The Game

by Tom Wood

He stopped the car two hundred metres from the mill, next to the used car dealership, and killed the engine. The drive had taken almost eleven minutes. In eighteen minutes’ time he was supposed to be on the terrace. He pulled off the tuxedo and threw it into the back of the minivan. He unbuttoned the shirt and dropped it into the footwell while he unfastened the vest.

  Francesca came round. She groaned and stirred and raised her eyebrows and blinked and grimaced. Then she turned her head and looked at him as though she had woken up after a full night’s sleep. Her eyes were still bloodshot, but she was focusing on him now and not at some point behind him as she had done. Hart had been correct when he’d said the effects wouldn’t last long.

  She said, ‘What’s going on?’

  Her words were quiet but clear. He didn’t answer. The vest was heavy and difficult to take off in the confines of the driver’s seat, but he couldn’t risk doing so outside in case someone saw.

  ‘Why aren’t we at the embassy?’

  He didn’t answer that either. He put the shirt back on.

  Francesca stared at him and the vest he no longer wore. She peered through the windscreen and saw where they were. Her mouth opened to speak but no words came out. He saw her eyes look to the passenger door a second before she went for the handle. The door didn’t open. She tried a few times before reaching for the unlock button on the console.

  He grabbed her arm.

  ‘Let go of me.’

  He didn’t. She struggled and tried to jerk her arm from his grasp. He kept hold of her while with his free hand he buttoned the shirt back up.

  ‘Oh no, Felix. What have you done? God, what are you doing? Dietrich’s going to kill them. Don’t you understand? Your son is going to be killed.’

  ‘He’s not my son,’ Victor said. ‘He’s Kooi’s son.’

  She stopped struggling because she heard the truth in his voice. ‘I don’t understand. What are you talking about? Who are you?’

  He didn’t answer. It was 8.30 p.m. so he thumbed out the last code and sent it to Hart. He replied a few seconds later. Francesca stared, understanding.

  ‘You’re crazy. You’ll never get them out of there. This can’t possibly work.’ She shook her head, breathing heavily. ‘If you’re not Felix Kooi, who are you?’

  ‘That’s not important, Francesca. What’s important is that you tell me where in the mill Lucille and Peter are being held.’

  ‘I… I can’t do that. Whoever you are, you must understand that. What do you think you’re going to do? You can’t get them out of there. Drive back to the embassy. There’s still enough time. I’ll tell them you panicked but you’re going to go through with it. That’s the only way you can save them.’

  ‘Tell me, where are they?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to hurt you. I have very little time left, Francesca, so I’ll do whatever I need to so that you tell me what I need to know. You need to decide right now how this is going to work.’

  She stared across at him. She was breathing heavily. She was scared because in Budapest he’d given her a first-hand demonstration of his ability to inflict pain. But a lot had happened since then and the fear slipped away from her face. ‘No, you won’t. You’re not going to hurt me, Felix – or whatever your name is. Ever since the first time we met you’ve been trying to convince me to walk away from this. Why is that?’ He didn’t answer. ‘You like me. I know you do. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? You care about me. You wanted to save me from this life, remember? You didn’t want me to get hurt. So you’re not going to hurt me now, are you?’

  Victor stared straight ahead, through his reflection on the windscreen glass. ‘Last chance, Francesca.’

  She smiled at him, softly, sympathetically. ‘You don’t really believe you can get them out of there before Hart finds out you’re not at the embassy. They could already be dead. But if they’re not your family why do you even care? Let me out of the car and drive away. By the time I tell Robert what’s happened, you’ll be long gone.’ She touched him on the shoulder, lightly. ‘Or we could go together. Just the two of us. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  He punched her in the face.

  Not hard, because he didn’t want to knock her out, but hard enough to burst her bottom lip wide open. She reeled away, blood smeared across her chin and cheek, face screwed up from the pain and shock, eyes wide with fear, the bloodshot whites showing all around the irises.

  ‘Where are they?’

  She didn’t hesitate. ‘Beneath the older building. There’s an underground mill. From Roman times. They’re in there.’ She touched her lip and examined the blood on her fingers. ‘Why did you do that? You didn’t need to do that, you piece of shit.’

  Victor pictured the terror in Lucille’s eyes and the searching gaze of Peter as he stared at the man he believed was his father. Victor pictured what might happen to them because of Francesca’s complicity.

  He turned in his seat, reached across to where she sat, and broke her neck.

  SIXTY-TWO

  Security at the used car dealership was poor. There was a nominal barrier that would stop a car being driven off the forecourt but it took less than a second for Victor to climb over it. He carried the vest slung over one shoulder and the seventeen-shot handgun in his waistband. He kept low as he hurried between the lines of cars until he came to the chain-link fence that surrounded the mill complex. It was four metres in height and topped by a tube of metal from which triangular spikes protruded in spiralling rows. An insurmountable obstacle. At least for the kind of intruders that kept olive mill owners awake at night. Whoever commissioned the fence had never imagined it would need to keep out someone like Victor. And it wasn’t going to.

