The Game

by Tom Wood

  Francesca huffed. ‘Semantics, Felix. Now stop these pathetic stalling tactics and let’s get this done. Lucille and Peter need you. Let’s go.’

  A strip of red carpet ran along the centre of the corridor, appearing orange where directly under the intermittent space light fixtures in the ceiling above. Along one wall hung photographic portraits of every prime minister and president of Russia to hold office since the end of communism. Free-standing signs stood at corridor junctions to guide visitors through the building. Thick red ropes barred restricted areas and funnelled tonight’s guests to where the reception was taking place. Victor saw no other security personnel or overt precautionary measures – the consular section of the embassy was located in a separate building across town, so this building had no need to obstruct the wanderings of the general public. Closed circuit cameras covered every corridor and the footage would no doubt be monitored around the clock. Some embassies were more akin to fortresses, but Russian and Italian relations were good and Rome was far from a trouble spot, so overall security here was light. It had to be, otherwise Victor would never have got through the door.

  ‘It’ll be a blast,’ Francesca echoed with raised eyebrows when they were well out of earshot.

  ‘Just a little gallows humour,’ Victor replied.

  ‘Maybe cut the jokes, Felix.’

  ‘You’re the one who gave me a sedative.’

  ‘Don’t get too relaxed, and keep your focus on what you need to do to keep Lucille and Peter away from Dietrich’s blade.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I am focused on.’

  ‘Good.’

  They followed the corridor around a corner and were greeting by a smiling embassy employee who explained where they needed to go. They followed his directions, acting as though they didn’t already know the way from the maps and model, walking slowly enough to take in the brass busts of famous Russians that lined the hallway and the paintings of Red Square and the Kremlin that hung above them.

  Victor took a deep breath and blinked a few times.

  Francesca looked at him. ‘Drowsy?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘It shouldn’t get any worse.’

  ‘Good, because neither of us is going to get what we want if I pass out in the middle of the reception.’

  ‘You won’t. We know what we’re doing.’

  ‘I want you to remember you said that when Hart comes for you.’

  She smirked. ‘He won’t.’

  ‘Are you really that sure your act has worked on him?’

  ‘And why wouldn’t it? After all, it worked on you.’

  Victor remained silent. They walked along another corridor past doors marked with signs as toilets for men, women and the disabled. They reached a staircase and began ascending. Francesca’s dress was long and elegant and tight and limited her movements. Victor took the side next to the banister, so that should he decide to throw her down the stairs she would have nothing to grab onto to slow or prevent her fall. She didn’t notice.

  ‘Bet you wish you hadn’t loosened the seatbelt in Budapest now, don’t you?’

  ‘The thought had crossed my mind.’

  She chuckled. ‘I’m glad we can still have fun together, Felix. I never had to pretend about that.’

  ‘Then you’d better make the most of it while you still can.’

  ‘It’s a pity we never had a chance to get to know each other more intimately. I think we would have been good together. I don’t suppose you fancy a quick detour somewhere a little more private?’

  He simply looked at her.

  She laughed. ‘I was just joking. Well, half joking. Quick doesn’t work for me.’

  ‘You’re insane, Francesca.’

  ‘I prefer the term liberated.’

  They reached the top of the second flight of stairs together. Victor took a series of breaths and swallowed heavily. The sound of music and chatter grew louder as they made their way down a short hallway. Ahead it opened out and dozens of mingling guests were visible.

  ‘Can you do this?’ Francesca asked.

  ‘You almost sound concerned for me.’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself. I’m concerned about the job. This is worth a lot of money to me.’

  He faced her. ‘You needn’t be concerned about getting paid. Everything is going to work out exactly as Hart and Leeson have planned it.’

  She pursed her lips but didn’t respond.

  The reception was held across three rooms on the west wing of the embassy’s first floor and centred in a grand music room. It was a huge, high-ceilinged space almost absent of furniture aside from a few low couches interspersed along the room’s exterior in between mirrors that rose five metres in height. The ceiling was plain except for the chandelier that hung from its centre. It was as wide as it was tall and dazzling to look at. The polished floor and the mirrors bounced back the chandelier’s light so that no other lighting was needed. Colourful arrangements of lilies, roses and orchids bloomed from vases that stood before the mirrors. A potted dragon tree stood in each corner, towering above the guests.

  At one end of the room a string quartet performed Schubert’s Rosamunde. They were about halfway through the first movement: Allegro ma non troppo. At any other time Victor would have enjoyed the quartet’s seemingly effortless excellence, but he was here to blow himself up. The guests were too busy chatting to pay attention to the music. There were approximately one hundred men and women spread throughout the room, almost all dressed in black evening wear barring the occasional white dinner jacket. Serving staff made their way through the crowd carrying trays of champagne and canapés. The ambassador’s aide was doing a circuit, shaking hands with important guests, making quips and chuckling with equal measure at those of others.

