Haven Page 4

  Purkiss sprang back, felt the shot whine off the boulder beside him. He risked a quick look and saw Motruk running in his direction.

  It was what Purkiss was relying on: that the Ukrainian’s rage at having been tricked would trump his desire to save his own hide.

  Motruk fired again in mid-sprint, an amateur’s error. Purkiss waited, pressed against a rock. If the man came racing round the side Purkiss would have a chance. If he took his time to walk round slowly, leaving space to aim, it would be a different matter.

  Automatic fire spackled the cliff face and Purkiss ducked as a shower of gravel fell on him. He looked up, half-expecting to see Motruk drawing a bead, but he wasn’t there.

  Purkiss inched around the boulder and looked. Motruk had, after all, chosen self-preservation and changed course, running to the shore. He was aboard one of the boats with two other men, and as Purkiss watched the vessel arced off across the roiling water, peeling away from the direction of the ship and heading out to sea.

  *

  It was over relatively quickly. Three of the Siclians were shot dead by police marksmen. The rest surrendered soon afterwards, and those who’d made it to the ship would be rounded up once the ship was intercepted. One policeman had been injured by a lucky shot, but would live.

  Purkiss made his way up the cliff path, running the gauntlet of police officers who glared at him even though Cass had provided his description and told them to hold fire. At the top he saw Cass and Silverman in discussion with the officer in charge.

  Cass came over. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  It said all that needed to be said, with admirable concision, Purkiss thought.

  ‘Shame he got away,’ she said. ‘But we’ll get him somewhere along the line.’

  ‘He hasn’t got away.’ Purkiss took out his phone. ‘He told me you’d given him a phone in the beginning, but that the Sicilians confiscated it so they could listen to any secret calls you might make to him.’ He looked at her expectantly. ‘So what’s the number?’

  Cass gazed at him, then understood and glanced away. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but –’

  ‘We have to do it this way.’

  Unusually for her, she didn’t meet his eyes as she recited the number. Purkiss keyed it in.

  On the fourth ring it was answered in silence. Without pause Purkiss said in Italian, ‘Motruk? It’s Purkiss. Cass is here too. Listen, we can still salvage this. Stay with them and when you can, get message to us where you are. If it’s Sicily, we’ll liaise with the local police to make a swoop but leave you unhurt. You have my word.’

  He waited, heard an intake of breath at the other end. He said, ‘Motruk?’ Then he muttered, off to one side, ‘Damn it. Someone else has his phone,’ and killed the call.

  Like a hanging judge, signing the final piece of paper.

  Purkiss began to walk away up the grassy slope towards where his car was parked.

  Cass called: ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Home,’ said Purkiss.

  THE END

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  If you’ve enjoyed this story, and would like to receive email notifications of my new books before they’re officially released, sometimes at a special discounted price, as well as a FREE and exclusive John Purkiss short story, Spiked, sign up here. I’ll never give out your email address to anyone else, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

  Ratcatcher was the first novel in the John Purkiss series, and is available free to download everywhere. If you’d like to get it together with the next two novels, Delivering Caliban and Jokerman, at a saving of 25%, then check out the three-book box set here.

  A full list of all my books appears on the next page.

  My Amazon author pages are here (US) and here (UK). My blog is Thrillhound, where your comments are always welcome. If you’d like to email me, perhaps with comments about this story (good or bad!) please do: timstevens@aol.com. I’m on Facebook and Twitter.

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  Thanks!

  Tim Stevens

  BOOKS BY TIM STEVENS

  John Purkiss series

  Ratcatcher

  Delivering Caliban

  Jokerman

  Haven (short story)

  John Purkiss Box Set Volume 1 (Ratcatcher, Delivering Caliban, Jokerman)

  Spiked (short story, exclusive to mailing list subscribers)

  Tundra (coming in 2014)

  Martin Calvary series

  Severance Kill

  Annihilation Myths (coming in 2014)

  Shorter stories and novellas

  Reunion

  Snout

  As James Rush

  Omega Dog

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

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  FOUR

  MORE BY THE SAME AUTHOR