by Tim Heath
Yes, the people they pulled into their world would most likely be ruined, some had even lost their lives. But the Hosts involved––those with money, power and influence in the largest nation on the planet––were meant to remember it was all a game. Nothing personal.
For most, that was true, especially the likeable Mr Grey, which he was not only called because of the colour of his hair and beard but because that’s what his surname meant as well.
He’d held his rank at thirteen ever since coming into the event during its third year. He was not a superstitious man as some of his fellow Hosts tended to be. His involvement in this particular group of men had probably done more for him than anything else. He was a lucky thirteen.
He was the oldest man in the group of Hosts that made up the T20––though despite his greying hairs he looked far from old––and he had also selected a Contestant for this special event who turned out to be the oldest involved.
Walther Bruhn was forty-seven and from Frankfurt, Germany. He worked for one of the subsidiaries of Rurik’s own company, though no one would have known the link, which was typical for men who had their fingers in so many pies.
Walther was a weapons manufacturer and an expert with all types of firearms as a result. His name had come to mind almost immediately when Rurik was told what was expected for New Year.
Rurik had allowed his team of Spotters to do their job. It didn’t need to seem like a work-related project, so they’d arranged for Walther to be given some time off work before, it seemed, randomly approaching him with their proposition. He’d been intrigued from the start, and the money on offer represented much more than he could earn in twenty years’ work. Walther might be able to retire early, especially when it was clear that the prize money available would represent millions. He was in.
Walther Bruhn was in the first van that arrived at the warehouse. A woman in much better physical shape than his forty-seven years sat silently in the front row of seats, behind the driver and front passenger. They’d glanced at each other a little, but nothing was said. She didn’t look German, or Russian. He spoke no other languages besides those two.
As the van came to a stop, sunlight flooded into the back seats as the door was slid to the side. He followed the woman out, and they were directed to the open doors of a vast warehouse. Walther entered the space and kept going. He wanted to be as far away from the doors as possible, as far away from anyone else as he could get.
Give him a gun of any sort, and he would be able to take it apart, put it back together and fire it without any problems, the light never an issue, his fingers working by themselves after years of practice. Without a weapon of that calibre, he was useless. Staying out of sight was his best chance of getting out of that building. Allying with someone might also help.
Deep inside the space, he stood there as the other four vans arrived. He watched the other eight Contestants make their way slowly in, and he had a rough idea where they were all standing. No one else ventured in as far as he had as if wanting to stay nearer the light as if that would help them. Apart from the fifth person in, a man he could tell even from his distance, none of the others seemed to take much interest in where everyone else was standing.
Then it went dark, the small light that for Walther had only been a little square in the far distance anyway, vanishing. The game was on.
Walther ran, arms out, delving deeper into the space behind him, confident that there would be something back there. Going deeper in would also most likely keep him away from anyone else at that moment.
He found some stairs and the first signs of light coming from higher floors. What windows there were had been boarded up, and even if they were open, at that time of year in St Petersburg, it would still be some time before the morning sun appeared.
On the second floor of the building, still feeling his way down what appeared to be a corridor, he walked into the first room, his feet kicking something across the floor as he entered, its weight and noise telling him precisely what he had come across––a gun. He worked his way forward, to the point where he expected the gun to be, and reaching down, found it after a few frantic hand movements.
It felt good in his hands, he could tell from the weight it was fully loaded, even before he’d worked out the make of the weapon. He ran his hands over the handgun quickly, giving it the once over, happy that it seemed to be in good condition. He felt carefully around the area once more, but there didn’t seem to be anything else.
Within the Games Room, the confirmation that Thirteen’s Contestant had obtained a weapon already was greeted with some concern. Rurik was just pleased his gamble had paid off. Now that his man had a gun, he was a match for anyone.
Suddenly an explosion ripped through the silence, a burst of flames appearing at the far end of the corridor next to where Walther was standing. Walther instinctively came to the doorway as fire briefly lit up the area.
The corridor was long and straight––maybe one hundred metres––though it could have been less. There was a little debris part way down, several spaces presumably rooms leading off, opening out either side. If there had once been doors there, he couldn’t tell. It was as if his senses were working on overtime, his brain taking in as much as he could in the seconds he could see something.
At the far end of the corridor, the noise and flames of whatever had caused the explosion had now subsided, and a lighted torch appeared, small flames flickering and seemingly coming his way. He raised his weapon and fired, almost a reflex action, the torch and its bearer darting clumsily through another doorway off the corridor. Things went dark again. Walther was sure he’d made contact with his shot; he’d hit targets with similar weapons twice as far away before, though usually an animal of some kind––he’d never shot a person before.
