Purkiss made his way to the fire door, peered through. No sign of anybody in the passage.
Two shots came, close together, from the front of the building. Not from within.
From far away Purkiss heard his name being called, as a grinding rumble started up.
Purkiss ran, sprinting round the other side of the building to complete a circuit. As he came round the corner he saw three things at once:
Nakamura had crawled on his belly away from the pumps and was lying prone, his gun extended awkwardly in shaking hands.
Ramirez had stepped off to the side and was huddled with her instrument case, frozen in headlights.
The gargantuan truck, the only vehicle in the forecourt, had turned in a wide arc and was doubling back, heading straight towards the pumps. At the wheel, high in the cab, was Pope.
Purkiss was running even as he raised the gun and fired at the windscreen, but the first shot glanced off the frame above it and after that the Glock’s hammer clicked down emptily, once, twice.
He continued running, aiming in a direct line for the truck, blotting out the horror of what was about to happen, of what was now happening as the front wheels reached Nakamura’s prone and haplessly scrambling body and rocked over it, whipping him underneath, the cab rising and dropping almost imperceptibly as he disappeared and his scream was cut off.
Purkiss drew level with the driver’s door of the cab and dropped the useless gun and leaped up and got a grip on the handle, pulling it open and hanging for a moment in the air, swinging off the door, before hauling himself into the seat — Pope wasn’t there, he’d bailed out through the passenger door — and seeing the pumps looming as he scrabbled for whatever served as a handbrake in a behemoth like this. He found the handle and pulled on it with all his strength, at the same time spinning the steering wheel into the direction of the slide that was already beginning.
The truck roared as it fishtailed sideways, the dozen-and-a-half wheels setting up a banshee howl as their rubber clawed and grappled at the tarmac. Through the window now Purkiss saw the pumps rushing at him: it was too late, he was too close…
Purkiss yelled as he wrenched at the wheel with both hands, trying to drive it beyond its limits. He felt the world tilt, the tarmac tipping crazily up at him, and in a split-second he understood what was happening and let go of the wheel and braced himself for the impact.
The truck slammed on to its side in an explosion of metal and glass, the window erupting beside Purkiss’s head and showering him with granular fragments. He managed to keep his torso far enough from the door that his body avoided absorbing the full force of the collision with the tarmac, but the impact jarred him all the same, sending a bolt of agony through his shoulder and chest. He closed his eyes, waiting for the tell-tale smell of fuel followed by the sudden burst of fire which would bring the end.
*
The sudden silence made Purkiss wonder if he had, in fact, passed over into unbeing, without having realised it; but of course that made no sense. He opened his eyes.
He was cramped at an angle in the cab, his feet at the door, the rest of him diagonally across the front seat. Above him was the passenger door. He reached up, feeling the pain lance through his shoulder again, pushed the door open like a trapdoor and hauled himself out.
The truck lay on its side like a massive, slain beast, its rear doors open and its innards — children’s toys, Purkiss noticed distantly — spilled out across the forecourt. The roof of the cab had slammed against the pillar to one side of the nearest pump.
Through the shattered shop window, Berg and Kendrick stared out. Two men stood beside them, close together, their postures truculent. Cuffed, Purkiss thought.
Behind the truck, the terrible thing that had been Nakamura was difficult to discern as anything in particular.
Ramirez and Pope were gone.
Thirty-Seven
Manhattan, New York City
Tuesday 21 May, 4.15 am
The door opened and a white-faced kid peered in. Giordano thought he looked scared enough to be an intern.
‘Mr Giordano. I’m real sorry to wake you, sir — ’
‘Your job. Don’t worry about it.’ He hadn’t been asleep.
‘Mr Krugmann would like to see you, sir.’
‘Krugmann’s here?’ He blinked at his watch.
‘Sir.’
The kid led him down the corridor to another small office. Krugmann sat pouchily behind a desk. He’d sacrificed his own office for Giordano and was having to make do.
‘Though you’d be home at this hour.’
‘I’m not having you Langley boys showing me up.’ Krugmann nodded at the intern to close the door. He shoved a mug of black coffee across the desk at Giordano. ‘Just got a call. The shit’s hit the fan.’
Giordano waited.
‘Where to god damn start… Remember how the shootings of our agents up in Skylands were called in by an anonymous person calling herself a federal agent?’
‘Barbara Berg.’
Krugmann stared. ‘How the hell’d you — ? Yeah. Berg. She’s called in to her superiors here in Manhattan, saying she’s the one who called the killings in earlier, and saying she’s arrested two Company operatives on charges of attempted murder. Names of Druze and Sandford. Mean anything?’
‘No.’
‘Both based in Richmond, it seems. Anyhow, this Berg says two other Company guys were shot dead while she was making the arrests. Laymon and James. These two are from the Philadelphia office.’
Krugmann gave it to him in as ordered a fashion as could be asked for. Berg and her partner Nakamura were following a tipoff about a missing woman in Charlottesville, VA, who’d apparently fled the scene of a double homicide. They found links to the former agent Crosby and obtained further intel from him before they were attacked by a group of what turned out to be CIA men. Subsequent evidence led them to a service station outside Philadelphia where they found four men who turned out also to be CIA, laying siege to a gunman holding the missing woman Ramirez hostage. When Berg pointed out the CIA men weren’t authorised to act on domestic soil the Company men had attacked her and her partner, and attempted to storm the service station and kill both the gunman and his hostage. Berg and her partner killed tow of the CIA men and arrested a further two. The gunman escaped with his hostage and killed the partner, Nakamura, in the process.
There was no mention in the account of John Purkiss.
Krugmann pinched his eyes shut for a long moment, massaging his forehead with the fingertips of one hand. ‘It makes no god damn sense, Ray. None at all. This Berg goes rogue for a while, calling things in anonymously, running around like Rambo killing Company guys. All supposedly after being tipped off about some missing person crap hundreds of miles away. Then she comes out of the cold to say there’s a kidnapper on the loose with a hostage.’
‘What does the Director say?’ Giordano meant the FBI Director.
‘Nothing at the moment. He’s pissed off with us, and I can’t say I blame him. Whatever this agent of his, Berg, has done, she seems to have caught so far eight of our people in the commission of various felonies. If I were the Feebs I’d be looking for revenge, starting with keeping us as far out of the loop as possible.’
‘They’ll have to involve us sooner or later.’
‘Yeah. Once they’ve flushed out whatever rotten apples remain in our barrel.’ Krugmann cracked his knuckles. ‘You’ll need to get back to Langley, I believe. This doesn’t just involve New York any more.’
‘You’re right.’ Giordano stood. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to my office for some privacy. I should be getting a call from the Chief at any moment.’
‘That you certainly will, my friend.’
*
Giordano slumped heavily in the office chair, his phone on the desk in front of him. It began buzzing immediately. He glanced at the number. The Chief.