put the bill on his corporate card, and they stood and headed back into the lobby of the hotel.
Ennis had told her that his apartment was in Potsdam, but he had taken a room at the nearby Hilton for the last couple weeks of the Iran contract to avoid the daily commute into Berlin. It was just a few blocks’ walk away, but he was following her back into the Adlon lobby, and not in the direction of his own hotel.
Zoya knew what his plan was.
On cue he said, “How about a nightcap upstairs?”
It was after ten p.m.; Zoya didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, except for the fact that Ennis said Moises and Yanis would meet her in her room at ten a.m. for a breakfast meeting.
But it didn’t matter what came tomorrow; even if she knew she had the entire day off, she didn’t want to spend any more of tonight on Ric Ennis.
She shook her head politely. “I’ve got an early morning, sorry. Good night.”
She turned for the elevator but made it just a couple of steps before Ennis took her by her upper arm. She spun back and looked at him, ready to tell him to take his fucking hand off her, but instantly something behind him drew her attention away from her creepy supervisor. A man strolling across the lobby fifty feet away stopped abruptly when she’d turned. Now the man walked over to some sofas, making a forty-five-degree adjustment to his earlier direction. Zoya had been trained to pick up on the movements and patterns of those around her, and in her heightened state now, this tell had not been difficult to detect. She had no idea if this was a Russian hit man sent after her, something else that posed a danger to her or her operation, or nothing more than a man who changed his mind about going to the elevators at the same time she turned around.
Ennis was unaware of all these thoughts going through Zoya’s mind. “One drink,” he pleaded. “Upstairs. Then I’ll go.” The man was clearly somewhat inebriated from the alcohol, but more than this, Zoya determined, he was drunk on his own confidence, certain he could cajole the vulnerable Russian woman into sleeping with him.
She looked back down at his hand. It lingered on her arm. “Ric. No.” Her voice was strong, emphatic, but not angry.
Ennis released his grip slowly. When she looked up to his face, he held her gaze for several seconds, then gave a little smile. “Next time, maybe.”
She wasn’t thinking about next time. She wasn’t thinking about Ennis at all.
She was thinking about the man on the sofa. His back was to her, but he would be able to see her in the window’s reflection.
To Ennis she said, “Thank you for a pleasant evening.” And then she turned toward the elevator.
This time Ennis let her go, and he spun away, began walking back to the restaurant and the exit to Unter den Linden there.
* * *
• • •
Court stood in the dark shadow of the grandfather clock in the lobby, some sixty feet from Zoya, as he watched her press the button for the elevator. He’d seen the slight altercation between her and Ennis, but as he was on the far side of the clock, he’d not seen what Zoya had seen, a potential follower caught in the open.
Court leaned back a couple of inches as Zoya scanned the room while waiting for her elevator, shielding him from her, but a moment later he heard the car arrive and the doors open. He waited an instant, leaned forward again, and saw the door as it closed.
Zoya was gone. This pleased him. He had no doubt but that she would be in for the night, and a five-star hotel like this would have decent security and an excellent camera system.
The Russians wouldn’t stage a hit here in the hotel, of this he was reasonably certain. She was operating in the field, after all; there were too many opportunities for a successful hit and a quick getaway on the street, in the U-Bahn, on a streetcar, or in a café. To Court, the hotel would be the worst possible location for any assassin to act.
She was safe for now, as far as Court was concerned.
He stepped out from his spot near the grandfather clock, then turned his head to see Ennis leaving the hotel through the restaurant.
And then he saw something else. Ennis had