Stone Barrington 27 - Doing Hard Time

must remember, he is very wily.”
    Vlad smiled a tight little smile, revealing gray teeth. “I am pretty wily, myself.”
    •   •   •
    Teddy watched as the big Gulfstream set down on runway 21 and engaged its engine reversers. Shortly, it taxied to a halt on the ramp at Atlantic Aviation, guided by the chief lineman. A large Mercedes van pulled up as the airstair door was lowered by a crew member.
    Teddy trained his binoculars on the open aircraft door, focused them, and waited. A crew member came down the stairs carrying two large suitcases. He was followed by a large mustached man whom Teddy assumed was Majorov, and he took a rapid series of photographs. Then came someone Teddy had not expected.
    A small, gray man in a black suit, white shirt, black tie, and black fedora, who might have been an undertaker, came slowly down the stairs, carrying a large, apparently heavy case that he would not allow anyone to take from him. He looked to be between sixty and sixty-five.
    Intrigued, Teddy got as many shots of him as possible before he disappeared into the van with Majorov, and they drove across the ramp to the electrically operated security gate and waited for it to open. Teddy ran back into the hangar, tossed his equipment into the Speedster, and got it started. “Tim,” he called to the pilot, “if you want to meet your new boss, be here at eleven tomorrow morning.”
    Tim ran over and held out a key ring. “Here are a few keys to the place. One key works in all doors.”
    Teddy pocketed them and drove out onto the ramp. He saw the Mercedes van driving through the now-opened gate and hurried to catch the gate before it closed.

Teddy pulled into the parking lot outside the gate and, after noting the license plate number, let the van get a couple hundred yards from him before following. The van made a right turn, then a left, and then turned right onto I-10. At the next exit it turned onto 405 North, and Teddy followed, always keeping two or three cars between him and the van, which was easy to follow, because it was so tall. Teddy had seen photographs of that model given the sort of interior one would expect in a corporate jet.
    Traffic was moving moderately well on I-405, and soon the van got off at the Sunset Boulevard exit and made a right. Five minutes later, at UCLA, it turned left onto Stone Canyon Road.
    Is he headed for The Arrington? Teddy asked himself, but after another five minutes, the van turned into the entrance of the Bel-Air Hotel. Teddy drove straight on, then when out of sight, made a U-turn and went back to the hotel. He saw Majorov and the older man leave the van and head toward the check-in lobby, while a bellman unloaded their luggage.
    Teddy parked on the street; he put on a blue blazer and a porkpie straw hat, then he ran across the road and the bridge into the grounds of the hotel. He saw Majorov’s back as he disappeared into the lobby. He walked around the freestanding building and saw a bench and a newspaper someone had left. He parked himself there, put on his sunglasses, and began to leaf through the paper. Ten minutes passed, then the two men left the lobby in the company of an assistant manager, who was chatting to them and getting little response.
    Teddy made a point of not lifting his eyes from the paper as they passed him. He watched them take a turn past the outdoor restaurant, then got up and stood at the corner of the building, watching as they continued up a covered walk and past the swimming pool. He kept as much distance as possible between himself and his quarry, but he still managed to see which building they entered. After the door was closed, he got close enough to read the suite number, then he walked up a service road, out of the hotel’s grounds, and back to his car.
    Teddy didn’t like the Bel-Air Hotel as an environment for killing—at least, not alone. There were two many people about, too many ends to tie together. Dealing with Majorov and/or his friend was a job for a team, not one man, and he did not work with a team.
    •   •   •
    Back at the airport, he drove into the hangar. Tim Peters was sitting at his desk, putting his belongings back into the drawers. Teddy went to the pilots’ lounge and went to work on the computer. He took the memory chip from his binocular-camera, inserted it into the computer, and copied the photographs of Majorov and his friend onto the hard drive, then he encrypted the file. He set up a path through