The God Game

by Jeffrey Round

  Footsteps stopped outside the door. There was a soft rap. Dan held still. After a moment the knob turned and the door opened, admitting a stab of light from the corridor. He couldn’t make out the face of the person standing there. A hand reached in and fumbled for the switch.

  Click.

  Nothing.

  Click.

  Nothing.

  The figure entered, closing the door behind him and stepping cautiously around in the dark. Then whoever it was stopped moving and seemed to be sniffing the air. Dan flicked on the desk lamp. In the gloom, he could just make out Peter Hansen’s startled face. In his hand, a gun.

  Hansen blinked, looked around and saw Tony.

  “Tony!”

  Tony sat up. His body seemed to shrink in horror.

  “Tony, it’s all right.”

  Tony stared at his husband standing across the room and holding a gun. Peter looked from Tony to Dan then back to Tony. Behind him, the door burst open and two men pounced. The gun went flying as they knocked Hansen to the floor and pinned him there.

  For Dan, it was déjà vu. Steve Ross appeared behind them and came over to look at the man pinned to the floor. Only this time there was no slit throat, no victim lying dead due to CSIS incompetence, intentional or otherwise.

  Tony was hyperventilating. He looked up. “Peter? What are you — ?”

  Before Hansen could say anything, the two men bustled him out the door.

  Once they’d gone, Steve looked quickly around the room, then came over to Dan. “How did you know it would be Hansen?”

  “I didn’t. I texted a number Simon Bradley had been hacking. Just like I texted you this afternoon to get you out of your office before I arrived. Bradley knew it was the Magus’s number. I assumed whoever had it would respond, even if Bradley was dead.”

  “Was Hansen alone in all this?”

  Dan shrugged. “That’s for you to decide. All I know is that I texted the number with Tony’s picture and Hansen turned up with a gun. Whether he killed John Wilkens and Simon Bradley isn’t for me to say either. He could have had someone do it for him.”

  “I’ll need a full statement from you. Tomorrow will do.” Steve extended a hand. They shook. “At least you were right this time.”

  “It happens sometimes.”

  Dan walked him to the door. Steve looked back at Tony.

  “And this one?”

  “I used him. He had nothing to do with this. You can leave him with me. I want to talk to him.”

  Thirty-Two

  The Magus

  The others had gone. Tony sat on the couch, hunched forward like a small boy, holding his head in his hands and crying silently. Dan thought of all the things they had discussed, how Tony’s father beat him when he drank, and how he’d married Peter because Hansen was nice to him and tried to help him clean up his life.

  “Did you know?” Dan asked.

  Tony shook his head. “No. I swear I didn’t know.”

  “Would you have told anyone if you did?”

  “I don’t know,” came the muffled reply. “I still love him. But why would …?” He trailed off, his body wracked with sobs. “I was supposed to disappear for good.”

  “After you met John Wilkens?”

  “Yes. We met at a political function. He was a nice man, even if he was on the wrong team. All I knew was I was supposed to be friendly to him and tell him I had information for him. I was to try to get close to his wife.”

  “His wife?” Dan stared. “You met her, too?”

  “Just once. That’s who gave me John’s private number. I passed it along to the Magus. To … Peter.”

  So he could tap his line, too, Dan thought. His mind was reeling. Anne Wilkens had said her husband had had no connection with Tony. He had believed her innocent of all this.

  “Only I was surprised when we met,” Tony went on. “She wasn’t at all what I expected.”

  Dan was only half listening, recalling his conversation with Anne Wilkens and how strenuously she’d tried to convince him that she believed in her husband’s innocence. Of course she had. She knew him to be innocent because she’d betrayed him. What had Nick said? That anyone who lied once would lie again. He turned back to Tony.

  “Not what you expected. What do you mean?”

  Tony looked at him in surprise. “Not really a trophy wife, was she? Must have been the money. Why he married her. I mean, her being so much older than him.”

  The penny dropped.

  “She was older?”

  “Oh, yeah. By a lot. Have you seen her? She could practically have been his mother.”

  Dan felt another buzzing in his pocket. Too late, he recalled Donny’s insistent messages. He pulled his cell from his pocket: five missed calls. In the urgency of the moment, he hadn’t felt a thing.

  This time he responded.

  “Everything’s fine,” he said.

  “Well, good. So nice of you to let me know,” came Donny’s measured response over the soft exhale of a cigarette. “I mean, your office blew up and then you disappeared again for the second time this week. I was just, you know, wondering if you were okay.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “That’s settled, then. At least now I can get some sleep. And I’m sure I shouldn’t ask because it’s probably classified information, but just where are you anyway?”

  “In Corktown. A swank place across from the Body Blitz Spa. I should give them a call. I’ll be needing them next, if they can fit me in.”

  “And Will?”

  “Will Parker? No, he’s not here. He wasn’t involved.”

  Donny spluttered. “I thought you said you got my messages.”

  “I did. I haven’t listened to them yet. What about Will?”

  “Oh, shit, Dan! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Will has been lying to you from the very beginning. That family he bragged about? The wife and kids? They don’t exist.”

