No Tomorrow (24 page)

“T
hey could have been following you, for all we know,” protested Gisele. “You could have led them straight to me.”

“That's better,” Victor said. “That's the kind of critical thinking you should be using. You can't work on the simplest assumption. You have to consider every eventuality.”

She stared at him. “Oh, very clever. Nice way to get me to come round to your way of thinking and make it seem like it was my conclusion. But I'm not dumb enough to fall for it, so I'd appreciate it if that was the first and last time, all right?”

“I chose the most straightforward way to make my point. I don't have time to teach you everything.”

“
Teach
me? Are you fucking serious? Teach me what?”

Victor took a breath. “Easy on the language, okay? I've given you a pass until now because of the circumstances, but I don't appreciate it.”

“You think I care what you appreciate? I don't appreciate you killing people in front of me either.”

“Would you prefer it if I only killed people when you weren't looking?”

She took a breath like Victor had, only a deeper one that she held longer and let out slower. “I'm not going to allow myself to be pulled into these stupid arguments. You're protecting me, sure. Thanks. But I won't be treated like an idiot.”

“Good. It's not my intention to treat you like one. I'm trying to teach you how to survive this. The men after you are extremely dangerous. They are ex-military and they will kill us both if we don't do everything right. Do you understand that?”

Gisele said, “Like they killed Dmitri and the others. Not that you care what happened to them.”

“I happened to them,” Victor said. “I left them. You're my priority, not your father's gangsters. I did what I could to help them, but the only thing that mattered was getting you out of there. They provided a useful distraction for our enemies.”

“You're saying you used them as human shields?”

“Would you prefer to be dead in their place?” She looked appalled but didn't answer. “Bear that in mind. And don't waste your compassion on those men. Each and every one is—was—a killer. They don't deserve it.”

“You killed people too. I saw you. Does that mean you don't deserve my compassion either?”

“I deserve it even less than your father's men.”

She didn't respond.

“If you're going to survive this,” Victor said more quietly, “you've got to have an utterly selfish mind-set. If you have to run over a street full of people to live another day, then you do it.”

“I would never do that.”

“Then if comes to it I'll have to do it for you.”

“You're a disgusting excuse for a human being. Do you know that?”

“I've had a niggling suspicion.”

“And it doesn't bother you?”

“Very few things bother me.”

“You can't honestly believe the things you say.”

“We're programmed to survive. Whether you believe that was instilled into us by evolution or God, that's who we are. We're survivors. Civilized society exists only when survival is not at stake. Put a person in fear for their life and see how much attention they pay to morality. You said yourself that morality needs to be enforced by the law.”

“Yes, because there are bad people out there. I didn't mean that all people are inherently evil. I'd say you have a very pessimistic view of the world, but if you ask me it's a thinly veiled justification to do terrible things. But you don't have to be that way. You have a choice. It's never too late to change who you are. Make a fresh start. Be a good person. You never know—you might find you prefer yourself like that.”

“If I were a good person we'd both be dead by now.”

•   •   •

While four of the mercenaries maintained the perimeter, jackets zipped up to hide their body armor and weapons, Rogan joined Anderton, Sinclair, and Wade in a corridor leading out of the lobby.

“The target's location has been identified,” Anderton reiterated to the men outside. “We're moving up. Be alert, but maintain your distance.”

She didn't want to alarm people unnecessarily or risk the target spotting them from his window. It was the
middle of the night but the area was far from empty of people.

The reply came:
“Copy.”

“Okay,” she whispered to the three men with her. “Unit One has the perimeter, but it's loose. We don't want them getting past us on the way, so let's do this nice and fast but smooth. Sinclair and I will take the lift. Rogan and Wade, you guys ascend the far staircase so we come to their corridor from either end. Don't get jittery, boys; there are too many people here to risk a negligent discharge. All set?”

The elevator arrived at the third floor and Anderton and Sinclair entered the corridor. Both had pistols drawn and ready. Anderton whispered into her radio: “Unit Two in position.”

