Ratcatcher - By Tim Stevens Page 0,100
of the machine. Once aboard the boat, they would leave the Black Hawk and its remaining passenger – Fallon – to the mercies of the sea and of the fighter jets that would descend on it like wasps.
Venedikt strained his eyes. A smaller vessel, a speed boat, was veering towards Raskov’s, not heading directly at it but moving to head it off. There was a solitary figure aboard. Through the dim light and the spray from the boat’s passage Venedikt couldn’t make out who it was. It was his turn to touch Dobrynin’s arm and point. Dobrynin got a pair of binoculars from a knapsack and peered thorugh them. He passed them to Venedikt, eyebrows raised.
Venedikt sharpened the image. The Englishman. What did he think he was doing?
An enormous cheer, loud enough to be heard above the chop of the rotors, drew his attention. He looked round. Dobrynin had turned up the portable radio he’d brought on board. The sounds from the War Memorial indicated that the convoy bearing the two presidents had arrived.
He turned back, picked up his phone and thumbed in Raskov’s number, saw movement on board the approaching boat as the man answered.
‘That speed boat approaching you,’ said Venedikt. ‘He’s friendly, I think. See what he wants. Don’t attack him unless he attacks you first.’
‘Understood.’
Seven fifty. In ten minutes’ time it would be done.
*
Still he heard only Kuznetsov’s voice, the words unclear. The tinny patter of radio sound he identified as constant background cheering, like that at a sports match. Purkiss assumed they had the radio on and were using it to monitor events at the site of the meeting.
Close by his ear, through the wood, came two distinct sounds. Taps, rather than creaks.
He held his breath again, waiting.
Just as he decided he’d misheard, they came again.
Two. Fallon was signalling him. Two men, obviously excluding the flight crew.
He didn’t dare tap back to indicate he’d understood.
It was useful information. Even if he didn’t know the precise locations of the two men, having a clear idea of the number of one’s opponents always improved confidence and speed. He’d have surprise on his side, too. The problem was, paradoxically, Fallon. He was seated directly above Purkiss, no doubt still bound. With his weight bearing down, Purkiss had no way of lifting the lid of the bench.
Another bluff was needed, another faked seizure or faint of some kind similar to the one Purkiss himself had pulled off in the basement. If Fallon managed to slide off the bench onto the floor of the cabin, Purkiss would be able to emerge quickly enough that he might get the drop on Kuznetsov and the other man. But he had no way of communicating this to Fallon, no way of knowing if Fallon might think of it himself.
The screen of the phone, nearly forgotten on the periphery of his vision, lit up, jolting him.
We see you.
Elle and Kendrick. And suddenly he knew what they had to do.
THIRTY-NINE
The Jacobin stood at the wheel of the boat, his free hand raised in a gesture of non-aggression. The men in the approaching boat were watching him with curiosity rather than hostility. He glanced across and up at the distant helicopter, now side-on as it swung in its long arc to face the shore, and raised his hand in that direction. Kuznetsov would have spotted him, notified the men in the boat.
A hundred metres or so separated him from the boat. He let go of the wheel and cupped his hands around his mouth, called, ‘You have to warn Kuznetsov. Tell him Purkiss is on board the helicopter.’
His voice came out more weakly than he’d expected. The rumble of the water and the larger boat’s engine drowned him out. One of the men on the boat cupped a hand to his ear and shook his head. Frustrated, the Jacobin sat and applied acceleration.
His engine was racing more noisily than it should have, until he realised the noise wasn’t coming from his boat but from another, a similar size to his, approaching from the south. The men in the larger boat were beginning to shout and point.
The Jacobin felt the tilt of disorientation: no fleet of military vehicles, just a speed boat like his own, with what looked like a two-man crew. Through eyes filmed with fatigue and pain and salt air he focused on the faces behind the arc of windscreen. One was a woman’s, Elle’s.
*
Through the front cockpit windows between Lyuba and Leok, Venedikt saw the