  Dan felt a chill. “How do you know?”

  “I know because I did a little asking around. I told you I’d heard differently about what he’d been up to the past few years. I talked to some friends of friends. Will Parker has been HIV-positive for nearly twenty years. There are at least two men who claim he infected them without telling them he was positive. He never married anyone, male or female. Definitely no kids in the picture anywhere.”

  Dan was alerted by a sound from the kitchen. “Just a second,” he said, putting the phone on the side table. His brain was signalling an SOS as he headed to the kitchen. “Tony, get down on the floor!”

  Tony gawped at him for a second then dove for the floor.

  “Stay there!”

  The kitchen was in darkness. Dan reached for the switch and felt something hard strike him across the face. He howled in pain and bent over, holding his arms up to ward off further blows.

  “Back in the other room,” Will ordered, motioning with the gun.

  Behind him, the window was open onto the fire escape. Dan saw it clearly: Will sitting on the roof waiting for CSIS to leave before climbing silently down, balancing on the ledge as he lifted the latch and let himself in.

  Dan’s mind skipped backward over twenty years of sporadic connections, twenty years of struggling to piece together the mystery of Will Parker. Will the Radical. Will the Gifted Social Worker. Will the Solitary. And, of course, Will the Lawyer transformed into Will the Dutiful Government Employee. Bringing about the change from within he’d always said was necessary. Only Dan hadn’t expected it in quite this way.

  “Sit on the couch,” Will said, backing Dan into the living room. He looked over at Tony. “You, too.”

  Tony got up off the floor and sat on the sofa beside Dan. “Who is this guy?” he asked.

  “Don’t you know him?”

  Tony shook h
is head. “I don’t know him.”

  “He’s the Magus,” Dan said. “The man who makes history.”

  “He’s …? I thought Peter was …” Tony lapsed into a confused silence.

  Will sneered. “You know what they say — history’s a whore. She favours the man with the gold watch and the fat wallet. She lifts her skirt for the boys who run the show. The power-mad. The money-hungry. Someone has to change the balance.”

  “And this is your way of doing it?” Dan asked. “By breaking people’s reputations so our side can win?”

  Will shrugged off the comment. “We hardly live in an age of virtue and integrity, Dan. Take a look at the papers, the nightly news. Listen to our leaders. Do you think anyone is playing fair out there these days? Politics is war.”

  Dan shook his head. “Is it any different now than before?”

  “A lot. It used to be you could win an election based on promises: a free chicken in every pot, lower taxes, legalized marijuana. Anesthetize the dull and stupid. And if your candidate stays out of trouble before the votes are tallied, all the better. But politics has become too sophisticated, the stakes too high. And most politicians are just not very good at staying out of trouble. You can’t make people vote, but you can make sure the right people are set up to win.” He gave a rueful smile. “Not that there are any moral giants these days. You get to see it all when you work for the government: bids tendered without real competition, years of waste and corruption, so much mindless incompetence. Governments get in and it’s a free-for-all for their buddies. Payback time. It’s how they think. Someone has to change that.”

  “In principle, I don’t disagree with you. But not like this.”

  “Principles are the last things to go. People fight over them for decades until they can’t remember why they’re fighting. Vows? Promises? Forget about them. Our leaders do as soon as they’re in power. The lunatics have taken over the government. Not exactly news, is it? I’ve always believed in being responsible to the people. This is just my way of doing it.”

  “Then you’re insane.”

  “Is it insanity to fight hate and discrimination? Is it insanity to fight for fairness and equality?”

  “Oh, I see. The Sermon of the Righteous,” Dan said. “Rivers of fire and tongues of flame. What’s the weather report? Big Wrath Coming. What you’re saying is the end justifies the means. Might equals right.”

  “Why not?”

  “Jesus Christ, Will. Two men are dead!”

  Will shook his head. “Sometimes moral choices have to be made.”

  “Is that what you’re doing? Making choices about who lives and who dies like some kind of angel of vengeance? Because I’ve got news for you — murder is immoral.”

  “John found out things we couldn’t risk coming out before the next election.”

  “Because of Alec Henderson?”

  Will sneered. “Alec Henderson is an ass. An egotistical, fatuous ass. I wasn’t doing this for him. But his stupidity could have brought the entire government down.”

  “Then who were you doing it for? And why set up Hansen to look like he was behind all this?”

  Will gave him a disappointed look. “I’m surprised at you, Dan. I’m not setting up Peter Hansen to lose. I’m setting him up to win. I believe in what Hansen stands for. I just didn’t want this idiot” — he looked over at Tony — “ruining his chances. That’s why I paid him to leave.”

  “Paid for with money from John Wilkens’s account. Only Tony ruined your plan by gambling the money away and coming back into the picture.”

  “Sadly so.”

  “And in the meantime you were levelling the playing field, keeping a careful watch on our enemies.”

  “It’s worked in the past. Very nicely, I might add. Pity you ended up with Simon Bradley on your doorstep. If he hadn’t dropped his cellphone into your hands then none of this” — he swept the room with his gun — “would have happened. I’ll take the phone, by the way.”