  He waited in the dark, watching and listening until he was sure no one was nearby in the compound. The modern mill building stood three metres away on the other side of the fence, creating a near-perfect barrier to block line of sight from anyone in the old building or in the corridor of space between the two. He stepped back and threw the vest. It arced over the spikes and dropped down between the fence and the building. It made a distinctive thud and Victor drew the handgun in case someone heard the noise and investigated. But no one did.

  There were five heavily armed paramilitaries on the far side of the fence with him. Plus Leeson and Dietrich. Seven enemies. He had less than twelve minutes left before Hart realised he wasn’t in the embassy.

  He secured the gun in his waistband, stepped back to create enough distance and took a running leap at the fence. He cleared a couple of metres and climbed the rest. The fence shook and rattled, but he didn’t have the time to climb it quietly and it would be impossible to do so without making some noise. If no one had heard the vest land no one would hear him climb.

  When he reached as far as his fingers could grip, he walked his feet up until they were almost as high as his hands and he protruded from the fence in a right-angled U shape. He straightened his back and bent his legs inward until his shins were almost vertical and parallel with the fence. He then pushed his legs straight and let go with his hands so that he stood with only his feet supporting him, jammed into the links, and only the strength of his thighs preventing him losing balance and toppling over backwards.

  He bent his torso forward, contorting over the spikes and reaching out downwards with his hands as if going to touch his toes. He gripped the fence and felt the spikes pushing against his stomach. He locked and tensed his arms and straightened his back, lifting his legs away from the fence, then brought them up until they came in line with the rest of his torso and he was vertical and upside down. He adjusted his grip and bent his torso to one side, his legs tilting with his torso until gravity took over and swung his body the right way up. Finally he let go with his hands, dropping the last couple of metres.

  He went into a low squat to lessen the impact and turned around.

  Victor hooked the vest back over his shoulder and readjusted the gun i
n his waistband so he could draw it with speed, but he couldn’t risk a gunshot unless there were no other options. He had no knife or other quiet weapon. His hands would have to do the job instead.

  Coughlin waited and watched. On the terrace were close to a hundred men and women, almost indistinguishable from one another in their black evening wear. But he could see easily enough that neither Kooi nor Francesca were among them. It was 8:35 p.m. so there was ten minutes until they were scheduled to join the crowd outside to await the ambassador’s speech. Within half an hour the bomb would explode and Prudnikov would be dead and the job completed. ‘You’re sure I’m still getting paid even if Kooi backs out of this, right?’

  ‘He’ll comply,’ Hart replied. ‘Whether or not Leeson then pays you your fee is not of my concern.’

  ‘And the wife and kid will be free to go after Kooi blows himself up, yeah? Just like you and Leeson said they would.’

  ‘You mean Lucille and Peter?’

  ‘Yeah, Lucille and Peter. The woman and the boy. Kooi’s family. Who the hell else would I be talking about here?’

  ‘Perhaps you should be more mindful of your tone when you speak to me.’

  ‘Why aren’t you answering me? Kooi kills himself and buys the lives of his wife and son. That the deal. That’s what he agreed. I’m asking you now, if Kooi lives up to his end of the deal, you’ll live up to yours?’

  ‘Kooi doesn’t have a choice. He’ll do what we agreed.’

  ‘And will you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh man,’ Coughlin breathed. ‘What happened to the rules of war? What happened to women and children getting a pass?’

  ‘We’re assassinating the head of the Russian foreign intelligence service. Do you believe leaving witnesses behind who can attest to that fact is a viable course of action for someone who wishes to remain breathing? Can you imagine what the SVR would do to you if they even suspected you were involved in Prudnikov’s murder?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Coughlin said. ‘I can. But that woman wouldn’t say shit to nobody, not after all this. No way she would risk her son. And what about the kid? He’s just a kid. Why does he have to die?’

  ‘Why should he live? No one on this wretched planet is innocent. We all have hate in our hearts. We are all capable of barbarism if given the opportunity and means. That little boy could grow up to be worse than you or even me.’

  ‘It’s still not right.’

  ‘You’ve left it a little late to turn to morality, don’t you think?’ Hart took out his phone. ‘Get your focus back on that terrace and tell me the second Kooi appears.’

  Victor kept to the shadows and hurried along the exterior of the new mill, slowing as he came to the corner. He peered around to see the Rolls-Royce limousine parked in front of the building. The ambulance had been uncovered and was parked next to it. The back doors were open. Victor watched as one of the Chechens dropped out from inside the rear compartment. He wore a paramedic’s uniform. He was joined by another similarly attired Chechen, carrying a big bag for medical supplies in each hand. The bags would contain weapons and other supplies for the siege. The Chechen with the bags passed one to the other man, who climbed into the ambulance with it and placed the other on the ground.

