‘Surgically?’
‘Probably not. I mean it was removed really shortly afterwards. Within minutes.’
‘That would have been painful.’ Again, there was no emotion in Donovan’s tone, no wryness. He was stating a simple fact. ‘I still don’t understand what you want from me.’
Purkiss decided to push a little. ‘Rossiter was assisted in his escape by someone who was able to pinpoint his whereabouts with precision,’ he said. ‘We suspect they tracked him through the device.’
Donovan gave a small nod. ‘And you believe this someone is me. Or one of my personnel. Yes, that makes sense.’
‘You’re former Service,’ said Purkiss. ‘You’re an obvious possibility.’
‘Well, it wasn’t me.’ Donovan looked unfazed. ‘As for my personnel… it’s feasible. There’s nobody I can think of in particular, but I can certainly supply you with the names of those who might have access to the required software.’
He went over to a desk, which was kitted out as an elaborate workstation, and picked up a laptop. He keyed something in. A few seconds later, a printer whirred into life. Donovan handed the sheaf of papers to Purkiss.
‘My vetting documents on the relevant employees. You may find something there. And I’ve included specifications for the device in question, in case that helps.’
Purkiss glanced over the latter pages.
‘What’s this?’ he said.
A series of diagrams portrayed the device, a thin, flat object that resembled a match from a matchbook. The tip had a slightly bulbous head, also like a match’s. It was to the tip Purkiss pointed.
Donovan said, ‘The toxin compartment.’ He studied Purkiss’s face. ‘Ah. You weren’t aware. This device isn’t standard. The modification was my contribution, made to order. It allows the addition of a neurotoxin. One whose release can be triggered remotely.’
‘This was implanted on Rossiter?’
‘Yes. A combined tracker and, if needed, execution agent. I suppose the reasoning was that if Rossiter ever escaped, he could not only be located but stopped in his tracks.’ Donovan’s face touched on ruefulness. ‘From what you’re saying, it sounds as if he removed the device before either of its functions could be of any use.’
Pieces were slotting into place in Purkiss’s mind more quickly than he could keep up with them.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and, his eyes on Donovan, he took it out.
It was Saburova. Her voice was sharp.
‘There are armed men moving towards the house. I see two of them.’
Fifteen
Purkiss murmured, ‘Where?’ and Saburova said the front door and he said, ‘Stay back.’
He rose to his feet, Asher moving swiftly in tandem and staring at him.
Donovan returned Purkiss’s stare.
Purkiss said, ‘Two men at the door.’
He was at Donovan in two strides and barrelling into him and sending him backwards into the armchair he’d risen from. He felt Donovan’s sinews tense, his arms come up and his torso twist in the automatic defensive posture that had been drilled into him over gruelling years of training. But the momentum had carried him back and the chair tipped over and Purkiss was on him with his forearm across his throat.
‘How many out there?’
He relaxed the pressure just enough that Donovan could speak.
The man’s voice emerged as a throaty hiss: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Purkiss had tried to bring down Donovan with the minimum of noise but it evidently hadn’t been enough, because the door to the living room swung open and the two guards from earlier came through with handguns drawn, shouting, ‘Back off, back off.’
Purkiss rolled off Donovan and dragged the older man across him where he crouched and slid an arm across his throat once more, this time from behind. He kept the man’s head in front of his so that just his eye peered past.
One of the guards was advancing on Asher, the other towards Purkiss and Donovan on the floor behind the overturned chair. Both were professionals, walking side-on with their firearms held in the Weaver stance.
The window behind Asher exploded in a screeching cavalcade of glass an instant before the sound of the shot rang through the room.
Purkiss saw Asher dive and roll and come up, fragments of glass glittering in his hair and on the shoulders of his suit jacket, and he saw Asher too had a gun, not the .22 Purkiss had taken off him but a spare he must have had in the car somewhere, a 9 mm pistol of some make. Asher pressed himself against the wall beside the window, out of range of whoever was outside.
Asher had his gun trained on the security guard nearest to him. He shouted: ‘Drop it. Drop it and tell your friends outside to back off.’
The double thump and crack of two shots in quick succession came through the broken window. Purkiss braced himself, but the shots seemed to be confined to outside.
Purkiss hauled himself up to a standing position, lifting Donovan with him so that the man hung straight in front of him. The security guard held his aim, squinting down the sight of his gun, the barrel trained on Purkiss’s eye.
Purkiss said, ‘If you shoot, I’ll know it. In the instant before you pull the trigger, you’ll give yourself away. I’ll move your boss’s head a fraction to the right, and you’ll put a bullet through his head. Don’t risk it. Don’t.’
Without waiting for the guard to reply, Purkiss hissed in Donovan’s ear: ‘How many outside?’
Donovan emitted a choked noise, half cry, half cough, and Purkiss eased the pressure a couple of millimetres. He saw the guard’s expression shift just a degree, saw the lifting of the face from the line along the gun barrel.
He felt Donovan go rigid in his grip. Felt the limbs shaking.
‘He’s sick,’ said the guard, without lowering the gun. ‘Heart.’
‘Drop the gun,’ Purkiss said.
Against his front, Donovan’s entire torso was convulsing now. The sounds rasping from his throat were like the death rattle of a beast in an abattoir after its throat has been cut.
‘For God’s sake,’ the guard yelled. ‘He’s having a heart attack.’
The second guard kept his gun locked on Asher in a Mexican stand-off. But he was glancing over, his face taut.
Another single shot outside echoed across the gravel forecourt.
Purkiss thought: are they firing at Saburova?
He said, again, very precisely: ‘Put down your weapons and I’ll release your boss.’
Donovan’s hands were clawing feebly at Purkiss’s arm now. Purkiss felt the wetness of the man’s drool on his wrist.
Two seconds slouched by.
The two guards, as if obeying some invisible signal, lowered their guns simultaneously.
‘On the floor,’ Asher called.
The guards knelt, then lay prone, their hands behind their heads.
Asher was across at them in a moment, ducking to keep below the level of the front window, kicking their guns away, crouching behind them.
Purkiss lowered Donovan to the carpet and turned him at the same time so that he was on his back. He saw the eyelids fluttering, the spittle white in the corners of the mouth, one hand gripping the chest.
‘Medication?’ said Purkiss.
One of the guards raised his head. ‘In the sideboard over there. The top drawer.’
Asher moved quickly over and pulled open the drawer.
Purkiss registered his mistake even as Donovan’s knee came up and connected with his groin.
The man’s face had been pink, and healthy looking, with no pallor or cyanosis, no sheen of sweat.
Asher spun and raised the 9 mm but the guard nearest to him was fast and already lunging across the carpeted floor and seizing his own gun. The guard fired blindly, without aiming, the shot smashing into the base of the sideboard but causing Asher to leap aside.