5
Akim Kozlov
Known within the Games as: Fourteen
Akim was based in the UK, though most of his $2 billion fortune had been acquired like all the other oligarchs during the final years of the Cold War when the Soviet Union crumbled.
His background had been in minerals and precious metals, something his homeland had plenty of if you knew where to look, but now his interests were much broader, including all types of energy and, increasingly, renewables, plus investment in various UK based businesses. Some of his firms were part of the FTSE100, the top one hundred most valuable companies in the UK by market capitalisation. His influence had grown considerably in the last five years, helped in part by his move to London, as well as his involvement in the Games.
His team had come up with an exciting possibility for sure. Stafford Davison had fitted a lot into his thirty-seven years. A former car thief in his earlier years, starting while still a teenager, in fact, he’d switched sides and become a police officer not long after his twenty-fifth birthday. His ability to outsmart any lock had been his speciality, and while he’d used that in the wrong way during his car thieving career, it had marked him out during his reformed years as one of the UK’s top experts on break-ins, and he advised various security firms.
In his relentless pursuit of dishing out justice, he had increasingly trodden on thin ice. He had been reprimanded more than once for gaining entry and conducting a search on a secure location without having first been granted a warrant. His last chance had come––and gone––four months before Akim’s men had made contact with him. PC Davidson had gone too far once too often, and he’d been kicked out of the police force in disgrace.
Stafford was approached by men working for Akim at a time when he was still working on his options––which weren’t many. He’d built up such a reputation for the number of types of locks he was able to outwit, that turning to a life of crime once more would be impossible to hide. They would know for whom to look. He needed something bigger. And that is what Akim presented him.
A man who was able to steal anything––and open almost any lock––with a grudge to bear, was everything Akim could have hoped his te
am would find. A huge amount of money was paid into an account of his choosing––money was never an issue for these men, it was winning the Hunt that mattered most––and Stafford was told to wait for further orders.
Those orders came two days after Christmas when a fresh passport, together with a Russian Visa already enclosed, were personally delivered to his home address, where he lived by himself. He was on the plane a day later, tickets arranged for him by his new employer, and he had three days to explore the city before the New Year event.
“What’s your name?” Stafford whispered though the guys in the cab at the front were unlikely to be able to hear anything he said unless he’d been shouting at the woman sitting in front of him. She didn’t appear to know what to do with the question at first––they’d been told not to speak with one another while they made the journey to the arena––but here he was, apparently pushing the rule book aside.
“Ambra,” she said, before adding, “Ambra Esposito.”
“Italian?” he said, though it was no great guess. Her accent suggested southern European, but her face and features, plus her shoulder length dark hair marked her out as most strikingly Italian. He’d always thought the Italians produced such beautiful women and here, once more, was living proof.
“Yes. You?” though Ambra could tell from his demeanour and the way he dressed, which still wasn’t shabby, that he was English.
“British, me. Born and bred. I’m Stafford.”
“Stafford? Isn’t that a city?”
“Yes, something like that.” He glanced towards the front, but neither of the two Russians was taking any notice of their conversation.
“Do you know what to expect?” she said, the first hint that she was feeling a little uncomfortable about the whole situation.
“No, not really. I think we should try and stick together,” he said. Ambra started to turn back as if to look at him at this point, their conversation of hushed whispers having been conducted up to that point with them both just looking forward. “Don’t turn around, they’ll notice.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m no one. But I think we are involved in something bigger than we realise.”
“You know what’s at stake?”
“I think so.”
“And you would be prepared to share that once it came down to it?”
“I don’t think that matters most at the moment.”
“Then what does?”
He loved the sound of her accent, the way she seemed to put emotion in places he didn’t think possible.
“Look, let’s assess the situation when we get there. I think teaming up might be our best chance of getting through this one, you know, in one piece.”
“Please, I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t deny that fact,” he said, having seen many such women in his time, wives or girlfriends of mob families, women who had been drawn into things by their criminal men, women with blood on their own hands as a result of it all. She fitted that picture perfectly.
The van pulled off the main road.
“I think we are nearly there,” he said, the last they spoke to each other inside the van, as it slowed considerably before coming to a complete stop outside a warehouse. The sliding door on the side of the truck opened, and they were motioned out. Ambra went first, and then Stafford followed her as they walked the short distance across ice and snow covered ground until they passed the threshold of the building in front of them.
Ambra entered and started heading half left, Stafford opting to go just slightly left, enough to be apart from her but still figure where she was standing. He listened for her footsteps to stop and then stopped himself, both now in darkness. Only one other figure could be seen on the right of the door. Neither had any idea who else was already in the room.
