CHAPTER 61
They got out of the car and crossed the junction to the Richmond, pausing just before the turn-in.
‘Give me a minute, then follow me in,’ Knox said.
Then he ran round the corner, through the hotel’s front doors, and straight up to the reception desk.
‘Sorry, excuse me. Hello,’ he said to the young man at the desk between panting breaths. ‘Oh God,’ he continued, his eyes darting across the foyer and back to the receptionist again. ‘He’s going to kill me.’
‘Can I help, sir?’ the receptionist asked, covering his confusion with professional courtesy.
‘My boss, is he already here?’ Knox spun round, facing away from the desk. ‘A man, about ten years older than me, grey suit?’ He turned back to the receptionist. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t get here first. This is it. I’m done.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the receptionist replied, ‘but I can’t give out any information about our guests. Or possible guests.’
‘Just tell me,’ Knox said, a pleading edge in his voice, ‘did he look angry?’
The receptionist looked at Knox’s desperate eyes, and the bruise across his cheek, and very slightly shook his head.
‘Oh, thank God,’ Knox said. ‘Maybe I can still fix this.’ He started to move away from the desk to the bank of lifts. ‘Fifth floor, right?’ he called back to the receptionist.
‘Sixth,’ he replied, instinctively.
‘Of course,’ Knox said, pantomiming smacking the side of his head and wincing at the pain it caused in his cheek.
As the lift doors closed behind Knox, a woman walked through the hotel doors, drawing the receptionist’s gaze away from the lifts. Halfway across the foyer she turned towards the receptionist, raised up a folded A-to-Z of the city, and said, ‘Lovely morning out there,’ in a broad American accent.
‘Yes, madam,’ he replied, immediately forgetting her as he went back to reviewing the morning’s depressingly short list of departures and arrivals.
Bennett reached the bank of lifts in time to see the display above the one Knox had taken stop at the sixth floor. She called the next lift, rode it up to the fourth floor, then took the stairs the rest of the way.
By the time she reached the sixth floor Knox had already made it most of the way down the corridor, moving silently from door to door listening for any movement inside.
There was only one room left, at the very end of the corridor.
Bennett tiptoed over to Knox and they both pressed their ears against the last door. At first they heard nothing, then what sounded like another door somewhere inside the room being opened.
Knox stepped away from the door, and then opened another across from it, revealing a cleaning trolley. He moved it under the spotlight next to Bennett, pressed his back against the wall, and gestured for Bennett to do the same.
‘Be ready as soon as the handle moves,’ Knox whispered. Then he knocked on the door.
Inside the suite, Valera, who had just come back out from her room, instinctively walked towards the sound of knocking.
‘Just a minute,’ Peterson said, getting up from the desk. ‘I’ll take care of this.’
Valera was fully aware that it wasn’t gallantry or manners that prompted Peterson to move past her. It was fear of his new business partner making a run for it, and irritation at being disturbed against his strict instructions.
He looked through the fisheye lens and saw the trolley. He considered ignoring it, but instead turned the handle, ready to give the chambermaid who had disturbed him a piece of his mind. But before he could open his mouth the door was flung open and he was shoved backwards by Knox and Bennett forcing their way inside.
At the sudden appearance of the two people she’d last seen in Stockholm Valera dashed back inside her bedroom. Peterson stumbled over his feet away from Knox and Bennett and, as Valera locked her door behind her, finally lost his balance and toppled over, skidding across the onyx coffee table and falling off the far side of it.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he demanded as he pulled himself back up using the arm of the sofa nearest the desk.
‘Surprised to see me?’ Knox said. ‘You need to hire some better muscle, Nicholas.’
‘I don’t have time to indulge you this morning, Richard,’ Peterson said, falling seamlessly into the role of harassed underling and covering his shock that Knox wasn’t slowly asphyxiating in his flat, as he edged towards the desk and his open briefcase. ‘I’ve got too much to do for Manning.’
‘For Russia, you mean,’ Knox countered, moving closer to Peterson between the sofa and coffee table.
‘You really are an idiot,’ Peterson said. He reached into the briefcase, pulled out the pistol – a Beretta 70 – and levelled it at Knox. ‘A complete, bloody idiot.’
The balance of power had suddenly shifted, but Knox didn’t flinch. Even with the gun it was still two against one.
‘Stand down. It’s over,’ he said.
Peterson just laughed at him, letting all his pretences finally drop away.
‘Let Valera go,’ Bennett said, stepping away from Knox, splitting Peterson’s target.
‘She’s here entirely of her own accord,’ Peterson replied.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I don’t care,’ he replied. Then he shot her.
CHAPTER 62
The gunshot was so loud it made Valera dive for cover. She thought the bullet must have smashed through the door to her bedroom, but it hadn’t. The door was still in one piece, still locked, keeping her safe but also stuck.
Valera had already checked the room for possible escape routes. Now she checked again. The bedroom window opened, but only a crack and out into thin air. There was another window in the en-suite bathroom. It might have led to a ledge but it was far too small for her to fit through.
There was nowhere for her to go. All she could do was stay where she was, listen to the crashes and shouts coming from the other side of the door, and hope they stayed there.
Out in the suite, Bennett crumpled to the floor. Her hands reached for the red blossom of blood already spreading across her torso. She knew what it felt like to fire a gun, and she’d read about what it was like to take a bullet, but her books hadn’t prepared her for the sudden flood of adrenaline that made her feel boiling hot and freezing cold all at once.
She tried to control her breathing and stop herself from hyperventilating. She pressed her hand against her side. The front and back of her shirt were both wet with blood, and she could feel the tears where the bullet had ripped through the fabric on its way in and out of her body. She knew she needed to put pressure on the wounds if she was going to stop herself bleeding out, so she clumsily shuffled backwards until she could rest against the wall and prop herself up against it, adding an extra smear of deep red to its vibrant print.
Peterson stared at the Beretta, frozen in surprise that he’d actually pulled the trigger. He’d fantasised about firing a gun but he’d never actually done it, not even at the MI5 practice range.
Knox, faced with either helping Bennett or stopping Peterson doing any more damage, took advantage of Peterson’s paralysis and lunged at him over the side of the sofa. They both hit the hard edge of the dining table as Knox tried to wrestle the gun out of Peterson’s hand. But Peterson’s grip was surprisingly strong and Knox had to settle for slamming his wrist against the table until the gun tumbled out of his grasp and disappeared under the sofa next to Bennett. Unfortunately she was in no position to reach out and grab it.
Peterson shoved Knox off him, almost sending him tumbling back over the side of the sofa, then moved around the dining table, putting it between them.