Ratcatcher - By Tim Stevens Page 0,92

the handshake was no coincidence. The Jacobin appreciated the power of symbolism, but as far as he was concerned this was nothing more than sentimental claptrap.

Against every sinew that was screaming for him to stay where he was, the Jacobin forced himself to stand and stretch, the agony making itself felt almost everywhere in his body. A hacking cough brought fresh stabs of pain. He filled a glass with water and drank and refilled and drank again, spilling the contents down his chin and on to his rank shirt front.

He had two options. Do nothing, let the situation play itself out, and face the bittersweet consequences: the re-establishment of the old roles, the old and righteous opposition of East and West, but – the bitter part – with West clearly in the wrong from the outset, its agents demonstrably responsible for the rekindling of hostilities. Or, the second option, take the only course that would simultaneously ensure that the assassination proceeded as planned and absolve SIS of all responsibility for it: be there at the scene, and clean up the evidence afterwards. Remove the bodies, even if it meant killing Kuznetsov and every one of his crew in order to do so.

Option two was less realistic than it had been before he’d fallen asleep. What he’d gained in strength he’d lost in time wasted. Six twenty-one. In forty minutes the helicopter would be taking off. One hour after that, the hit would take place. The Jacobin had little more than an hour and a half to commandeer suitable transport and get to the site. And then – what? Kuznetsov was going to have backup. It was part of the plan. Eight, ten guns to deal with.

The Jacobin leant against the back of the kitchen chair, a compromise between enduring the pain and weariness and the siren trap of sitting down again. It was then that he noticed on the table the open laptop, the one that had belonged to the girl. Out of no more than idle curiosity he reached over and swiped the mousepad to bring up the screen from its sleep.

He allowed himself to sit down this time, staring at the screen. He had left open the tracking website. Instead of the message no signal detected, he saw a softly pulsing beacon on an ill-defined background that resembled a grid.

So Purkiss had taken his phone, or at least his SIM card, in with him after all. And either he’d been out of detectable range earlier for some reason and had now been placed somewhere where the signal could be picked up again, or – more likely – he’d found a way to get the SIM into a new handset. Which meant he was on the loose.

The Jacobin pulled the laptop towards him, all discomfort forgotten, and began to hit the keys.

*

The rear of the hangar wasn’t floodlit and Purkiss hugged the wall in the dark. Through the concrete he heard a muffle of sounds, the occasional clash of metal.

When it became clear he wasn’t going to be able to make out any speech he sidled along to one of the corners and glanced round. There was nobody in the space between this hangar and the next. He moved quickly down the length of the structure towards the front. Halfway along was a small metal door, a Braille pattern of rust across its surface. He touched the handle and pushed it down with exquisite slowness, pausing as its unoiled surfaces emitted a tiny screech and controlling the movement even more finely. He gave the door the lightest of tugs. It yielded, though there was a squeal from the hinges. He froze, listening, but the sound had been drowned by the noises from inside.

He put an eye to the crack he had made. The angle allowed him to see the front left corner of the hangar. The large doors at the front stood open and the light from the floods was spilling in, though the interior had its own brilliant source of illumination. Somebody crossed the path of his vision. He flinched. The glimpse had been momentary, but it looked like Lyuba Ilkun, the woman from the nightclub.

Purkiss left the door ajar an inch, eased himself further down the wall towards the front of the hangar. As he got nearer to the light, voices began to emerge from the foam of sound. Low men’s voices, the vowels pronounced far back in the throat in the Russian manner. At the corner