Over the course of the next twenty minutes, three other vans pulled up, their passengers walking into the same dark space where they were both standing. Stafford had moved a little towards Ambra, but it was hard to tell for sure. Apart from the sound of people walking in, the odd bit of debris knocked or kicked aside in the process, there were no other noises. He hoped she hadn’t moved. The longer he’d been standing there, studying the faces of the six who had arrived, the more he knew a partner in this would give him added security. They could watch each other’s backs. Once it was clear what they needed to do, they could go their separate ways. It could be amicable if she allowed it. Otherwise, he would have to make it not so. Her choice.
The truth was, he was becoming less sure of himself. He’d expected something unusual to happen, though standing in a room of strangers in total darkness was not what he had in mind. If you couldn’t see anything, how were you expected to find your way out? Or maybe that was the point? Perhaps it was a trick to see what they would do?
Three minutes after the door shut, Stafford was going directly for Ambra and finding her within a few seconds, and they heard the explosion, followed by gunfire. It wasn’t a game. It was survival.
6
Aleksey Kuznetsov
Known within the Games as: Fifteen
The most prominent winner of the last time they’d gathered together for an event was unmistakably Aleksey. His victory over Sokoloff, while not entirely settled yet, would be enough to propel him much higher within the group––twelve was possible––but the new influence and opportunities within the business world would ultimately determine his destiny. Sokoloff’s downfall would be to his advantage. He might even be able to move into the same media circles that were no doubt about to be vacated by the almost bankrupt Sokoloff. How the mighty had fallen, and he couldn’t hold his smile at such a realisation. He’d never been much of a fan of the man who ran so much of Russia’s mainstream news and media services.
Aleksey was worth a reported $1.8 billion––which could rise to as much as $2.5 billion before the year was out, seeing as he was the primary benefactor of the Sokoloff collapse. He knew the value of networking. He also recognised the importance of organised crime.
Ambra Esposito made an attractive choice for him. Her Mafia links and her ability as a world-renowned saboteur were what had attracted him to her and led him to organise her recruitment.
A Mafia wife for years, she lived with her large extended family on the west coast of Italy, in the city of Naples. Her family was now the wealthiest Mafia group in Italy.
She wasn’t in St Petersburg for the money, though it was still paying well. She was there for some influence, hoping her Host’s connections were as genuine as he was making out. If not, he’d approached the wrong people to ask for help and revenge would be swift.
She was thirty-three and looking very good for it. She had become hands-on within the family empire, her skills put to good use when other gangs had tried to move in on their turf. Sabotage had become her speciality, though simple car bombings and assassinations had their place when a clear message needed conveying.
Within the Games Room at the city centre mansion, Aleksey looked across to Akim––his fellow Host––as the event started, their two Contestants seen under thermal imaging standing together for a moment. An unlikely alliance had been formed, which wasn’t a bad idea. It gave both their Contestants a fighting chance of making it out through what was only the first stage of the competition. Their odds of success were growing. It was going to be a fascinating week.
The two MI6 agents, with their Russian counterpart, were driving through the streets having left the hotel that morning. The city was still tranquil.
“Here it is,” Sasha said, pulling down a side road off the main avenue of Nevski Prospect. There was a row of individually built five-storey buildings on each side of the street. They’d come to one of the properties that Sasha had listed as belonging to the Volkovs.
“Looks like the rest of the city,” Anissa said, “spectacular, but just the same. Nothing stands out.”
They slowed as they got to the building in question, Alex looking out through
the blacked out windows of Sasha’s Mercedes at the surrounding buildings.
“Keep going,” Alex said, and Sasha picked up speed, his instincts telling him to act first, ask questions later. Alex continued, “There were at least two teams I spotted watching the building from across the street. We have to imagine they had others, too. Banks have less security than that.”
Sasha parked up a few streets away, and the three of them got out of the car.
“I’ll take a walk down the street,” Anissa said. “See what I can spot from outside the building.” She pulled out one of the city maps they’d picked up from their hotel the night before, opening it up––the aimless tourist making her way around the vast city that is St Petersburg.
“Be careful,” Sasha said, the two men keeping their distance though walking down behind her on the other side of the same street. They watched as Anissa approached the front of the mansion, having passed what appeared to be a restaurant in the basement of the building before their target.
She tried the door of the Volkov mansion, but it was locked. Holding the map there for a moment, as if confirming exactly where she was, she stood still for a minute, wanting to see if anyone would come.
Alex and Sasha had continued walking, not wanting to give away the fact they were watching the person standing in front of the mansion, and had passed her, though on the opposite side, as she’d been standing on the pavement close to the front doors, apparently lost. As a small side street intersected, both men stopped and spun around, Anissa having not moved from the spot. Neither had anyone come to see what she was doing.