The Game

by Tom Wood

  ‘Until you checked out Kooi’s charity.’

  ‘Correct. It was more than just a front so he could jet all over the place without drawing suspicion. It was how he handled his business too.’

  ‘Let me guess: Kooi had erased anything that might link to a previous job. But since his death, the broker, not knowing Kooi’s dead, has made contact.’

  She nodded. ‘Just once.’

  ‘A new contract?’

  ‘It’s instructions for a meeting: a date and a time and a location. I think it must be a follow-up: part of an ongoing dialogue. There’s nothing about a job. Nothing about a target. The title of the email is “First Date”.’

  ‘How romantic.’

  ‘I think the title is significant. I think it’s their first face to face.’

  ‘I made the same association.’

  ‘The client who hired Kooi said he never met the broker. Never saw him. Never spoke to him. We know absolutely nothing about him except for the fact Kooi is supposed to meet him.’

  ‘And you would like me to go instead.’

  She nodded and said, ‘Yes,’ even though he hadn’t been asking a question. ‘This isn’t a contract. You just have to go to the meeting in Kooi’s place. You don’t have to kill anyone.’

  ‘Then have a team stake out the location and see who turns up thinking they’re going to meet Kooi. I’d recommend using different people than the ones you put on me yesterday.’

  ‘That isn’t going to work. I don’t believe the broker will be at the location to meet up with Kooi personally. At least, not initially.’

  ‘What is the location listed in the email?’

  ‘Budapest International Airport.’

  ‘Ah,’ Victor said.

  ‘Exactly. The airport isn’t random, is it? There’s going to be someone waiting in arrivals with a card to collect Kooi. That person isn’t going to be the broker. I pick them up and when they don’t turn up where they’re supposed to when they’re supposed to or make the scheduled call or email or whatever, the broker is going to vanish. And the guy I pick up? Maybe they’re only there to ferry Kooi and they know nothing about the broker. What if they’re just a taxi driver? It’s just not going to work. I need someone to go in Kooi’s place. I can’t just send one of my guys because I don’t know what has or hasn’t been discussed between Kooi and the broker. I can’t brief the person I send in. They’ll have to improvise.’

  ‘Which is why you need someone who knows the industry well enough to bluff their way through the encounter.’

  ‘I’m authorised to pay you your agreed fee,’ Muir said. ‘Whether the meeting lasts all day or three minutes, whatever the outcome, you’ll get the money.’

  ‘What are you hoping to achieve?’

  ‘It’s about taking down a bad guy and preventing an assassination. Plain and simple. I don’t want the broker hiring some other killer when no one turns up to meet him. These guys aren’t exactly knocking off bad guys.’

  ‘That’s not all you want.’

  ‘Kooi may have killed Charters, and the guy rotting in a black site jail wanted him dead, but this broker made it possible. He shouldn’t be the only one who gets away with it. We look after our own at the Agency, and we make sure they get justice.’

  ‘You need an answer now, don’t you?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Desperation is stamped all over your face. So this meeting is going down soon. Don’t tell me, tomorrow?’

  She shook her head. ‘Tonight.’

  FIFTEEN

  The waters of the Danube were grey and choppy. Ferries and pleasure cruisers passed in both directions. A seagull floated on the waves. Muir leaned against the low stone wall and watched it. The breeze pulled loose strands of hair from her hair band. Victor saw a kid waving at them from one of the passing boats and returned the gesture.

  ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

  Muir didn’t hesitate because she found the question embarrassing, but she also didn’t answer automatically. She watched the gull take off from the water and flap away. She looked over her shoulder at him, answering his question with one of her own: ‘How is my age relevant to what we’re discussing?’

  ‘Any question I ask is relevant.’

  She considered for a moment. ‘Okay, if you believe it’s important to know my age, I turned thirty last week.’

  ‘Happy birthday for last week.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Muir said after another pause, this time to decide on his sincerity. She turned around to face him properly and leaned against the stone fence.

  ‘Law or history at college?’

  ‘I majored in law.’

  ‘Never wanted to be a lawyer?’

  ‘Sure I did.’

  ‘So why aren’t you one?’

  ‘I don’t have the right qualifications on my resume: I have a conscience.’

  ‘CIA straight out of college?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No gap year? No seeing the world?’

  She shook her head. ‘On whose dime? I worked three jobs to help pay my tuition.’

  ‘So you’ve been at the agency for about eight years.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said, hesitantly.

  ‘You’re a little inexperienced to be running this kind of show.’

  ‘I’m good at my job.’

  ‘I don’t doubt you are, but that’s not the only reason you’re speaking to me, now is it? And if you’re as good at your job as you say you are then you’ve already worked out that reason for yourself.’

