The Game (Tom Wood)

TWENTY-FIVE





There had been a time when the humble public telephone was never more than a street or two away in any western city. Though those days were long gone, they hadn’t yet disappeared entirely. The next morning Victor found a pay phone near Charing Cross station and inserted a handful of coins into the slot, punching in the number with the knuckle of his right index finger.

Muir had requested to be present for the call. She’d wanted it played through a speakerphone, and recorded and traced. Victor had politely declined.

Electronic blips and clicks sounded through the receiver before the dial tone began. It rang for five seconds before the line connected.

A male voice he didn’t recognise asked, ‘How old was the Scotch?’

‘Twenty-four years.’

‘Which seat did you sit in?’

‘Right side rear.’

Silence. It lasted eighteen seconds.

Then Leeson’s voice said, ‘How nice to speak to you again, Mr Kooi.’

‘Pleasure is all mine.’

‘Thank you so much for calling.’

‘No problem,’ Victor said. ‘But I didn’t think I would be hearing from you again after how we parted company.’

‘Ah, yes. Please accept my apologies for the abrupt nature of that conversation’s ending.’

‘No problem,’ Victor said again. ‘I don’t imagine you are used to people saying no to you.’

‘Very true, Mr Kooi. Though there are salient facts you are not privy to at this moment that affected my response. I shall explain all in good time. But before we reach that point I do hope there are no hard feelings between us.’

‘I’m a hard man to offend. And besides, I make sure my professional life has no bearing on my emotional state. And vice versa.’

‘Is that right?’ Leeson asked, and Victor detected there was more to the question than just the obvious.

‘No hard feelings,’ Victor assured Leeson as he watched the world outside the phone booth. Not for curiosity’s sake, but because a phone booth presented the kind of confinement and risk Victor preferred to avoid.

‘Tremendous,’ Leeson said. ‘I’m so pleased to hear you say that, Mr Kooi, because I would like to offer you employment.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘You don’t seem particularly surprised to learn I want to hire your services.’

‘Like you,’ Victor replied, ‘I’m good at hiding what I’m really thinking.’

Leeson chuckled. ‘Touché.’

A series of horns sounded in the street. A black cab had performed an illegal U-turn, blocking traffic going in the opposite direction in order to pick up a fare.

‘What’s the job?’ Victor asked.

‘I prefer not to discuss such delicate matters on the telephone, as I’m sure you can appreciate.’

‘Yet we’re speaking on one now.’

‘I thought it both necessary and polite to communicate with you directly, so I might assure you of my intentions. I doubt you would have agreed to another faraway meeting after how the first ended. And emails can be so very impersonal when one doesn’t want to leave a detailed record of intent.’

Victor inserted some more coins. The call charges for a foreign mobile number were rapidly draining his credit. ‘Where would you like to meet this time?’

‘I thought perhaps you might like to suggest somewhere.’

‘So I can be assured of your intentions?’

Another chuckle. ‘Something of that ilk, yes. How would you feel about somewhere hot?’

‘The ambient temperature is perhaps the least important factor to me.’

‘Then why don’t we get some sun while we talk? I could use a little colour.’

‘Sure.’ He paused as if he needed to think. ‘How about Gibraltar?’

‘An especially fine choice.’

‘Glad you approve. How about next Tuesday?’

‘As you decided upon the location, I would prefer to elect a date and time.’ He paused briefly. ‘If that is agreeable, of course.’

‘I have no objection. But I’ll need twenty-four hours’ notice.’

‘Noted,’ Leeson said. ‘I look forward to doing business together, Mr Kooi. Goodbye.’

The line disconnected.



Muir waited in the dinosaur hall at the Natural History Museum in central London. For a while Victor watched her and those who came and went through the exhibits, paying particular attention to unaccompanied men and women who were neither young nor old. There were a lot of tourists and families, but no one who he made as surveillance. He hadn’t expected Muir to bring anyone, but he would never stop checking.

She took her time, reading every card, examining each exhibit because he’d told her where to wait but hadn’t specified an exact time. She was early. He had been earlier.

A case of fossilised eggs had captured Muir’s genuine interest and his reflection in the display’s glass protector informed her of his approach. She acted as though she hadn’t seen him and he approved of the attempt at deception. He did nothing to let her know she’d seen him only because he’d allowed her to, because he wanted her to continue building an inaccurate opinion of him.

‘Hello,’ he said.

She turned, and acted as though a little surprised. ‘Hey.’

‘Are you enjoying the exhibits?’

‘Are you kidding me?’ She put her elbows to her stomach and pulled in her forearms to her chest, clawing her hands in an impression of a Tyrannosaurus rex. ‘I love all that roar-roar stuff.’

She surprised him. ‘What are your thoughts on the hypothesis that the T. rex was a scavenger, not a predator?’

‘I was kidding.’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re a dinosaur nerd?’

‘I have an interest in natural history.’

She smiled and gave him a doubting look. ‘Keep telling yourself that. I bet you had the dino lunchbox and everything.’

He ignored her and glanced at a procession of schoolchildren filing into the hall.

‘Let’s move on.’



Victor took her into a wildlife photography exhibition for which there was a charge for entry and hence fewer people. The lighting was dim so that the illuminated photographs could be better appreciated. They were almost uniformly spectacular, if the winning shot was uninspiring – a political, instead of an aesthetic choice. He took her to a position from which he could watch the entrance to see who followed. He recounted the phone call with Leeson.

‘He’s still being cautious,’ Muir said when he’d finished.

‘He may want to hire me, but he doesn’t trust me.’

‘Is there going to be another test?’

