by Tim Heath
“Yes, who is this?”
“Shane, I don’t have long. I’m sending you a new location and the details of who you are looking for, as the ticket at the bridge has been claimed. Check your messages once you are out of the station.”
By now the train had pulled away again, and as it entered the tunnel the signal dropped. In the Games Room, Sokoloff put together a short message. He included a photo of Talbot, all muscular and victorious looking, as well as details of where the Englishman had stayed the night before. He would most likely head there for his things, something suggested by the footage in front of them, where Trackers were live-streaming the locations of each Contestant onto a large map that filled one of the screens. Sokoloff sent the message, before returning to the centre of the room, a fresh drink in hand. If they thought he was out of this one already, they would have to think again.
At the Peter and Paul Fortress, the two women heading there found the same situation as most of the others––it was closed and securely closed. They would have to come back tomorrow.
On the Red line, at the second to last station, both Stafford and Arnold were waiting, each unaware of the other. Stafford had obtained a mobile phone, a cheap sim card purchased on the way so that he could keep in touch with Ambra, with whom he’d continued to ally. She called him as he arrived at the station, telling him that her target was closed. He’d suggested she come to meet him, that they would tackle this one together today and they could work together on hers the following day.
She had no idea if he meant that, but she agreed to join him anyway. It was as she arrived at the station that Arnold recognised the pair, though he kept out of sight, knowing they would spot him for sure if he showed himself.
As an engineer, he always thought logically about each challenge he faced, and the problem with the station was that the trains were coming too quickly to make it possible to get into the tunnel and back before the next train would be upon him. He had no idea if there were any doorways located in the tunnel––how could he without exploring, or better still, obtaining detailed plans of the track between these final two stations.
He wasn’t about to go into a situation of which he didn’t know the outcome. It seemed as if the other two were also coming to the same conclusion, as train after train arrived, and left, and they stood there discussing their dismal options.
It was as another train was approaching, the rush of air a tell-tail sign of its imminent arrival, and with Ambra off looking at a map of the metro, that Arnold made his move, breaking cover and heading directly towards Stafford. Crowds were gathering, the sound of the train now audible, too. Ambra turned from the map and caught sight of Arnold moving fast through the platform, the noise rising so that calling out would have been no help. With the train emerging through the tunnel and brakes only just being applied, Arnold shouldered Stafford hard from behind, his body forced forward, slamming into the front of the train as it rushed past, brakes screeching to a halt, but it was too late. Blood covered the windscreen, and his body fell between the lines.
Arnold, brushing past Ambra, had moved back through the crowds, people not aware of what had happened until a few screams were heard. The train had come to a stop halfway up the platform leaving half of its carriages still in the tunnel. Ambra ran forward but feared the worst. She’d seen what had happened.
With attention directed at the corpse, Arnold made his way up to the far end of the platform and jumped down by the rails. He entered the tunnel as quickly as he could, switching on a torch he’d purchased, knowing there would be very little light, if any, otherwise. He assumed he’d bought himself enough time to obtain the ticket and make it to the following station before the trains were running again.
Ambra didn’t know what to do. She realised stepping forward and saying she knew the victim would only delay her––potentially indefinitely––and that was time she couldn’t afford. He’d fallen to his death with the details of the ticket still on him, so she had no idea exactly where his one was located, and of course, had her own challenge in front of her.
After only a minute, it was clear from the looks of those at the edge of the platform that he was anything but alive, she left the station, needing fresh air. What had started out as an exciting game for her had now led to a murder happening right in front of her eyes. Was she also at risk of something similar from whoever she was up against? It made the whole ordeal, suddenly, even more severe. She needed space away from the crowds and had to think carefully about what to do next. Her very life might also be at risk.
The fact that one Contestant had taken the life of another so savagely was a fresh revelation to all the Hosts.
So, they were actually prepared to kill for the money. It added a whole new level to proceedings.
Svetlana Volkov immediately made some calls. The body needed protecting, it couldn’t be dealt with by the general police––and most importantly, it had details about the ticket on it. An order was put out, the area sectioned off, a special team on their way to remove the body and do a general cleanup. The longer it all took, the easier it made it for the other Contestant; his main competitor was out of the way.
He’d been seen entering the tunnel, and as the team were arriving on the platform to remove the corpse, one station further down at the end of the line, Arnold was seen exiting from the tunnel and then from the location itself, almost certainly in possession of a ticket from Ireland worth €20 million.
16
Sasha had picked up on the call to his office about the death at the metro. The fact the FSB had been asked to get involved on something that should have been easily handled by the police made it suspicious in itself, let alone the point that a foreigner was involved.
He hadn’t told his two British counterparts about the call until he’d done some digging. He was given the name––a British national at that––early in the afternoon. The train driver who was in profound shock was still being questioned. Video footage had been obtained from the station platform, and Sasha was waiting for a copy of that to be sent to him.
