Cronos Rising (22 page)

‘Not just her.’ Vale’s tone was soft. ‘He might have been a KGB agent, but Cronos - Ashington, Fyodorov, call him what you will - was a good man. He did good work for the Service, even if his ultimate motives were hostile. He was, in a sense, father to all of us, not just Helen. And we owed him. As did our country. There was never any question of murdering him.’

Purkiss gazed at the ancient face for a full two minutes, noting every line, every fold, every mottle.

At last he straightened. Beside him, Rebecca stared up into his face and he studied hers.

For the first time, he saw a defiance there, a slipping of the mask of calm.

Purkiss said, simply, ‘Carry on.’

He turned and walked out, a weight bearing down upon him, weariness dogging his every step.

THE END

John Purkiss will return in 2015 in NEMESIS

I
f you’ve enjoyed this book, and would like to receive email notifications of my new books before they’re officially released, sometimes at a special discounted price, as well as a FREE and exclusive short story,
Spiked
, featuring hunter of renegade spies John Purkiss, sign up
here
. I’ll never give out your email address to anyone else, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

A full list of my books appears on the next page.

My Amazon author pages are
here
(US) and
here
(UK). My blog is
Thrillhound
, where your comments are always welcome. If you’d like to email me, perhaps with comments about this novel (good or bad!), please do:
[email protected]
. I’m on
Facebook
and
Twitter
.

Finally, reviews help sustain us authors. If you liked
Cronos Rising
, I’d be most grateful if you’d
consider leaving a review on Amazon
. Even just a few lines would be most appreciated.

Thanks!

––––––––

T
im Stevens

––––––––

Ratcatcher

Delivering Caliban

Jokerman

Tundra

Haven (short story)

Spiked (short story, exclusive to mailing list subscribers)

Cronos Rising

Nemesis (coming in 2015)

Severance Kill

Annihilation Myths

Redemption Road (coming in 2015)

Omega Dog

Delta Ghost

Alpha Kill

Sigma Curse

Epsilon Creed (coming in 2014)

Reunion

Snout