The Game (31 page)

The corridor outside the office was quiet and empty. Victor led Francesca down it and pulled aside the temporary rope barrier so they could pass into the hallway that led to the foyer. He didn’t know how long he had until the three SVR guys came round, but he didn’t need long to get out of the embassy. How far he would get outside before the alarm was raised was unknown. He would have a few minutes, maybe five or six. Whether that was enough time was out of his hands. He could have killed the three men to ensure a decent head start but he didn’t want to give the SVR any further incentive to come after him. And the three had only been doing their job.

He walked at a casual pace down the hallway, Francesca at his side, even though his instincts told him to run. But the precious few seconds gained by hurrying now would be lost tenfold if the alarm was raised before it needed to be. Up ahead he saw the two cloakroom attendants chatting; all the guests had arrived by now and no one was likely to leave before the speech. The two guards at the front door were similarly without anything to do, but they weren’t chatting.

They were alert as they had been before. He couldn’t determined if there was an additional layer to that alertness created by the SVR guy with the red hair putting out a notification that he had a suspicious individual in custody. That notification might have gone to all security personnel, or just to the other undercover SVR operatives at the embassy. These guys were regular security guards. Competent, because they were stationed at the front door of the Russian embassy, but not trained to the same level as SVR employees and perhaps not privy to the same information.

Both guards looked Victor’s way. Until the three unconscious operatives woke up, they couldn’t have much to go on. Maybe they had his description or were reacting to everyone with caution and suspicion until they were given the all clear. Alternatively, they knew nothing and were just looking at Francesca.

He walked towards them. He didn’t have a lot of choice. To divert would only confirm what they already knew or create suspicion if there was none, and trying to escape from the compound another way would burn time he didn’t have.

Francesca walked alongside him, holding his hand, her heels clacking on the mosaic floor. At five metres he saw that there was no tension in the guards’ faces. Their eyes moved back and forth between Victor and Francesca. All one of them had to do was ask her a question and they would know she was more than just drunk. She was the kind of woman men didn’t soon forget. Would they remember she had entered without the fur coat? He’d find out soon enough.

The two guards said nothing as Victor and Francesca approached and nothing as they passed between the pair and out of the embassy. Whatever information the red-haired Russian had passed on through his lapel mike had not reached these two or they believed the situation was under control elsewhere and there was no reason to stop anyone leaving.

Hart and Coughlin had line of sight from the apartment windows to the front of the embassy, but at an acute angle, and the distance was about sixty metres. If their focus was on the terrace they might not even see Victor and Francesca leave. But he couldn’t rely on that, which was why he had tied Francesca’s hair back and why they both wore coats. It should be enough to fool the naked eye, though it wouldn’t be enough to fool Hart and Coughlin if they turned their binoculars this way. Then the phone attached to the vest would no doubt receive a call and chunks of Victor and Francesca would be found thirty metres down the street. But there was no reason they would be watching the front entrance at this point in time. Outside the building’s main entrance the lights illuminating the front façade were bright enough to identify Victor and Francesca, but the high perimeter fence and the trees in the grounds provided concealment from the apartment’s windows. That would change once they were out on the street, but then they would be out of the glare of the uplights.

The Italian police officers outside the compound gate smiled and nodded as Victor and Francesca walked between them, exchanging amused looks with one another regarding Francesca’s inebriation.

Victor turned left – east – away from where Coughlin and Hart waited in the apartment. Crossing the road first would have restricted their view, but there were no turnings off Via Gaeta on the south side of the street going east. Victor would need to lead Francesca another forty metres until they reached the end of the block and the wide boulevard beyond. Even at a difficult angle, forty metres was too long a walk and gave Coughlin and Hart too much time to identify Victor and Francesca from the rear – maybe from the shape of her legs or their respective heights. If that forty-metre walk had been the only means of escape from the street, Victor would have had her take off her shoes before stepping out onto the street, but a side street ran north alongside the embassy compound.

He led Francesca into it. It was narrow and dark. Maybe Coughlin or Hart had seen the tall, white-haired man and his wife arrive earlier. There was a good chance they hadn’t arrived via the side street, but leaving a different way wasn’t necessarily suspicious. There was no pavement and cars stood alongside the embassy building to Victor’s left.

‘Where are we going?’ Francesca asked. She spoke quietly, with difficulty.

‘Just to get some fresh air.’

There were a set of car keys in a pocket of the tan raincoat, but they were useless to Victor. He had no way of knowing where the corresponding vehicle was parked and there was no time to search for it.

