The Game (Tom Wood)

FIFTY-TWO





Coughlin drove. Leeson sat next to him. Francesca sat behind. Victor sat next to her. Hart sat on the back seat. Victor couldn’t see Hart, but he knew he was watching. The reason for that, however, Victor didn’t know. Maybe Hart was trying to decide if Victor really was Felix Kooi, like he claimed to be. Maybe he was wondering if Victor’s provocation of Dietrich had anything to do with Jaeger’s subsequent attempt to take Leeson’s gun.

They drove through the winding, narrow country lanes between the endless fields of olive trees before joining the motorway north to Rome. Dietrich followed in the Phantom. The drive took fifty minutes. Leeson directed Coughlin on which turnings to take when they reached the city, navigating through the industrial neighbourhoods and business developments of Rome’s southern sector.

Their destination stood between a massive structure housing self-storage units and the row after row of used cars in a dealership, a high chain-link fence surrounding the compound. Steel spikes like shark’s teeth protruded from a metal tube that ran along the top of the fence. Beyond the fence were two buildings. Coughlin stopped the minivan before a gate and Hart climbed out to unlock the padlock that secured it. He pushed it open and waved Coughlin through. The neighbourhood was quiet. An office block stood on the opposite side of the road. There were no residential buildings nearby and little through traffic. Units were shut down for the night.

Security lights illuminated the buildings inside the fence. Both were sizeable but one dwarfed the other. The larger was a prefabricated steel structure, modern and built purely for functionality. The smaller building looked at least a hundred years older, still practical but without disregard for its appearance. Its walls were of rendered brick, painted white. Red tiles formed a sloping roof.

‘It’s owned by a consortium,’ Leeson explained as the team disembarked from the minivan and Hart relocked the gate. ‘Growers from all over the region have their harvest processed here. Some of those families have been bringing olives to this mill for two centuries; one generation after the next following in their father’s footsteps. I think that’s quite beautiful. But it’s also similarly pathetic. We should strive to do better than our parents, not copy them.’

‘When’s the harvest?’ Victor asked, as though he was making conversation.

‘Not for some time.’

‘So the mill is empty?’

Leeson nodded. ‘We have it all to ourselves, yes.’

Victor saw that the white panel van Hart had driven to the farmhouse was parked in the six-metre corridor of space between the two buildings. Parked in front of it, further away from the gate, was another vehicle, almost as tall and wide as the panel van. A number of weatherproof sheets covered it, each tied down by ropes that ringed the vehicle. Victor would have recognised the dimensions even without the information supplied by Coughlin. This was the ambulance he and Dietrich had stolen, parked away from the road and hidden by sheets to ensure it wasn’t identified. It would make a good getaway vehicle, with room in the back for the entire team. Or it might be equally effective at providing a way of getting into a restricted area. He felt Hart watching him but didn’t look to confirm it.

‘One building for traditional production,’ Victor said, ‘and the other to utilise modern methods?’

‘That’s correct, Mr Kooi,’ Leeson answered. ‘There is a feeling – or prejudice, if you will – among some that the more machinery and technology involved in the production, the lower the quality of the oil. Hence one building to pander to such elitist nonsense and one for an efficient enterprise.’

He responded as if Victor was curious about olive oil production and Victor acted as if he was interested in such things and not the likely interior composition of the two buildings so he could begin strategising for his presence in either one. Something was wrong. There was an atmosphere between Leeson, Hart and Francesca that went beyond Jaeger’s recent demise. They all knew what Victor, Dietrich and Coughlin were going to discover and what was going to happen next. Dietrich and Coughlin were oblivious to it, but Victor saw the shift in posture and body language; Leeson’s enthusiasm wasn’t purely because of Victor’s seeming interest in the mill’s product. He was growing increasingly edgy and excited.

Victor thought back to the events of the past twenty-four hours, searching for some indication of what he was about to find. He thought back to the journey with Francesca from Gibraltar to the farmhouse, and further back to the conversation with Leeson on the phone and that first meeting in the back of the limousine.

