by Tim Stevens
Purkiss said, ‘The man you know as Smith is a friend of mine. Was, I should say. He’s dead.’
When Billson opened his mouth, Purkiss shook his head. ‘No questions. I’m leaving now.’
He let himself out downstairs. He hadn’t told Billson not to say a word to anybody about all this, because it wasn’t necessary.
*
On his way back to his new hotel, Purkiss tried to fit the pieces together.
Vale had arranged the bogus handover of intelligence between Xing and Billson, then sent Purkiss to witness it and procure the briefcase. Which meant one of two things.
Either Vale had wanted Purkiss to be in Rome, and for some reason needed a pretext to get him there.
Or, Rome itself had nothing to do with it, and Vale had simply needed Purkiss out of the way.
Six
Kyrill Grabasov thought there were probably four weeks left before Moscow became unbearable.
The worst of the weather, the seemingly unrelenting darkness, the paralysing cold, the constant sleet, wouldn’t hit until December or January, after which it would linger well into March. But the murk usually descended by the end of November.
One month. Already it was chilly, the sunlight grudging and slanted, the pavements slippery with thin rain by the afternoon. Grabasov wasn’t a native of Moscow, and he knew that only true Muscovites could tolerate the city all year round. But he’d learned to live with being there, because necessity demanded it.
He was a man of average build, stocky, running slightly to heaviness around his neck and his waist. Recently he’d had to start wearing spectacles for reading. He supposed he couldn’t really complain, at the age of sixty-seven. But the Moscow diet, the stodge and the pickled foods, were slurrying his arteries in a way he could physically feel. He knew he needed to watch himself, and his health.
A man in his occupation, in modern-day Russia, had greater things to worry about than death because of ill-health, even with the average Russian male life expectancy as low as it was.
He made his way up the escalator of the Metro station. As ever, he marvelled at the ornate décor lining the ticket hall, great Soviet symbols hewn in bas-relief in the walls. The Moscow Metro was one of the great showcases of the Stalin era, and even though the trains were stiflingly hot and didn’t always, or even often, run to schedule, the network was aesthetically one of the most impressive and striking he’d seen in any city in the world.
Once he was above ground and had forced his way through the throng in the ticket hall, he found a relatively secluded stretch of pavement and took out his cell phone.
The voice at the other end said, ‘Da.’
Grabasov said: ‘Oracle.’
The man’s tone shifted immediately to one of deference. ‘What are my orders?’
‘He is likely to arrive at Frankfurt Airport within the next twenty-four hours. I need the departure lounge watched, and especially the ticket desks for Turkish Airlines.’
‘Just one man?’
‘Probably.’ Grabasov turned away as a group of people hurried by him towards the Metro Station. He wasn’t being surveilled, he was certain of it, but in Moscow today, just as it had been in Soviet times, you could never be quite sure that the seemingly innocuous commuter bustling past wasn’t eavesdropping. ‘But be alert to the possibility that he may have company.’
‘What status do you wish us to impose?’
Grabasov said, ‘Termination.’
The man at the other end, whose own code name was Artemis, said, ‘Understood.’
‘Be discreet,’ said Grabasov. ‘But not unnecessarily so. If it comes down to a choice between your actions being observed, and his escaping, go for the former.’
‘Yes sir.’
Artemis waited for Grabasov to end the call, which he did.
He glanced down the street in both directions. Nobody was lingering in the vicinity. He could have waited until he returned to his office before calling Artemis, but Grabasov was a man who believed that the best time to set a plan in motion was immediately. It could always be modified once it was in progress, but sometimes it couldn’t be initiated if it was left too late.
He returned to the Metro station and descended once more. A man in Kyrill Grabasov’s position was entitled to a chauffeur, and indeed he had two of them, at his beck and call around the clock. But there were times when he preferred to do his thinking while lost in the hubbub of the city, among the rest of the populace. It was a habit he’d cultivated years earlier, in another life, and it died hard.