  There were no obvious security personnel but before he had stepped into the room Victor’s gaze was hunting them down. They were dressed like guests and blended well among them, but were notable because they never stayed in one place for long, made no attempt to engage guests in conversation and kept their hands free of food or drink. Within a minute Victor had counted five. All men, all between thirty and forty. And good. They weren’t just guards. They would be from within the Operations Department of Directorate S of the SVR. They were based at the embassy for the protection of the ambassador and his subordinates. Tonight they would be especially alert due to the presence of their organisation’s head. Each wore a subtle earpiece with a thin cable trailing down from his ear under the lapel of his dinner jacket. They would be armed too, with handguns at their waists, because their dinner jackets were buttoned as part of their cover, rendering an underarm holster inaccessible.

  Prudnikov wasn’t in the music room. Neither was the ambassador. They were probably in the ambassador’s private quarters, smoking cigars and drinking cognac and telling risqué jokes to avoid the odious schmoozing required of them. When they appeared, they would no doubt be accompanied by more security.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Francesca asked.

  ‘That I could use a drink.’

  ‘Me too.’ She gestured to a waiter. ‘But you can only have a few sips for show. Alcohol will greatly exacerbate the effects of the drug.’

  ‘Great,’ Victor said. ‘I’m going to blow myself up and I can’t even appreciate a glass of champagne first.’

  ‘You’re not here to enjoy yourself.’

  ‘But you are, aren’t you, Francesca? You were entertained by Jaeger dying in front of you. At the time I thought you were shocked, but I didn’t know you then. Now I know better. This is one big thrill to you, isn’t it?’

  ‘So what if it is? It’s not every day a girl gets to be part of something so dramatic. Every country in the world will know what happened here tonight. I’ll never forget I was part of it.’

  ‘Spoken like a true psychopath.’

  She smiled a little. ‘You say it like it’s a bad thing.’

  The waiter arrived. ‘Champagne, madam?’

&n
bsp; ‘I should say so.’ She took a flute for herself.

  ‘Sir?’ the waiter said to Victor.

  He nodded and took one. ‘Thank you.’ When the waiter had gone, he raised his glass and said, ‘So what shall we drink to? Well, sip in my case.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Us,’ she said. ‘Let’s drink to us and the special time we’ve shared. It’s so much more romantic to know in less than an hour’s time we’ll never see each other again.’

  She clinked his glass.

  Victor said, ‘Is that Prudnikov?’

  Francesca’s head turned to follow his gaze. ‘Where?’

  ‘Over by the mirror.’

  He pointed with his champagne flute. ‘That one. Near the woman in the black dress.’

  Francesca craned her neck. ‘Every woman is wearing a black dress.’

  ‘At your one o’clock. By the flowers and the woman with the big hair.’

  She looked for a moment and then said, ‘No, that’s not him.’ She turned back to face Victor. ‘Too tall.’

  Victor took a single sip of his drink.

  Francesca did the same. ‘I do love champagne.’ She took a second sip and frowned a little. ‘But trust Russians to go for the cheap stuff. It’s probably not even real champagne but some second-rate national equivalent.’ She said, in a bad accent, ‘Champagnovski.’

  ‘Shampanskoye,’ Victor corrected.

  ‘You’re so very knowledgeable, Felix,’ she said, half mocking. ‘I bet you have lots of hidden talents I couldn’t possibly imagine.’

  ‘All sorts. I can do magic tricks.’

  She chuckled and sipped her drink. ‘How charming.’

  ‘I’ll show you one later if you like.’

  ‘I think I’d really rather like that, but I’m afraid it’s not going to be possible.’ She sighed, sympathetic and almost sad. ‘Oh, Felix, there isn’t going to be a later for you, is there?’

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Coughlin used the back of his hand to wipe the sweat from above his eyebrows and his top lip. His jaw ached from clenching his teeth. His nostrils flared with each heavy breath. Next to him, Hart was focused, but relaxed and calm. Coughlin didn’t like him. Coughlin was scared of him. They stood near the north-facing windows of the top-floor apartment. All the furniture had been pushed away from the windows to give them the best view. The only light came from streetlamps outside and the room was dark. Coughlin was glad of that. Hart wouldn’t be able to see how much he was sweating. He might be able to smell it, however.

  Hart’s phone chimed. He checked the screen then thumbed a reply before calling Leeson. ‘Francesca’s sent the second code. Everything’s on schedule.’ He waited a moment as Leeson said something in return, then hung up. Coughlin said, ‘Couldn’t Kooi just force her tell him the code?’

  Hart shook his head, somewhat contemptuously. ‘He’s at an embassy reception surrounded by security personnel. How is he going to get the opportunity to force her?’

  ‘I don’t know. But that’s only because I’m not the one who has to blow myself up. And if I was, I’d find a way to get that code, regardless of the consequences.’

