ENEMY -THE-

by WOOD TOM

  He could steal a car, but if the police were on the lookout for it he could inadvertently bring them to him even sooner. Until he had a clean identity sorted, he didn’t want to create the paper trail by using a rental. Plus, he didn’t know Minsk’s streets well enough to escape easily by car and there was no time to learn them before tonight. Better to start on foot and have the option to use either metro, bus or taxi as required.

  Victor took the elevator to the seventh floor. He strolled around the corridor, pausing to peer over the railing to his right and down to the lobby below. He looked up at the glass cupola ceiling. The sky beyond it was a deep blue. Enough natural light spilled down that few other light fixtures were needed. He pictured the cupola’s effect at night and then counted the steps to the Presidential door and from the door to the stairwell.

  It was a little after ten-thirty a.m. There was a maid’s cart near the Presidential. He could hear a vacuum cleaner. Victor didn’t know how long the maid would have left to clean the room, but he planned to wait nearby until she had finished. It took ten minutes before she left the suite and pushed her cart away. He waited until she had gone before using the internet option on his phone to log into the hotel’s network with a password provided by his employer. He checked the booking register. He didn’t want to take a tour of the Presidential only to be joined by Petrenko and his men two minutes later. Unlikely, given that official check-in wasn’t for another hour and a half, but he didn’t know if Petrenko had preferential treatment being a frequent guest and local crime lord. The register showed nothing, but Victor didn’t move.

  An elevator reached the seventh floor and its doors opened. A man stepped out. He was around six feet tall, mid twenties, with closely cropped red hair, dressed in jeans, sneakers and sports jacket. He had a lean but hard fighter’s physique and gave Victor the universal tough guy stare as he sauntered in the direction of the Presidential. He definitely wasn’t a hotel employee and though Victor had nothing to tell him what Petrenko looked like, this guy was unlikely to be him. Too young and too obviously stupid.

  Victor didn’t wait to confirm the tough guy was going to enter the suite; he took the stairs down to the floor below and moved along the balcony corridor until he was in a position to turn around and look upwards. The second glass-fronted elevator was ascending. The glare on the glass stopped him from initially making out any details but he could see two or three figures. As the elevator rose past him, the glare disappeared to reveal three men – two more tough guys in jeans and sportswear and one older, better dressed man who held himself with the unmistakable air of a natural leader. They exited the elevator and headed to the Presidential.

  So Petrenko was allowed to check-in early, whether by having an arrangement with the hotel or from just slipping the receptionist some cash for the privilege. Victor used the stairs to reach the lobby and took a seat in the bar while he waited.

  The man in the brown suede jacket was still in his chair, still pretending to read his newspaper.

  An hour went by before Victor was given the opportunity he was waiting for. The man he took to be Petrenko exited an elevator along with the young tough guy and the two in sports coats. They walked through the lobby and left the hotel via the main entrance. At which point the watcher in the brown jacket stood up from his chair, dropped his newspaper down where he’d been sitting, and followed.

  If the three men Victor had seen were the sum total of Petrenko’s entourage then the suite would now be empty. There was always the chance another man had joined Petrenko while Victor had been in the bar, but there was only one way to find out.

  He waited for a few minutes before taking the elevator up to the fifth floor and used the stairs for the last two. He gave a polite knock on the Presidential’s door and waited with an equally polite smile. Whether or not someone answered would also tell him more about the accuracy of the intelligence he’d been supplied with. The dossier had stated Petrenko’s party would be at least five strong.

  It took a second knock and a minute wait but the door was opened. One point to the CIA and any chance of Victor getting time by himself in the suite vanished. Another thug stood before Victor, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. The T-shirt was emblazoned with the fiery logo of a German rock band.

  ‘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.

  Apart from Yamout and the point man, none were Arabs. They were all pale-skinned, probably either Belarusians or Russians or from other neighbouring former Soviet states, hired for this gig because they were local and knew the language. Each man was alert, clearly knowing his job, and had the strong but not overly muscled build of bodyguards paid to do more than simply look mean. The point man was probably one of Yamout’s personal staff. He seemed at least as competent as the rest.

