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The restaurant where we would be meeting was in the Mandarin Oriental, a beautiful hotel next to Hyde Park. I booked a room for the night; I wanted to check out the meeting place beforehand, and I figured the best way to do that without arousing suspicion was to stay at the hotel.
It was a thousand pounds a night, which I knew Niccolo wouldn’t be happy about if he was having me fly coach –
But fuck him.
I also walked a couple of miles down the road and booked another room at the Gore London as a backup. In case my meeting with Rachel got out of hand, I didn’t want the Mandarin Oriental’s staff – or the police – to know exactly where to find me.
The next morning, I went to meet my contact.
He was an old-school British gangster with a bald head and jowls like a bulldog. I met him in the back room of a pub, probably a front for a local crime syndicate.
He gave me a choice between a Glock 19 and a Ruger-5.7.
“Neither of ‘em has ever been fired,” he assured me, then paused. “Well… not at anybody.” He paused again. “Well… nobody got hit.”
After checking the slide mechanism, I bought the Glock and four magazines of ammunition for 4000 pounds.
“That’s a steep markup,” I commented.
“Times’re hard. Want a suppressor?” he asked, pronouncing it suh-press-ah. “Extra three grand.”
“Jesus,” I said as I shelled out the money.
“Well worth it if you don’t want all of London hearin’ ya do yer business.”
He had a point.
I had lunch at the restaurant where we would meet later that evening.
I was paranoid that Rachel might be scoping it out beforehand – but then again, she had no idea what her ‘prospective client’ looked like, so why would she bother?
I decided to take the chance – to get the lay of the land and give myself an unfair advantage.
The restaurant was quite nice: modern furniture, recessed lighting, and a beautiful bank of plate-glass windows looking out on an exterior lawn with shrubs.
While in the restaurant, I visited the restroom twice – once after I was seated and once halfway through the meal. I didn’t actually have to go to the bathroom. Instead, I used the opportunity to plant spy cameras the size of packs of chewing gum. They were impressive gadgets I’d ordered on a whim back when we were buying surveillance cameras for the mansion.
I placed one at the bar, sticking it under the counter with adhesive tape.
Another I hid in a flower arrangement on a shelf.
When I left after my meal, I hid a third camera at the far end of the restaurant in a display of wine bottles.
When I reached the lobby, I opened the surveillance app on my phone and made sure I was receiving the transmissions.
Everything worked great. Between the three camera placements, I had every table in the restaurant covered.
All that was left was to wait.
I showered at 5:30 PM and was dressed in a suit by 6.
I spent the next hour watching the camera feeds on my phone.
My stomach was tight with nervousness. Niccolo’s taunts about this being personal kept coming back to haunt me.
Seven o’clock rolled around, and I watched the camera feed for Rachel to appear.
She didn’t.
