One second later, the corridor erupted.
The cacophony sent him recoiling backwards. The light flashed from the left, sparks blazing though the darkness like microsecond flashlight beams. Five successive crashes followed, the insect scream of ricochets overlapping.
He came back…
Purkiss thought quickly. Montrose would be as blind as he himself was. But Montrose had two advantages. Purkiss hadn’t been able to see the exact model of the handgun Montrose had drawn and with which he’d shot Medievsky, but he had to assume the magazine was nearly full; in addition, Montrose had the two Rugers. Purkiss, on the other hand, had four shots available to him.
Montrose’s second advantage was that he had his hostage, Budian. Which meant Purkiss couldn’t risk even one shot into the dark.
Purkiss lunged for the opposite wall and found the metal shelves with his hands and tested the strength of the middle one. It held. He hauled himself upwards, using his legs to propel himself so that he sprang froglike, his boots gripping the bottom shelf. He clambered onto the top one and turned and sat, his legs dangling, his torso bent almost double under the ceiling.
The metal beneath him began to tilt, its moorings straining away from the wall housing them.
The shelf would tear away from the wall in a matter of seconds.
He’d left the door ajar, and he watched its vague shape in the darkness.
With a chunk, one of the heavy-duty screws broke free from the wall.
The shelf tipped, and Purkiss grabbed its edge with his left hand to steady it.
Five seconds, at most, and either the shelf would separate from the wall or the degree of slant would be such that Purkiss would slide off.
The door slammed open and the twin blasts, separated by a second, smashed into the room, illuminating it in strobe splashes.
An instant after the second one exploded, Purkiss dropped off the shelf and aimed for the snapshot he’d seen in the muzzle flash of the dark head just inside the doorway and slammed the butt of the Walther down and felt it connect a fraction before his feet hit the ground. The head jerked away and Purkiss grabbed in the dark and felt the shape of a body and clawed his left hand upwards, feeling for the face. An instant later Montrose’s arm swung hard against his abdomen and he doubled against the blow but kept his fingers probing for the eyes. He felt teeth dig at his palm, seeking purchase, but they served to orientate him and he seized a lock of hair — he didn’t feel the glasses, Montrose never needed to wear glasses, it was all for show, his mind told him distantly — and wrenched downwards while bringing the Walther up and over with his other hand and finding purchase with its muzzle against the bony protuberance of the flexed neck.
Purkiss hissed, close to where he judged the ear must be, ‘Stand down or I’ll fire.’
He saw, now, in close proximity and with his night vision becoming more acute, the side of Montrose’s face, his eye swivelled towards Purkiss.
Purkiss let go of the hair and dropped his hand and felt for the handgun and prised it out of Montrose’s grip and flung it aside.
He shoved the almost invisible shape away and backed into the room, the Walther in his extended right hand. He reached up blindly with his left hand and flipped the master switch.
The light above sputtered and caught, flooding the room with a brilliance that made Purkiss blink. Montrose himself was squinting against the light, his knees slightly flexed, his hands open in readiness at his sides. Beyond him, through the open door, Budian hovered, her expression dazed.
Purkiss jerked his head at her. ‘Get suited up and wait at the front.’ When she didn’t move, he said, ‘Go.’
To Montrose he said, ‘Walk backwards through the door and turn to your right. Keep moving.’
Montrose stepped back carefully, his hands groping for the door to orientate himself. As Purkiss followed him into the corridor he risked a swift glance back up to the entrance. Budian was there, pulling on a snowsuit.
When Montrose had backed past the next door, Purkiss said: ‘Stop there.’ He advanced to the door, opened it with his left hand, stepped back and motioned Montrose inside. It was a store room for supplies. Purkiss cast a swift eye over the stacks and the shelves. His attention was caught by box from which a length of electrical flex spilled.
‘Get that box down,’ he said.
Keeping Montrose covered and at a distance of six feet, Purkiss pulled out the flex. Plastic ties would have been better, but he didn’t have time to go hunting for them. To Montrose he said, ‘Turn round and put your hands behind your back.’
For the first time, Montrose spoke. ‘You’re too late, you know.’
‘Maybe.’ Awkwardly, one-handed, Purkiss looped the flex around Montrose’s wrists. ‘But at least you’ll be able to provide some information.’
‘You’re assuming we’ll make it to safety before the troops get us.’
‘We?’ said Purkiss. With the gun still in his right hand, and for the first time not aiming directly at Montrose, he began to tie the flex. ‘Sorry, I think you’ve misunderstood. I’m not taking you along. A prisoner would just slow us down.’ He tightened the first knot. ‘They’re going to find you here, tied up like a Christmas present, and you’ll be back in Moscow before you know it, in a nice warm cell in the Lubyanka. They’ll do a far better job extracting information from you than I ever could.’
Purkiss had known Montrose would make his move sooner or later, and had decided to trigger it with the provocation most likely to do the job. He jerked his head aside as Montrose snapped his skull back, felt the man’s heel attempt to rake his shin. Purkiss brought the stock of the Walther down hard on the mastoid process below Montrose’s ear. Montrose sagged and Purkiss let the dead weight slide to the floor.
He moved more quickly, with both his hands now unencumbered, and trussed the man’s arms and legs so thoroughly his limbs were barely visible beneath the layers of flex. Purkiss found a chamois cloth and stuffed it in Montrose’s mouth, securing it with duct tape.
One of the boxes contained stationery. Purkiss chose a notebook and a ballpoint pen and wrote in Cyrillic lettering: This man is Ryan Montrose. He is involved in the extraction of nuclear-armed missiles from the lost Tupolev aircraft. The location of the aircraft is near the so-called Nekropolis, the abandoned research site ninety kilometres north-west. Montrose will have associates working to remove the missiles. The location must be identified immediately and quarantined.
It was the best he could do. It was all he knew that would be of use to the Russians. The FSB man he’d spoken to on the satellite phone, Wyatt’s handler, had said the location of the aircraft wasn’t known. Purkiss didn’t know why he’d said that, because the Nekropolis had clearly been shut down as a result of the Tupolev’s crashing nearby, which meant the authorities knew where it was. Could it be that the FSB man was being kept out of the loop?
It didn’t matter. Purkiss had to assume the man genuinely was unaware of the plane’s location. In which case, it was possible the troops were being sent to Yarovsky Station but not to the Nekropolis. Which meant Montrose’s colleagues, whoever and however many of them there were, would probably even now be working on the wreck, removing the missiles.
Purkiss took hold of Montrose’s ankles and hauled him into the corridor. He left him in the middle of the floor, and tucked the folded note between the coils of flex.
Budian stood by the main door, fully suited up. Purkiss strode across, pulling his own balaclava back on and fitting the goggles. She gazed at him, her eyes dull with shock. He glanced her over. She seemed unhurt, at least physically.