  Yamout was no more than six feet but well over two hundred pounds. He was in reasonable shape though – the legacy of a naturally strong build and a physical youth, but an increasingly less active maturity. The whole group wore suits, Yamout in navy, the bodyguards in charcoal or black. Their pace was brisk but not hurried, demeanour all business but with a touch of arrogance. There was no luggage.

  The way their jackets hung told Victor the bodyguards were armed. The five white guys all had belt holsters on their right hips. Not as concealable as carried underarm, but better for quick draws. Victor couldn’t see a weapon on the Arab working point, but he didn’t doubt he was still armed. There was no sign of a gun on Yamout either, but he hardly needed one with so much protection.

  Victor was sat in the lobby bar with a lemonade. He was noticed by the bodyguards but, like everyone else in the area, quickly dismissed as a possible problem. He was just an unremarkable man in a suit, sitting alone in a bar. No threat to anyone. It was something he worked very hard on – appearing harmless when he was anything but.

  The point man reached the elevator and hit the call button. The doors were opening just as Yamout reached them. The point man went in alone and rode it up to the seventh floor. Yamout and the others waited in front of the elevator for a minute before answering a phone call. The point man letting him know it was safe to go up, presumably. Yamout gestured to one of the bodyguards, who promptly hit the call button. The second elevator opened and Yamout and his men stepped inside. Victor watched them ascend.

  There was no sign of the watcher, and there hadn’t been for hours. Victor didn’t like not knowing where he was, but there were only so many things he could control. He checked the time, picked up his bag, stood, and left the lobby. Using the hotel master keycard he accessed a door to the staff area, followed the memorised layout he’d taken from the blueprints, and, after making sure no one was nearby, entered the appropriate room.

  It was dark and warm. Tiny lights glowed and flickered in the darkness. The hum of machinery filled Victor’s ears. He closed the door behind him and flicked the light switches. Strip lights illuminated the hotel’s electrical room and its large array of equipment. Along two walls were electric switchboards, circuit breakers, transformers, distribution boards and other electrical equipment. Vast amounts of insulated wiring and cables ran along the walls and ceiling.

  Victor placed his bag on the floor and took out a pair of thick rubber gloves. When they were protecting his hands, he opened the switchboard panels. Inside were banks of copper busbars connected to the switchgear. Victor removed a zip-lock plastic bag containing six golf ball-sized spheres of C-4. He placed these carefully throughout the switchboards, making sure he kept away from the bare busbars and the huge charge that flowed through them. When the C-4 balls were in place, he pushed a slapper detonator into each one. The detonators were connected to a simple digital timer.

  Victor set the timer to three minutes, grabbed his bag, and left the room.

  Gabir Yamout stepped out of the elevator behind two of his bodyguards. Elkhouri, Yamout’s point man and chief bodyguard, had ridden up to the seventh floor separately. He had both announced Yamout’s imminent arrival to Petrenko and checked out the lay of the l
and. The serious-faced Arab was Yamout’s most trusted hireling, having been at his side for over ten years. He was both a bodyguard and an advisor, and always had Yamout’s safety and best interests at the forefront of his mind.

  In the early days, Yamout had been like Elkhouri and had been simply a bodyguard to Ariff. As Yamout became more trusted, he had garnered more responsibilities, and now was a business partner and friend first, bodyguard second. Elkhouri had taken over as head of Ariff’s security and if Elkhouri had told Yamout it wasn’t a good idea to continue with the meeting, without question Yamout would have taken the man’s advice and left. From the call Yamout had received minutes before, Elkhouri was happy with what awaited them, or as happy as he could be when meeting ruthless gangsters on their own territory.

  Elkhouri was waiting outside the suite’s door alongside two large Belarusians. They wore designer jeans and labelled sportswear and couldn’t look any more like ivory-coloured savages if they tried. Both visibly tensed when they saw just how many men Yamout had brought with him. That was good. Yamout always showed up in force when meeting with a new contact, especially in unfamiliar surroundings.

  One of the savages hurried back inside the suite, obviously to report to Petrenko about Yamout’s numbers. How Petrenko reacted to this news would tell Yamout everything about the man he could ever need to know. Elkhouri gave Yamout a small nod.

  He approached the lone thug left holding open the door, who stepped aside to allow Yamout past. Four of the bodyguards went in first, followed by Elkhouri and then Yamout. The final bodyguard stayed outside the door with Petrenko’s man.