The Stanhope had four penthouse suites on the tenth floor, all of them with private terraces and views across the greenery of Hyde Park. They cost an average of ?4,000 a night – pocket change to a man like Mr Al-Jahabi, who’d already been in the largest and most expensive of them for the past week.
Aside from greeting him on occasion when he arrived at the hotel with his retinue, Elena had never had to talk to Mr Al-Jahabi before, and she wasn’t looking forward to starting now. Steeling herself, she stopped outside his door, took a deep breath, and knocked.
For a few seconds there was no answer. She was just about to knock again when the door opened a few inches and a young woman, not much older than eighteen but already with the hardening look of someone who does a job they despise, poked her head out.
‘Oh,’ she said, looking Elena up and down with an expression of vague distaste, ‘I thought you were room service. We’ve ordered champagne.’
Swallowing her irritation, Elena introduced herself, giving the prostitute a cold look, and asked to speak to Mr Al-Jahabi.
‘I’ll just see if he’s available,’ the girl said, returning the cold look as she closed the door.
It was a good two minutes before it was opened again, this time revealing a portly Arab man in his fifties with a thick black moustache, wearing only a black linen gown. Knowing she couldn’t have this discussion in the hallway, even though she’d have preferred to, Elena apologized for the intrusion and told him she’d like a private word.
He smiled, as if this was the most natural thing in the world, and ushered her into the spacious foyer. The doors to the different rooms were all closed, but Elena could hear giggling coming from the master bedroom.
‘Take a seat, Miss …’ he said, peering at Elena’s nametag and pointing to a leather sofa in one corner. He stepped towards her. ‘Is it Serenko?’
‘Yes, it is,’ she answered, taking a step backwards. Even in her heels, he still had a good couple of inches on her in height. ‘And I’d prefer to stand, thanks. We’ve had a serious complaint from one of our staff.’
‘Really? And what did they complain about?’
‘Apparently, you exposed yourself and made suggestive comments. You’re a very valued customer, Mr Al- Jahabi, but the Stanhope can’t tolerate that kind of behaviour towards its staff.’ You dirty old bastard, she felt like adding, but didn’t. Elena could be remarkably self-controlled when she wanted to be.
Mr Al-Jahabi laughed, which was when Elena noticed that his eyes were a little unfocused, and that he was none too steady on his feet. It looked like the classic combination of alcohol and coke.
God, that was all she needed.
‘She says what, exactly? That I showed her my dick? Why would I want to do that?’
‘I’m not sure, Mr Al-Jahabi, but—’
‘I got two beautiful girls in there. I don’t need one of your maids.’ He paused, eyeing her slyly through pinprick pupils. ‘Still, if she looked like you, I might be tempted. How would you like to earn yourself some real money, Miss See-Renko?’ He reached into the pocket of the gown, produced a huge wad of cash, and leaned in close to her again.
Elena could smell the booze on his breath and it made her feel sick. She needed to get out of here, and fast. And when she did she’d get straight on to Siobhan, the general manager, who was away on a course, and tell her that she wanted permission to throw this man out of the hotel right away, however much his custom was valued.
‘I think you want to, don’t you?’ he leered, so close now that the material of his gown was brushing against her trouser suit. ‘Maybe party with us in there for a little bit, huh? Snort some powder. You’d like that, I think.’
He began peeling off fifty-pound notes from the wad, each one worth more than half a duty manager’s shift after tax. Nothing to a man like him. Elena could tell from the arrogant, drunken look on his face that he’d bought plenty of people in the past just by flashing a little bit of his wealth.
Instinctively, and without a moment’s thought, she drove her knee into his groin. Hard.
Mr Al-Jahabi’s eyes widened in total shock. Elena was shocked too. She’d never done anything like that before (aside from the time when she was nine and her older brother Kris had been trying to stuff a worm in her mouth), and for a long, surreal moment she watched as Mr Al-Jahabi crumpled to his knees, both hands on the affected area, a low groan coming out of his mouth. Then, coming to her senses, she turned and strode rapidly out of the suite, trying to come to terms with the fact that she’d just assaulted one of the Stanhope’s highest-spending guests.
She stopped in the corridor, trying to calm herself down. Even if she told Siobhan the truth about what had happened, she couldn’t see herself keeping her job. Al-Jahabi was rich. He had power. That was why he was able to get away with his behaviour. He’d demand revenge on her, and he’d get it. She’d never get a reference from the hotel, which would mean she wouldn’t be able to get a decent job in Australia. It was so damn unfair, on what should have been one of the happiest days of her life, and it made her want to weep, but she forced herself to calm down. As her grandmother used to say, tears alone have never solved a problem.
Instead, she took a deep breath and started towards the lifts, wondering if the day could get any worse.
Three
15.25
THE WESTFIELD CENTRE in Shepherd’s Bush is London’s largest and one of its newest shopping malls. It opened for business on 30 October 2008 and contains 255 stores spread over 150,000 square metres of retail space – equivalent to thirty football pitches.
An underground car park with 4,500 spaces is situated directly beneath the centre, and although there were still more than five weeks to go until Christmas, spaces were already few and far between as Dragon drove the white Ford Transit van on to the car park’s upper level. By a stroke of luck he managed to find a space next to the pedestrian walkway, barely fifty metres from the Waitrose Customer Collection Point, and the entrance to the lifts. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a harassed-looking woman in expensive designer clothes unload two pre-school boys from her brand-new 4 ? 4, and shove them into a double-pushchair. One of the boys was struggling in her grip, and the woman’s expression was one of anger and frustration as she shouted at them, although she was too far away for Dragon to hear what she was saying.
He watched her for a moment, wondering what pleasure she derived from her material wealth. Very little, he suspected. That was the problem with these people. They led joyless, empty lives, and because they’d had it so damn easy they’d ended up becoming soft, fat and lazy.
In the back of the van, hidden from view behind a Tottenham Hotspur flag, were sixteen 47-kilo cylinders of propane gas piled on top of one another in groups of four. Wedged between the cylinders and the front seats of the van was a rucksack containing a specially modified mobile phone set to vibrate, a battery pack, and a 3-kilo lump of C4 plastic explosives. When a call was made to the phone, the vibrations would complete the electrical circuit, thereby setting off the detonator and igniting the C4, which in turn would ignite the propane gas, causing a huge fireball.
Casualties wouldn’t be particularly high since the bomb would only hit those people passing by, either on their way to or coming back from the shops, and the blast wouldn’t have the force to cause any damage within the centre itself. But that wasn’t the point. The point was to cause panic and chaos among the civilians in the immediate area, and to stretch and divide the resources of the security services so that they’d be less quick to react when the main operation got under way.
Dragon watched the harassed woman as she wheeled her kids down the walkway, and he wondered if she, or they, would be among the casualties. He hoped not. He didn’t like being able to put individual faces to the names of victims. But he’d always been a believer in fate. If your number was up, then it was up, and that was just the way it was. The world wasn’t fair. It never had been, and despite the efforts of at least some of mankind, it never would be. All Dragon could do was protect himself, and he was sure he’d done that pretty effectively. The number plates on the van were false. He’d changed them en route here for another set of false plates so that the police wouldn’t be able to use the ANPR system to trace the van’s journey. He’d also changed his appearance for the numerous CCTV cameras that would be filming him as he moved through the building. His skin had turned a deep
