He studied the man, registering fully what his senses had already told him but he had been unable to process.
The man was blocky and taut and muscular, dressed in a white cheesecloth shirt and khaki chinos. His skin was so deeply tanned it appeared burnished, the wrinkles and seams on his face giving it the appearance of stitched leather. The eyes were an almost alarming black, like those of a bird of prey, and the downturned, contemptuous mouth added further to the image. The hair on his head was cropped back to stubble, and startlingly white against the mahogany scalp.
He looked at least sixty-five years old.
On a table below the front and side windows, Purkiss saw an array of weapons. There was the RPG launcher, and a crate of grenades. Alongside it lay a slide-action shotgun and two pistols, one a Sig-Sauer semiautomatic, the other an Israeli Desert Eagle.
The table beneath the side window held an old Enfield L42A1 sniper rifle.
Purkiss glanced about the room, the movement making his head spin. There was no other exit. The man was alone, and had been operating the guns on his own, alternating between one and the next.
A one-man army.
Keeping his feet well away from the man’s reach, Purkiss moved to the front window aperture. He looked down, saw the rocky plain stretching to the ridge, pocked with boulders and clusters of stone.
Purkiss called: ‘Come on up. It’s secure.’
He couldn’t tell how loudly he’d shouted, because aural feedback was still impaired by the ringing from the grenade blast. It was the reason he didn’t hear the footfall behind him.
The door swung open and he caught it from the corner of his eye and spun, bringing the M16 up.
Kendrick stood there, the Walther in his hands, extended. Beyond it, his eyes blazed.
‘Tony,’ said Purkiss. ‘We’re secure.’
Kendrick transferred his stare to the man on the floor. He swung the pistol to bear on him.
‘Tony,’ Purkiss said urgently. ‘Don’t.’
He watched Kendrick’s finger tighten inside the trigger guard.
And flung the M16 straight at him, end-on as if letting go of a battering ram.
The barrel struck Kendrick in the chest. He recoiled, grunting. But the pistol moved away from the man on the floor and back to Purkiss.
Purkiss spread his hands wide, thinking: if this is it, it’s the most ironic way to die the gods could have imagined for me.
‘We need him alive, Tony,’ he said, unsure if he shouted it or spoke in a whisper.
Rebecca appeared in the doorway behind Kendrick, Delatour close behind. Kendrick half turned.
Purkiss stepped up to him and placed a hand on his forearm, pushing the gun down gently but firmly.
They stood, spaced apart, and stared down at the white-haired man. He’d drawn his legs in but remained sitting against the wall. His eyes had regained their focus.
Keeping his gaze on Purkiss alone, he spat out a wad of tooth and blood.
Purkiss said: ‘Get up.’
The man didn’t ask for assistance, nor was any offered to him. He didn’t make a big show of it, but rose slowly, a quick, tight grimace his only sign of discomfort.
He stood, feet braced apart, arms folded, head tilted back. As if he was the captor, the interrogator, rather than at the mercy of four opponents.
‘You’re Purkiss,’ he said. His voice was a guttural rasp, made thicker by the broken teeth, the no-doubt bitten tongue.
Purkiss said: ‘Saul Gideon.’
The man didn’t reply, didn’t nod. But his eyes confirmed to Purkiss that he was right.
Twenty
Kendrick said: ‘I say we waste the bastard.’
It was a clichéd line, and Gideon’s mouth twitched in contempt. His eyes remained trained on Purkiss’s.
‘Geezer tried to kill us,’ said Kendrick, his tone unnervingly reasonable, as if he was politely pointing out to somebody that they were jumping a queue. The Walther hung by his side, but his index finger was still inside the trigger guard, Purkiss noticed.
‘I tried to kill you,’ said Gideon, still looking at Purkiss, ‘because I assumed you’d come to kill me. Nothing you’ve done so far has persuaded me to abandon that assumption.’ His accent was English public school, clipped and precise.
Kendrick shook his head, chortled. ‘Look at that. He won’t even face me. Keeps talking to you, as if that’ll impress me.’
Gideon said, ‘Why would I talk to the monkey when I’ve got the organ grinder in front of me?’
Kendrick bit his lip. He took a step forward, aimed the pistol two-handed at Gideon’s groin.
‘Just for that,’ he snarled, ‘I’m starting with the bollocks.’
Purkiss said, ‘Tony.’ He nodded at Gideon. ‘All right. Talk.’
‘Not here.’ Gideon gestured beyond Purkiss at the door. ‘There’s quite a lot to say, on your part as well as mine. We’ll be better served down below.’
‘Here’s fine,’ said Purkiss.
The older man sighed. ‘You bloody idiot. I have closed-circuit cameras around this island. The screens are in a room downstairs. If you’re not the threat I’ve been waiting for, then it’s still coming. I need to keep an eye out.’ He winced, moving his jaw awkwardly. ‘If you’re afraid of a trap, afraid I’ve got backup waiting downstairs, then go and take a look yourselves. There’s plenty of hardware here.’ He indicated the guns. ‘One of you can stand guard over me while we wait.’
Purkiss considered for a moment. Then he stood aside.
‘Lead the way.’
Gideon walked fluidly, with the prowling confidence of a much younger man, an athlete. He strode to the door and began climbing down the ladder. Purkiss waited at the top, covering him with the gun, before descending himself.
For the first time Purkiss had an opportunity to study the rest of the ruins behind the façade and the tower. Most of them were just that — ruins — with barely a wall left intact. He didn’t have enough knowledge of Ancient Greek architecture to be able to pinpoint the era.
Behind the remains of an interior wall, Gideon stopped and squatted. He grasped an iron ring in the stone floor and heaved, his muscles bunching beneath his shirtsleeves. A trapdoor peeled away and he let it crash to the ground.
Purkiss peered down. Iron rungs in the wall of a brick-lined, cylindrical shaft led down into an artificially lit room.
‘I’ll go first,’ he said.
Gideon stood aside. Purkiss descended ten feet and found himself in an office-cum-living space, square and perhaps thirty feet to a side, hewn out of rock and buttressed by heavy stone supports. Nearby, a bank of video monitors showed a jerkily changing array of images from around the islet. At the far end of the room stood a rudimentary cot bed and a small table with a single chair.
He signalled for the others to follow him. Gideon came first, and moved swiftly to the desk with the monitors. He examined them systematically, changing the images one by one.
A water cooler stood against one wall. Gideon filled a plastic cup, drank deeply. ‘Help yourselves,’ he said indifferently.
Purkiss looked around the room. It was a single person’s abode, there was no question about it.
‘How long have you lived here?’ he said.
‘On and off, six years.’ Gideon eyed Purkiss’s foot. ‘You need a dressing?’
‘No. But a pair of shoes would be useful.’