A gate wide enough for vehicles to pass through when open stood along the compound’s east edge. In front of it, a well-dressed woman stood hurriedly smoking a cigarette, illuminated by lights from the embassy windows above. She wore a black gown of some flowing light material with a slit down one leg, and a shawl around her shoulders. An embassy employee, because a guest wouldn’t have had access through the side gate. She glanced in the direction of Victor and Francesca, because the alley was empty and dark and no one alone in such an environment was likely to ignore someone who joined them. She kept looking for a moment, recognising from their clothes that Victor and Francesca were guests of the reception and curious that they should be leaving so early. Not ideal – when news of what had happened to the security personnel spread, the woman would remember this – but not a disaster because by heading down this side street Victor wasn’t giving away the rest of the route he intended to take.

As he walked closer he saw the problem. The woman tossed her cigarette away and turned in his direction. She was slim but toned. Her hair was tied back but when loose would be no longer than jaw length. The slit in the dress let him see her shoes: elegant but practical, with a small heel. The dim light coming through the embassy’s windows disguised much of her features but caught the thin cable running down the length of her neck and disappearing under her shawl.

Her weapon had been in a purse hanging from her left shoulder, and it was out before he could draw his own, because she’d identified him before he had her. She held it steady in a two-handed grip, aiming at his centre mass.

‘Put your hands against the wall.’

‘No.’

‘Do it or I’ll shoot.’

Victor shook his head and carried on walking towards her, leaving Francesca behind. ‘No you won’t. You’re not in the embassy compound. You’re on Italian soil now. Two metres to your right is Russia, but this ground right here is Italy. You’re not part of the diplomatic staff: you’re SVR. You have no diplomatic immunity. I am unarmed. You’re not at risk. If you shoot me your life is over.’

She stepped towards him. Her expression was aggressive. ‘
Hands against the wall.
’

He began unbuttoning his shirt as he approached her. She was three metres away. ‘I’m not going to put my hands against the wall.’

‘I’ll shoot.’

‘We’ve already established you won’t.’ Two metres. ‘Besides, if you do shoot me you’ll kill yourself as well.’ He opened up his shirt to show what lay beneath it.

He had no doubt she would know that plastic explosives would not be set off by a bullet’s impact, but that didn’t mean she could stop the surprise and panic she felt at seeing a suicide bomber vest so close before her.

Victor stepped forward fast while she was distracted. Using his left palm to knock the barrel of the gun to his right as his torso twisted out of the line of fire, he grabbed her wrist as he stepped left and wrenched the forearm down, making her double over, gun pointing at the floor, his one arm against her two but his weight and position defeating her off-balance strength. He used his free right hand to push up the gun barrel with the web between thumb and forefinger, stretching back her hands and weakening her grip before easily pulling the weapon away.

She realised she was disarmed an instant before the gun was in his possession and was using her left hand – the one not in his grip – to thumb her radio.

He hit her with a downward open-palmed blow to the jaw before she had a chance to speak or yell. Her head snapped back and she tipped backwards and dropped. He caught her on the way down to stop her head smacking against the hard ground and eased her into a prone position. He checked her pulse to be sure he hadn’t killed her with the strike, but her blood was pumping fast and hard beneath his fingertips.

‘We need to hurry,’ Victor said to Francesca as he reached down and tugged off her stilettos, one then the other.

‘Okay.’

She couldn’t run, but she could hustle. They hurried along the side street, passed cars parked tight against the wall to the left. He took her east down the first alley he came to. He didn’t know how many SVR operatives were stationed at the embassy, and how many of those were on duty tonight, but four currently down would heavily deplete the numbers available to respond when the alarm was raised, especially when the ambassador, embassy staff, guests and head of the SVR needed to be protected. They wouldn’t come charging out after him. They would make sure there was no threat – discreetly, to avoid ruining the ambassador’s reception – and let the Rome police hunt for him. By the time the first patrol car was in the area, Victor would be long gone. The party would continue as normal and Coughlin and Hart would have no reason to suspect the truth.

Francesca vomited.

Victor didn’t allow her to stop, and she retched and coughed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand while they walked fast to the end of the alley. It opened out alongside a four-lane boulevard. He turned south, stretching his neck in an attempt to spot a taxi with its light on. Hailing a passing cab wouldn’t be easy, as in Rome they mostly operated from stands or via calls, and he wasn’t relying on seeing a free one and expecting it to stop for them. There were no cabs in sight and he turned west along the road that ran parallel to Via Gaeta when he was one block south of it.

