The Game

THIRTY-EIGHT

They waited. All they had to do was wait. It was simply a matter of time. And patience. The target — the man named Leeson — would return to his car. He would never leave it behind. Of this they had been assured by those who had sent them to kill him.

They were enforcers in an expansive organisation who had been paid up front with a sports bag crammed with bundles of euros and dollars. That money was to be split between six, based on seniority and experience. Now there were only two of them to divide it. There was no consideration of taking the money and running. The brotherhood would find them, wherever they went, and all the money in the world was not enough to buy the protection they would need to live long enough to enjoy it. They knew trying to finish the job that so far had killed four of their six was dangerous, but if they did not see it through they would need to return the money and beg for forgiveness from an organisation that knew no mercy. So they waited.

The Rolls-Royce limousine was parked on the roof floor of the multi-storey parking garage. Only two ways led to the roof: the stairwell and the ramp. Only two ways Leeson and his bodyguard could come. Only two ways the Georgians needed to cover. And there were two of them.

They were up against two, but it was only the bodyguard who concerned them. They had not been told about him when the job had been explained. They had been told Leeson wouldn’t be alone, but they had not been told the man with him would be death himself. They took some comfort in the fact that their leader, who had failed to supply them with the appropriate information, now lay slumped in the passenger seat of the Jeep Commander, two bullet holes vivid against the white skin of his forehead.

The bodyguard was the threat. Neither man relished the idea of facing him again. They had seen and heard the fates of those who already had. He was a killer of men who was not easily ambushed. He would expect another attack. He would expect his enemies to lie in wait near the limousine. He would be ready for that ambush. He knew they would cover the stairwell and the ramp.

But they were cunning men.

They would cover the stairwell and the ramp, but not from the roof. They would strike on the level below, when Leeson and his bodyguard were making their way to the roof, when they were vulnerable, when they weren’t expecting it.

One was armed with a pistol, the second with a sub-machine gun. The former had driven the Jeep and now had the dried blood of the leader smeared across his face. He’d wiped off the chunks of brain and fragments of skull. The latter had exchanged fire with the bodyguard. He was a former soldier. He knew more about battle than the driver, who he had ordered to cover the ramp. He didn’t believe the bodyguard would come that way, but it couldn’t be left unguarded. The man with the sub-machine gun believed the bodyguard would come up the stairwell. Leeson would follow him because he wouldn’t want to be parted from his only protection.

The gunman crouched in the stairwell on the floor below the roof. He kept the AK-74SU aimed down the stairs. He didn’t move. The only sound he made was that of his quiet, regular breaths. His right index finger maintained gentle pressure on the trigger. All it would take was a single squeeze and the bodyguard — who would be leading — would be blasted by a burst of 5.45 mm rounds before he knew he’d been out-thought. Another five bursts would follow before his corpse rolled down the stairs. The gunman knew himself to be an excellent marksman. At this range, with an automatic weapon, there was no way he could miss.

He could then reload and kill Leeson at his leisure. Maybe even with the knife he had with him. He had never killed a man with a knife before. He wondered what it would be like. He imagined it would be fun to watch the life fade from a man’s eyes. Killing from a distance was so impersonal.

Police would be swarming the restaurant by now. They would find the abandoned Jeep soon enough. But none of the Georgians had carried ID or personal effects. They had no criminal records in Italy. It would take a long time to identify them and trace their movements, leaving more than enough to complete the job. It had gone bad but the gunman had come too far to let a little setback like the deaths of four of his fellow brotherhood members stop him from seeing it through and enjoying the money. And it was a lot of money. It had been a lot of money split six ways. It was a huge amount split two ways. A thought occurred to him.

It would be a monumental amount if it was not split at all.

It wouldn’t be long. Leeson and his bodyguard couldn’t wait as long as the Georgians could. Witnesses had seen them up close. Maybe their names were in the restaurant’s reservations list. They had to escape. They had to come this way. The ramp was too risky. There were too many blind spots and choke points and too much cover to worry about. The bodyguard wouldn’t risk that. They had to come this way. They had to come soon.

The gunman realised that there was another, better benefit to completing the job than just the monetary reward. When he returned to the brotherhood with Leeson’s head in a cool box and the brutal story about how four — five — of his teammates had been killed by the bodyguard that he had managed to kill single-handed, he would be hailed as a hero. His value to the brotherhood would be elevated to an unprecedented level. He would be respected and feared and every boss would want to use him. He had succeeded where five had failed. What better evidence of his skills could there be?

A sound.

Muted by distance and the attempt at muffling, but the sound of the stairwell door opening several floors below. The bodyguard.

A civilian or the target would have made more noise. The gunman tensed slightly, then relaxed and concentrated on listening. He expected to hear the quiet footsteps of a cautious man when he was two floors below. Such a man, moving at a careful pace, would take about a minute to climb the four flights of stairs in between.

It took thirty seconds.

