Cronos Rising (20 page)

The second was the youth, and deference, of the man on the porch. And the fact that he was wearing the neon-highlighted uniform of a commercial courier.

He was solemn without being austere. Confident without arrogance. He maintained a respectful physical distance, several feet back.

‘Mr Grabasov? I apologise for the lateness of the hour, but I have an urgent delivery for you.’

He stepped forward and held out a small packet, the kind that was meant for sending objects other than letters by post and was bubble-wrapped inside.

Grabasov took it. There was nothing written on it, front or back.

The young man was already walking down the driveway towards the street.

Grabasov closed the door.

He went upstairs to the middle floor and into his study. As a precaution, though Dominika was unlikely to wake up, he locked the door.

Inside the package he found a flash disk. There was nothing else.

He took a reserve laptop from a cupboard. The laptop was for the testing of memory sticks and CDs and email attachments which might contain lethal, hard-drive-destroying viruses.

The flash drive contained a single file. A video.

Grabasov ran it.

A featureless room appeared on the screen. Grabasov’s eyes searched it for clues to its location, but there were none. Even the vague light filtering in through a probable window off-screen on the right might have come from the sun anywhere in the world.

A man moved into view, seating himself before the camera so that only his head was visible. He was clean shaven, about forty years old, with dark hair of moderate length and strong but placid features.

Grabasov had studied the face in photographs, but had never seen it in such circumstances as now.

John Purkiss.

His voice was new to Grabasov. He spoke in a soft, clear baritone, his accent upper middle class rather than aristocratic.

‘Oliver Clay. I hope you’re watching this. If somebody else is, then I’m afraid you’ve been compromised somewhere along the line.’

Purkiss paused, as if to allow his words to sink in. Especially his use of Grabasov’s real name.

‘You’ve succeeded in killing Saul Gideon, and you see me as your last remaining obstacle. I’m afraid you’re in for a surprise.’

He looked off camera.

A few seconds later, a second man seated himself beside Purkiss.

Grabasov became very still, so that he was more aware of the blood pulsing in his head than of his breathing.

It was Quentin Vale. There was no doubt about it. No possibility that this was a decoy, or some clever trick of cinematography.

‘Oliver,’ Vale intoned. Clay had heard the voice on telephone recordings over the last few weeks. He’d seen pictures of the man, aged compared with when they had last met, fifteen years earlier. But it was as if the years had fallen away, and the relatively youthful and vigorous man Clay had known and worked with for more than two decades was sitting there in the room with him.

Grabasov watched Vale, expecting him to take over. But it was Purkiss who did the talking.

‘You realise, of course, that you’re finished,’ said Purkiss. ‘The fact that we know who and where you are means that your future is entirely in our hands. We know that you’re reviving the Cronos operation, and why you’re doing so. It stops, right now. No more killings. No more empire building. We’re the gods. The titans have been supplanted by their sons. There’s no going back.’

Throughout, Vale gazed at the camera, almost motionless. He wasn’t even smoking.

Purkiss continued: ‘When I said
you’re finished
, I was referring to your private operation. The Cronos business. As regards your work for the Service... we’ve decided you’re too useful an asset to be cast aside. So you continue as before.’

He leaned forward a fraction. His eyes, normally mild, took on an intensity that captivated the attention like a master actor’s. 

‘But understand this, Clay. If there’s the remotest hint that you’re continuing with your current course of action - that you’re coming after me, or Quentin, or anybody else, or that you’re recruiting others to your cause - then we’ll blow you sky high. We’ll tip off the FSB with unambiguous evidence. They’ll have you inside the Lubyanka before you know it. And I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. We’ll do this without official sanction, by the way. The wishes of SIS be damned. And you’ll be no use to Moscow as a double agent, because they’ll know we’ve fed you to them. You’ll be wrung out like a sodden rag, and thrown on the rubbish tip.’

Again Purkiss left a pregnant pause. Vale’s expression never changed.

As if recalling something he’d genuinely overlooked, Purkiss said, ‘Oh. There’s a quid pro quo, by the way. You get to keep your freedom, such as it is, and your exalted positions both as a captain of Russian finance and as British Intelligence’s premier agent. In return, you give us Delatour.’