His office was five stops and a change of Metro lines away. Half an hour’s journey, which gave him plenty of time to reflect on what he’d learned. Even as his mind worked, his senses reached out to his fellow passengers, sitting with their legs pressed together or standing with hands gripping the leather straps hanging from the top of the carriage to protect them from the swaying and lurches of the train. Any one of them, young or old, male or female, well-dressed or scruffy, might be the agent who would bring him down. He could never lose sight of that possibility. Would never do so.
He’d felt the text message hum as it arrived in the phone in his pocket just as the train had passed above ground between one tunnel and the next. Taking care not to react too hastily, he’d pulled out the phone and looked at the screen.
The message read: Target not in London. Took 11.47 flight BA 3224 to Rome 25/10.
Grabasov, the Oracle – which seemed a bitterly ironic moniker now – had been duped.
The last message he’d intercepted from Vale’s phone had been to John Purkiss, two days earlier. It specified a time and location in London, and a name which Grabasov hadn’t recognised. The message, murmured in Vale’s trademark tobacco-roughened baritone, had been terse, and had instructed Purkiss – John, as Vale called him with familiarity – to identify the man with the given name, and capture and interrogate him. The identity of the man, and the reasons Purkiss was to question him, weren’t of interest to Grabasov. What mattered was that they provided a place and time where Purkiss would be found.
The date and time specified had been four p.m. On Tuesday 28th October. Yesterday. Grabasov had instructed his London contact, the man who’d intercepted Vale’s phone call, to wait for Purkiss at that location. The man had reported back at five-thirty p.m. There was no sign of Purkiss. No sign of anybody else. The location was a stretch of walkway beneath Waterloo Bridge on the north side of the Thames. Grabasov trusted his man, trusted that he hadn’t been observed. Purkiss simply hadn’t turned up. Nor, apparently, had the person he was supposed to be taking in for interrogation.
Vale had hoodwinked them. He’d made a faked phone call. Which meant Purkiss was somewhere else at that time. Grabasov had no way of knowing where.
And now his man, the one who’d waited for Purkiss, had given him a lead. Purkiss had travelled to Rome four days ago. Grabasov would need an updated report on how exactly his man had discovered this, but it could wait. His man had probably obtained the passenger lists for every flight out of London within the last week, as a starting point, and had gone through them painstakingly. Either he’d discovered Purkiss’s name on one of the lists, or he’d noticed one of Purkiss’s known aliases listed.
Either way, the lead was a tenuous one. If Purkiss had indeed flown to Rome last Friday, he could be anywhere by now. He might even have returned to London.
So pursuing him wasn’t a realistic option. But ambushing him might be.
*
Grabasov’s office was on the eleventh storey of an 18-floor tower block in the Presnensky district of Moscow. It was the city’s financial powerhouse, dominated by the mighty skyscrapers of the International Business Centre, which were among the tallest buildings in Europe.
He ascended the elevator after passing through the security checks with obsequious greetings from the various personnel stationed at each one. Grabasov despised the fawning, the combination of terror and hopeful wheedling in the eyes that darted qu
ickly away from his, but he recognised these as essential aspects of the Russian power dynamic that was played out daily, here and in countless other locations throughout the city and the country as a whole. He responded in kind, displaying neither friendliness nor hostility.
He was the boss, and he expected deference. It was not to be rewarded with a smile.
The elevator was smooth and slick up until the eighth floor, when it caught and stalled. This had happened a few days ago, and before that last week. There was obviously some flaw in the mechanism, and despite himself Grabasov felt a profound irritation. How could a body of staff so desperate to make a favourable impression upon him allow such a simple problem to go uncorrected?
From experience, he knew the lift would wheeze back into life after thirty seconds or so. While he watched the digital floor display above the doors, Grabasov thought about John Purkiss.