The gunman considered. There was only one set of footsteps. Leeson had to be waiting at the bottom for the bodyguard to get the car and drive it down. The bodyguard was moving faster than the gunman had expected, so he was arrogant. He had underestimated his opposition. Not unsurprising as four of them were already dead, but not the man waiting on the stairs. He was alive. He was smart.

He listened to the footsteps. Two floors below. Then one.

This was it, he told himself. In moments the bodyguard would appear. A moment after that, he would be dead.

The gunman stayed focused. He’d seen combat in Chechnya. He knew the danger of distraction. A blink at the wrong moment could spell disaster. Any second now.

He heard the stairwell door open behind him.

He glanced back to shoo his partner away so he didn’t ruin the ambush, but the man who came through the door wasn’t dressed in their uniform boots, blue jeans and leather jacket. The man wore no shoes or socks. His shirt was dirty and scuffed. His sleeves were rolled up.

The bodyguard.

Disbelief, shock and questions assailing the gunman’s mind slowed his reaction.

He twisted, turning his body and swinging his arms and the sub-machine gun, but the bodyguard was already too close.

The barrel of the AK-74SU was pushed aside. The edge of a hand struck the gunman in the throat. He gasped and choked, but his experience and training kicked in and he released the gun and grabbed his knife. But the bodyguard had a hand in his hair and a palm under his chin and he was wrenching the gunman’s head backwards and—

Crack.

The second and third vertebrae of the Georgian’s neck broke, rupturing the spinal cord. He slackened and collapsed and rolled down the stairs in a tumble of uncontrolled limbs.

The Georgian didn’t die instantly because Victor had to rush the manoeuvre and the broken vertebrae failed to fully transect the spinal cord. But he would be dead soon. No messages from the brain could reach the body. The diaphragm couldn’t expand or contract. No air could be sucked into, or expelled from, the lungs.

Leeson rounded the motionless, dying man and moved cautiously up to Victor, his face pale and sweaty. He pointed back down the stairs to where the Georgian lay.

‘He blinked. I don’t think he’s dead.’

‘He’s dead,’ Victor replied. ‘His brain just doesn’t know it yet.’

Leeson looked Victor up and down, noting the scuffed and torn clothes, scratched bare feet, hands and arms.

‘I can’t believe you actually did it,’ Leeson whispered. ‘You climbed the building.’

‘Just the one level,’ Victor corrected. He used a thumbnail to scrape some grit from his palm and said, ‘Never attack from the front when you can do so from behind.’

‘What now?’

‘The last one is still out there. He’s covering the ramp and is dug in well between a pair of Mercs.’

‘How do we deal with him?’

‘Easily,’ Victor said.

The last Georgian breathed in short, panicky bursts. He was the youngest and most inexperienced of the team. His job was to drive. That was it. He was armed with a handgun, but he wasn’t supposed to need to use it. He’d never even fired a gun before. He knew how to, and he knew how to kill — he’d beaten a liquor store owner to death as his initiation into the brotherhood — but he didn’t know how to do this.

The other guy had told him what to do. He’d told him where to wait. He’d told him where to aim. He’d told him their target and said the bodyguard wouldn’t come up this way. He had to watch the ramp anyway — just in case.

The other guy was going to handle it. He knew how to fight. He’d been a soldier. He was one of the proper killers who had murdered and tortured for the brotherhood numerous times before. Such men terrified the younger Georgian, but he aspired to be one, one day. He wanted to have such a reputation for skill and brutality. He wanted other men to be intimidated by him, not the other way around.

It wouldn’t take long, the soldier had told him. He would trap them in the stairwell and then they would split the bag of money. The soldier had not explained how they would split it, but the younger man would be happy with his promised cut and his life. He didn’t want to end up a rich corpse like the four dead men.

An engine roared into life behind him.

He turned and headlights momentarily blinded him. He heard tyres squealing for traction on the ramp above, the noise echoing around the level.

The target’s limousine.

It took the young Georgian a few seconds to react. He watched it accelerate down the ramp, towards him and then past him.

He squeezed his weapon’s trigger.

The gun barked and twitched in his hand and a mark appeared on the rear windshield of the limousine. He shot again, and again, and then ran from cover — not thinking, just acting — and chased the Rolls-Royce, shooting wildly as he ran, missing more than he was hitting.

He chased the car to the level below and his gun clicked empty as the limousine disappeared out of sight.

The young Georgian stopped running and became aware of his heart hammering inside his chest and sweat dripping from his nose. He used a palm to swipe it from his face, realising that the older soldier must have failed in the stairwell and was likely dead and that the target had escaped.

He’d failed and would have to accept whatever punishment the brotherhood deemed appropriate. There was no other option. He hoped they would show leniency as he was just supposed to be the driver. If five experienced killers couldn’t get the job done, how was he supposed to? He needed to get out of the city. Now.

He didn’t care about the money any more. He was just grateful to be alive.

He turned to head for the stairwell and stopped dead as he found himself staring into the black eyes of the bodyguard standing directly before him.