If he’d been playing by the rules he’d have stayed away from the public areas but he liked the idea of being out in the open, the possibility that someone would identify him or that, best of all, Berg himself would stroll nonchalantly into the bar and see JJ sitting there.
Berg wasn’t that nonchalant though, perhaps not even nonchalant enough to be in the same hotel as the man who was protecting him, and the Russians themselves were probably too tightly leashed to be down there relaxing. Instead, JJ took his couple of drinks alone at the bar, a few people talking quietly in other parts of the room, the barman keeping to himself. And after the two drinks he made it an early night, already tired, feeling he’d held off long enough to beat the jet lag.
He slept fitfully though, angry sleep, waking more than once with a pounding reflex, springing out of the bed before coming to and realizing there was no threat. The second time woke him fully, enough for him to put the lamp on and sit there on the edge of the bed, collecting his thoughts. It was just after three, too early to stay awake, particularly with the day he had ahead of him, but his thoughts were like razors, cutting clean. He took a drink from the minibar and went out onto the balcony where the air was cooler or at least had a kind of coolness that was more authentic, an ebb and flow on a faint breeze.
The pool and gardens below were floodlit but empty, most of the hotel in darkness too, even the city beyond subdued. It was early evening back in Vermont and he thought about it for a while as he stood there, mentally slapping himself then and turning his thoughts instead to the Russians two floors above him.
That was what he had to concentrate on, those Russians, dealing with Naumenko. That was why he needed sleep. Because he’d already let things slip enough that week without going in there tired, his mind on other things. If he ended up taking a bullet, he wanted it to be because it was his day to die, not because he’d lost sight of the ball. For as much as he knew though, perhaps they were one and the same thing.
The next morning he sat on a lounge chair in the shade of some drooping palms, the noise of kids from the small pool off to his right, traffic punctuated by beeping horns from beyond the grounds of the hotel. The heat was still fresh, the day still subdued at the edges.
He guessed most people were in conferences and meetings or out sightseeing before the afternoon temperatures cut off the air supply. The main pool was almost empty, just a couple of people plowing up and down. Most of the lounge chairs were vacant too, though a handful were occupied by other people like him, keeping their own company.
It was just over a week since he’d almost come to Athens from Geneva, and if he’d taken Danny’s advice this was the kind of place he might well have spent that week, thinking things were blowing over when in reality he’d have been dying by default as he’d lain there in the sun. It was a piece of advice he’d pass on himself someday: never take a holiday during a crisis.
He checked his watch and counted his way up the side of the building to the sixth floor, reckoning he’d head up there within the next hour. Naumenko was probably up by now and ready to face the world. JJ felt ready to face him too, the couple of hours soaking up the early sun restoring him after the troubled night, any doubts sinking away into the depths.
He was thinking clearly now, coldly aware of the possible outcomes of going there, the best of which was Naumenko backing off, or even dealing with Berg himself. If it fell like that it would be easy enough then for JJ to normalize things, putting himself back above the politics, particularly now with Holden onboard.
If it went the other way it would just be the death sentence he’d been under all week anyway. And then maybe his only chance would be if Naumenko didn’t want him killed there in the hotel. Either way, as he’d said to Holden, it was probably worth no more thought than the risk of a plane crashing, or of getting cancer, dying a silent death in old age, any of the other options.
He went back up to his room, took a shower, put his suit on, and went back out to the elevator, pressing for the sixth floor. When the doors opened it looked like he’d stumbled on a wedding or funeral party, a handful of guys in suits standing around looking nervous in the lobby. They looked at him with a mix of edginess and suspicion, bristling as he stepped out of the elevator toward them.
He singled out the one who was closest to him, a small thin guy with slicked-back hair, a glass-eye stare.