Cronos Rising (17 page)

Purkiss thought he knew what was coming next. But he offered no prompt.

Gideon stood up. This time he didn’t pace.

He said, carefully, quietly, ‘I believe this current business, the downing of the Turkish Airlines flight in order to assassinate Vale, your arrival here to find me, is ultimately at the instigation of Clay. He was always the one I trusted the least. Vale, Helen, they were undemonstrative people.  Vale was the more unreadable of the two, but you always had the sense that his taciturnity was genuine, that it wasn’t a mask. Whereas Clay and I were the volatile ones, the prima donnas if you like. And my experience after more than forty years in the game, Purkiss, is that the most effective and duplicitous spies are the flamboyant ones. Not the quiet, mousy wallflowers of popular depiction. Look at Burgess. Look at Maclean. They were raucous, promiscuous drunks who actively sought the limelight. Yet they hoodwinked the establishment for years while selling out their country, precisely because they seemed too obvious to be anything other than what they appeared to be.’

He took another sip of water from the cup of water he’d filled.

‘Clay was, as I’ve said, a buffoon. He was coarse and crass. But he was also calculating. He broke the rules, even by our standards. He always gave the impression that he enjoyed his status as a persecutor of renegade agents, not just because he was doing the right thing for the Service and for his country, but because he revelled in the power he wielded. I believe Clay has taken it upon himself to eliminate, after all these years, the rest of us. The other gods, and those who serve them. Helen is of course already dead, so that leaves Vale and me. Clay has been successful against Vale. I’m next. And you, Purkiss, as Vale’s protégé, are also in Clay’s sights.’

‘To what end?’ said Purkiss. ‘Why is Clay killing you off, after all these years as you say?’

Gideon tipped his head. ‘I can’t be certain. But a couple of possibilities spring to mind. One is that Clay has himself betrayed the Service. Gone renegade. And he knows there are people out there who will track him down. People like me, and Vale, and you. So he’s taking us out in a pre-emptive strike.’

‘You said a couple of possibilities.’

‘The second,’ said Gideon, ‘is that Clay intends to revive the agenda which Cronos tried to implement at the end. The creation of a fifth column, an underhand and clandestine faction within the Service whose mission it will be to steer Service policy towards ends that do not necessarily have official approval, and are not subject to the usual rigorous governance. Effectively, it would turn the entire Service into a black-ops outfit.’

‘Clay sees himself as a new Cronos,’ said Purkiss.

‘Precisely. I believe this second scenario is the more likely one. Cronos is rising, reborn.’

The questions crowded in Purkiss’s mind, jostling for priority. Something else was nagging at him, a half-formed notion that slipped out of his grasp every time he tried to concentrate on it.

He said, ‘And the original Cronos? What happened to him?’

‘We dealt with him.’

‘You killed him?’

‘We dealt with him,’ Gideon repeated. ‘He has nothing to do with this. Believe me.’

Rebecca said: ‘Look.’

She was staring at the bank of monitors. Purkiss got up and stepped forward, peering closely.

On two of the screens, each of them showing a different area of the island’s edge, men were clambering up the banks of rock. They moved with the quick stealth of professionals. Most of them had automatic weapons slung across their chests.

There were at least ten of them.

Gideon said softly, ‘And so it begins.’

––––––––

P
urkiss said: ‘What’s through that door?’ He indicated the far end of the room.

They were on the move, Gideon opening the door to the storage cupboard from which he’d fetched the spare pair of boots for Purkiss. He removed a shotgun which he tossed to Purkiss, who caught it one-handed.

‘More storage,’ said Gideon. ‘There’s no way out through here. We have to go up.’ He produced a handgun and held it out to Delatour.

‘Or, we stay put,’ said Purkiss. He worked the slide of the shotgun. It was a Remington 11-87, a US police weapon. ‘Pick them off as they come down the hatch.’

Gideon shook his head as he jammed another pistol into his waistband. ‘Too much of a gamble. They may have teargas, grenades, whatever. Plus, the bulk of my weapons are up there in the tower.’ He nodded at Rebecca. ‘I haven’t got anything for you down here.’

Gideon reached the rungs in the wall first and began to ascend, Purkiss close behind. He’d glanced at the monitors as he passed them. The men were gone from the screens.

