do you trust me?’ he said.
Because you’ve just demonstrated that you trust me, Nina thought. She said, ‘Yes.’
‘Then I’ll explain.’
*
Afterwards she sat pressed back as though melded to her seat, feeling as though she never wanted to move again.
Pope’s sentences had been like a collection of tiny numbing needles, each one insinuating itself into her and becoming part of her, never to be separated. The emotions began to blur until they were indistinguishable, a warm fug like the layers of anaesthetic she remembered disappearing under when she’d had a wisdom tooth extracted at seventeen.
Through it all, she was aware of a notion – not a feeling, but an abstract concept, sharp as ice in its clarity – that she had difficulty putting a name to at first. It came to her in the silence after Pope had finished.
Vindication.
The Watchers had been there. Perhaps not literally all the time, but often enough that her natural fearfulness had supplied them when they were absent. The voices, she accepted, were pathological. A product of misfiring neurones or faulty levels of neurotransmitters or something. But again, the voices tended to appear when her levels of stress were exceptionally high, and wasn’t that usually when she felt most watched?
For years, as far back as she could remember, Nina had worn guilt like a straitjacket, and she hadn’t understood why. Perhaps part of it was an irrational, child-like guilt at having failed to keep her mother alive, against the power of the storm. But for the first time now she recognised that most it was guilt about being alone; about keeping people at a distance, even those who were trying to help and understand her. And about resisting the impulse, sometimes almost overwhelming, to reach out to her father, to penetrate the incomprehensible wall he’d built between himself and the child he’d left behind.
