The Game (Tom Wood)

TWENTY-FOUR





London, United Kingdom

Some actors Victor didn’t recognise were promoting the premiere of a film he hadn’t heard of. From the huge posters, it didn’t look as if he would enjoy it. The hordes of people crowding behind the barriers in Leicester Square to get a glimpse of their idols told him he was in the minority when it came to modern cinema. Or cinema in general. He used to enjoy watching Harold Lloyd, but far preferred books to films. The special effects were more realistic.

It was Friday evening, 19:45 local time, and the sky was just beginning to darken. He’d flown in that morning, from Reykjavik to Helsinki, then to Amsterdam and finally to London. He had no concern that Muir would try to track him, for whatever motive, but he knew stringent adherence to protocol had saved his life several times. He couldn’t quantify how many times such precautions had saved his life without his knowledge. The longer he stayed alive the more enemies he created. The more enemies out there, the greater importance protocol took on, and the more disastrous the consequences of breaking it.

A chorus of claps and cheers sounded from the crowd as the film’s star climbed from a limousine. Victor clapped too. He didn’t know the man’s name.

‘I think he’s a bit wooden, personally,’ a woman’s voice said from Victor’s flank.

He turned to see Muir and acted as though he hadn’t tracked every inch of her circuitous route through the crowd towards him.

‘But,’ she added, ‘when he’s that handsome, who cares?’

‘It would appear no one does.’

‘Are you a movie fan?’

‘Absolutely,’ Victor said. ‘Who isn’t?’

She looked at him for a moment, debating whether to take him seriously or not. Instead, she asked, ‘Shall we take a walk?’

‘Your team having trouble keeping eyes on me in the crowd?’

‘I didn’t bring one.’

‘Sure you didn’t.’

He knew she’d come alone. But he didn’t want her to know that, for the same reasons he didn’t want her to know he’d seen her approach. Regardless of how this job turned out, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t find himself on a different side from Muir at some point down the line. The less she knew about how he worked and what he was capable of, the better his odds in that hypothetical future. Not against Muir specifically – she wasn’t on his level – but against the organisation she worked for and those of its employees who were.

‘I didn’t bring a team,’ Muir said. ‘Honestly.’

‘Okay, I believe you,’ Victor said, sounding as if he didn’t. ‘Let’s take a walk.’

He wasn’t sure when the decision had been made to use 1984 as a blueprint, but London was one of the most Orwellian cities on the planet. Closed circuit cameras were everywhere and the number of routes through the city Victor preferred to take got smaller with each visit as new cameras appeared. But even with the risk posed by the cameras, the huge city offered a great deal of anonymity.

He led Muir down a series of cobbled side streets and alleys until they had left the West End and the crowds of partiers and tourists and miserable Londoners who hated anyone capable of a producing a genuine smile.

He said, ‘I take it Leeson sent another message to Kooi’s email account.’

Muir nodded. She walked next to him, alongside the kerb because that was the only room he’d left her. He wasn’t expecting an attack from a car or across the street, but some habits came too naturally to ever change.

‘The email is from the same address as the previous one,’ Muir explained. ‘This one’s subject is Second Date. You must have made quite the impression.’

‘When?’

‘The message said at your earliest convenience.’

‘Where?’

Muir shook her head. ‘No location this time around. But there’s a phone number to call.’

Victor nodded. ‘Makes sense. He’s met me once. There’s no need to go through another face to face, especially as the first was set up purely to test Kooi’s reliability. I take it you’ve checked out the number.’ He gestured. ‘This way.’

He turned onto another side street lined with independent coffee shops, record stores and fashion boutiques. He smelt marijuana on the breeze.

‘The number you’re supposed to call is a cell phone. It matches that of a prepaid handset and SIM card bought together last week in Romania.’

‘Before or after I met with Leeson?’

‘Before.’

Victor nodded again. ‘The meeting wasn’t simply a formality, if that’s what you’re deducing from that.’

‘I get that it’s just Leeson being cautious and prepared. If you didn’t pass the test he could just ditch the cell. A few bucks down the drain isn’t likely to make him lose any sleep. Purchasing the phone in the same city where you met is just a smokescreen. He doesn’t know how much you can know or find out. But you know he was in Budapest. If he bought the phone in some other city he’s just giving away needless information about his movements. Give me some credit, please.’

‘I didn’t doubt you for a second. What about the industrial site?’

‘Owned by a Swiss real estate developing corporation. They’re going to build condos on it. The textile plant they demolished belonged to some industrialist whose business took a nosedive when the banks did the same. They’re clean. Rich people clean, if you know what I’m getting at.’

They were quiet for a minute while they walked past a crowd drinking on the pavement outside a pub. Pint and wine glasses rested on the pub’s broad windowsills.

The next street was quiet and Muir continued: ‘As predicted, we couldn’t trace the Makarov to Leeson. Like you said it was Cold War era and commissioned by the KGB a few years before the collapse. It sat with about a thousand others in crates in a warehouse outside of Minsk for a couple of decades, gathering dust until they vanished.’

‘Quite a magic trick for a thousand pistols.’

‘You got that right. Especially when the crates of AKs and RPGs they were stored with disappeared too. Coincidentally not long after a Russian multinational bought shares in the company that manages the warehouse and several others like it, which in turn is owned by a very unpleasant Minsk mafia crew. ATF is all over it because one of those rifles turned up in downtown LA, but they’re being stonewalled by Moscow because that Russian multinational just happens to have a guy called Vladimir Kasakov on their board of directors. You heard of him?’

