‘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.’
They struck out northwards across the long extension of the islet, Purkiss and Rebecca spaced apart in parallel at the front, Kendrick behind them, walking backwards, the M16 trained on the tower. At one point Purkiss heard the sharp report of a single shot from the assault rifle, and he turned his head.
‘Saw him there,’ muttered Kendrick. ‘In the doorway. He was having a look out to see if the coast was clear. I’ll get him next time.’
The islet sloped towards the north so that the edge could barely be described as a cliff. The ground dipped sufficiently over the final fifty yards or so that the hillock, and the tower, disappeared from view. It meant they could no longer keep tabs on the tower, but it meant also that Delatour wouldn’t be able to see them to launch another grenade.
They found the boats, two of them, on a flat stretch of rock in a tiny cove. They were inflatables, both of them, with outboard motors and each capable of carrying probably six people. It suggested to Purkiss that his initial estimate had been correct, and that there were indeed ten of the men, or at most twelve.
He pulled the cord on one of the motors and it barked into life, the sound carrying out across the water and, presumably, back across the island. He nodded to Kendrick, who put two single shots from the M16 though the floor of the second boat.
They launched out, Purkiss at the tiller. He steered them north, intending to put as much distance as he could between them and the islet before thinking about where exactly they were headed.
It took little more than a minute for the throb of a second, sleeker engine to reach Purkiss’s ears. He scanned the sea all around, and saw the boat approaching at speed from the west.
Gideon’s boat. The men must have heard the motor, or guessed what Purkiss and the others had in mind, and set off in pursuit.
The first shots came when the speedboat was more than two hundred yards away.
The water around the boat sizzled and churned under the multiple impacts. Purkiss flattened himself as best he could while keeping his hand on the tiller. Rebecca lay prone at the bottom of the boat, alongside Kendrick.
It was an inflatable dinghy, and they had no hope of outrunning the faster vessel.
Purkiss made the kind of gut-driven decision which in calmer, more reflective circumstances he would never have considered.
He waited for a lull in the firing, then grabbed the Remington and heaved himself belly-first up onto the side of the boat and braced his feet and leaped overboard.
He’d angled himself forward and outward so as to avoid the propellor, but even so he felt its foamy churning frighteningly close as the water engulfed him.
For what seemed like ten seconds, too long, he twisted and tumbled, struggling to orientate himself in the muffled, green-grey murk of his new environment. The sunlight was thin, and it meant the shapes on the surface were only vaguely outlined.
But he made out, his eyes burning from the salt water, the dark outline of the approaching speedboat.
From above, he heard the distorted sound of automatic fire, and he knew it was Kendrick. Purkiss kicked his legs, needing to put distance between himself and the oncoming boat.
When he’d got far enough away that it would be worth the risk, with his lungs on fire as they protested for air, Purkiss kicked once more with his legs extended straight below him, driving himself to the surface.
His head broke free in a shower of spume. He registered the speedboat almost adjacent to him now, the dinghy further away but with the gap closing.
Treading water hard, Purkiss lifted the shotgun and took aim. As he squeezed back on the trigger, one of the men on board saw him and brought his rifle across.
The blast from the Remington hit the speedboat’s motor at a range of ten feet. Shards of metal tore away and the boat juddered, tipping to one side so that a man toppled overboard. The boat continued forward but veered out towards the open sea, black smoke trailing from the wrecked motor.
Five seconds later, as the remaining men on board turned to continue firing while trying to keep the boat under control, the motor exploded. A ball of orange and black flame rocketed vertically upwards and outwards, the sound thumping and cracking across the surface an instant later.
Purkiss looked round, reorientating himself once again. He saw Kendrick standing in the dinghy, his mouth wide in a berserker’s roar, the rifle shuddering in his hands. Amid the chopping of the water, Purkiss could make out at least one body, possibly two.
He trod water as he watched the dinghy turn in a slow arc and head back towards him, Rebecca steering.
They searched the islet from end to end, but Delatour was gone.
It didn’t take Purkiss long to discover how he’d made his escape. Gideon’s yacht, which had been moored alongside the speedboat, was missing. Delatour must have heard, or sensed, that his associates had been defeated. He’d cut his losses and run.
In Gideon’s bunker, they found little of interest apart from dry clothes, which Purkiss put on. Gideon himself lay on his back in the tower room, his lips drawn back in his ruined face, as if he’d been angry and defiant to the last. Without fully understanding why he did it, Purkiss used his phone to take a photo of the dead man. With Kendrick’s help, he hauled the body down the ladder and into the bunker, where he laid it out on the bed.
It seemed more appropriate than leaving him out there for the birds to devour.
‘We need to get moving,’ Purkiss said. ‘Delatour may come back, or send reinforcements.’
‘He killed one of his own associates,’ Rebecca observed without emotion. ‘Back in the hotel.’
‘Yes,’ said Purkiss. ‘It cemented his cover. He must have been the one who tipped them off in the first place that we were at the hotel. And he would have signalled them as soon as he knew the name of the island. They wouldn’t have been far away, because I’d led him to believe we were going to Ressos and he would have directed them there in the first instance.’
The internet connection on the computer in the bunker was slow but serviceable. Rebecca pulled up a detailed map of the archipelago. The closest apparently inhabited island was Kythnos, seven kilometres away.
‘So Delatour’s working with this Oliver Clay,’ said Rebecca as they headed back to the boat.
‘Assuming Gideon’s belief is correct, that Clay’s behind this,’ said Purkiss. ‘Delatour needed us to lead him to Gideon.’
‘That just leaves you,’ she said. ‘As their target.’
‘Unless there are others whom we, or Gideon, don’t know about.’ Purkiss started the motor once more. He was relieved the boat hadn’t been damaged in the shooting. ‘But yes. I take your point. They’ll be after me now, possibly exclusively.’
They cruised across the water. Kendrick sat with the M16 cradled in his lap, as if he was nursing a baby.
Purkiss watched as Rebecca took out her phone.
‘What are you doing?’ he said.
She held his gaze as she put the phone to her ear.
‘Calling my control. Gareth Myles.’
‘I thought you couldn’t contact him directly.’
‘I lied,’ she said.
Twenty-two
Twice a day, Kyrill Grabasov had his office suite swept for audio surveillance. It was standard procedure for a man in his position to be bugged by the FSB, the Russian domestic security police, and so he was cautious and oblique in everything he said within his office’s four walls, despite the sweeps.