Assassin's Game

FORTY-FIVE

Slaton didn’t get far. At the third-floor landing he came across a guard, an unsmiling stump of a man who would not allow him to continue upward — at least not without making a comment on his radio. The Iranians weren’t the best, but they were capable enough. And while such an alert might not be fatal to Slaton’s mission, it would pose unnecessary complications. So he nodded cordially to the man, exited the stairwell into the third-floor hall, and followed it to the end. There he found a service elevator he’d noticed earlier, and an empty car soon arrived. A minute later Slaton was at the fifth-floor Bertrand suite removing his shim from the door.

Once inside, he engaged the chain latch and took a closer look at the room. One main sitting area was joined by a single bedroom, all of it dressed to advance the idea that the place had kept queens and diplomats of past ages. There were fine chairs and delicate lamps, and a tasteful assembly of oil-on-canvas landscapes graced the walls. White floor-length curtains caught the breeze from a partially open window, but otherwise the suite was as still as a photograph. Slaton made a quick tour of the place and found one suitcase, unpacked, and a short line of expensive clothing hanging in the main closet. Madame Dupre’s passport was on the dresser, the picture showing a woman in her early fifties, but the date of birth arguing otherwise. The bed was unmade and the bathroom floor littered with spent towels. The maid had not yet arrived today.

Slaton went to the main closet hoping the suite was an exact mirror of the unit below. Were he dealing with a security force from a Western government, Slaton knew the opening he was about to exploit would not exist. Top-tier services blocked out entire floors above and below a principal’s room. The fact that Iran had not, he granted, wasn’t because they lacked good sense or due diligence. The simple answer was that the Swiss franc put the Iranian dinar at a massive disadvantage.

From under the lapel of his jacket he took a heavy utility knife, a small handsaw, and a flashlight, the generous pockets of Armani having been ample for his burglar’s ensemble. The sheer length of the closet posed his first challenge. It was at least twelve feet long, and not knowing where to aim, Slaton decided to make his cut in the center. With Madame Dupre’s full-length silver fox hanging over his head, he used the knife to make three clean slices in the carpet, resulting in a square two-foot-wide opening, three edges cut and folded back over the fourth. Underneath he found thick foam padding and gave it the same treatment, which left him facing a section of wooden floorboard. The plywood was not overly thick, and had certainly softened over the years, but it still presented a problem.

Slaton studied the ceiling overhead, taking it for a mirror of what he would find below — a lightweight lattice of decorative panels mounted on a grid of metal stringers. It was common construction, simple and cheap. The problem was that the panels did little to attenuate noise. He began with the knife, but made barely an outline before turning to the handsaw. It was slow and tedious work that would have been far easier with an electric saw. Unfortunately, in a complication he’d faced before, the resultant noise would be like setting off an alarm.

The blade bit and chewed through old wood, and his bricklayer’s hands went numb from pressuring the handle. When the blade finally breached the cavity between floors Slaton stopped to listen. He heard the faint sound of a vacuum, and somewhere a muted television newscast in German. The groan of plumbing as toilets were flushed and the odd thump of a closing door. For a busy hotel, nothing out of the ordinary.

Slaton took off his jacket and set back to work. His fingers soon ached and blisters began wearing into his already hardened hands. Sweat dripped from his brow, and when he checked his watch he saw that he’d been in the room for twenty minutes. He hoped Madame Dupre had a healthy appetite. In a perfect world he would have rented the room for a night and taken his time. As it was, he had to improvise. The thin blade finally met the fourth corner, and with his cut complete he left the saw blade in place and wedged his fingers into the crease, rocking the panel slowly upward. When it came clear he looked through and saw the top of the ceiling panel in Hamedi’s closet.

Again Slaton listened. Still nothing unusual.

The dead space between the floors, no more than four inches, was strewn with dust and dead bugs, and he saw that by sheer luck he’d narrowly missed slicing through an electrical conduit. He reached down, dug his fingernails into one soft corner of the ceiling panel, and lifted ever so slightly. It moved, and he was happy to see no light at the opening. The closet door below was closed. There was enough ambient light, however, to see shadows inside the closet. With an urge to move quickly, Slaton slid forward, pulled the panel completely clear, and dropped his head into the gap. Hanging upside down in the darkened lower closet, he looked left and right at a rack of men’s clothing. There was one leather jacket, and two of everything else. Dress shirts and trousers, and three feet to his right what he was after — a pair of suit coats. Here, Slaton knew, was the most dubious part of his plan — there was no way to be sure that Hamedi would wear either of them tomorrow evening. Yet like every mission, there came a time to go with the odds.

He anchored his lower body, wedging a knee against the wall, and lowered himself until one arm and shoulder were through the gap. The room was warm, but the sweat beading on his forehead had more to do with the fact that he was hanging upside down in the closet of a heavily guarded Iranian envoy. Slaton reached along the hangar rail, but the suits were beyond his grasp. He quickly extracted himself and pulled an empty wire hangar from the rack overhead, twisting it straight but leaving the hook on one end. On his second try he managed to snag both of Hamedi’s jackets and pull them closer. He took note that one was black and the other dark gray. Slaton was reaching for the Scotchgard, and still hanging inverted in the void, when the closet door below suddenly rattled.

Slaton jerked himself up, but there was no time to replace the ceiling tile, which left a gaping hole. He saw light as the door swung open, and then a pair of shoes thumped against the wall. The door shut again. Slaton closed his eyes and breathed out. He distinctly heard voices from the lower room, a casual discussion in Farsi.

He was reaching for the can of Scotchgard again, ready to finish the job, when the second interruption came. A knock on Madame Dupre’s door. He heard the mechanical ratchet as the handle engaged, and then a thump when the door caught on the security chain he’d thankfully set.

Someone was trying to enter the room.

Brigit Fontaine, carrying a load of clean hand towels under her arm, called though the cracked door of the Bertrand Suite. “Femme de chambre,” she said in her best singsong maid’s voice.

She heard no reply, but her guest was certainly inside because the chain was engaged.

“Madame? Serviettes d’aujourd’hui? Plus tard, ou—” Brigit froze.

A man was leaning into the gap, and from the waist up — that was all she could see — he was quite naked. He was also covered in sweat and seemed out of breath. He was a tall fellow and, she did notice, rather attractive and muscular.

He smiled at her brazenly, and said in a husky voice, “Madame est engagé.”

“Oh! Certainement … pardon, monsieur.”

“Trente minutes de plus,” he said.

“Trente minutes?” Brigit repeated. “Ah! Oui, monsieur, trente minutes.” Not knowing what else to say, she took an awkward step back.

The door shut gently.

She looked over her shoulder and saw Nicolette down the hall, standing by her cart at Number 12. Brigit scurried silently in that direction and began calling in a harsh whisper. “Nicolette! Nicolette … quel scandale!”