The Game (Tom Wood)

The Game (Tom Wood) - By Tom Wood




ONE





Algiers, Algeria

The killer was good. He moved with a fluidity and economy of motion that made him seem relaxed, almost carefree, yet he was ever aware of his surroundings and always alert. He had a lean, forgettable face that looked a little older than his thirty-five years. He was tall, but of average height for a native of the tallest nation on the planet. A resident of Amsterdam, Felix Kooi worked as a freelance assassin with no allegiances. He sold his services to the highest bidder, whatever the job, in a career that had endured at least ten years. That career was about to come to an end.

Kooi had a room at the El Aurassi hotel but spent little of his time there, always leaving shortly after dawn and returning only during the evening, never using the same route or the same entrance twice in a row. Each day he ventured around the city like a tourist, always walking, never visiting the same location more than once, but exploring every medieval mosque, museum and sightseer destination Algiers had to offer. He ate in restaurants and cafés, but only those serving Algerian and North African food. He walked on the seafront but never lazed on the beach.

Today Kooi was in the old town – the Casbah – and had spent an hour wandering around the market near the El Jidid mosque. The market was a huge, sprawling arrangement of tented stalls selling everything from wicker baskets to live chickens. It was centred on an irregular square and seeped along the numerous adjoining alleys and side streets. He seemed to do nothing beyond browsing; enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of such a vibrant gathering of people and merchandise.

Victor had followed Kooi for three days. In that time he had learned that Kooi was good, but he wasn’t exceptional. Because he had made a mistake. A mistake that was going to kill him.

Victor’s CIA employer didn’t know the reason for Kooi’s cover as a tourist in Algiers. Procter didn’t know if the Dutch assassin was preparing for a contract, meeting a broker or client, obtaining supplies, or lying low from one of the many enemies he had no doubt made in a decade-long career as a hired killer. Victor had followed him for three days as much to determine that reason as to devise the best way to kill him, even though he didn’t need to know it in order to fulfil the contract. Such knowledge was important because maybe someone was as keen for Kooi to live as Victor’s employer was for him to die. Getting caught in the middle of such a tug of war was not something Victor was eager to repeat.

Three days shadowing Kooi around the city had been a necessary aspect of the precautionary measures Victor employed to stay alive in the world’s most dangerous profession, but unnecessary because there was no secret to uncover. Kooi wasn’t working. He wasn’t meeting a contact. He wasn’t on the run. He was on vacation. He was acting like a tourist because he was a tourist.

And that was his mistake. He was a tourist. He was in Algiers to relax and have a good time, to explore and see the sights, and too much of his focus was on being a tourist to effectively protect himself from someone like Victor.

A merchant selling carved wooden statuettes caught Kooi’s attention and he listened and nodded and pointed and examined the man’s wares. He said nothing in return, because he didn’t speak French, or else didn’t want the trader to know he did. Victor watched from a distance of twenty metres. Kooi was easy enough to see, being at least half a head taller than the locals occupying the space between him and Victor, and Victor’s similar height ensured that his line of sight was rarely interrupted unless he chose for it to be.

Kooi was aware and alert but he was a tourist and his counter-surveillance techniques were basic, and basic had never been a problem for Victor. He was more cautious in return, and Kooi hadn’t come close to identifying the threat. He had seen Victor, because Kooi was good, and like Kooi, Victor’s height and ethnicity made him stand out in Algiers, but because he was only good and not exceptional, he hadn’t marked Victor as anything other than a tourist. Victor knew this because Kooi’s behaviour hadn’t changed, and no one who learned an assassin was following them acted exactly the same as they had prior to the acquisition of that knowledge.

The Dutchman’s lack of precautionary measures in his downtime told Victor he hadn’t experienced the same kind of professional learning curve that Victor knew he had mastered by virtue of the fact he was still capable of drawing breath. He wasn’t envious of Kooi’s comparatively charmed existence, because that existence would soon be over.

‘Mister,’ a voice said to Victor in heavily accented English, ‘you buy a watch.’

A young local man stood to Victor’s right, showing his lack of teeth with a wide smile. He wore brightly coloured linens. His black hair jutted out from the top of his skull in unruly clumps. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal skinny forearms ringed by wristwatches, counterfeit unless the man had several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise weighing him down while not having enough money for a toothbrush.

‘No, thank you,’ Victor said, shaking his head in an exaggerated manner for the kind of emphasis necessary to persuade local traders to try their bartering skills elsewhere.

He didn’t seem to notice. ‘I got for you Tag Hour, Rolax, all the nice ones. Look, look.’

‘No,’ Victor said again, his gaze on Kooi, who had a wooden statuette in each hand and seemed to be deciding on which to purchase. He chose one and handed over some cash for the winning selection. The Dutchman was smiling and nodding, pleased with his purchase or amused by the trader’s rapid-fire overselling. He slipped the statuette into a thigh pocket of his khaki shorts.

‘Look, look,’ the young watch guy said again, about ten decibels louder. He waved his arms in front of Victor’s face.

He gestured with his hands to show he was interested in the watches when his only interest was stopping the local attracting attention. Kooi wouldn’t hear over the din of the market, but he might notice the young man’s waving arms and the shiny watches glinting in the sunlight.

‘That one,’ Victor said, pointing to a Rolex with hands that didn’t sweep.

A toothless grin stretched across the seller’s face and he unclasped the watch while Victor counted out a fair price for it.

‘No, no,’ the young local said, ‘not enough. More. More.’

Victor obliged him with another note, having followed the bartering convention of underpaying. However much he offered the local would want more.