She signaled to Sinclair and they moved down the corridor, Anderton on the left, the South African on the right.

Wade's voice came through her earpiece: “This is Unit Three. We have reached the third floor.”

They turned a corner and saw the two mercenaries at the far end of the corridor. Simultaneously, the two groups moved with caution toward the door marked 310.

“Okay,” Anderton whispered. “That's near enough. Wade and Sinclair go in first and secure the main room. Rogan and I follow. Wade, clear the bathroom. I'll watch your backs. Okay, close in.”

They crept forward. Wade and Sinclair took up positions on either side of the door, with Rogan and Anderton behind them. She could taste sweat on her lips. This was it.

“Green light.”

W
ade aimed at the room's lock with a twelve-bore pump-action shotgun fitted with a nine-inch Hushpower suppressor. The blast disintegrated the lock and Sinclair charged in through the busted door. Rogan followed him, each man sweeping a different half of the room. Wade entered last, disappearing into the bathroom.

“Clear!”
he shouted.

“Clear,” Rogan stated.

Sinclair, lowering his gun: “Crystal.”

Anderton stepped into the lit room. No Gisele. No killer. She was annoyed, but not as surprised as the three men. It had felt too easy.

“Check under the bed,” Sinclair said.

Wade shook his head. “There's not enough room.”

“Do it.”

He squatted down and made a play of lifting up the skirt. There was only a two-inch gap.

Anderton radioed the mercenaries outside. “They're
not here. Be alert.” She walked over to the window, rested her palm on the sill, and whispered, “Where are you?”

•   •   •

Across the street, Victor turned around from arguing with Gisele to see a woman with blond hair in his other hotel room. He remembered Linnekin's description of her: blond, tall, well dressed, all business. He couldn't see whether her eyes were green, but he was sure this was her.

He stood still, watching. She did not look happy in the slightest. He felt a small measure of satisfaction at her anger, but that didn't change the fact Gisele's enemies were closer than he wanted.

With the curtains almost fully drawn he wouldn't be seen in return. He could see men in the room behind her—two or three. The mercenaries.

The others must be elsewhere, but nearby. They would be here in force.

For now, they didn't know the room was a decoy.

Victor looked at Gisele. “Get dressed.”

“Where is this fucker?” Sinclair asked to anyone who was listening.

Anderton ignored him. She said, “Clear out and search the hotel. They might still be on the premises: bar, restaurant, fitness suite. Look everywhere.”

Sinclair, Wade, and Rogan withdrew, leaving Anderton alone with her thoughts.

She had sensed something wasn't right beforehand. Now her instincts had proved correct. She circled the room. The bedclothes were mussed. In the bathroom, a towel was damp. Complimentary toiletries had been
opened. All suggesting the room had been used and they'd missed them. Yet . . .

She approached the bed. She stared at the pillow. It was squashed in the center. The pillowcase was the perfect white of hotel-laundered linens. She looked closely, leaning in.

“No hairs,” she said to herself.

Neither short dark hairs from the assassin nor longer red hairs from Gisele.

Anderton turned to face the window. The curtains were not fully closed. Interesting. More significant than that, though, was the freestanding mirror sitting on the sill.

She was careful in her actions to appear casual, as if she had not realized what was happening. This was not the killer's room. This was a ruse. This was a shield. A decoy. And Anderton had fallen for it.

Seemingly in an idle wander she approached the window. She placed both hands on the windowsill once again and gazed out, emitting a long sigh of frustration and annoyance. She resisted shaking her head. That might be overkill.

There was a hotel on the other side of the street.

Anderton judged the position of the mirror and the angle and pictured him across the street, standing at one of the windows of the hotel opposite.

•   •   •

“What do we do?” Gisele asked as she slipped her shoes on, voice high-pitched between rapid breaths.

“It's okay,” Victor said, watching the blond woman sighing in frustration at the window opposite. “We're safe
for the moment. We wait for ten minutes to give them time to extract. Then we go.”