Victor shook his head.

‘Heavyweight arms dealing scumbag. Literally heavyweight. Word on the street was that his business was in turmoil or he’d retired, but whatever. People always want guns. That’s never going to change, I suppose. So, how your driver got hold of the Makarov is anyone’s guess. I’ve passed the serial number to a friend inside ATF and they’ll add it to their file and in return if anything comes up, I’ll be first to hear about it. I know a little more about the driver.’

‘Hold that thought.’

A pair of police officers appeared ahead, rounding the corner at the end of the block about twenty metres away. They were both male, both in their thirties, both of useful dimensions. They wore standard-issue stab resistant vests but as they weren’t armed response officers, the only weapons they carried were truncheons and mace.

One spoke into a shoulder-mounted radio, and all Victor read on the man’s lips was some code he didn’t understand.

Victor glanced around. Alleys led off both sides of the street. Foot traffic was light. No cars passed. No other police presence.

Muir registered his reaction, and whispered, ‘Are they here for you?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘They’re alone. Just on patrol.’

‘Evenin’, ma’am,’ one officer said to Muir as they passed one another.

When they had reached the end of the block, Muir glanced back over her shoulder to check the two officers were out of earshot, then turned to Victor and said, ‘That was tense.’

‘Was it?’

‘What would you have done if they were there for you?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

She gave him a look.

‘The driver,’ Victor prompted.

‘Her name really is Francesca Leone. She was born in Italy but she’s what you would call a citizen of the world. I’d struggle to name all the countries she’s lived in. She’s thirty-seven years old, from a wealthy family, and a graduate of the University of Florence. Art history, if you’re interested. But what she’s been doing for the last fifteen years, aside from globetrotting, is a little sketchy. She’s been a painter and sculptor, she was a curator in a gallery in NYC, she’s modelled, been married a couple of times. She never stays in one thing in one place for very long, and there are large swathes of seeming inactivity in her resume. If I had to label her, I’d call her a nomad.’

‘Criminal record?’

‘She was arrested for possession of cannabis resin in Munich twelve years ago, but no charges were pressed. Daddy’s lawyers took care of that one. He’s dead now and she inherited a tidy sum to help her through the grieving process.’

Victor thought for a moment. ‘How is Varina Theodorakis involved?’

‘She’s not. She reported her taxi missing before you’d even landed. The plates had been changed. She doesn’t know anything.’

‘And Leeson himself?’

She shook her head. ‘Nada. There are quite a few Robert Leesons hailing from the US and the UK, but none of them were in Budapest at that time or own a Rolls-Royce Phantom. Do you know how much one of those costs?’

‘A lot.’

Muir’s cheeks puffed as she blew out a breath. ‘And the rest. There aren’t that many of them out there, thankfully, and I’m in the process of compiling a list of the owners, but the kind of people with the money to buy one also like their privacy. You haven’t asked me how Procter’s doing yet?’

‘Why would I?’

Muir raised her eyebrows and didn’t say anything for a moment. ‘Whoever the target is, he must be a major one for Leeson to go through all this to find the right man for the job.’

‘Quite.’

‘But what I don’t understand is why a man as careful to cover his tracks as Leeson would risk a face to face with an assassin he’s never met. It doesn’t fit with his MO.’

‘It fits exactly with the kind of man he is. It was the only way to truly know if Kooi could be trusted to do the job he needs doing. Leeson knew enough about him from the contracts in Yemen and Pakistan to confirm his operational skills, but he needed a measure of Kooi’s personality. He wanted to see exactly how he reacted when asked to kill Francesca there and then, and sitting opposite Kooi was the only guaranteed way to see if he passed the test. It wasn’t just about yes or no, but how Kooi responded. From Leeson’s perspective it’s preferable to hire someone who knows his face but won’t get caught than someone he’s never met who gets picked up by the authorities two minutes after the target is dead. Or two minutes before. He couldn’t have got the same level of insight any other way. If Kooi had agreed to kill Francesca, Leeson would have known he couldn’t be relied on, and would have had his marksman execute him. Nice and clean, no comeback, and he looks for someone else. But I passed the test and Leeson’s still clean because he knows I’m trustworthy.’

‘Except you’re not.’

Victor nodded. ‘Except I’m not.’

‘Trust aside, I’m not sure I’m convinced with the reasoning. It still seems too much of a risk, but I can’t justify it any other way, so I guess I have to agree.’

‘There is another reason.’

She read his look and stiffened slightly. ‘Stan?’

‘Kooi didn’t fulfil the contract in Yemen exactly how he was meant to,’ Victor explained. ‘It was meant to be a suicide just like the one in Pakistan – slit wrists – but Stanley Charters was too good and Kooi didn’t pull it off as planned. That made Leeson doubt Kooi’s suitability. He wanted an explanation. He needed to hear it from Kooi’s mouth. He needed to see his face while he explained.’

‘Then I don’t know how you sold yourself with that mark against Kooi.’

‘Neither do I. And it presents us with a significant problem.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it shows that Leeson didn’t want to hire just any suitable killer. He wanted to hire Kooi. Specifically him, so he was willing to overlook the Charters snafu.’

‘So what did Kooi have about him that made Leeson so keen to use him instead of someone else even though he made a mistake?’

‘I don’t know,’ Victor admitted, ‘but we need to work it out before Leeson brings it up. Otherwise, this is all over.’