was a chance he’d need to make entry on the hotel tonight, but he liked the casual clothing he was wearing because he felt it helped him fit in better sitting on a street corner bench.
He’d picked up a pair of dress shoes and some other odds and ends at a used clothing store west of Spandau during his SDR earlier in the day, and then he’d returned to his flat and slept like the dead for forty-five minutes before waking to prepare for this evening.
For now, though, he sat, watched, and fumed. He found himself angry at Zoya for a multitude of reasons. Angry that she sat outside tonight. This was a defensive logistical nightmare; there were vehicles and pedestrians and windows and rooftops and no way in hell to stop a determined attack on her.
The one thing he did have going for him, however, was that the crowd was large enough that anyone who acted would be doing so in front of hundreds of people, so if a potential murderer wanted to save his own skin, then this wouldn’t be the time to act.
But it would be the time to ID Anthem as their target, and a good time to begin surveillance on her that would lead, inevitably, to an assassination attempt.
He was angry that she downed her vodka in a single swig and called the waiter over again, apparently ordering another round for them both, and that she smiled and laughed while the man in the light blue sport coat gesticulated wildly, telling some story about something that pissed Court off even though he didn’t know this asshole and he didn’t have a clue about what he was saying.
Court rubbed more sweat off his face. He was sick, he was tired, his stomach hurt, and he was pissed off that he’d eaten dinner at Dunkin’ Donuts while the only other person on this earth who mattered to him was across the street having the time of her life.
He forced his eyes away from her and rescanned the entire street, almost willing that some asshole try him tonight, because he desperately wanted to punch somebody in the face.
THIRTY-FIVE
The knock at the door of suite 401 came just after nine. Anya and Inna both stood up from the table next to the kitchen island where they had been working at their laptops, and they both pulled pistols from their purses: a Heckler & Koch VP9SK subcompact for Anya, and a not dissimilar HK P30SK for Inna.
Before they went to the door, Anya tapped a button on her computer that showed her the hotel camera view from right outside her door.
A second later both women sighed and resecured their firearms, and Inna headed to let her team leader in.
Anya kept looking at the real-time image on her screen. “He can barely stand.”
When Maksim Akulov entered a moment later, he walked utterly erect, his chin up, the knot of his blue tie only a touch off-kilter.
It was a put-on, Inna could tell. Maksim couldn’t hide his drunken stagger from her, even if Anya hadn’t already seen it for herself on the screen.
Inna had been through this so many times before.
The smell of vodka came through his skin as he passed by her. Anya Bolichova pulled a chair out for him at the table where she was working, but he passed this up, as well, in favor of the ornate couch against the wall. Here he plopped down heavily, then made a show of smoothing the part in his bushy reddish-brown hair.
“Where’s Sem?”
“He has the eye,” Sorokina answered.
Maksim acted like he was taking in this information, but Inna figured he was just fighting a little dizzy spell, hoping to keep down everything he’d consumed in the hours he’d been missing. Finally, he righted himself and asked, “Target disposition?”
“She’s having dinner with another employee of the company she works for. Downstairs, outdoor café. Semyon is at the bar inside, but he’s got an angle.”
Maksim pulled himself back up to his feet, surprising both women in the room. “Ponial.” Got it, he said, and he started for the door.
Both Bolichova and Sorokina grabbed him by the arms, and they led him back to the sofa. He didn’t fight them. “Not tonight,” Sorokina said as he sat back down.
She knew Maksim would become especially volatile if she didn’t phrase her next words carefully. “We see a much better opportunity ahead. I hope you will agree.”
He put his elbows on the back of the sofa. “Okay,