He found the Toyota minivan a couple of minutes later, parked alongside the kerb. An anonymous and forgettable vehicle. It was a risk coming back to it with Hart and Coughlin so close by, but he was running out of time.

He took out Francesca’s phone and asked, ‘What’s the next code?’

‘Taxi.’

‘Is that the code or do you want to find a taxi?’

She frowned. ‘The code, silly.’

He thumbed a message and sent it to Hart’s number.

Seven seconds later:
Confirm
.

He asked, ‘What’s the next code?’

‘It’s too early to send it.’

‘I know, but if you tell me now it doesn’t matter if you then forget it. Okay?’

She nodded. ‘Mountain.’

If there was another code after that then Victor didn’t need to know it because he was due on the terrace fifteen minutes later. No further code would convince Hart that Victor he was somewhere he wasn’t.

He used Francesca’s keys to unlock the vehicle. He took the fur coat from her and placed it in the back of the Toyota along with the tan raincoat, then helped her into the passenger seat and climbed behind the wheel.

He started the engine and headed towards the mill.

Victor thumbed Muir’s number into Francesca’s phone and hit dial. She sat passed out in the passenger seat next to him. He switched the phone to speaker and continued south. It had taken about twelve minutes to reach the embassy from the mill when Coughlin drove. Victor knew he could get there in half that time, but he couldn’t afford to come to the attention of the police. He couldn’t do what he needed to with a patrol car chasing him through Rome’s narrow streets. It was 8:16 p.m. He had twenty-nine minutes before he was due on the balcony. If he could reach the mill in ten instead of twelve that left him nineteen minutes before Hart knew the job was over and Dietrich was given the order to kill Lucille and Peter. Not long, but he was out of options.

Muir answered on the fifth ring. She said, ‘Janice Muir speaking.’

‘It’s me. I’m in Rome. The job is a setup. Leeson has Kooi’s family captive. He’s going to have them killed in less than twenty minutes.’

Muir took a breath, but her voice stayed even. She had been in stressful situations before. She wasn’t about to panic now. ‘Did you say Kooi has a family?’

‘Yes. A wife and a young boy. He hid them away in Andorra in an attempt to protect them. And he did a good job too, if you didn’t know they existed. Leeson built up a profile on Kooi through the contracts he had him do. A guy called Hart kidnapped them and brought them to Rome so they could be used to convince Kooi to go through with the job.’

‘What kind of job requires that kind of persuasion?’

‘The kind you don’t walk away from. I’m wearing a suicide bomber’s vest with seven kilos of plastic explosives and the same weight of ceramic shards.’ He explained the plan to assassinate the head of the SVR inside the Russian embassy and disguise it as terrorism. ‘I’m out of the embassy now and on the road. I had to take out a few guards, but they’ll live. Leeson and Hart are going to know that I’m gone in eighteen minutes’ time. At that point, Dietrich is going to kill Lucille and Peter.’

‘Holy shit,’ Muir breathed. ‘You’re wearing the vest right
now
?’

‘Yes.’

‘What the hell are you thinking? Get out of it and get clear.’

‘I can’t. Once Hart realises I’m not at the embassy they’ll detonate it. I’m in the middle of Rome. There’s civilians everywhere. Besides, I need it.’

‘What for?’ When he didn’t answer, she said: ‘Don’t tell me you’re going after Kooi’s family. You don’t need to. Just tell me where they’re being held.’

Victor thought for a moment, then said, ‘I can’t tell you that.’

‘What? Why not? I don’t understand.’

‘If I tell you you’ll pass it on to the Italians.’

‘You’re damn right I will,’ Muir said. ‘This has gone way too far now. We’re talking about a terrorist threat on Italian soil and kidnapped civilians. They need to know right this second what they’re dealing with if they’re going to have any chance of dealing with it.’

‘That’s why I can’t tell you. Lucille and Peter have less than half an hour left to live. That’s no way near enough time for a hostage rescue team to be mobilised and a plan to be formulated. Let alone put into action. They’ll be up against six heavily armed gunmen. Either the Italians rush in and get massacred or there’ll be a siege. In either scenario, Lucille and Peter don’t survive.’

Muir didn’t respond for a moment. Victor pictured her mouthing and gesturing to colleagues before she said, ‘Listen to me: you need to get yourself out of the line of fire. You’ve done your job. It’s time to stand down. We need to turn this over to the Italians. You’re in their country. The threat is against them. Leeson is not going to have Lucille and Peter killed once he knows this is over. They’re his only leverage.’

