Gar made a move forward, but Waring-Jones stopped him with a gesture that was invisible to Purkiss.
‘A most serious allegation, Mr Purkiss,’ Waring-Jones said, his voice as even as before. ‘But you have a point, notwithstanding your deliberately confrontational manner. We have to consider the possibility of a security breach at a high level. And I’ve already put measures in place to investigate.’
The questions jostled for dominance in Purkiss’s head. He allowed one to fight its way to the fore.
‘You must have tagged Rossiter.’
‘Naturally,’ said Waring-Jones. ‘A few months after his initial incarceration, he had to undergo a gastroscopy for a suspected stomach ulcer. While he was under anaesthetic, we inserted a tracker in his left forearm. A precautionary measure, of course; this was long before any kind of exchange was proposed. The bruising on his arm, we let him believe, was a result of the intravenous drip. The tracking device was found at the site of the attack last night. It had been cut out of Rossiter’s arm.’
He knew about it all along, thought Purkiss. Ever since they installed it.
‘Who’s the other man?’ Purkiss said. ‘The missing scientist?’
‘As I said. Professor Valeriy Mossberg. Formerly at Moscow University. His field of expertise is particle physics.’
‘So Rossiter has him,’ Purkiss said. ‘And I suspect you know why.’
Was there the briefest hesitation before Waring-Jones answered? ‘Yes. I have a good idea why.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I cannot,’ Waring-Jones said, this time with no pause.
‘Then I’m not doing this.’
Purkiss glanced at Vale. Then he turned to the door.
Gar stepped in front of him, up close, almost but not quite breaching the invisible barrier demarcating personal space. ‘Excuse me?’
Purkiss studied his eyes. The blankness was still there, absolute, unwavering. Purkiss wondered if the man had cultivated it or whether it was part of his natural makeup.
‘You’ve summoned me here to ask me to find Rossiter for you,’ Purkiss said. ‘But you’re explicitly keeping me in the dark about crucial information. I don’t work that way.’
‘Turn around.’
Waring-Jones had barely raised his voice. But the two words whiplashed across the room, snaring Purkiss.
He half-turned.
Waring-Jones had taken several strides forward on his long legs and now stood close to Purkiss. His face was neutral. Controlled. But his voice was like cold acid.
‘You will assist us in this matter, Mr Purkiss. Not because you’re a former employee of the Service, and therefore bound to it for life, as you well know. Not because your very job exists only because I permit it. You’ll assist us, because you cannot walk away. The man you had the opportunity to kill on that boat two and a half years ago, the man who recruited the woman you loved and used her to his corrupt ends, is now walking free. You can no more ignore that, no more refrain from addressing the problem, than a hound might resist bolting after a hare. You know it. All of us in this room know it.’
He moved round Purkiss so that he was facing him.
‘So let’s stop playing these silly, childish games, Mr Purkiss. We haven’t time. Richard Rossiter is laughing at us. He’s in possession of a man who was considered vital enough to British security interests that the Prime Minister was willing to hand over a traitor of Rossiter’s status in order to obtain him. Rossiter has, to put it coarsely, stuffed us. He has to be found. He will be found. And you’re the man to do it.’
Purkiss stared at Waring-Jones. He searched his eyes. He was looking for a sign that this was some kind of trap. Some test, the purpose of which was obscure.
He saw nothing. Nothing but the fastidiously layered gaze of a professional who’d learned, over decades, to reveal precisely what he wished to reveal, and nothing more.
Purkiss said, ‘The Russian. The FSB man. Take me to him.’
Five
The Åland Islands comprise an archipelago off the coast of Finland. Technically part of Finland itself, Åland holds a degree of autonomy, with its own parliament and police force. The archipelago is strictly demilitarised.
Rossiter watched the pinprick heaps of rock and vegetation separate out as the helicopter dipped towards them.
The Eurocopter Tiger was, he knew, one of the most advanced craft of its kind when it came to stealth technology. Even so, the noise within the cockpit was alarming, the clatter of the rotor seeming to broadcast the chopper’s presence so glaringly that it was hard to believe it could possibly go undetected.
Beside Rossiter, the pilot pointed downwards and to the left.
Rossiter saw the tiny lights, winking steadily, on a mass of solid ground that was impossible to distinguish from the surrounding blackness of the water.
He felt wetness below his elbow, and saw the seepage through the bandage which had been wrapped quickly and expertly around his forearm. The tracker hadn’t been implanted particularly deeply, but there were crucial tendons and nerves there, and the removal had been tricky. He’d considered taking the device with him, abandoning it elsewhere in order to create a false trail, but decided in the end that it wasn’t worth the risk.
The pursuit would come swiftly, and he needed to shake it off at once.
Besides Rossiter and Mellows, the pilot, the helicopter carried five passengers. Four of the men in the rear remained masked. The fifth, the old man, Mossberg, had been hooded with a canvas sack much like the one Rossiter had been forced to wear. Unbound, he sat wedged between two of Rossiter’s men, though there was hardly much risk of his trying to break free.
Rossiter felt no elation. No sense of triumph.
He’d been under what was effectively house arrest for the last two years, having initially been detained in a secret facility which was much more like a traditional prison. Following the extensive early period of interrogation, when it was clear that he’d given up all the intelligence he was likely to — which was virtually nothing — he was moved to the Box, an isolated house in the Berkshire countryside, west of London. He’d been permitted to take walks outside, and had access to books and music, though not to internet facilities or other forms of electronic communication, of course. Nor had he been allowed to send or receive mail.
So it wasn’t as though he was breathing the air of freedom for the first time now.
His escape meant little to him personally. If he could have somehow proceeded with his work while still in the Box, he would have willingly done so.
The work was the crucial part. It just so happened that the only way he could carry it through was on the outside. Once it was done, it didn’t matter what happened to him. He would hardly seek to be captured again, but if he was apprehended — or even killed — then that was of secondary importance.
A head wind had sprung up, scouring the water, and Rossiter felt its pressure as the helicopter slowed and began its descent.
The land mass beneath them started to take shape. It was an islet, a skerry more accurately, approximately oblong and two kilometres across its longest axis. The light was provided by a pair of arc lamps which had been rigged up temporarily in the islet’s widest expanse of flat ground. Rossiter made out the shape of a boat moored along one shore.
He felt the tension rise in him as the chopper’s wheels touched the rock with the faintest of jars.
Men surrounded the helicopter immediately, approaching as closely as they dared to its still-whirling rotor blades. Their faces hovered in the air, their black-clad bodies invisible in the shadows. What light there was glinted off the weapons across their chests.