The Game

THIRTY-SIX

When he didn’t move, Victor grabbed him by the collar and wrenched him to his feet. He shoved the empty SIG into his hands.

‘Put this away and follow me.’

Victor pushed and shoved his way through the crowd of cowering and wailing diners. He vaulted over the stone counter and into the kitchen. The tiles were slick with a lake of blood from the guy shot in the neck. At about six feet tall and two hundred pounds he should have had nine litres of blood in his body. About half of that was spread across the floor. As Leeson followed, awkwardly climbing over the counter and dropping down the other side, he slipped in the blood and fell onto his back.

There wasn’t time to search the corpses, but Victor patted underneath the armpits and around the waist of the first dead Georgian, finding nothing. He did the same with the second and found a pistol tucked into the back of his jeans. It was a Daewoo DP-51.

‘Get up,’ Victor said to Leeson.

He thrashed and fumbled on the blood-slick tiles, horror etched into his young face, his tailored wool suit soaking up blood.

Someone in the kitchen screamed at Victor in Japanese. He ignored them, released the Daewoo’s magazine to check the load, shoved it back into the grip, pulled the slide, and gun leading, hurried to the open back door through which the two Georgians had appeared. It didn’t lead directly outside. A corridor lay on the other side. It was narrow and bright. Closed doors lay to his left. They would lead to walk-in cold cupboards, storage, maybe a small office or toilet. Another door at the end of the corridor hung open. Victor saw an alleyway on the far side.

Leeson scrambled to his feet and scooped up the first Georgian’s shotgun.

‘Take the other one,’ Victor said.

‘This has more shells, surely.’

‘But we know for certain the other one works.’

Leeson swapped weapons and edged up behind Victor, who had the Daewoo trained on the open doorway at the end of the corridor.

‘More?’ Leeson asked.

‘Only one way to find out.’

Victor walked quickly along the corridor, gun out before him. Leeson followed, cradling the Mossberg with whitened knuckles.

‘Keep your finger outside the guard,’ Victor said, glancing over his shoulder.

‘But—’

‘If you squeeze the trigger while you’re behind me you’ll shoot me in the back. Then who will get you out of this?’

Leeson nodded. ‘How are we going to get back to the car?’

Victor ignored him. He kicked open the first door to his left. There was a small toilet on the other side. He kicked open the next door. It was a pantry, full of boxes and shelves of non-perishable food and kitchen supplies. He glanced around, gaze fixing on cans of chopped tomatoes. He grabbed one and tore off the label to reveal the bare metal beneath. Leeson watched but said nothing.

Back in the corridor, Victor made his way to the doorway leading to the alley beyond. He listened. Nothing from the left. A dead end. Muted sounds of traffic and fleeing diners coming from the right. He tossed the can through the doorway so it sailed diagonally to the right. It was dark in the alleyway but the reflective metal sheen of the can caught what little light there was.

Muzzle flashes illuminated the alleyway in strobes of orange and yellow.

Bullets chipped brickwork and tore through the open door.

Leeson stumbled backwards away from the door, his soaked suit leaving a bloody smear on the wall as he leant against it, his legs weak with fear. Victor pushed past him and dashed back into the kitchen.

Overturned tables and chairs lay strewn throughout the restaurant. The body of the maître d’ lay face down near where Victor and Leeson had sat, the back of her clothes a mess of blood and torn fabric. The room was empty except for the corpses. Diners and staff alike streamed out of the restaurant exit or climbed through the destroyed window. There was no sign of the Jeep or the Georgian mobsters. But they were out there, waiting for the crowd to disperse and ready to open up with automatic fire if Leeson or Victor was amongst them.

‘Go back into the corridor,’ Victor said. ‘Lie down facing the exit. Aim the shotgun halfway up, at the centre. You’ll see a shadow on the alley wall an instant before anyone enters. They’ll be hurrying, so squeeze the trigger as soon as you see the shadow. Do you understand?’

Leeson nodded. He spoke in disconnected bursts. ‘Lie in the corridor. Aim at the door. Shoot the guy who comes through the doorway.’

‘No. Shoot the shadow. Don’t wait for the guy to appear. You’ll be slower to react than you think because you’re scared — he’ll be faster because he isn’t. If you wait, he’ll kill you.’