  She didn’t want to say it. For a moment it looked as though she would change the subject, but she said, ‘You’re saying Procter chose me to deal with you because he believes you’ll find it harder to say no to a woman.’

  ‘I’m not the only one who thinks that, am I?’

  Muir’s eyes narrowed a fraction. Behind her glasses, he almost didn’t see it. She adjusted them. They didn’t need adjusting. ‘The thought has crossed my mind. It’s the twenty-first century but that doesn’t mean some guys aren’t still cavemen at heart. Procter thought you’re less likely to say no to a woman. He also thinks you’d be less likely to kill one if you reacted badly to being contacted like this.’

  ‘Why would a man be more deserving of death than a woman in a given scenario?’

  ‘Chivalry. I don’t know. It’s how we’re wired as a society. Women receive lighter sentences for the same crimes as men. I’m not saying it’s right, it’s just how it is. If it’s not true in this case then why would Procter think it?’

  ‘Because a good man – or woman – hopes to see the same good in others.’

  Muir stared at him, attempting to identify any subtext, but found none.

  ‘Do you believe I’m more likely to accept this job because you’re a woman?’ Victor asked.

  She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’

  ‘It matters to me.’

  Frustration was obvious in her expression. ‘Yes, okay? I believe it does. I think it has to make a difference otherwise Procter wouldn’t have sent me. He hasn’t got a concussion, and like you said yourself, he’s good. He’s smart. He considers everything. If it didn’t matter he wouldn’t have sent me. There are guys who would have been more suitable.’

  ‘“More suitable”?’

  ‘Better,’ Muir said. ‘Men who have double my experience.’

  ‘Most people don’t care how or why they get a break. They just want one.’

  ‘I didn’t enter the intelligence business so I could be a pair of legs.’

  ‘You want an op assigned to you based exclusively on your proficiency, not your gender?’

  ‘Of course. It’s an insult that my gender is even considered relevant, let alone if it actually is relevant. It makes me angry, so what? It pisses me off. Wouldn’t it you in my place?’

  ‘I don’t get angry,’ Victor said. ‘And please correct me if I’m wrong, but an essential contributing factor to my suitabilit
y for this job of yours is the fact that I, like Kooi, am male.’

  She stared at him, trying not to show her annoyance. But she couldn’t stop the capillaries widening beneath the skin of her cheeks any more than she could stop her pupils dilating.

  ‘If you’re trying to jerk my chain then let’s not waste any more of each other’s time, okay?’

  ‘I’m simply trying to understand you.’

  Muir examined his face, trying to determine what he was thinking. She hadn’t yet worked out the futility of such an attempt, but the annoyance became confusion that became hope. ‘Does that mean that you’ll do it?’

  After a moment, he said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because I’m a woman?’

  ‘Do I seem like a knight in shining armour to you?’

  ‘Then I can only assume you trust me.’

  ‘I trust that you understand the consequences of showing yourself to be untrustworthy.’

  She nodded. ‘I’m here to play fair with you. I don’t know how to do anything else.’

  ‘Good,’ Victor said, ‘because if I’m played in any way the one thing I won’t do is play fair in return. Procter can tell you about that too.’

  ‘Understood. You don’t need to be concerned about being compromised. You’ll deal with me and me alone. We’re going to be a two-person show. Procter said that’s the only way you would do it.’

  ‘He was right. I take it you have all the information on you that I will need.’

  She reached into a pocket. ‘Everything I have is right here.’ She withdrew a tiny flash drive. ‘Don’t lose it.’

  Muir passed it to him and he pocketed it, thinking briefly about what had happened the last time he’d had a memory stick on his person that contained valuable information. He turned his mind away from the past because he would only survive the future by concentrating on the present.

  ‘There’s not as much intel as I would like,’ Muir began, ‘but that’s why I need you to fill in the blanks. Once you make contact we have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen next. But I think we can assume that after you’ve been picked up at the airport you’ll be taken—’

  ‘If you’ve supplied me with all the facts you have there is nothing you can speculate on that I won’t consider myself.’

  A pause, then, ‘Okay.’

  ‘If I’m blunt it is because we’re operating on a limited time frame, and, unless you’ve been withholding a significant amount of your personal history, I know more about this business than you do.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, of course. I understand. No offence taken.’

  ‘Good, then you also need to understand that once I accept a job I’m in charge. I’m not an employee. You supply me with all the intelligence you have and I’ll make the decisions on how to proceed with it. Agreed?’