‘What are we doing here?’ Coughlin whispered.

Victor didn’t answer, because he didn’t know. He saw cigarette stubs littering the ground near the grated drain.

‘Is this where we’re doing the job?’

Victor shook his head. He didn’t know the mill’s purpose, but he knew it wasn’t the strike point. He knew enough to know that. It was obvious. It didn’t need to be deduced. Coughlin should have known that too. That he didn’t meant he wasn’t very smart. Victor looked at him, then at Leeson, at Dietrich, then Francesca and finally Hart. Hart had asked Victor what he thought of his teammates, including Coughlin. Victor had said Coughlin must be good if Leeson had hired him. Because you’re good, Hart had said. Dietrich was good in a fight, and maybe he was good in the field too, but his attitude and mentality were just about as bad as they could be. Coughlin was stealthy but too young to have any significant experience, and he was no thinker. Victor didn’t know much about Jaeger, but he’d got himself killed and death was always the ultimate separator. Kooi had been a competent killer, but he had failed to kill Charters as requested and if not for the attention drawn by the watch merchant would have been killed without incident. Kooi, Dietrich, Jaeger and Coughlin. All average operators. All lacking. Except Hart. He had foiled Jaeger’s mutiny in a matter of seconds.

It didn’t make sense.

‘This way,’ Leeson said.

He led them down the corridor of space between the two buildings, past the white panel van, and to a door that led inside the bigger and newer of the two structures. Victor noted that the fluorescent ceiling lights were already switched on, illuminating the large interior. A corrugated metal roof stood ten metres above, supported by steel girders and pillars. Gleaming modern machinery filled the majority of the floor space. Victor saw conveyor belts and centrifuges, vats and tanks, pipes and chutes and massive presses. Everything was shut down and dormant and strangely silent. Ear defenders hung from hooks near the door for use when the mill was operational, but now the only noise was that of their footsteps on the hard flooring. The whole space was immaculate: diligently and meticulously cleaned after the last harvest had ended.

Coughlin and Dietrich shared an expression of curiosity and Victor made sure to wear a similar one. In contrast Leeson was still excited, Hart relaxed yet purposeful, and Francesca ambivalent.

A door on the far side of the mill led to corridors and to other doors that would lead in turn to testing rooms and offices, changing rooms and toilets and other facilities. Leeson pushed open a door into some kind of meeting room, perhaps where managers and supervisors would discuss the day-to-day business of olive oil production. Whiteboards hung from the far wall. Flipcharts stood before them. A wastepaper bin sat nearby. Cheap plastic chairs, that during the harvest season would no doubt be arranged in uneven rows facing one wall where someone would stand in front of the whiteboards and flipcharts, were stacked against one wall to free up the room. There was another door at the far end.

‘Cool,’ Dietrich said.

Cheap veneered tables that matched the chairs were arranged into a large square in the middle of the room. On top of the tables stood a model. It was made of white plasticard, meticulously cut and glued and arranged to form a scale reproduction of a building. The model was about three feet long by two wide and two high. It had a roof, but that roof sat next to the rest of the building so its interior could be seen: individual rooms, open rectangles for doorways and stairs. The floor could be lifted out to reveal the one below it and the ones below that. The building the model represented was a grand structure, similar in dimensions to a grand country villa or hotel.

Victor had seen models like this before, if not for a very long time. He remembered memorising layouts and angles and likely danger spots and the best points of cover and concealment. He would stand silently with men just like him as they were briefed on the coming mission.

The group spread out around the model without being told. Coughlin and Dietrich stood closest to the arrangement of tables so they could get a good look at the model, leaning over it to see inside and ducking down to peer through the windows.

Victor ignored it because the corners of the flipchart pages were curled and the covers creased, the whiteboards were smeared and marked and the wastepaper bin was full with scrunched-up balls of paper. He moved to a position a couple of metres back from the model, at an angle where he could see without having to turn his head the door through which they had entered and the far one.

