A hand pressed against the glass. A bearded face.
‘Berg,’ he said. ‘It’s Giordano.’
Purkiss made his move.
Forty-Six
10.00 am
‘Am I going to die?’
She hadn’t moved from her place on the sofa, while Pope had stood, paced, stretched. Normally quite able to keep still for long periods, he was allowing himself the luxury of impatience.
He came back and sat in front of her again.
‘I don’t know.’
It was the truth. The Loomis Building might do what the Twin Towers had done and collapse vertically downwards. Or, it might topple sideways. The bomb he’d constructed was based on the one that had been used in the original terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in February 1993, when the intention had been to drive the North Tower into its southern neighbour. If that happened, if the Loomis Building hit the apartment block, then yes, both Nina and Pope would die.
It was the luck of the draw. Life was like that. Apart from certain insignificant aspects that were under willed control, most of human existence was governed by randomness.
Nina nodded, as though it was the answer she’d been expecting.
Pope checked his watch. Ten o’clock. Still seated, he dialled Giordano’s number.
‘Yes.’
‘Come over to the window.’ Pope didn’t ask if the man was where he’d told him to be; he took that as a given.
Keeping the phone to his ear, Pope rose and motioned Nina to come with him. She picked up her violin case and followed. Pope drew the drapes, opened the doors and stepped out, pulling her gently along.
He saw, across the gap that yawned between the buildings, Giordano appear at the window, slightly below him, squinting up against the sun.
*
‘Do you understand what’s happening?’
Giordano said, ‘I don’t know precisely what you’ve got planned. I believe I can guess.’
‘Do you understand why it’s happening?’
‘Yes.’
‘You kidnapped and forcibly experimented on people.’
‘Yes.’
‘You killed to protect your secret.’
‘Yes.’
‘You murdered my father, and her mother.’
A beat. Then: ‘Yes.’
Pope reached into his pocket. He said, ‘Can you see what I’m holding?’
There was another pause. The sun glinted off the window and he could no longer see Giordano.
‘Not really.’
‘It’s another phone. When I press the dial button, it will trigger the charge in a bomb in the basement of the building you’re in. You’re going to die, along with that organisation that sponsored you. You won’t know if Nina is going to die as well. I don’t know that.’
‘Why — ’
‘You gambled with people’s lives, Giordano. Now it’s my turn to gamble. But you’ll never know the outcome.’
Silence again. Giordano said: ‘May I speak with her?’
Pope looked down at Nina. She was close enough that she would have heard her father. She nodded. He held the phone to her ear, ducking his head so that it was close.
She said, ‘D — ’ and stopped. Pope thought: she doesn’t know what to call him. Daddy, dad, father. It’s been so long.
He heard Giordano’s voice, scratchy at a distance. ‘Nina. How are you?’
For a moment Pope thought she was going to giggle at the banality of it. She opened her lips to speak, closed them again.
‘I have no right to say this. No right to give you any advice whatsoever. But you have to be strong. Like you have been, just for a little longer. And remember that I love you.’
Pope watched her stare across the divide between the two buildings.
‘Nina, I don’t expect or deserve to hear you say anything in reply. But perhaps you’ll listen. You need to take a step back and consider all of this. Everything that’s happened. Do you understand? Just take a step back.’
Pope caught something in the words, something not quite right. He glanced across, saw movement behind the glinting window. Straightening, he took the phone back.
‘Giordano.’
The man didn’t reply.
Pope heard the echo of his last words.
Take a step back.
In the instant it took him to grasp the meaning — it was not a vague piece of advice but a literal warning — Pope felt the rush of air and the blow to his head.
Forty-Seven
10.00 am
A hands-free earpiece would have allowed Berg to guide Purkiss in real time, but on the other hand it would have been a distraction. So he said, simply, ‘I’m going down,’ and rang off.
The balcony ended in a low wall, reaching up to Purkiss’s knees, which was topped by glass panels surmounted by a horizontal steel rail at chest height. Purkiss stowed the phone in his pocket and gripped the rail and swung himself over. For a heart-stopping moment he was suspended over the chasm below, and although his instinct told him not to look down, he needed something to aim at. Twisting himself so that his front was against the balcony wall, he felt his feet probe the air above the balcony on the floor below.
By flexing his hips he developed a forward-and-backward swinging motion. On the forward movement he lunged forward with his legs and let go of the railing. He dropped on to the balcony below and for a moment thought he’d misjudged it, that his head was going to hit the railing. But he landed, half on his backside, crouching, jarred by the impact.
The sky was filled with noise — helicopter rotors, sirens, shouting — and although he’d landed with a thump, he didn’t think it would have been audible on the balcony below. Nonetheless he paused for a few seconds, holding his breath, listening. Distantly he heard a low voice, a man’s. Pope’s? He couldn’t be certain.
He took out his phone and typed a rapid text message to Berg: I’m on the balcony above Pope now. I’m standing up so you can see me. Is he directly below?
The reply came back in an instant. A couple of steps to your right.
It would be harder, this drop. He didn’t have the luxury of dangling his legs over the balcony below and developing the swinging movement to gain the momentum necessary to land him on the right side of the railing. He was going to have to do it in a single action.
Purkiss closed his eyes, drew a long breath, and vaulted the railing, turning like a gymnast and jacknifing downwards.
*
This time the landing was awkward. He felt one flailing foot connect with something yielding — Pope’s head — and the other strike the railing so that his leg was bent backwards. Purkiss flung himself forward and hit the stone floor of the balcony, his outstretched arms absorbing most of the force.
Pope had reeled back but was already reacting, lashing out with a kick that missed but made Purkiss scramble towards the glass doors, unable yet to regain his footing. The woman, Ramirez, had backed against the railing, hand to her mouth.
Pope came on fast, lunging at Purkiss and getting a hand across his throat. Purkiss, on his back, rolled and brought his knees up so that Pope arced over his head, the momentum carrying him full-tilt into the glass doors.
The crash was colossal, the glass showering down, and this time Ramirez screamed. Pope sprawled halfway through the ruined door, momentarily dazed. Purkiss clambered to his feet and groped at his waistband for the Glock, but the impact of the railing against his foot had hurt more than he’d realised and he staggered on that leg.
Pope was up again and diving for Purkiss, his head butting into Purkiss’s face before Purkiss could bring his hands up. White flashes erupted in Purkiss’s vision and he felt the blood gout from his nose. He stabbed blindly with a half fist and felt Pope’s breath gasp against his ear. Dimly Purkiss realised he’d dropped the Glock, but there was no time to worry about that now. He punched again, and a third time, his fists connecting with the springiness of ribcage. Pope pressed against him the way exhausted prizefighters did. Purkiss got a hand up and aimed a hook at the side of Pope’s head. He felt it glance off solid bone. Pope stumbled backwards towards the shattered door.