She stood. “Where to? How did they find us?”

“Anywhere. We'll work it out on the way. And they haven't found us. Stay calm.”

•   •   •

Making sure to look as if she weren't looking, Anderton scanned the hotel across the street. There were dozens of windows, each belonging to a room. Norimov's assassin would have to set up a surveillance point at least at the same floor as the current room. Third or higher. She discounted those rooms on the first two floors.

Logic would dictate that the room's lights would not be on, or if not the curtains would be drawn. Mentally, Anderton dropped those rooms that did not apply. That left five rooms. Three on the fourth floor; two on the third. One of the fourth-floor candidates was at the far left of the building, almost on the corner. A height advantage was no good if the horizontal angle was acute. Anderton crossed it off.

Four left.

She picked up the room's phone and called the information desk. She told the operator the name of the hotel opposite and hummed quietly while she waited.

A man answered and asked her what he could do for her.

Anderton said, “This is Detective Chief Inspector Crawley from the Metropolitan Police. I need your help with a case.”

“Oh, okay, what can I do for you?” was the nervous reply. Anderton pictured someone not dissimilar to the manager of the current hotel.

“It's quite simple, so please don't be nervous. A
confidential informant of mine is staying in your hotel but I don't know which room he's staying in.”

“What's his name?”

“Hooper, but he'll be using an alias for safety reasons. Trouble is, I don't know what the alias is and I can't get through on his mobile.”

“How can I help, then?”

“I think we'll be able to work out what name he's using if you bear with me. He'll have checked in within the past forty-eight hours on his own and won't have checked out yet.”

“I'll have a look at our records and get the names of those people.”

Anderton could hear him tapping on a keyboard for a few moments.

“Right,” the man said, his voice confident now, happy that he could perform this role and help. “I've got over . . . uh, well over twenty single men . . . John Belamy, Peter Cochrane—”

“Did any of those guests request anything specific in their choice of rooms? My CI has . . . how shall we say?
Quirks
. He would want a room with a north-facing window. Can you see if anyone asked for such a room?”

There was silence for a moment. “I'm afraid such a request might not be noted on the system. The operator might simply have given him a room that met that criteria. Let me see . . . uh, no. Sorry. There's no such request on any of the reservations. I'm not sure what else I can tell you.”

“Okay,” Anderton said, sounding like it wasn't that big a deal. “Of the single men who checked in during the
time period, how many ended up in a north-facing room?”

There was a half-exhaling, half-whistling sound. “I can see . . . Let me count. Yeah, nine single men in north-facing rooms.”

“Great,” Anderton said, encouragingly. “That narrows it down. My guy doesn't like to be near the ground, so which of those nine men is in a room on the third or fourth floor?”

“We're getting close,” the man said. “Down to two. One on the third floor and one on the fourth: Roger Telfer and Charles Rawling. If you want, I can put you through to them one at a time so you can see which is your man. It's no bother. I'm happy to help. They are—”

“Which had the earlier check-in?”

The man made a clucking noise. “Uh . . . that would be Charles Rawling. Room 419. Is that your guy? Would you like me to put you through to his room?”

“That won't be necessary,” Anderton said. “I'll see him in person. But thank you for your assistance, er . . .”

“Nathan.”

“Thank you, Nathan. You have yourself a good night.”

“You're very welcome.”

Anderton hung up. She knew they were in the fourth-floor room and not the third. Both had been available when Norimov's assassin had checked in. He would have taken the fourth-floor room as a preference, for the height advantage.

She radioed Sinclair: “Listen carefully. They're in the hotel across the street. This room is a decoy. He's in 419, repeat, 419. Charles Rawling. If I'm right, he knows
we're here and he's looking at my back as we speak. But he doesn't know I know. He's going to wait until we clear out and vanish with the girl. So long as I sit here, he thinks they're safe. Don't tell the others. He might notice their reactions. Make your way over there while he's watching the rest of us. Do what you do best.”

“With pleasure.”