Leeson nodded again. ‘Shoot the shadow. Don’t wait. What are you going to do?’

Victor didn’t answer. He grabbed the first Georgian’s shotgun. Broken glass and crockery crunched beneath Victor’s shoes as he stepped across the destroyed room. The last of the fleeing crowd — the kitchen staff who had been furthest away — scrambled faster when they saw him coming behind them.

‘Get across the road,’ Victor called after them. ‘Don’t go to the left.’

Those fleeing were already going straight ahead or to the right because guys with automatic weapons were to the left, but Victor didn’t want anyone to go the wrong way in the elevated panic caused by his proximity. They were even more afraid of him than they were of the Georgians.

He looked over a shoulder to check Leeson had moved as instructed, saw him lying on the other side of the open kitchen door, turned left side on to the restaurant’s exit, stepped out and immediately squeezed the Mossberg’s trigger.

It roared and a huge blast of white-hot gases exploded from the muzzle. The recoil kicked in his hands, jerking the unsupported barrel upwards.

He missed because he hadn’t aimed. His eyes took in a snapshot of the scene before him — the rear of the big Jeep stationary in the centre of the road eleven metres away — a guy with an AK-74SU covering the alleyway — another, kneeling in the gutter, aiming the sub-machine gun Victor’s way — and he retreated back into the restaurant before the crew could respond.

The kneeling Georgian fired, reacting a fraction of a second too slowly — though fast enough had Victor taken the time to aim. But he only wasted a few rounds as he controlled the burst. A calmer operator than the guy in the Jeep’s passenger seat, and therefore a more dangerous one.

Victor racked the Mossberg and fired it again single-handed, extending only the gun and his arm through the door. He didn’t expect to hit either of the men, and he couldn’t see if he had, but the minuscule pause before the return burst from an SU told him he hadn’t.

‘What’s happening?’ Leeson yelled over the din of automatic gunfire.

‘Stay where you are,’ Victor called back as he racked the shotgun. ‘Remember what I told you.’

He fired blind again. Another smoking shell landed among the debris on the restaurant floor. After the roar of shot dissipated he heard a clattering — windscreen glass pebbles raining on the road.

He glanced at Leeson. ‘Be ready.’

The Rome police would have been called by now. Average response time for reports of gunshots was sub three minutes across the developed world. Less than two minutes left. The Georgians might not know the statistics, but they knew they didn’t have much time left if they wanted to complete their job and stay free long enough to celebrate a share of the purse gone up three hundred per cent.

‘Be ready,’ Victor said again. ‘Shoot the shadow.’

Three shots fired. Three remaining in the feeder.

Then two.

‘Shoot the shadow,’ Leeson repeated.

Victor squeezed the Mossberg’s trigger a fifth time. Before he’d finished racking another shell into the chamber he heard the roar of Leeson’s weapon and dashed back across the restaurant, vaulted over the counter and pulled Leeson to his feet and into the kitchen. He didn’t need to look down the corridor.

‘I got him,’ the younger man whispered. His eyes were wide. Unsteady legs because there was more adrenaline in his bloodstream than there had ever been before in his life.

‘I know,’ Victor said. ‘You couldn’t miss.’

‘I shot the shadow. Like you said.’

‘You did good.’ Victor used one hand to drag Leeson around the stone counter and onto the restaurant floor.

Leeson’s voice was still little more than a whisper. His face was pale. ‘What now?’

‘We wait,’ Victor said. ‘There’s two left. One with an AK. The other behind the wheel of the Jeep. Neither will try coming in here. They’ve lost two-thirds of their team trying that. No one’s that brave. If they’ve got any sense they’ll get out of here before the cops show.’

‘What if they don’t have any sense?’

‘They’ll try and wait us out.’

‘Will it work?’

‘Yes. We have to be gone before the police arrive and arrest us. But it’s suicide for them to wait until then. They’ll be caught too.’

‘These people are crazy,’ Leeson said.

But they weren’t stupid. Tyres squealed for traction and a big V8 engine sounded. Victor ditched the shotgun and readied the Daewoo.

Leeson was still in shock. ‘I killed a man.’

‘Join the club,’ Victor said and tapped Leeson on an arm with the back of a hand. ‘Let’s go. It’s not over yet.’