The more she thought about it, the more it worried her. And he had called her Anna at the bar. It had struck her at the time but she’d not dwelled on the point for long. Now it came back to the forefront of her mind.
How much about her and her past did Carl Logan already know?
The chat portal finally loaded up and the Red Cobra checked her inbox. Again the message was brief, coded too. But it was clear what it meant. She was to carry on the surveillance of Gazinsky and wait for the meeting that was planned, with a man called Charles McCabe. British Intelligence, like Logan had said. And then she was to kill them all. Which she could only assume meant Logan too, if he happened to be there.
It was a welcome message. She didn’t like being made a fool of.
The Red Cobra sent a return message to confirm her intentions, then deleted both that and the message she’d received. Then she shut down the laptop. She moved over to her backpack and checked over the material on the outside. It was the obvious place for Logan to have bugged her the previous day.
She found the small tracking chip within minutes. It was tiny, the size of a freckle. One side was sticky allowing it to be pressed easily into place. She found it stuck onto the underside of one of the pocket flaps – an innocuous position. She admired the move that Logan had made to put the chip there, even if it did make her look stupid.
She would get her own back.
After showering and dressing, the Red Cobra put on a flame-coloured wig and some emerald contact lenses then made her way across Berlin on foot. She had her backpack though she wasn’t planning on heading back to the apartment to spend the day looking through a camera lens. What was the point? Logan already knew about that location. Most likely he’d have a man stationed there from now until the meeting between Gazinsky and McCabe had taken place. If she was to continue to surveil, she needed to find a new location.
That was easier said than done. The apartment had taken her days to find and properly arrange, putting in place all the correct documents and contracts to keep her trail clean. She simply didn't have time to do that all over again.
She required a more direct approach.
A little over an hour later, the Red Cobra walked through the luxurious lobby of the Waldorf Astoria. She headed straight past the many eager staff members and into an open lift behind another guest. She realised as the guest – a man in his fifties – pressed his room card onto a small pad that the lift only worked with an active card. He pressed the button for the fifth floor. She looked at the man, catching his attention, then gave him a seductive smile.
‘Fifteen, please,’ she said, assuming he’d understand her English.
He smiled back, then placed his card up against the pad a second time before pressing the button for the fifteenth. The button lit up and she thanked the man as they reached the fifth floor. He gave her another look before he exited. What, was he thinking she was about to head off to his room with him because he pressed a damn lift button for her? The Red Cobra ignored him. Seconds later, she was on her way up again.
The plan? She had to get into Gazinsky’s suite. She would kill them all, as she’d been asked to do. But she didn’t need to sit and wait for the meeting with Charles McCabe to conclude. She’d kill whoever was in that suite already, then take out whoever else arrived after.
When she came out of the lift, the Red Cobra smiled when she spotted her opportunity. A maid’s trolley, two doors down from where she was.
The Red Cobra walked over, scanning in front and behind her to make sure no one was watching. She spotted a CCTV camera at the far end of the corridor but with her cap low and her head down the camera would never get a good capture of her face. And she doubted there was anyone sat watching live feeds covering such an extensive building so there was little chance of her tripping an alert with what she was about to do.
When the Red Cobra reached the doorway to the substantial room that the maid was cleaning, she did one more scan up and down the corridor. Satisfied, she stepped in through the open doorway and quickly shut it behind her.
The noise caught the maid’s attention. She was in the process of dusting the coffee table in the middle of the lounge area. The look on her face... she knew she was in trouble.
The Red Cobra sprang towards the petrified woman.
Three minutes later, in the maid’s blue and white dress, the master keycard dangling from her waist, the Red Cobra stepped back out into the hotel corridor. She placed her backpack – now filled with her clothes – into the maid’s trolley, out of sight under blankets, then casually pushed the trolley down the corridor to Gazinsky’s suite.
She pulled the keycard up and placed it into the slot on the suite’s door. The red light flicked to green and she heard the lock release. She put one hand to the handle. The other she balled and knocked gently on the door three times.
‘Hauswirtschafts,’ she said, pushing the handle down and the door open.
The Red Cobra took two steps into the room. The door closed behind her. She stopped. She didn’t need to go any further. She’d surveilled this room for over thirty hours over the last few days. She knew the layout. She knew the location of sofas and drawers, wardrobes, the bed. Where Gazinsky and his wife had placed all their belongings. And it was clear to the Red Cobra that this room was now empty.
Gazinsky was gone.
CHAPTER 36
The Red Cobra didn’t panic. Doing so wouldn’t help her. Instead she backtracked out of the suite and up the corridor with the trolley, from which she grabbed her backpack. She then opened the door to the room she’d been in moments earlier, entered, and closed the door. The maid was on the floor, writhing around, frantically trying to undo the dressing gown belt that was tied around her wrists. She murmured, trying to cry out, but the fabric stuffed in her mouth was muffling her cries. She was going nowhere.
The Red Cobra stripped off the maid’s dress, opened the backpack and as quickly as she could, put her own clothes back on.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said to the maid, a second before opening the door and heading to the lift, which she activated using the maid’s key card.
When she exited the lift on the ground floor, the Red Cobra set her sights on the main exit. She dropped the maid’s card into a bin then strode toward the doors, wanting nothing more than to get out into the fresh air and determine her next step.
Her plan was halted only seconds later though when she heard the all-too-familiar voice.
‘Good morning,’ Carl Logan said.
The Red Cobra was riled by what sounded like a jovial, taunting tone, but she ignored him and carried on walking out into the street.
‘You’re quite the chameleon, aren’t you?,’ he said. He must have only been a step or two behind her. She didn’t let up. ‘Blonde, brunette, red. How do you remember who you really are?’
‘I’m sure you’re used to pretending too.’
‘You’re right, I am. Part of the job, eh?’
‘A necessary evil.’