He slipped on his knockoff Rolex and left to follow Kooi, who had extended his lead by another five metres in the interval.

‘Bye, mister,’ the young local called behind him. ‘You have the good day.’

Kooi took his time strolling through the market. He took a circuitous route, but only to make the most of the experience rather than for any tactical consideration. He continued to check his flanks on occasion, but Victor walked directly behind his mark. It would take a one hundred and eighty degree turn for Kooi even to see him – a move that would give Victor plenty of notice not to be there when he did.

Fabric stalls and small stores selling local fashions lined a twisting side street into which Kooi veered. He didn’t stop to examine the wares, but he walked slowly, head rotating back and forth in case anything caught his interest. Victor let the distance between them increase, because now they were out of the main market square the crowd density had dropped by around thirty per cent. Had Kooi been more active in his counter-surveillance, or had he simply walked faster, it would have made Victor’s task more difficult, but even if he did lose him, he knew where the Dutchman was staying.

Kooi was in Algiers for another week based on his flight and accommodation bookings, so there was no time pressure, but Victor would take the first opportunity that presented itself. Regardless of Kooi’s relaxed attitude to his own security, he was a competent professional and therefore a hard target, and there was no guarantee Victor would get more than one chance to see the contract through to completion.

He hadn’t identified a weapon, and Kooi’s khaki shorts and short-sleeved shirt were not conducive to hiding a firearm, but he could easily have a knife in a pocket or in a belt sheath or on the end of a neck cord. Plus, bare hands could be equally deadly if employed correctly.

There were no requirements to the successful completion of the contract beyond Kooi’s death, but Victor preferred not to identify an assassination as one if it could be avoided. He planned to keep it simple – a mugging gone bad. Common enough the world over. He had a folding knife in the pocket of his linen trousers. It was a local weapon, bought from a street vendor not dissimilar to the toothless young watch seller. Not the kind of quality Victor would prefer to work with, but it was well made enough to do the task he’d purchased it for. As long as he could get within arm’s length of Kooi, he could cut any one of several arteries that were protected only by the thin skin of the neck, underarm or inner thigh. A seemingly superficial cut, luckily placed by an aggressive robber, inducing death in minutes before medical help could be reached.

All Victor had to do was get close to Kooi.

The Dutchman continued his exploration of the city, leaving the old town and wandering to the docks where he gazed out at the Mediterranean and the many boats and yachts on its blue waters. He took a seat outside a restaurant with an ocean view, and used his teeth to pick grilled lamb from skewered brochettes and ate aromatic couscous with his fingers. He was slim and in shape but he had a big appetite.

Victor waited nearby for the hour Kooi spent over his meal and followed as his target headed back into the city. He didn’t take the same route back – that would have been too reckless, even for a man as relaxed as Kooi – but he walked in the same direction, taking streets that ran close or parallel to those he had already walked.

Kooi surprised Victor by heading back to the Casbah market. That didn’t fit with his MO of never visiting the same locale twice. The market crowds enabled Victor to close the distance between them and he pictured the rest of the route back to Kooi’s hotel. There were numerous quiet alleys that would present all the opportunity Victor needed to complete the contract. He could get ahead of Kooi easily enough, knowing his ultimate destination, and come at him from the front – just another tourist exploring the wonders of Algiers – maybe sharing a nod of recognition as a couple of guys with similar interests, strangers in a strange land, the kind who could end up friends over a few beers. By the time Kooi realised the man heading in his direction was a killer like himself, he would already be bleeding.

A simple enough job. Dangerous given the target, but uncomplicated.

Victor was surprised again when Kooi led him to the same part of the market square they had been in earlier. He wasn’t exploring any more. He had a purpose. The Dutchman removed the wooden statuette from his shorts and set about swapping it for the one he had rejected previously. The merchant was happy to oblige, especially when Kooi gave him some more money.

‘Hey, mister,’ a familiar voice called.

Victor ignored him, but the toothless young man sidestepped into his path, his arms glinting with watches. Kooi headed off.

‘You buy another watch, mister? For your wife or lady. She like nice watch too, yes?’

Victor shook his head and moved to step around him, losing a couple of metres on Kooi in the process. The local didn’t let him pass.

‘I give you good price. Buy the two, get the one cheap. Good deal. Look, look.’

‘No,’ Victor said. ‘No wife. No lady. No watch. Move.’

But the young guy, buoyed by his earlier success and Victor’s reappearance, didn’t want to understand. He blocked Victor’s path, waving and pointing in turn to the women’s watches that circled his lower wrists and mispronouncing the brands.

‘Please,’ Victor said, trying to get around the guy before he lost Kooi, but not wanting to hurl the seller away and risk the attention such a commotion would create.

Kooi turned around. He caught something in his peripheral vision, or maybe he decided to examine some novelty after all. He eased himself through the crowd, not looking Victor’s way – yet – as he made for a stall.

‘Good price,’ the watch seller said, holding out both arms to block Victor’s attempts to get by. ‘Your lady like you a lot.’ He smiled. ‘You know what I say?’ He puckered his lips and made kissing noises.

‘Okay, okay,’ Victor said. ‘I’ll take that one.’

He reached for his wallet to end the standoff before Kooi noticed, but the Dutchman glanced over when the young trader clapped his hands in celebration at securing a second sale.

Kooi saw Victor.

There was no immediate reaction. He stared for a second, because he realised he had seen Victor before. He stared for another second, because he didn’t know where. He stared for a third second, because he was assessing the chances that a lone Caucasian male he had seen before and who had just been directly behind him was simply a tourist too.

And he ran.