Two years earlier, to the month, the Englishman Purkiss had saved the life of the Russian President in the Baltic coastal city of Tallinn. The name John Purkiss appeared in no news report, although the event had made international headlines for weeks afterward. But the Kremlin identified Purkiss quickly, and negotiated a deal with the British government. It would be an embarrassment to the Russian state if it were to become public knowledge that a Briton had prevented an assassination attempt on the Russian leader. Therefore, Whitehall was cordially requested to keep this detail secret. In return, Purkiss would enjoy a degree of protection from the Russian intelligence services. It was assumed that Purkiss worked for MI6, and although any activities he might conduct within the Russian sphere of influence could never be condoned by the Kremlin, he would not be harmed by any operative in the employ of Moscow.
All that had changed eight months ago, in February. John Purkiss had been discovered conducting a mission at Yarkovsky Station, a scientific research facility in north-east Siberia just south of the Arctic Circle. Grabasov didn’t know exactly what had happened at the station - the details were so tightly classified that even he wasn’t privy to them - but for one reason or another, Purkiss had lost his protected status, and was now considered a potential threat to the Russian state. Not one to be proactively hunted down, but certainly one to be neutralised should he ever again trespass on Moscow’s turf.
Grabasov had taken a close interest in Purkiss and his career since the episode in Estonia two years earlier. He’d traced him to New York City, to Singapore, to various locations in the Middle East including Karachi and Riyadh. And along the way, he’d pieced together enough evidence to confirm what he had suspected from the outset.
Purkiss was working for Vale. He was, rather than an official agent of MI6, a policeman. One who sought out and neutralised British intelligence operatives who betrayed their country, or committed crimes for their own personal benefit or that of an enemy power.
As such, Grabasov needed Purkiss to be liquidated. Not as a matter of first-rank priority – such a status was reserved for Vale, and one other person – but as a second-tier project.
Grabasov knew Vale must have suspected that he himself was being targeted, which was why he’d taken the precaution of planting a bogus message providing details about Purkiss’s whereabouts. But Vale hadn’t known he was going to be killed on board Turkish Airlines Flight TA15, otherwise he wouldn’t have boarded. Grabasov had no way of knowing if Vale had informed Purkiss of the threat they both were under. But whether he had or he hadn’t, Grabasov believed Purkiss’s priority now would be to find out exactly who had killed Vale. And his starting point, quite likely, would be Frankfurt Airport. Which was why Grabasov had ordered Artemis to place it under surveillance. Purkiss was likely to arrive at the airport as soon as possible, while the trail was hot, and almost certainly within the next forty-eight hours.
Artemis controlled his own small group of personnel who would assist him with the operation. They were people Artemis had recruited himself but whom Grabasov didn’t know. He trusted Artemis to use his judgment in choosing his men wisely, and he didn’t doubt they’d be skilled at what they did.
Nonetheless, this was John Purkiss they were targeting. Grabasov knew enough about the man and his history to understand that he was an extraordinary individual. As such, Artemis and his people would need to tread carefully, and to act swiftly and decisively.
There was, of course, the possibility that they’d fail. That Purkiss would get away from them, or turn the tables on them. Which was why Grabasov had insurance in place. A back-up plan.
The elevator doors parted almost noiselessly and he stepped out into a corridor so plushly carpeted he felt, as always, as though he was walking on moss. A secretary stood aside, that same look of awe and deference in her eyes as he’d seen in the security guards downstairs.
He went through the glass doors into his office and set about the day’s work.
Seven
Rebecca Deacon stepped off the Lufthansa flight into a fine but soaking drizzle. She’d never been to Rome before, but had expected balmy Southern European weather, even at this hour of the night.
The train journey from Fiumicino Airport into the centre of the city took thirty minutes. At some point she might need to hire a car, but the hotel address she’d been given was near the station and so she’d decided to take public transport rather than wrestle with the vagaries of traffic in an unfamiliar city. On the way, she ran through the contents of the note she’d memorised before destroying it.