  ‘Sounds perfectly fair. What I’m asking you to do is meet the broker and learn as much about him as you can. If that means accepting a job, great, I want to know about that too. I want this broker and the client too. So agree to anything he wants as long as it keeps him talking and gets you hired. Be his perfect assassin. You’ll need to wear a wire so we can record what he has to say and I’ll have some of my guys follow you from the airport.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘No wires. No guys. Whoever this broker is he isn’t stupid. He’s used Kooi before but he’s never met him in person. But he plans to now, because whatever this job is it’s big enough to require a face to face. He’s having someone else pick him up at an airport for a reason. He knows Kooi wouldn’t risk trying to carry a gun on a flight, and collecting him straight from the airport means he wouldn’t be able to get one on the ground. This broker is cautious. He’s careful. There’s a very good chance I’ll be searched or he’ll have electronic countermeasures. So no recording device of any kind. And your guys just aren’t good enough. I’m not having my life balancing on their skills at remaining unseen.’

  Muir sighed and looked away. ‘Then it’s a no go. I can’t send you in without backup and if we don’t get anything useable on the broker then there’s no point going through with it.’

  ‘If I get hired the broker is going to tell me the target and the job specifications. With that you can work back to the client.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Yes, maybe. But that’s the risk you’re going to have to take.’

  She stared back out at the river. ‘I don’t exactly have a lot of choice, do I?’

  Victor remained silent.

  ‘Okay,’ she said eventually, ‘we’ll do it your way if that’s what it’s going to take.’ She turned back around. ‘You’re supposed to meet the contact tonight at 20:15, in Budapest. Which means you need to be on the 17:22 flight from Vienna International. We’ve already got you a ticket. We weren’t being presumptuous, just so you know. We didn’t want to risk the flight selling out. It’s business class, by the way, courtesy of the US government.’

  ‘Scrap it. I require an economy seat.’

  ‘There’s no need. We’ve already got the ticket. The price isn’t coming off your fee. Consider it a bonus, but it’s practical too. You’ll be more alert on arrival.’

  ‘Kooi used a charity as a cover for his contracts. A business class ticket costs several times that of an economy. No small charity is going to blow its budget sending employees business class. So neither would Kooi. If you don’t believe me check his flight history.’

  Muir sucked in air through her teeth and grimaced. ‘You’re right. Damn. I should have considered that.’

  ‘Yes, you should. Because maybe this unidentified broker knows as much about Kooi as you do and has the resources to check on these things.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.’

  ‘Nothing more needs to be said on the matter. Everyone makes mistakes.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘You’ll get your answer if I return,’ Victor said. ‘And if I don’t.’

  SIXTEEN

  Andorra la Vella, Andorra

  Peter Defraine loved school. He absolutely loved it. He had cried on his very first day because it was the first time he had ever been parted from his mother for any length of time. But that was ages ago and he hadn’t cried since. He was a big kid now. A very brave boy, as his mother often told him. He wasn’t quite sure why he was brave. It wasn’t like school was scary. It was fun. Lots of fun at break times when he played games with the other children, but also fun in the classroom, and not just when he got to draw pictures. Drawing pictures was the best.

  Every day he enjoyed learning new words and how to spell them and how to write them down. Every afternoon he told his mother about the new words he knew and she was always so impressed by how clever he was. He was clever. He knew more words than anyone in his class and he knew the most multiplication tables. Some of his classmates pulled faces when he thrust his hand into the air to answer questions. He didn’t get why they did that.

  It was almost home time and Peter sat on his chair with his bag packed in front of him and resting on the desk, as did all the other children, while they waited for the clock to tick round to three o’clock. Then they would be dismissed and everyone would rush out of the classroom and down the corridor and out the big doors.

  When the teacher told them to go and the other children leapt to their feet, Peter slowed himself down because his table was near the exit and Eloise sat on the far side. They’d held hands once one lunchtime – but didn’t talk – and Peter had eventually got bored and gone to play football. Eloise’s friends had then told him she didn’t want to go out with him any more. He didn’t know they had been going out. He didn’t know what that meant. All he knew was that Eloise wouldn’t even look at him any more and left her place in the queue for the cafeteria and went to the back when he’d tried to play with her hair.

  The other children rushed out. Peter slowly put his coat on and slowly looped the strap of his backpack over one should
er and slowly put his chair on top of the table – why did they all have to do that? – and slowly headed for the door.

  Eloise and her friends rushed past him and he was left alone with the teacher.

  He felt Mrs Fuentes pat him on the shoulder, and she said, ‘Better luck next time.’

  He didn’t understand.

  Outside the sun was shining and Lucille Defraine waited for her son, hoping he would be wearing his coat like she asked him to. He argued he didn’t need one because some of his friends didn’t and he was just getting to that age when fitting in was starting to matter more than staying warm. She waited on the pavement outside with the other parents, in the same spot she always waited. She smiled when she saw Peter and he smiled back. He skipped over to her and she pulled him into a tight hug.