he caught a glimpse of a figure stepping out into the dazzle of the floodlights. He drew back, not before he’d recognised the broad back and shoulders, the greater than average height. It was the man he’d seen getting into the four-wheel drive on the coast road. Kuznetsov.
He looked again. The big man was standing with arms folded, gazing up at the night. The temptation was strong. One shot, and he wouldn’t see or hear it coming. It would be the end for Purkiss, of course, would bring all Kuznetsov’s men down on him. More importantly, it might not be enough to put a stop to whatever was planned, if there were others lined up to take over the leadership role.
Kuznetsov turned his head a fraction. Purkiss ducked back, breathing as shallowly as he could through his mouth, his nose still swollen shut. From around the corner he heard murmurings. He realised Kuznetsov had been joined by another man. The voice was familiar, and after a moment he fitted a face to it. Dobrynin, the man with the mutilated hand from the Rodina offices. He could just make out the conversation.
‘All done. Everything’s checked, everything’s secure.’ Dobrynin.
‘Good.’ Kuznetsov’s voice was lower. ‘We need to clear up the mess inside.’
‘I’ll do it with Leok and Ilkun.’
‘We’ll all do it.’
By the mess inside Purkiss presumed he meant the body of the man he’d shot on the steps. He pressed himself closer to the wall. A few seconds later he heard several sets of feet and the rolling metallic grind of the hangar doors being pulled closed. After an age the job was completed. The footsteps seemed to be receding. Glancing round the corner, he saw four of them making their way towards the office building: Kuznetsov, Dobrynin, Ilkun and a man he didn’t recognise. Leok, he assumed.
Purkiss slipped back along the wall to the side door and peered through the crack. The lights were still on in the hangar, but the interior was dimmer now that the doors had been closed against the floodlights outside.
He pushed the door further, having to force it, wincing at the jagged sound. He squeezed through the gap, covering right and left quickly with the SIG Sauer. There was no movement within, no sign of life, but he noticed this on an instinctual, animal level, because what caught his attention was the centrepiece, all sixty feet of it, the span of its rotors almost as great.
And he knew what they were planning to do.
THIRTY-SIX
Google Earth identified the location as an airfield, some eighty kilometres outside Tallinn along the coast to the west. A quick further search revealed that it was disused. It made sense.
If Purkiss had got free, he could still put a stop to the mission. This meant that sitting in the flat and waiting fatalistically for Kuznetsov to pull off the operation was no longer an option. The Jacobin had to stop Purkiss. Everything else, all his worries about Kuznetsov contriving to implicate SIS in the plan, had to come second.
The wet smell of the city was bracing as the Jacobin loped out to the car. Over to the east, the faintest shading on the horizon was beginning to colour the darkness. The Jacobin placed the laptop on the seat beside him. There was of course no way of maintaining the connection while he drove, which meant he wouldn’t be able to see if the signal from the phone moved. It had remained stationary all the while he had been pinning down the location of the airfield, so perhaps Purkiss was holed up somewhere.
Eighty kilometres, in half an hour. It was possible.
*
The man whom Purkiss had winged, Yuri, disappointed and disgusted Venedikt. Slumped against the wall at the far end of the corridor, legs splayed and shirttails wadded against the wound in his chest to staunch the flow, he gazed up at Venedikt. His pained eyes at first seemed to show respect, understanding, but when Venedikt drew his gun and gripped the man’s shoulder with his free hand and murmured, ‘Your sacrifice will be remembered,’ Yuri had begun to blubber and thrash. The shot hadn’t been a clean one, clipping his head eccentrically so that one side of it was blown asunder. His legs continued jerking for several beats.
Beside Venedikt, Lyuba swallowed drily but stayed silent, as did Dobrynin and Leok. They knew there was no time to tend to a man with such injuries, and no justification for the risk involved in delivering him