The daylight poured down as Gideon pushed the trapdoor open. Purkiss climbed out after him and crouched, turning through three hundred and sixty degrees, scanning the environment. From where he was, down among the ruins, he couldn’t see the rest of the island.

They moved at a stoop among the ruins towards the ladder leading up to the tower. At the base, Purkiss turned again and did another survey.

No sign of the men.

‘Those screens covered the northern part of the island,’ said Gideon, indicating. The island stretched back towards the sea, longer behind than it was in front. Purkiss estimated the distance to the northern tip at around one mile.

It might buy them some time.

He climbed up after Gideon, feeling as if a target was painted in bright neon on his exposed back.
If they have long guns...
But he reached the door at the top. Instead of following Gideon through, he turned and gazed across the island while Rebecca, Delatour and Kendrick climbed up the ladder. Kendrick was grinning.

‘Like the old days,’ he said to Purkiss.

Purkiss propped the door open behind them. It meant that, with the window spaces in the front and side walls, they had a view in all directions.

Gideon was busy with the RPG launcher. Rebecca had picked up the other shotgun, while Kendrick laid immediate claim to the M16.

Purkiss said, ‘I’m going down. There’s no point all of us staying up here. If they close in, I might be able to pick some of them off from behind.’

Gideon nodded. ‘One of you needs to stay up here. In case I get taken out.’

Delatour said, ‘I’ve used one of those before.’ He gestured at the RPG. ‘I could take over if need be.’

‘All right.’ Purkiss headed for the doorway. ‘Rebecca, you stick with me. We’ll find somewhere to hole up among the ruins. Tony, you separate out and lie low nearby.’

On the ground once more, they moved out among the ruins. Purkiss found a stretch of wall, about six feet high, along the eastern aspect of the hillock. He signalled to Kendrick to position himself on the other side.

Purkiss sat with his back against the wall, Rebecca beside him. All there was to do was wait. The tinnitus from the grenade blast was still there, not as overwhelming as before but thin and high-pitched and distracting. It meant it would be difficult to hear any footfalls.

Rebecca murmured, ‘How did they find us?’

‘They found us at the hotel,’ said Purkiss. ‘So they may have traced us from there on. Maybe the clerk who organised the boat for us told them where we’d gone.’

He twisted round to look up at the tower. Gideon’s face appeared in the window on the east side. He appeared to be staring into the distance as if he’d spotted something.

As Purkiss watched, Gideon raised the RPG launcher, propping it on the window ledge.

Purkiss shuffled to the end of the broken wall and peered round in the direction Gideon was looking.

At least four men were advancing, picking their way up the rocky slope in much the same way that Purkiss and the others had done, running from boulder to boulder.

Purkiss looked back up at Gideon in the window. He wasn’t going to be able to hit all of them, but there were plenty of grenades in his stash. He was going to do it by a process of attrition, picking them off however he could, individually if necessary.

In the next instant, Gideon’s forehead erupted in red and he dropped out of sight.

Purkiss recoiled instinctively behind the wall as the shot rang out over the island.

Rebecca drew close, confusion in her eyes. Purkiss said: ‘Gideon’s down.’ He ratcheted the shotgun.

From the other side of the wall, he heard yells as the men broke cover.

For a split-second, Purkiss had thought one of the men out there had used a long gun. But Gideon had jolted
forward
, not back, as the wound had bloomed in his forehead.

It was an exit wound. The shot had come from inside the tower.

‘Delatour did it,’ Purkiss said. ‘Get ready.’

Rebecca didn’t reply, and Purkiss didn’t wait to see what effect his words had had. He strained his ears to try and gauge how close the men were.

When he felt he could delay no longer, he lunged beyond the wall, the shotgun extended.

A man loomed ten feet away as he hauled himself over the edge of the hillock. Purkiss pulled the Remington’s trigger, feeling the shotgun buck in his hands. The blast caught the man in the chest and he dropped back with a scream.

‘Tony,’ yelled Purkiss, without turning. ‘Watch the other side of the hill.’

A second man rolled over the ridge, further down. He was fast, but Purkiss swung the shotgun across and pumped the slide and fired again. The man went down.

Purkiss stared up at the tower. Delatour had appeared in the window. He sighted down the RPG. It was aimed directly at Purkiss and Rebecca.