  Dan shook his head. “I don’t have it.”

  “Don’t fuck with me. You texted me with it earlier.” He made a motion with his hand. “Please.”

  There was a sound of movement outside the door, muffled footsteps on the stairs. Will glanced quickly over his shoulder, then back at Dan. He pointed the gun.

  “Stay there and don’t make a sound.”

  He reached the door in three steps, slipping the bolt into place. Dan flew across the room, slamming his fists against Will’s back. Will swung back and struck Dan with the gun again, knocking him to the floor.

  He held the gun directly against Dan’s head.

  “I will fucking kill you!”

  “Go ahead. You’re going to anyway.”

  A floorboard creaked behind them. Will turned and aimed at the darkened kitchen.

  “Drop it!”

  Will fired, the flash illuminating the air around him. A return shot winged him, but he held onto his gun and fired wide, scattering plaster from the wall.

  “Get down! Get down!”

  Dan heard a shot and felt the reverberations as he dove for the floor. Two more shots followed. Will stepped backward, a look of surprise on his face. He dropped the gun and fell face-forward onto the floor.

  The place came alive as figures swarmed into the room. Officers in uniform, plainclothesmen in dull grey suits. Dan wondered where they’d been hiding.

  In plain sight, of course.

  When he stood, he felt winded for a moment. Getting old, he told himself.

  Nick’s eyes locked with his. “I told you not to try this shit without me,” he said before turning back to the room.

  Epilogue

  Grace

  One of the messages Dan had missed during all the excitement was from Lester. He’d discovered a trove of hacked calls and evidence of interference in government operations on Simon Bradley’s phone records. Among other things, it exonerated John Badger Wilkens III of any wrongdoing.

  Anne Wilkens was the first person Dan called when he heard, explaining what had come to light and offering condolences for the revelation of her sister’s involvement.

  She was silent for a moment then said, “I blame myself for what happened to her. She resented me for taking her fiancé away from her. I don’t think she ever recovered.”

  Dan wasn’t about to say that not everyone who lost in love turned up years later looking for revenge. Even if Doris hadn’t actively contributed to John Wilkens’s death, she had helped bring it about.

  Ked returned at the end of that week and took up residence in his old bedroom. The house suddenly felt a lot less lonely with his son around, Dan thought. Even Ralph regained some of his old liveliness. Yes, Dan thought, they would get through this together.

  A few days later, Dan put in a bid on a small office conveniently located within walking distance from his house. The offer was accepted on the spot.

  He invited Peter Hansen and Tony Moran over to settle his account for finding Tony. Not surprisingly, Peter had insisted he keep the money for his finder’s fee.

  “Won’t you need it in your run for the legislature?” Dan asked.

  Peter shrugged, glancing around at the empty walls. “Looks like you’ll need it if you want to have a proper office. In any case, I can always sell some art to finance my campaign. But the gay community is backing me. I’ve got a fundraiser coming up next week. I expect you to be there.”

  “I will. I have high hopes for you.”

  Dan had already heard the details of how his text to the Magus had been forwarded to Hansen, alerting him as to Tony’s whereabouts and resulting in his desperate, one-man rescue attempt. Will Parker had not been that far off from Baader-Meinhof tactics after all.

  “And as for you …” He looked at Tony, who still quaked like a rabbit. “I hear you’ve been cleared of eve
rything.”

  Tony nodded. “Yes, once I explained everything to them they said I was free to go.”

  “That’s good. You just got paid a lot of money to be someone’s friend and pass along whatever he told you.”

  “They told me he was a spy.” He hesitated. “Do you think I did anything wrong?”

  “No,” Dan said, truthfully. Just really dumb.

  Dan took his time as he contemplated his next move. As far as he was concerned, the story was still unfinished so long as certain crucial questions remained unanswered. He thought long and hard about what he needed to do.

  One morning at five, just two weeks after Will’s shooting, he found himself seated in a large open kitchen in a ranch-style home. The skylight would soon flood the room with the morning’s glow, revealing its opulent interior — fireplace, rugs, and an enviable collection of artwork — but he still had time to accomplish what he needed to do. It had been surprisingly easy to break into the house, but deactivating the alarm was another matter. He’d sweated over that for a considerable time before reassuring himself it had been properly decommissioned.

  He’d been sitting there a while when the door opened and Steve Ross stared at him with bleary eyes. Steve’s initial look of panic was instantly replaced with anger.

  “How the hell did you get in here?”

  “Your front door was open. I was passing by and I was afraid something very bad might have happened to you, so I let myself in.”

  “Bullshit!”

  Steve looked around desperately, as though missing something.

  “Your dog’s okay. He’s just drugged,” Dan said.

  “That’s one more thing I’ll have you charged with.”

  “Possibly. You know, I really have to hand it to you. You are smooth. I knew I was getting close enough to rattle someone’s cage, but I couldn’t figure it out. So I asked myself: what could John Wilkens have found that was so disturbing? Then, not long after I went stumbling around looking for who-knows-what, CSIS showed up. That should have tipped me off. It had to have been something extraordinary for Will Parker to call CSIS in.”