  As far as they knew they would be leaving soon. They needed to be close to the embassy for when the bomb was scheduled to explode so they could be among the first responders who would be on the scene within minutes. But the ambulance was stolen and the longer it was out on the streets the greater the chance of it being noticed and the plan failing. Therefore they would leave at the last possible moment, which wouldn’t be until after Victor was due on the terrace. They would still be within the mill complex when Hart realised Victor was no longer at the embassy. They were dangerous men with access to automatic weapons. They looked anxious but they were not alert. But all that was going to change in less than five minutes.

  He waited until the second bag had been picked up and the Chechen was in the ambulance and made his way past the vehicles, keeping close to the new mill’s exterior, where the shadows were darkest. When he was out of line of sight from the back of the ambulance he circled around to it. He waited alongside the back doors for the Chechen to appear. The man dropped down from the rear compartment a moment later.

  Victor attacked him from behind, wrapping his right arm around the man’s neck as he snapped his free palm over his mouth and nose to muffle the Chechen’s scream and stop him breathing. He pulled him backwards and down, dragging him away from the ambulance as the pressure on his neck cut off the blood supply to his brain. He thrashed and struggled but within seconds he had gone limp. By the time Victor had dragged him between the new mill and the fence he was dead. Not the best hiding place, but he didn’t have time for anything else and no one would see the corpse unless they made a point of coming round the back of the building.

  He searched the dead Chechen, but found only cigarettes and a disposable lighter. He took the lighter and crept back around to the ambulance. Inside the back compartment he placed the suicide bomber’s vest beneath the newly loaded bags. There wasn’t time to hide it more thoroughly, but it should go unnoticed so long as no one searched for it. If someone did it meant Victor had failed and if he failed it was because he was dead.

  One of the double doors leading into the old mill was open and through the gap Victor could see the antechamber beyond. Inside it was the Chechen who had carried the bags, accompanied by another. They were packing AK-47 assault rifles into bags. Victor stayed in the shadows and moved by.

  The old mill was about half as long as the new building. At the north end, Victor saw a stone staircase leading down to what had to be the underground mill Francesca had described. At the bottom of the steps was a metal gate, padlocked. Lucille and Peter were down there. No one was around. There was no one in earshot. In other circumstances he could have undone the lock in under a minute, but he had no pick and no torsion wrench. The 9 mm bullets in the handgun would bounce off. But even if he could get them out right now, then what?

  They couldn’t climb the fence and he couldn’t lift them over it. There wasn’t enough room to get one of the vehicles up to a sufficient speed to ram the gate. Even when he had them out of the underground chamber they would still be trapped.

  There were four Chechens left, plus Leeson and Dietrich. At least two Chechens were in the old mill. It was where all five had been sleeping. It was where the supplies and equipment were kept. Victor had seen no signs that the modern mill served any other purpose except as a space in which to plan and rehearse. That time had passed. The two other Chechens were likely in there too, as were Leeson and Dietrich, but he couldn’t know for sure and there was no time to check.

  The big double doors were the only way into the old mill. The windows were protected with iron bars from the days before the modern mill was built and the chain-link fence had gone up. There were seventeen bullets in his handgun. Enough to have a double tap at each enemy and still leave five in the magazine. But only if he could take them all unawares. Which was impossible. He would have to deal with the two Chechens in the antechamber first. Not a problem, but it wouldn’t be silent, and then he couldn’t hope to assault the main mill area without Leeson, Dietrich and the two remaining Chechens being ready for him.

  Victor backed away from the old mill, then paused and waited in the darkness between the two buildings. He saw no one. He heard no one approaching. The entrance to the modern mill hadn’t been locked. Victor pushed it open and slipped inside. The lights had been left on. The machinery in the huge pressing room bounced back the light. On the smooth floor, a blurred and distorted reflection of Victor surrounded his feet. He stopped by the door and listened. He had the Russian’s handgun in a two-handed grip.

  He heard no one and hurried across the mill floor to the door opening onto the corridor that led to the planning room. He listened to make sure no one was immediately on the other side and slipped through, easing the door
closed behind him. He heard a rustle of paper and approached the planning room. The noise grew louder. There was a snap, followed by a grunt and then a tearing sound. Victor pictured one of the Chechens on cleanup duty: gathering the flipcharts and breaking the model down. He would be occupied and distracted. If he had a weapon it was almost certainly not in hand, but there was no way of knowing if the Chechen was facing the door and would see Victor enter. Then there might not be time to get into killing range without the Chechen first employing his weapon. Victor’s pistol was unsuppressed. The planning room was on the far side of the huge modern mill. There were lots of walls and machinery in between here and the pressing room of the old mill, but not enough to drown out the sound of a bullet. A gunshot would be clearly identifiable to anyone in the compound and some way beyond.

  Victor tucked the handgun into his waistband again, stood against the wall alongside the door next to the handle, and knocked once with his knuckles.

  The snaps and tears ceased in the planning room.