‘Yes?’
The man spoke in Russian. If he’d answered in Belarusian Victor would have struggled to make the next part work — as he didn’t speak the language — but only a small percentage of Belarusians used their native tongue before Russian.
‘Hotel management,’ Victor said. ‘Just wanted to make sure everything is fine with the suite.’
‘Uh, yeah.’
The man looked flustered. His face was flushed, the front of his T-shirt tucked into the waistband of his boxers, and the zipper of his jeans was undone. The man’s face reddened as he noticed this a second after Victor had.
Understanding he’d interrupted a session in front of the hotel porn channel gave Victor an idea. The man in front of him was clearly embarrassed and caught in the awkward fight-or-flight reflex of laughing it off or shying away. His tactical awareness couldn’t be lower.
‘I need to take a look around the suite, sir,’ Victor said.
No request, no chance of being denied.
‘Uh, yeah, sure.’
Jerkov stepped aside and allowed Victor to pass. He heard the noise of a zipper being hastily tugged up.
The Presidential represented the pinnacle of luxury in a very luxurious establishment. Victor stepped into the spacious lounge. The carpet was thick and immaculately clean. The walls were an off-white panelled effect. Oil paintings hung at various locations. Immediately to his left was a white, L-shaped leather sofa, and white armchair, set around a small white coffee table. To his right was an interior wall with a dresser stood before it. A telephone sat on top.
The lounge opened up past the sofa to his left and into a dining area with a table and four chairs. The suite did the same to the right where the space contained a desk, chair, and another sofa. Set before the sofa was a large television, switched off. A box of tissues sat on the sofa.
‘Is everything to your satisfaction?’ Victor asked.
The man avoided eye contact as he replied, ‘I guess.’
Victor walked through the dining area and into the master bedroom. It was large, with mirrored built-in wardrobes and a king-size bed. A door by the wardrobes led to the en suite bathroom. The second bedroom was at the opposite end of the suite.
There was a briefcase on the dining table but there was nothing else Victor could see that belonged to Petrenko or his men. They were clearly here for business only. A single negotiation with Yamout and that would be it. The meeting might last only an hour, or perhaps go on for several, but Victor planned to act as soon as Yamout arrived. It would help him to wait, to let everyone get past the adrenalin that would accompany the initial face-to-face with dangerous associates. But he didn’t know the specifics of what Yamout and Petrenko were doing, and if he waited too long the negotiations might finish and everyone could be gone before he burst in through the door.
By entering early he would still have surprise on his side. Both groups would be so busy watching each other for signs of betrayal they wouldn’t be prepared for an attack by a third party. It was still risky with so many enemies in such a close space. He would need to be at his best. One miss, one mistake, one surprise would be enough.
He noticed Jerkov starting to shake off his embarrassment so Victor wished him a good stay and left.
Yamout was due to arrive at the hotel for nine p.m. Victor checked his watch. Eight and a half hours until show time.
CHAPTER 21
‘Who was that guy?’
The speaker was short and muscular. His T-shirt was tight across his chest, shoulders and arms. The drapes were pulled across the windows of the suite and the light from the laptop monitor in front of him cast a pale glow over his tanned face. He looked to his right at the man sitting next to him. He was taller, slimmer, more senior.
‘I don’t know,’ the slim man said. ‘But he didn’t look like hotel management to me.’
‘Me either.’
The slim man turned over to a fresh page of his notebook and wrote a new log: 11.17, tall man (suit, dark hair) enters suite. He claims to be from hotel management. Looks around for a minute. Leaves. Don’t believe he’s management.
The laptop monitor was subdivided into five video feeds. One occupied the upper-left quarter of the screen and one the lower-left quarter. The right-hand side of the monitor showed the other feeds in three eighth-sized windows with another window showing controls for image and sound adjustments.
Each video feed was wirelessly linked to a tiny camera hidden inside the Presidential Suite and displayed a continuous live stream. In the upper-left monitor window the view was from an air vent high on a wall and showed the edge of the dining table at the bottom of the window, the door to the master bedroom on the right side, the main door in the top-right corner and the TV area at the top of the screen. The lower-left window showed the suite from the opposite angle. The other three feeds showed the master bedroom, second bedroom and a view from the television set.
None of the angles were perfect, but given the short amount of time they’d had to install them, the men were happy with their work. What wasn’t picked up by the camera’s fisheye lenses was recorded by the powerful microphones that accompanied them.
So far the cameras had recorded Petrenko and his first three men arriving and them sitting around talking, mostly about sports, gambling and women, nothing about business. Then the fifth man turned up and was chastised for being late and ordered to stay put while Petrenko and the other three left to get food. The late arrival had wasted no time locating a box of tissues and finding the adult pay-per-view, only to be interrupted by the man in the suit.
There was a knock-knock at the door. Both men looked up. When a third, harder knock sounded, the slim man stood, looked briefly through the spyhole for confirmation, and opened the door.
‘Number Three looked right at me,’ the new guy said. He was younger than the other two. ‘Cover is still good, but had to break off. No drama. They’re just going for waffles.’ He hung his brown suede jacket over a chair. ‘What’s been happening?’
The slim man said, ‘Someone claiming to be management had a look around.’
‘Show me.’
The video operator clicked on the upper-left window and rolled the mouse wheel down to rewind the footage for a few seconds. He let it play.
‘No way is that guy hotel management,’ the young man said.
The slim man asked, ‘How can you be so sure?’
‘I saw him enter the hotel a couple of hours back. Walked right through the lobby. Never said anything to any staff and no staff said anything to him. There wasn’t even any acknowledgement between them. If he was management, someone would have at least said hi.’
‘You get a good look at him?’ the slim man asked.
‘Sure. Six-two, one eighty, dark hair, dark eyes, nice suit.’
The video operator grinned. ‘You checking him out?’
‘Screw you, I notice everyone.’
‘Ignore the resident child,’ the slim man said. ‘What did you make of him?’
‘Nothing,’ the young man answered. ‘He was just a guy. No reason to look at him twice.’
The slim man thought for a moment. ‘I really don’t like him. If he’s not with the hotel, why was he in the suite?’ The other two men shook their heads. ‘Whatever he wants, it can’t be good. He shows up again, I want to know straight away. If he’s a risk, we take him out. Got it?’
CHAPTER 22
Yamout and his people arrived at the Hotel Europe with as little fanfare as an arms trafficker and six bodyguards could manage. They passed through the lobby with one guy working point from about ten feet ahead of Yamout. Another four surrounded him — two a little in front, two just behind — with the sixth man following at the back, approximately five feet away. It was an effective formation and Victor was glad he didn’t have to make the attempt here in the lobby. The group drew glances from most of the other occupants in the lobby but the steely gazes of the bodyguards ensured that few stared long except for the watchful rent-a-cops.