‘Gentlemen,’ Leeson began, ‘this is the strike point.’

FIFTY-THREE

‘What is it?’ Dietrich asked.

Victor looked at Leeson as he said, ‘An embassy.’

‘He’s right,’ Hart said.

Leeson smiled. ‘How very perceptive of you, Mr Kooi. But I can’t say I’m surprised at the speed of your uptake.’

There was something dangerous in his voice.

‘Whose embassy?’ Coughlin asked.

Leeson looked to Victor. ‘Any astute guesses?’

Victor shook his head because he knew who it belonged to.

‘It’s the Russian embassy,’ Leeson explained.

‘Where?’ Dietrich asked.

‘In Rome, of course.’

Victor saw Hart watching for his reaction. He ensured there was none.

‘The target?’ Coughlin asked.

Leeson strolled to one of the flip charts and pulled up the cover. ‘This is the gentleman whose demise we’re all being paid to ensure arrives before nature intends.’

Four eight-by-ten photographs had been affixed to the first page of the flipchart. They all showed a man in his fifties. He looked short and overweight but otherwise likely to live naturally for a long time yet. The first photograph was head and shoulders, blown up from a wide-angled group shot. An arm belonging to someone else was draped over the target’s shoulder. The target was wearing a dinner jacket and smiling, a fat cigar nestled between his teeth. The second picture showed the target in safari gear, holding a rifle and smiling next to the corpse of a lion. In the photograph the target was sitting on the terrace of a restaurant with a younger date. Like the first, the photograph had been blown up to focus on the target and only a slice of the woman opposite him was included. The last picture showed the target’s profile as he walked along a busy street amongst out-of-focus passers-by.

‘Who is he?’ Victor asked.

Leeson said, ‘His name is Ivan Prudnikov. Mr Prudnikov is a Russian bureaucrat and is to be a guest of the Russian ambassador, a personal friend of his, who is hosting one of his famous receptions at the embassy for all manner of industrialists, delegates, politicians and dignitaries. They say there’s enough cocaine at these parties to drop a horde of elephants.’

‘Why kill him inside the embassy?’

‘Because that’s what the client is paying for, Mr Kooi. The specifics are of no relevance to you.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong. Every aspect of the job is of relevance.’

Dietrich said, ‘Why don’t you stop being a p-ssy and let the man finish?’

‘Though I don’t exactly approve of Mr Dietrich’s language, I agree with his sentiments. Perhaps, Mr Kooi, you would be so good as to leave any questions you have until the end?’

Victor remained silent.

‘As I was saying,’ Leeson began. ‘The client wishes Mr Prudnikov to be killed while in attendance at the upcoming reception at the Russian embassy in Rome. Here is a scale model of the embassy so you can familiarise yourselves with its layout. The flipcharts contain further intel on the target and the strike point.’

‘Any stipulation as to the means of death?’

‘I’ll come to that later, but for now I’m going to leave you all for a little while so you can get better acquainted with some of the facts of the mission, instead of listening to me drone on. I’ll be back before too long.’ He gestured to Francesca. ‘Come along, my dear.’

He left through the second door, Francesca following.

Victor walked over to the flipcharts and began examining the one Leeson had opened, to which the photographs of the target were attached. On the other pages were more photographs, extensive biographical information in the form of printed documents stuck to the flipchart pages, photocopies of Prudnikov’s passport, driver’s licence and birth certificate and copies of his handwriting and fingerprints.

The embassy was the focus of the second flipchart. There were schematics and blueprints and photographs of the interior, hand-drawn diagrams and names of staff and security and descriptions of procedures and protocols. Between them the two charts contained a wealth of information that must have taken a considerable amount of time and resources to compile. It would take days to become familiar with it all, endlessly flipping back and forth between the pages of the two charts – making the bottom corners of the pages curled and soft and frayed. It must have taken a week to build the model.

Victor turned away. Coughlin was examining the other flipchart while Dietrich’s interest was fixed on the model. He’d taken out the two upper floors and was peering down at the ground floor. Hart was standing on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall by the door through which they had entered, watching the other three men, but mostly Victor.