Purkiss had said most of it with his usual amiability, his reasonableness. As he mentioned Delatour, his expression darkened.

‘You need to be kept in place, for obvious reasons. Delatour has no such protection. He’s a traitor, and he deserves a traitor’s fate. You have no more use for him, Clay. So arrange for him to board the rearmost carriage of the Green Line on the Athens Metro at Attiki, in the direction of Kifisia, at one-fifty p.m. on Saturday the first of November. That’s the day after tomorrow. Wherever in the world he is at the moment, it gives him time to get there, if you act quickly. I’ll allow half an hour’s leeway. If he’s not on the train, the Director of the FSB in Moscow will receive an email at two-thirty p.m., Athens time, containing evidence that Kyrill Grabasov, the CEO of the Rosvolgabank, is a British asset named Oliver Clay.’

For the first time, the shadow of a smile played at the corners of Purkiss’s mouth. It didn’t reach his eyes.

‘And if that makes you consider cutting and running right now, I’d advise against it. The moment we detect that you’ve disappeared, we’ll notify Moscow in a similar fashion.’ Purkiss blinked, the old affability returning. ‘Just do it, Clay. Give us Delatour. You once hunted down people just like him. You understand what motivates us. Put him on that train, and we’ll silence him.’

Purkiss gazed at the camera, as did Vale. Grabasov waited for more.

After a full twenty seconds, the picture snapped off.

Grabasov turned off the computer and sat back in his chair.

He thought:
Quentin. You clever, devious bastard
.

But you’re not clever enough.

He smiled into the darkness.

––––––––

T
he Ferryman took up a position next to a group of young women laden with bags from what looked like designer clothes shops. They were locals, the women, and they chattered with the spirited abandon of close friends enjoying a Saturday post-payday spree.

He was dressed in an unthreatening suit with a collar and no tie. A middle manager, perhaps, who’d finished a weekend morning shift and was heading home, cheap briefcase hanging from his hand.

The digital display above the platform gave the time as 13:48, and the arrival time of the next train as three minutes from now.

The train pulled in on time, hissing to a halt. Delatour allowed the women to step in ahead of him, before entering and choosing a seat next to the aisle. It left a seat free beside him, adjacent to the window. He placed the briefcase on this second seat.

Across from him were a middle-aged couple, the man gazing out the window at the wall of the tunnel, the woman engrossed in a paperback book.

Inside Delatour’s briefcase was a folder containing sales reports. Behind the lining was a network of wires, attached to a slim cylindrical object at the tip of which a soft red light pulsed at the rate of once every second.

The doors of the carriage closed, and the train wheezed into motion.

He’d presented his idea to the Oracle, Grabasov, when he’d called him after leaving the islet on Thursday, after it had become apparent that Purkiss and his associates had got the better of Artemis’s men and would be heading back to confront Delatour. Grabasov had approved the idea, Delatour knew, even though the man’s tone had been as inexpressive as ever.

Delatour’s hypothesis was simple: Purkiss was a hypocrite. He moved and worked in a world in which the concept of moral absolutism was nonsensical, and he accepted this axiom. Yet he balked at actions which entailed collateral damage, the deaths of civilians, regardless of the context.

This hypocrisy could be exploited.

Delatour proposed the organising of a significant attack, one which he could arrange within a few days using his contacts in the Islamic Caliphate group. An event in London or Washington or New York would be the most potent, but any European or American city would serve. Delatour would set it up, and a message would be sent to Purkiss to inform him about it. The message would be conveyed through the MI5 woman, Hannah Holley, with whom Purkiss was known to have had a relationship. She wouldn’t be informed about the content of the message, but would simply be contacted anonymously and told that her former lover was to phone a specified number. Delatour had no doubt she would pass on the message, and that Purkiss would respond.

Purkiss would be instructed to present himself at a specific location at a designated hour, in order to avert the planned mass attack. He’d do so, and he’d attempt a trick of some kind; but the Ferryman would kill him then and there, the moment he was in sight.