In the meantime, he ran the name against arrivals into the city. If a foreigner had arrived, he would have filled in a migration card, which got time-stamped at the point they entered the country, meaning Sasha could use that knowledge to obtain the exact video footage from the airport of the victim. Once he had all of this information, he made the call to Alex.
“Yes, what do you have for us,” Alex said when he answered his mobile.
“Stafford Davison, a British national who entered the country four days ago, fell in front of a train today at an underground station.”
“Is this linked to the Games in any way?” It didn’t seem relevant to them if it wasn’t, though with the victim being a British national, there was at least that angle for them to have been interested enough.
“I’m not certain right now, but a couple of eyewitnesses suggest he was pushed. This was no suicide. Unconfirmed reports state another man was later seen exiting the tunnel between the two stations at the end of the line. I’m awaiting video footage. The fact it has even come through to my office suggests someone has pulled some strings. I’m not the lead on the case, I’m getting it secondhand and off the record.”
“Okay Sasha, that’s very helpful. Keep us informed. We’ll speak again soon.”
Alex put the phone down, Anissa standing near him, picking up a little from Alex’s tone during the conversation. Alex filled her in on everything that Sasha had told him.
“It’s got to be connected. But what does it mean?”
“I don’t know. But if Sasha can work out who the other man was, we’ll know who we’re looking for. If we can bring him in, we’ll have direct access to everything they are doing.”
“No one has ever died before, as far as we know.”
“Let’s see what Sasha can uncover, shall we, and take it from there.”
The following day was a little milder, temperatures above zero, meaning the
clouds were dropping rain onto the saturated ground, clearing away what little snow had fallen the day before. Everything was grey as a thick cloud covered the skies above the city.
Shane had spent the night watching Talbot’s hotel. He’d seen no sign of the Englishman but knew, following a pleasant conversation with the girls at reception, that Talbot was still in his room. Shane had some explosives still on him but didn’t want to use them in such a public place. He had no issue, however, using them on anyone at anytime if it meant meeting his goal, and that of his boss. The victory was to come at whatever cost––that point had been made to him very clearly by his Host.
Arnold had returned to his hotel the previous night but had checked out, opting for a much smaller––more hidden––establishment. He woke with a start before seven due to noises heard in the corridor outside his room, though it was only some guests making their way to breakfast. The events of the previous day blurred back into focus in his mind, his head still swollen from where he had been struck in the warehouse. He’d killed a man. He’d done it to buy the time he needed to enter the tunnel, but now he sat on the edge of his bed wondering if it could ever justify his actions. He’d acted on impulse, seeing an opportunity that might not present itself again, leading to the death of someone he’d never known.
It had been the presence of the girl that had spooked him the most, seeing them working as a team together like that. He’d acted without involving his conscience in what he’d done. The dash that he then took down the darkened tunnel was hard to recall, and many hours on, he was still in shock––not to mention the fact he had millions to claim from the ticket that sat on the table next to his bed.
There were more noises down the corridor; they were coming for him, his increasingly paranoid-self was screaming at him. Sooner or later they would catch him, he was sure.
By half-past ten that morning, the queues were already growing outside the State Hermitage as the doors opened and the first visitors started to enter and buy their tickets. In the lines were both Contestants––Hilary and Ambra––the latter hoping to have had the support of Stafford. His death––the image of his body hitting the train, the screams of those around her––still flooded her mind. She’d slept very little last night.
Both were sure the other was somewhere in the line; every face a potential threat, each person perhaps out to get them. The lines moved slowly but steadily, and both women were in the museum by eleven. The French Impressionist wing of the museum was located on the upper floors on the front of the building, looking out over Palace Square. Only the New Year tree remained in the square next to the marble column, the staging and rigging used to host the big concert on New Year’s Eve now packed away.
Hilary climbed the main stairs up to the second floor and navigated her way into room after room of paintings by some of the most recognisable artists in the world. Her guidebook, a few years old, detailed the pictures that she was looking for by the French artists. It was only once that she reached where she thought she needed to be, that she discovered they weren’t there anymore.
She wasted no time, showing the page of her book, the painting in question clear to see, to one of the women who sat on the many chairs dotted around the building, most with glum faces though this one at least did show some life.
“Excuse me, where is this painting?” Hilary asked, pointing to the one shown in her guidebook.
“These moved,” she said. “Last year, over there,” and she pointed out of the front window, to the building the other side of the square.
Hilary was confused, standing there for a moment, wondering if what she was being told was correct. The woman, as if sensing her hesitation, maybe fearing she had been misunderstood, said in her limited English, “That picture, in that building over there.”