  ‘What a fine father you’ll make someday. Kooi cares about his family too much to back out. But if he was as selfish as you, it would do him no good. Every fifteen minutes Francesca will send a different code that only she and I know. Don’t let appearances deceive you: there’s nothing Kooi could do to her in there to make her reveal the code and he won’t be as stupid as you would be in his place. Which is why you’re here and he’s in there. Amusing isn’t it?’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘How by virtue of your idiocy you will not only survive while Kooi dies, but you will profit from the demise of a more intelligent man. Natural selection in reverse.’

  Coughlin frowned.

  Through the window they could see over the crossroads to the Russian embassy. Much of the building was screened by the trees in the grounds, but from their elevation they could see above those on the south side to where the terrace stood. A couple of dozen guests were visible there, drinking and chatting. Coughlin couldn’t see them all because the trees to the west of the terrace partially blocked line of sight.

  ‘It’s not a problem,’ Hart said, reading Coughlin’s thoughts with unnerving accuracy. ‘The ambassador likes to make his speeches from the south side.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  Hart didn’t answer.

  Coughlin asked, ‘What if the target is watching from the northern end, where we can’t see?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But if we can’t see him, how do we guide Kooi into position?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter either.’

  Coughlin sighed. ‘I could do my job a lot more effectively if you didn’t withhold intel.’

  Hart faced him. ‘Your job at this time is to be a second pair of eyes for me. You just have to keep watching. Nothing more. That is within your capabilities, is it not?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then be quiet and trust and know that all factors have been considered.’

  ‘Look, I just want the job to work so I can get paid and I’m not going to stand here in silence if there’s something I think has been overlooked. If it hasn’t, great, but if you won’t tell me anything how can I know that?’

  ‘Fine.’ Hart stared at him. ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace.’

  ‘Okay,’ Coughlin began, happy to have got Hart to back down, albeit temporarily. ‘If Prudnikov watches the speech from the north side and Kooi ends up over there and out of sight, how do we know he’s going to stay in kill range if we can’t see and Francesca has gone?’

  ‘The moment Kooi steps outside he will be in range. The blast radius will kill anyone within fifteen metres, not five. He’ll wipe out each and every man and woman on the terrace. We’re not going to guide him into range, just like we’re not going to rely on him to detonate the bomb. As soon as he joins the crowd for the ambassador’s speech I’m going to call the phone and do it for him. Kooi didn’t need to know that.’

  Coughlin nodded, understanding the logic and feeling better about his prospects of getting paid. Then he thought of something. ‘But Francesca is going to be there with him. When you say you’ll blow the bomb as soon as Kooi joins the crowd, you’re going to wait for Francesca to go back inside out of range, right?’

  Hart looked at him like he was an idiot. ‘How is it going to appear if Francesca is the only survivor of the blast?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Suspicious.’

  ‘Correct,’ Hart said. It sounded vaguely insulting. ‘We don’t want anyone asking her difficult questions, now do we?’

  Coughlin nodded his agreement, but when Hart looked away, he frowned in the dark and thought about what had happened to Jaeger.

  The crowd in the music room expanded as more guests funnelled through the doorway. Victor watched every new arrival. Men entered adjusting bow ties and cummerbunds. Women checked themselves in the tall mirrors. Lots of hands were shaken and air kisses dispensed. Conversations in Italian and Russian and English provided a disharmonious clatter in Victor’s ears. He was fluent in all three, and snippets of small talk and serious discussion competed with each other and drowned the beautiful music of the string quartet. They had reached the last movement of Rosamunde, Victor’s favourite, and he wanted to make the most of it before it was time to go into action. Some things couldn’t be rushed.

  Francesca signalled to a waiter for another flute of champagne. ‘I’m starting to get a taste for this,’ she said, sipping from her new glass. She checked her watch. It was thin and silver. ‘Not long now until the speech. How are you feeling?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘You are going to go through with this, aren’t you?’ she whispered, quietly enough that no one nearby would hear.

  ‘Are you concerned I won’t?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m concerned by what Dietrich
will do to your wife and child if you’re too scared to go through with it.’

  ‘Do I look scared?’

  ‘No, that’s the problem. You don’t look like a man who is going to blow himself up.’

  ‘That’s the point of the sedative, surely.’

  ‘Even so, I didn’t think it would be this effective.’

  ‘I’ve said already that you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll do what I have to do.’

  ‘If you’re thinking of trying something you must realise it won’t work. I’m not going to leave your side until you’re out on that terrace with Prudnikov. Then Hart and Coughlin will be watching your every move. If you try to slip away they’ll know. If that bomb around your waist doesn’t go off and if Prudnikov is not in the blast radius then they’re going to know about it. All it takes is one call to Leeson and Dietrich is going to start carving chunks from Lucille and Peter.’