And that would be the end of it.

Everything had changed since the revelation that Vale had survived. Now, Purkiss had apparently turned the tables. It was he who was dictating locations and times. He who seemed poised to take down the Ferryman, rather than the other way round.

But Grabasov had identified a way to implement the Ferryman’s original idea. And Delatour, upon hearing it, had immediately concurred.

Delatour had arrived early at the station. Nine hours early, in fact.

He’d been in Athens, still, basing himself in a hotel room in the city centre, and it had taken him a matter of three hours to assemble the necessary equipment. He had an Islamic Caliphate contact in the city, who procured him the chemical components in short order. The rest of the material had been purchased from a department store.

He’d walked the Metro line from station to station, above ground, nine hours ago. And he’d had everything in place by the time the first trains started running at five thirty that morning.

Delatour looked at the window as the train plunged into the tunnel. In its reflection, he could see the seat backing on to his. A teenaged boy, earbuds plugged in and head hunched over his mobile device, sat beside an elderly woman who appeared asleep.

A man barged past Delatour’s knees and shoved himself into the seat next to him, pushing the briefcase to the far side against the wall of the carriage.

As Delatour turned his head, he felt the ratcheting of something around his left wrist. He glanced down and saw a plastic handcuff encircling the soft gap between the bones of his forearm and the base of his hand. The cuff was so tight that the skin bulged around it.

On Purkiss’s lap, his own right wrist was clamped by the matching handcuff.

*

‘H
e’ll bring backup, of course,’ Vale had said.

‘No he won’t.’

And Purkiss had explained.

Rebecca had found the plastic cuffs at an Army surplus store.

Purkiss had been sitting in the last-but-one carriage, and had seen Delatour on the platform as the train had pulled in. He was on time, then. If he hadn’t been there, Purkiss would have got off at the next station and watched the end carriages of the next two trains.

The middle-aged couple on the seat opposite hadn’t noticed a thing. Purkiss murmured in Delatour’s ear: ‘We get off at the next station. If you resist, I’ll kill you here, unlock the cuffs, and disappear.’

Delatour said, barely moving his lips, and so quietly Purkiss had to strain to hear him, ‘There’s a bomb in the briefcase.’

Purkiss didn’t look at it, but he became intensely aware of the press of the case against his side.

‘It’s on a timer,’ said Delatour. ‘I won’t tell you when it’s set for. But it’s an incendiary device. The blast will blow out the windows, both the external ones and the connecting ones between the carriages. The flame will be funnelled down the tunnel and engulf both the carriages down the line and the upcoming platform. The casualty count will be high. Scores of people, at least. Probably hundreds.’

Purkiss thought rapidly.

Back in the hotel room, when they’d been considering strategies, Vale had said: ‘It’s a matter of pride with Clay. He’ll pull a trick at the end. He won’t be thinking about the repercussions. It’ll rankle that we’ve outsmarted him. He’ll do whatever he needs to defeat us.’

A matter of pride...

The phrase had stayed with Purkiss. And it had given him the solution.

He said, matching Delatour’s almost inaudible murmur: ‘Then we’ll all go out together. But you’re going out, Delatour. That’s all I care about.’

He watched the side of Delatour’s face, the smooth expanse at the temple where the hairline had receded.

The skin was pale and matte, with no sheen of sweat.

The briefcase pressed heavily against Purkiss’s side. He fancied he could feel it move with an imagined ticking within it, which was absurd.

The train pulled into the next station with a squeal of brakes and juddered to a stop. Purkiss heard the doors slide open, but didn’t look at the mix of people pouring off and stepping on the replace them.

With his eyes still forward, Delatour said: ‘Purkiss. I know this is brinkmanship. But the bomb
will
go off. You have the option of disembarking, or not. Your choice.’

‘No. You’re the one with options, Delatour.’ Purkiss watched the couple opposite. Still, neither of them seemed to have taken an interest. Purkiss had cast his jacket over the armrest between his seat and Delatour’s, covering their forearms where the cuffs joined them. ‘You tell me how to disable the device, or you die with me.’