Lesh wheeled himself across the hotel’s vast lobby area as men in black suits and women in long dresses walked towards the bar, to drink and be entertained by a children’s string quartet. Lesh could barely hear their music for the noise of talking and laughter.
The hotel was something else. The reception area was massive. An elegant wooden staircase at the side. A deep red carpet. Gold painted furniture. Dozens of shimmering chandeliers. Through a double doorway to the left there was a huge banqueting suite laid out with fancy cutlery and wine glasses. Seven o’clock in the evening and the Arctic Conference was hosting its first dinner.
Perfect, Lesh thought. Now the Squad would have free run of the hotel to track everyone they needed to and stop them doing whatever they were planning to do to start a war. He turned his wheelchair swiftly and headed for the lifts.
Lesh allowed five adults to come out of a lift before he wheeled himself in. A man with short blond hair held the door for him, smiling kindly. Lesh smiled back. Then the lift doors closed, leaving Lesh on his own in a small over-lit space, a large mirror to his left, the reflection of a boy in a wheelchair staring back at him.
Lesh hated lifts now. First, they were a reminder that he couldn’t climb staircases and he therefore depended on them. Second, the way they moved swiftly up or down brought on the feeling he’d had when he’d fallen down the church tower in Poland. The helplessness. The fear. He felt all that now, but knew that if he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth until his jaw hurt he’d be OK.
Two minutes later, Lesh was in room 312. His room. Where he’d arranged to meet the other four Squad members.
‘You’re in charge, Lesh,’ Kester announced.
Lesh nodded. Kester, their leader, was allowing Lesh to lead this stage of the operation because he was the expert on the devices they were about to use. That made Lesh feel good. It meant he was a valuable member of the team, something he had been worried he would no longer be after his accident.
‘We’ve got two hours to get into the two targets’ rooms. Kester and Lily will go into Frank Hawk’s, the American. Hatty and Adnan into Esenin’s, the Russian. You’ve all got your radios, so we can stay in contact. I’ll monitor you from here. Your job is to plant these.’
Lesh took out a small wallet the size of a DS or a PSP. Inside were six small pins with minute glassy heads on the end. As he did so, he was pleased to see the other Squad members check their earpieces and the mics in their watches. Routine practice before a mission.
‘These,’ Lesh said with a smile, ‘are the new cameras.’
‘Seriously?’ Adnan asked.
‘Seriously,’ Lesh said. ‘If you put the sharp end into the corner of a piece of furniture, this camera can film a whole room. I’m using the CCTV cameras too. I’ve been monitoring them for an hour. Everyone on the hotel guest list has left floors five and six for the dining area. All the rooms are empty. That’s what the conference organizers agreed.’
‘OK,’ Hatty said.
‘The only hard bit is getting the cameras where we need them. So make sure they all have a good view of the room. Somewhere high. Maybe in a doorway. Can you do that?’
‘Yes,’ Kester said, followed by the others.
‘Good. Once you’ve put the camera in position, you need to activate it by twisting it a quarter turn clockwise. Don’t forget.’
‘We won’t.’
‘OK,’ Lesh said, ‘I want you all in the stairways for when I give you the all-clear to go in.’
Kester and Lily waited in the breezeblock stairwell for just two minutes before they heard Lesh’s voice on the radio. ‘Go in. All clear.’
They walked down the carpeted corridor, approaching room 615. Kester placed a plastic card on the pad beneath the door handle – a duplicate key Lesh had made for them – and pushed the door open.
Frank Hawk’s room.
Once inside, they closed the door quickly behind them and took in a king-size double bed, a huge wooden desk, lamps, gold-and-cream wallpaper. A tray with a half-drunk bottle of red wine.
Kester knew he was supposed to feel nervous doing jobs like this. They were in someone’s room without permission after all. Frank Hawk might be aggressive or dangerous and could come back at any moment. But Kester actually enjoyed the feeling. Maybe it was because he knew that the chances of someone actually coming back were low, what with Lesh covering them and dinner having only just begun.
Lily planted the camera in the top corner of a doorway, away from the door itself. Pressed deep into the wood so that it seemed invisible.
‘Good.’ Kester grinned. ‘Shall we check the room for documents? We’ve got time.’
Lily was about to reply when they both heard Lesh’s alarmed voice on the radio. ‘Abort. A man – I think it’s Hawk – coming down the corridor. From nowhere.’
Kester and Lily felt their hearts sink, their breathing quicken. There was no time to abort. They looked for places to hide. Behind curtains. Under beds. Anywhere.
Then a noise in the corridor. A handle turning. The door easing open.
Kester dropped to the floor behind the sofa, next to Lily, in possibly the worst hiding place they’d ever found themselves in.