‘He will. He’ll remove every link between the job and him. I’m close to where they’re being held. I’ve been inside once already. I know the layout. I know the opposition. Leeson thinks I’m still at the embassy. By the time anyone realises I’m not, Lucille and Peter will be safe.’

‘That’s crazy,’ Muir said again. ‘It isn’t a plan and you know it isn’t. Tell me where they are. The cops can be there in minutes. The mission is over so we turn the intel over to our allies and step away. That’s an order.’

‘I told you at the start of this that if I accepted you’re not my boss. You supply me with the information and I decide what to do with it. And in this case, you don’t have any information for me.’

She changed tack. ‘It’s not your fault they’re in there. They’re not your responsibility.’

Victor remained silent.

‘They’re not,’ Muir repeated. ‘It’s Kooi’s fault they’re under threat. It’s Leeson’s. It’s not yours.’

‘Had I not agreed to meet with Leeson and take this job he would never have taken them. He had them kidnapped because I said yes. He wouldn’t have needed them had I declined.’

‘Then it’s my fault. I hired you. If I hadn’t then they would be okay. It’s my fault, not yours.’

‘Then what are you going to do about it?’

‘Tell the Italians. Let them—’

‘Not good enough,’ Victor said. ‘If I don’t do this, they’re dead.’

‘That’s not your fault. Listen to me. Please. Don’t do this. It’s suicide.’

‘I’ll call you when it’s done.’

‘
Wait
,’ Muir pleaded.

Victor hung up.

Lucille was scared. She could hear nothing. Noises didn’t frighten her. Silence did. The world was loud and chaotic and when humans were making no noise, trouble filled the void left behind. She sat in the corner of the underground room that was her prison. Peter slept in her lap. He was scared like she was but he tried not to show it. He didn’t want her to worry about him. She loved him so much. He was so brave.

She tried to make sense of what was happening but nothing made any sense. This was some terrible mistake. Some bizarre misunderstanding. She was just a sous chef. Her ex-husband was a charity worker. The man they’d said was her husband was a stranger. She hadn’t seen him before. Ever. There was a vague similarity between him and Felix. They had the same height and the same colour hair and were of similar ages and builds, but they were also unmistakably different people. It had been years since she had seen Felix but no one changed that much in such a relatively short period of time.

Had Felix done something in the intervening years that had warranted this situation? She couldn’t believe he had. He had been a cold, emotionally stunted man who loved his family but could not treat them correctly even when he made every effort to do so. Even he had realised that in the end, but he was a decent man. He spent his life travelling the world for the good of others. How could he have done anything that would lead to the kidnapping of his family? Surely her captors would realise their mistake. Surely the man they thought was her husband would put them right.

Or was all this his fault? Was he pretending to be Felix? Had he stolen her ex-husband’s identity and used it to commit crimes that had led these men to Lucille’s door? That seemed more likely.

Echoing footsteps told her one of her captors was approaching. The footsteps grew louder as they descended the steps and ceased when they reached the gate. The lock squealed and the hinges creaked and a man appeared. He wasn’t Hart or one of the five foreign men who had been holding her but a man she had only seen once, when she had been taken to see the man they thought was her husband. She remembered what they had called him: Dietrich.

He had a pistol tucked into the front of his trousers and carried a plate of plain boiled spaghetti in his left hand. He ate it with his fingers. He was a noisy eater.

Lucille couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten a proper meal. Even though she was sure her nerves would not let her eat anything substantial, her stomach groaned at the sight and smell of the spaghetti. Peter loved spaghetti. Dietrich saw her looking at the food and seemed pleased. He stood there, staring at her.

‘What do you want?’ she asked when she couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

He didn’t stop chewing to answer. ‘To kill your husband. But I’m not going to get the chance.’

‘He’s not my husband.’

‘Sure he isn’t.’ He scooped up more spaghetti with his fingers, dropping and sucking it into his mouth. He checked his watch. ‘I hate waiting, don’t you?’

‘Your name’s Dietrich, yes?’ She didn’t wait for confirmation. ‘You must listen to me, Dietrich. That man is not my husband. I’ve never seen him before in my life.’

Her captor smiled a little and she saw his yellow teeth. ‘If you say so.’

‘I’m telling the truth. He’s not going to kill himself for us. He doesn’t even know us.’ She shuffled forward and whispered so Peter couldn’t hear. ‘Then you’re going to have to kill me and my son. You don’t want to have to do that, do you, Dietrich?’

