in the forest.
Dobrynin said, ‘I await your instructions.’
Venedikt drew a deep breath. ‘Start the move.’
*
Kendrick staggered against a trunk and slid down, his face waxen. Without speaking he waved Purkiss onwards. Purkiss strained to see back through the trees. There had been no human sound other than their own for – how long? Ten minutes? – and it might be safe to stop. In the sudden relative quiet now that their boots were no longer churning the forest floor he had the impression of another sound, ahead of them. He took a few steps more and saw it, below them and a hundred yards ahead. A road, with a solitary car sweeping by.
‘No.’ He grabbed Kendrick beneath the arm, hauling him to his feet. Purkiss had already taken the rifle and strapped it across his own back. He’d noticed an extra magazine clip in Kendrick’s belt, and assumed he’d had the presence of mind to take it off the man along with the rifle. ‘A bit further.’ He hoisted Kendrick’s arm across his shoulders.
More slowly now, their momentum broken, they scrambled across the sloping terrain down towards the road, a narrow single-lane curve of tarmac that disappeared into blackness at each end. The evenness of the road surface was jarring at first and Purkiss almost lost his footing. On the other side they disappeared again into the trees. Purkiss took them another fifty yards till he found a ditch. He said, ‘All right.’
Kendrick sank so that he was half-supine. Purkiss sat on a rock, rested his forearms on his knees. Getting to the other side of the road had been of tactical importance. If their pursuers made it this far, they might assume the two of them had followed the road in one or other direction.
Kendrick winced himself into a position where he could inspect his leg. Oozing puncture marks were visible in the calves and shin, and a couple of ragged holes had been torn from the muscle. No arterial damage was apparent, though Purkiss knew they wouldn’t have made it this far if there had been.
‘‘King dogs,’ Kendrick managed through dry lips. ‘I normally like them.’
Purkiss checked his phone. No signal.
‘How do you think they got on to us?’ said Kendrick. ‘Reckon they saw us come over the wall?’
‘They might have. But we couldn’t see the men patrolling the wall, which suggests they were too far away to have spotted us.’ Purkiss stood unsteadily and walked up the slope a few paces. The display showed a single bar: a weak signal. Before he could dial, Abby’s number came up as a missed call, fifteen minutes earlier. There was no message.
Again he was about to key in her number when the phone rang. Once more it was Abby’s number.
‘Abby?’
Silence for a moment, then, ‘John.’
A man’s voice. Low, muted. Unmistakeable.
‘Fallon?’
‘I have your friend.’
The connection was poor, and occasionally a consonant was lost; but there was no doubting the voice, with its trace of Irish.
‘Don’t go to the police, John, or the Service, or anyone else. If you do, I’ll kill her.’
‘Fallon, damn you –’
He was gripping the phone so tightly it almost sprang from his sweaty fingers. There was a band around his throat, choking off not only his words but his breathing as well.
‘Remember, John. No outside involvement.’
‘Listen –’
‘I’ll be in touch.’
Purkiss dropped the phone. He clenched his fists and raised his face to the canopy of trees and the night sky beyond. The choking feeling left him.
It was completely unprofessional because the danger of being hunted down was still present, but through clamped teeth he roared, a long deep primal sound that bounced off the depths of the forest and sent small things skittering in fear.
TWENTY-THREE
It was a setback, nothing more. All thoughts of trying to get some sleep gone, Venedikt stood motionless, watching his men at work. The doors were hauled open and the preparations began for the transfer.
Rather than fury he felt a quiet pride in his foresight. There had always been a possibility that the farm would be discovered, and to fail in the mission at this late hour because of having failed to anticipate this possibility would have been a shame too enormous for him to bear. An hour’s swift work, and it would be as if nothing had happened.
He could, Venedikt supposed as he stepped aside to give more room to two of his people who were running at a stoop and laying the charges, have committed more men to the pursuit of