As she stood at the window, she saw a single female walking away from the building in the opposite direction from the ever-lengthening queues.
Hilary looked at her watch.
The place had barely been open for forty minutes. Then the woman walking away glanced to one side for a moment, as if sensing she was being watched, and Hilary recognised her at once. She was there looking for her ticket as well!
Hilary turned, leaving the room straight away, heading back for the entrance, working her way through crowds of people coming the other way, until, after ten minutes, she was back out of the front gate.
She ran out, across the square and towards the building in front of her, getting closer to the entrance, where the queues were thankfully minimal. About to enter, she saw Ambra leaving through the other door, the two women making eye contact briefly, Hilary initially meaning nothing to the Spaniard. Apparently, she had no idea who Hilary was.
Hilary paused, not now intending to enter the building––clearly the ticket was no longer there. She watched Ambra walk away, but after walking thirty metres, as if sensing again she was being watched, the Spaniard glanced back towards Hilary, catching her stare, and started to run. Hilary immediately gave chase.
17
The phone on the side table rang again. Alex went over and picked it up, not recognising the number.
“Hello?”
“Alex, it’s Andre.” Andre Philip had been their insider on this one, dating back many months. He’d given them their original lead that the Games existed, before disappearing entirely from the scene for most of the previous year. He was a highly guarded secret, the identity of whom not even Alex’s superiors had known, to their extreme annoyance.
“Andre! Where are you?”
“Can’t say right now. Look, I have five locations for you. These are all real time in the city you’re currently in.”
He apparently knew they were currently in St Petersburg. What else might he know about them?
“Go on,” Alex said, pen in hand. Anissa had come closer the moment Alex mentioned their contact’s name.
“Top of St Isaac's Cathedral, underneath Palace Bridge, French Impressionist rooms of the Hermitage, the armoury at the Peter and Paul Fortress and between the last two stations on the Red Line south––Leninsky Prospekt and Prospekt Veteranov.”
“Got them, thanks,” he said. Andre wasn’t aware of what had happened the previous day at the metro station, but his reference to that as one of the five locations only added value to this information. The call went dead.
“Let’s grab our coats, we need to get moving,” Alex said, standing up, jacket going on. Anissa followed him out through the door. “We’ll need to split up. We can leave the metro line out of it. I think that location has seen its action already. Anissa, you head to the Hermitage, see what you can come up with there. From there the bridge is quite close, I believe. I’ll head for the fortress. We can hit St Isaac's together after. I’ll call Sasha on the way.” They went their separate ways.
Five minutes later, Alex was finishing his call with Sasha. “So, we can assume the tipoff yesterday about a German man heading for St Isaac's was, in fact, Games related.”
“So it would seem. It sheds light on the metro incident, too.”
“Look, I’ll come to the fortress and meet you there. You aren’t going to have much luck without my help, I dare say.”
“Thanks, Sasha, you’re a great help.”
“Well, don’t tell my superiors that, will you.”
Alex smiled, though the Russian’s precarious position within his own ranks was no laughing matter. Sasha was already risking everything, helping them as he had been for so many months. The FSB was still investigating the death of another agent who’d dared to work with MI6 under the radar, as Sasha was only too aware.
Anissa’s taxi pulled up alongside the Hermitage. After paying the driver, she got out and walked a hundred metres that it took to get to the gates. It was before noon, and the queues were much shorter, the crowds thinning ahead of the afternoon rush.
Once inside, she headed straight to the rooms still marked up on a museum copy of the building. Sasha had sent through a
photo of the main paintings in question while she was on her way. They didn’t yet know which specific picture the Contestants needed to find, but they would be searching for it.
Reaching the three interconnected rooms, Anissa saw no sign of any of the paintings. She showed her phone, opened on the image of the most famous painting previously on display there, to the same woman who had been sitting there all morning, an almost comical smile appearing across her face.
“You are the third person this morning to ask about that painting,” she said, rather matter-of-factly. “It’s not here, but in the building opposite.”
“The third person, you said?”
“Yes, two women––foreign like you––also came asking just minutes after we opened.”
“Thank you. I’ll enjoy what you do have here, instead,” Anissa said, making out as if she was carrying on regardless. Once into the next room, she called Alex.
“Is Sasha with you yet?”
“Expecting him any minute. Why?”
She explained what had happened, and what she’d found out about the other two enquiries.
“See if Sasha can get hold of CCTV footage for the first half hour of the day. It’ll give us two faces, for sure.”
“Good thinking, I’ll mention it as soon as he arrives. Are you going over to the other building?”
“I don’t see the point. The museum opened over ninety minutes ago. They were here right away, so chances are the ticket is long gone. If Sasha can access the security camera footage, we might have something more to go on. I’ll head to the bridge now, to see what I can find out there.”