‘What are your thoughts?’ Hart asked.

‘That you already know all about this.’

‘I meant about the job: the target and the strike point,’ Hart said.

‘I know what you meant.’

‘Looks good,’ Dietrich said to Hart.

Victor raised an eyebrow. ‘In your expert opinion?’

Dietrich didn’t respond.

No one spoke further. Victor went back to examining the background on Prudnikov and the intel on the embassy. Hart continued to watch.



Leeson returned an hour later. He looked relaxed and confident and in charge and content. Francesca wasn’t with him.

‘How are we getting on?’

‘Fine,’ Dietrich said.

Coughlin said, ‘Not bad.’

Victor remained silent. As did Hart.

‘Fabulous,’ Leeson said. ‘I take it you’ve all had the opportunity to familiarise yourselves with the particulars of the upcoming assignment. To repeat: the objective is to kill Ivan Prudnikov while he is in attendance at a reception at the Russian embassy here in Rome. Gentlemen, I’d like to hear your initial impressions.’

Victor gave Dietrich and Coughlin a chance to speak. They didn’t. It was beyond their comfort zone; beyond their thinking. They followed orders. They didn’t plan. This wasn’t what they did.

‘It can’t be done,’ Victor said.

Leeson asked, ‘Why not?’

‘Many reasons: firstly, we’ll be going in with no weapons because the embassy will have security with metal detectors and wands and will possibly conduct personal searches. And even if we could get weapons inside the building – which I don’t believe is possible – there will be security personnel in the crowd at the party and important foreign dignitaries will have trained aides and bodyguards. Even discounting that, we can’t possibly know Prudnikov’s movements during the party. Just because he’s been invited to the reception doesn’t mean he won’t be powdering his nose with Bolivia’s finest off the breasts of a hooker in the ambassador’s private quarters. So that means we need two triggermen in different positions, ready to move in independently depending on where Prudnikov goes and who he goes with. But the embassy is a big building with lots of rooms and there’s going to be lots of people there, so we’ll need dedicated watchers not only to keep eyes on the target at all times, but also to watch embassy security and look out for unexpected problems. Which there will be, given this is to take place in an enclosed public space that’s also heavily guarded. With Hart and I as the triggermen—’

‘Hold it right there,’ Dietrich interrupted. ‘Who died and made you god of planning? If anyone’s going to be one of the shooters, it’s me.’

Victor ignored him. ‘With Hart and I as the triggermen, and Jaeger dead, that leaves just Dietrich and Coughlin as surveillance, and they’re simply not good enough.’

‘F*ck you,’ Dietrich said.

Coughlin glared.

‘We need more men,’ Victor said. ‘We need at least one more inside the embassy to provide surveillance and backup. Then we need watchers outside the building to keep track of who comes and goes and to provide continuous updates to those inside. That’s at least another two men. Whether it ends up loud or stays quiet, there needs to be another member of the team providing the means of extraction. And ideally another still if we want to disable the embassy’s security cameras and/or delete the recordings. That’s another five required, based on the current level of competence, if any of the operators actually wants to walk away without getting killed or captured.’

‘Don’t listen to him, Mr Leeson,’ Dietrich said. ‘We can do the job, no problem. Kooi is just scared.’

‘And we need more background information on the target. We have a lot about him but nothing about his work.’

Dietrich frowned. ‘What does it matter what the guy does for a living?’

Victor ignored him. He said to Leeson, ‘You said he’s a Russian bureaucrat. That’s a very general term. What part of the government does he work for? What does he do?’

‘You make some interesting points,’ Leeson said to Victor. ‘There are some facts that you aren’t yet privy to that might change your evaluation of the task at hand. Come with me, please. Everyone.’

Leeson motioned for the group to follow him out of the door they had entered through an hour ago. Coughlin followed first, then Dietrich. Victor hung back to let Hart go next.

‘After you, compadre,’ Hart said.