Do the necessary, had been the concluding phrase. It was ambiguous, but not much.
At Gatwick Airport, while she’d been waiting to board the Lufthansa flight – it had been the 22.13 departure, which left her with over two frustrating hours to kill – Rebecca had bought a small laptop computer. She’d seated herself on a rack of chairs with her back to a wall and had inserted the flash drive which had been in the packet along with the passport and the note.
The drive contained a short video. She watched it, listening through ear buds to the audio content.
There hadn’t been any instruction in the note for her to inspect the contents of the flash drive, but there’d been no order not to, either, and Rebecca assumed she’d be expected to open it. She watched the video once, listening to the words. Then she ran it through a second time, with the sound muted, examining the almost static picture for visual clues. There weren’t any.
She’d bought a shoulder bag to carry the laptop in, and stowed it away. Otherwise she had no luggage, not even toiletries. She didn’t know how long she’d be in Rome, but she’d have to kit herself out once she was there if any delays arose.
The hotel was in an unpretentious building part of the way up a crowded shopping street which was now almost deserted. Rebecca didn’t think Purkiss would be waiting for her, but out of habit she carried out a basic counter-surveillance manoeuvre, encompassing two blocks in every direction. Then she went through the doors into the lobby of the hotel.
A brisk, efficient-looking pair of uniformed attendants sat behind the reception desk. Rebecca didn’t speak Italian, but their English was flawless.
Yes, Mr Purkiss was still registered as a guest at the hotel.
Rebecca explained that she had an urgent message for him regarding his sister. She thought he’d want to be informed, even though it was after two in the morning.
The young man behind the desk considered for a moment, then glanced at his colleague. She seemed to be his senior, in experience if not otherwise, and nodded.
He picked up the phone and dialled.
After thirty seconds, and a second attempt, the man replaced the receiver.
Mr Purkiss was not answering. He might not be in.
Rebecca didn’t ask if she might be allowed to go up and knock on his door. It would have aroused immediate suspicion. Instead, she thanked the two concierges for their help, and gave them a cell phone number she made up on the spot, as well as an invented name, asking them to call her as soon as John Purkiss appeared. She also asked for a piece of hotel p
aper and an envelope, and scribbled a nonsensical message which she sealed and handed to the woman, who placed it in a rack of trays on the wall.
The number below the particular tray was 331.
Rebecca exited the hotel through the front doors, and lingered across the street under an awning, aware that she was obtrusive, a single young woman out in the rain on an October night. But nobody accosted her. She watched the hotel entrance until, half an hour later, a pair of taxis pulled up in front and a group of five or six revellers spilled out, laughing raucously.
Quickly, she made her way back across the road and joined the partygoers as they stumbled up the steps to the doors. There were three men and three women, all in their thirties or early forties, all inebriated. One of the men grinned at her, his gaze unfocused, and said something in Italian. She smiled and shook her head.
She timed it right, holding back until the first of the group made it though the doors and lurched over to the reception desk to engage the staff there in cheery conversation. With the two concierges’ attention focused politely on him, Rebecca detached herself from the group and strode across the lobby and round the corner into a corridor, where she saw a bank of lifts.
She took the fire stairs to the third floor, found a silent corridor beyond. Cautiously she crept along it until she reached room 331. Unlike most of the doors, it had no do not disturb sign hanging on the handle.
She placed her ear to the door and listened.
No sound from within.
The lock was operated with a key card. Rebecca had no way of opening it, short of going downstairs and asking for one, which was out of the question.
She knocked softly on the door, then stepped aside, out of range of the fisheye lens.
Her ears strained. There was no sound from within. No footfall on the floor.
Rebecca walked back down the corridor to where she’d seen the fire alarm, behind a panel of glass at eye level. She glanced about, before hefting the bag containing her laptop and ramming the corner against the glass.