He shook his head. ‘No. He may not trust me as an individual, but he trusts I can do whatever it is he needs doing.’

‘Any idea yet who the target might be?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t like the idea of you meeting him again without knowing what you’re walking into.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because we’ve pushed our luck once already.’

‘I don’t subscribe to the concept.’

‘Of luck? Then call it whatever you want. I’m talking about factors outside our control here. I assume you subscribe to those?’

He nodded and said, ‘Leeson had the opportunity to kill me in Budapest when I stepped out of his limousine. He didn’t take it, and that was the best chance he’s ever going to get.’

‘If you’re sure you want to go through with this.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Okay, good. Because I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to.’

‘You couldn’t make me.’

‘That’s not what I meant. I’m not going to ask you to do anything you don’t want to do. Better? Are you always this pedantic or am I a special case?’

‘I always prefer to be exact when my life is on the line.’

‘Okay, I can appreciate that,’ she said, nodding. ‘I’m just a little tense, you know.’

Victor nodded as if he knew. ‘I’ll arrive in Gibraltar tomorrow.’

‘You could end up waiting there a long time. Leeson didn’t indicate when he’d meet you, right?’

‘He didn’t, but it will be soon.’

‘Why do you say that? He doesn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry.’

‘He’s not improvising here. He’s working to a specific timeline. He’s gone to a lot of trouble to make sure Kooi is the right man for the job. If he waits too long his perfect assassin might get caught, or killed, or take some other job. Besides, if time wasn’t a factor he would have sent Kooi on another contract first after he failed to make Charters’ death look like a suicide. Leeson isn’t the kind of man to accept less than perfect if he can help it.’

‘Plausible. But he gave you the choice of where to meet. You could have picked anywhere in the world. Anywhere can take a long time to get to and back from.’

‘He didn’t give me a free choice. He was trying to use suggestion to influence me. He asked me to pick somewhere, but suggested somewhere hot. Where’s guaranteed to be hot at this time of year in Europe?’

‘You didn’t have to select Europe. You could have gone to a hundred different places.’

‘I could have, yes. But before he asked me where I wanted to meet, he justified the phone call by saying he wouldn’t have expected me to agree to another faraway meeting. Like I said, suggestion. Besides, going halfway across the world isn’t something Kooi or anyone else would choose to do without a good reason. It would make no sense to choose somewhere like Peru just for the sake of it. If I had, Leeson would have politely suggested somewhere closer to home. He wanted me to think I had a choice. As he said, to assure me of his intentions, but in reality he was trying to manipulate me into going somewhere that suited him. I played along, but I knew what he was doing.’

‘Even so, you could have chosen Greece, Italy, Morocco… There are plenty of hot places that aren’t a world away.’

‘And what do all those countries have in common?’

It took her three seconds to work it out. He would have preferred her to do so in two or less. ‘The Mediterranean.’

Victor nodded. ‘Leeson suggested somewhere hot because he wanted me to pick a country that bordered the Med.’

‘But why?’

‘Because when I meet him, we’re going on a little trip.’

‘To where?’

‘I don’t know, but somewhere that can be reached by boat. Could be France, Italy, Egypt, Cyprus. Maybe even up to the Black Sea.’

Muir nodded too. ‘Easier to slip into a country unnoticed that way.’

‘Which is why you’re having such a hard time tracking Leeson. He doesn’t use planes. He either takes a boat, or uses that huge car of his. He can get from one end of Europe to the other and never have to show his passport or have his name in a computer.’

‘Just what the hell is this guy up to?’

‘That’s what you want me to find out.’

‘I know this is probably a redundant question, but how do you know he’ll set the meeting soon?’

‘I offered him a date next week, but he said he’d let me know when. The implication was that it was too soon for him, so he’ll think I’ll expect it to be later than the date I suggested. Therefore he’ll choose earlier, to catch me off guard. The less warning I have, the safer he’ll feel. Kooi’s account will get another email, either tomorrow or the next day, and I want to be in the city well before he wants me there.’

‘He really doesn’t trust you, does he?’

‘He’s right not to. But this is just how he operates. This isn’t purely because of me. He doesn’t trust anyone.’

‘I don’t know why anybody would choose to live like that. Surely there are easier ways to make a little money.’

‘Not everyone has a choice.’

Her eyebrows appeared above the rim of her glasses. ‘Don’t give me that BS. Everyone has a choice. Everyone has free will.’

‘It’s comforting to believe that, isn’t it?’

‘Very.’ She smiled a little. ‘You’re going to need to wear a tracker. If he’s going to take you from Gibraltar to who knows where then we have to keep you in our sights.’

‘Not an option. I’ll be searched.’

‘Trust me, we can hide it. You wouldn’t believe how small these things are these days. They won’t find it.’

‘I said it’s not an option.’

‘Then you can’t go through with it. He could take you anywhere. We still don’t know that this isn’t some kind of elaborate trap. Maybe Kooi killed Leeson’s wife. Maybe this is revenge.’

‘I told you, he could have killed me in Budapest. He didn’t. He needs me. The only danger is that he finds out I’m not Kooi.’

Muir took a breath. She considered. ‘Okay, we’ll do it your way, as agreed. But you’ll have to find a way of getting hold of me as soon as you know what the job is, or where you’re going. So as you can. Don’t wait for us to meet in person. Call, text, email, whatever. Okay?’

Victor shook his head. ‘That might not be as simple as you think. He’s not coming to Gibraltar to discuss the job with me. There won’t be any more tests. There won’t be any more discussion. Phase one is over. We’re moving into phase two. Planning.’