He smiled another yellow smile.

He stopped the car two hundred metres from the mill, next to the used car dealership, and killed the engine. The drive had taken almost eleven minutes. In eighteen minutes’ time he was supposed to be on the terrace. He pulled off the tuxedo and threw it into the back of the minivan. He unbuttoned the shirt and dropped it into the footwell while he unfastened the vest.

Francesca came round. She groaned and stirred and raised her eyebrows and blinked and grimaced. Then she turned her head and looked at him as though she had woken up after a full night’s sleep. Her eyes were still bloodshot, but she was focusing on him now and not at some point behind him as she had done. Hart had been correct when he’d said the effects wouldn’t last long.

She said, ‘What’s going on?’

Her words were quiet but clear. He didn’t answer. The vest was heavy and difficult to take off in the confines of the driver’s seat, but he couldn’t risk doing so outside in case someone saw.

‘Why aren’t we at the embassy?’

He didn’t answer that either. He put the shirt back on.

Francesca stared at him and the vest he no longer wore. She peered through the windscreen and saw where they were. Her mouth opened to speak but no words came out. He saw her eyes look to the passenger door a second before she went for the handle. The door didn’t open. She tried a few times before reaching for the unlock button on the console.

He grabbed her arm.

‘
Let go of me.
’

He didn’t. She struggled and tried to jerk her arm from his grasp. He kept hold of her while with his free hand he buttoned the shirt back up.

‘Oh no, Felix. What have you done? God, what are you doing? Dietrich’s going to kill them. Don’t you understand? Your son is going to be killed.’

‘He’s not my son,’ Victor said. ‘He’s Kooi’s son.’

She stopped struggling because she heard the truth in his voice. ‘I don’t understand. What are you talking about? Who are you?’

He didn’t answer. It was 8.30 p.m. so he thumbed out the last code and sent it to Hart. He replied a few seconds later. Francesca stared, understanding.

‘You’re crazy. You’ll never get them out of there. This can’t possibly work.’ She shook her head, breathing heavily. ‘If you’re not Felix Kooi, who are you?’

‘That’s not important, Francesca. What’s important is that you tell me where in the mill Lucille and Peter are being held.’

‘I… I can’t do that. Whoever you are, you must understand that. What do you think you’re going to do? You can’t get them out of there. Drive back to the embassy. There’s still enough time. I’ll tell them you panicked but you’re going to go through with it. That’s the only way you can save them.’

‘Tell me, where are they?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Then I’ll have to hurt you. I have very little time left, Francesca, so I’ll do whatever I need to so that you tell me what I need to know. You need to decide right now how this is going to work.’

She stared across at him. She was breathing heavily. She was scared because in Budapest he’d given her a first-hand demonstration of his ability to inflict pain. But a lot had happened since then and the fear slipped away from her face. ‘No, you won’t. You’re not going to hurt me, Felix – or whatever your name is. Ever since the first time we met you’ve been trying to convince me to walk away from this. Why is that?’ He didn’t answer. ‘You like me. I know you do. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? You care about me. You wanted to save me from this life, remember? You didn’t want me to get hurt. So you’re not going to hurt me now, are you?’

Victor stared straight ahead, through his reflection on the windscreen glass. ‘Last chance, Francesca.’

She smiled at him, softly, sympathetically. ‘You don’t really believe you can get them out of there before Hart finds out you’re not at the embassy. They could already be dead. But if they’re not your family why do you even care? Let me out of the car and drive away. By the time I tell Robert what’s happened, you’ll be long gone.’ She touched him on the shoulder, lightly. ‘Or we could go together. Just the two of us. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

He punched her in the face.

Not hard, because he didn’t want to knock her out, but hard enough to burst her bottom lip wide open. She reeled away, blood smeared across her chin and cheek, face screwed up from the pain and shock, eyes wide with fear, the bloodshot whites showing all around the irises.

‘Where are they?’

She didn’t hesitate. ‘Beneath the older building. There’s an underground mill. From Roman times. They’re in there.’ She touched her lip and examined the blood on her fingers. ‘Why did you do that? You didn’t need to do that, you piece of shit.’

Victor pictured the terror in Lucille’s eyes and the searching gaze of Peter as he stared at the man he believed was his father. Victor pictured what might happen to them because of Francesca’s complicity.

He turned in his seat, reached across to where she sat, and broke her neck.