Purkiss threw himself into Rebecca, knocking her sideways, seizing her awkwardly with the Remington still clutched in his grasp and rolling with her, over and over, the rough rocky ground painful beneath them.

He felt the detonation of the grenade like a sonic punch to his entire body, the heat of the flame that roared behind him. A cascade of rock and stone rained down and he ducked his head, shielding Rebecca’s averted face beneath him. The shock of the blast was almost paralysing, but Purkiss hauled himself to his knees and grabbed Rebecca’s arm and dragged her upright.

Agony seared up his leg. He looked down and saw that his right trouser leg was on fire. Purkiss shook his leg, grabbed handfuls of gravel and sand and flung them over the flame until it had ebbed. He slapped the rest out with his hand.

Delatour would follow with another grenade, was likely taking aim at that very moment. Purkiss saw a shape from the corner of his right eye, whipped his head round, saw a third man a few feet away on top of the ridge with his rifle aimed and knew that this was it, that he hadn’t time to bring the shotgun across.

The man jerked like a marionette as the bullets stitched across his torso, lifting him off his feet before he slammed supine on the ground. Kendrick stood among the ruins to the left, the M16 in his hands. Once again his face was contorted in a grin.

‘
Slow
, Purkiss,’ he said.

Purkiss said, ‘Up there. Delatour,’ and as Kendrick swung the Armalite to bear on the tower, Purkiss scanned the side of the island nearest to him. There’d been four men approaching. They’d despatched three. The remaining one was unlikely to climb the hillock now, and would be regrouping with the others.

The M16 chattered and bucked in Kendrick’s hands. The wall of the tower around the window shot off chippings of wood and stone. Delatour might not get hit, but at least the return fire kept him from taking aim with the RPG.

‘Three down,’ said Purkiss, thinking aloud. ‘At least seven more, plus Delatour now. Eight against three.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the far side of the island. ‘We need to get to Gideon’s boats.’

‘Nah,’ said Kendrick. He’d stopped shooting, but continued to stare up at the tower. ‘I’m going to get that bastard up there. Fucking turncoat.’

‘No time, Tony.’ Purkiss grabbed at his arm. ‘You’ll waste ammo. And if you go up there, he’ll be waiting, or the others will pick you off.’

‘Shit.’ Kendrick’s grin had been replaced by an ugly clenched-teeth snarl. He glared up at the tower again, but lowered the rifle.

‘We spread out,’ said Purkiss. ‘They’ll be expecting us to come down the western side of the hill, over there, because that’s the side where the boats are. So we go down this side and work our way round.’

They spaced themselves along the top of the hillock, Kendrick glancing up repeatedly at the tower. There was nobody visible on the plain below. Purkiss scrambled down the side and waited for the others to do the same.

If they made their way round the northern aspect of the hillock, they’d pass beneath the façade and the tower. On the other hand, the men would probably be around the southern end since they’d approached from that direction.

Purkiss nodded. ‘Tony,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘You head round that way. You’ll be able to keep the tower in sight, and you’ve got the range to hit Delatour if he appears in the window. We’ll take the other way.’

Purkiss and Rebecca moved quickly along the circumference of the hillock, keeping close to its slope. The shotgun looked too large for her hands, but she seemed to handle it with familiarity, Purkiss thought.

The first of the men darted his head around a jutting pillar of rock in the hillside a few feet ahead. Purkiss fired the Remington reflexively, from the hip, blasting away a chunk of rock and dust, and he heard a cry of pain.

They charged forwards, Purkiss and Rebecca, and on the other side of the outcropping found the man reeling, clutching his bloody face where the shot had caught him, while a second man tried to shove him out of the way. Purkiss and Rebecca fired at almost the same time, hurling both men back against the rock.

Five down, thought Purkiss. Maybe five left, plus Delatour. Maybe more.

They worked their way rapidly round to the western side of the hillock. Kendrick emerged from the other direction, walking sideways some distance away from the base of the hill, his gaze trained on the tower. Purkiss scanned the rocky plain.

‘Where are the others?’ said Rebecca.

‘They’ll know we’re headed for the boats,’ said Purkiss. ‘They’ll be waiting for us down there. So we need to try and find where
their
transport is moored.’