“Hit some traffic, Mr. Young?” she said to him politely as he stepped in.
“I guess so,” he answered, looking quizzically at her. “How did you…”
She tapped the watch on her wrist. “The car was sending me updates about your location and road conditions. Follow me, Mr. Young. We don’t want to keep your team waiting.”
His team. Just not the one he was used to.
They walked down a serene corridor that opened into the domed atrium of a high-end dining room. Winter noted the restaurant’s name carved into the nearest pillar.
FOOD FOR THE GODS
Beyond it was another corridor that led out to the hotel’s main lobby, where he could hear the muffled din of the hotel’s unsuspecting guests.
This atrium, though, was a place in the hotel set slightly apart from the rest by a gold rope, as if for private events. A massive chandelier hung from its overhead, illuminated by shafts of light coming in from the dome’s curved slivers of glass. Marble pillars lined the walls, and between them, the panels were covered with panoramas of pastoral European scenes. Dining tables and chairs dotted the space, filled with a smattering of well-dressed guests speaking in low voices. The faint scent of sugar and jasmine lingered in the air.
Winter blinked at the scene. The occasional guest looked up at him, as if gauging who he was—a few even smiled—then returned to their conversations. Winter couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t caused a stir, not even when he went to the grocery store. He had the uncomfortable sensation of being unmoored, of having entered another dimension with no one to lean on but himself. His hand fiddled unconsciously with a leather bracelet around his wrist.
“This way, Mr. Young,” the associate said, ushering him down another hall branching from the atrium. “You have a private room.”
At the end of the hall was a metal detector and a security officer. The officer ran them both through the checkpoint—scanning of his braceletsand jewelry, identification checks, a series of basic questions—and then the associate guided him down a branch of the hall until they reached a small elevator. The panel beside it seemed to scan their faces. The elevator’s door slid open with a pleasant ding.
The associate held a hand out again to Winter. “After you,” she said.
“Panacea’s located inside a hotel restaurant?” he asked her as the doors closed.
“A Michelin-starred restaurant,” she corrected, as if slightly offended. She folded her hands behind her back. “Sometimes the best secrets are kept out in the open, Mr. Young. By the way, your phone won’t work in here. Agency equipment only. No location trackers allowed. Sorry.”
When the elevator opened again, they stepped out into an identical hall—except this time, the associate took an abrupt turn and pushed through a set of double doors. “This way,” she said.
They headed into a kitchen operating at full capacity. The aroma of butter and roasted garlic filled Winter’s senses. Workers in white aprons and tall hats bustled past him—occasionally they would make eye contact and he would hear his name ripple through the air.
They turned a corner in the kitchen and came upon a wall lined with massive refrigerators. The associate opened the door to the second fridge.
Then she stepped inside it.
Winter froze. Through the refrigerator door was a long hallway, where the associate had now paused to wait for him.
“Follow me, please,” she said politely, as if this were perfectly normal.
Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered if Winter had told Claire where he was going—she wouldn’t have believed him anyway. He stepped hesitantly inside. The fridge closed behind him.
At the end of the hall was another door, where the associate tapped in a code to reveal a long, luxurious corridor similar to the first one they’d entered, populated with what looked like doors of polished oak, each of them bearing a brass knocker in the shape of the hotel’s crest.
At last, the associate stopped before one of the doors. She rapped once with the knocker, the sound strangely metallic. Only now did Winter realize the door wasn’t made of wood at all, but of solid steel. The door unlocked with a click, and she ushered them both inside.
“He’s here,” she said, then ducked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
It looked like a fine restaurant’s private dining suite, with its own chandelier hanging from a high ceiling and similar marble columns lining the walls.
No windows.
Winter saw three people seated inside before elegantly plated meals. Two of them were Niall and Sauda, the agents that had picked him up in the car outside the stadium. Today Niall wore a stylish suit of deep blue that struggled to contain his big, burly frame, his intense eyebrows and beard trimmed to perfection, while Sauda was dressed from hijab to shoes in a pretty pale green. Their colors stood out against the room’s muted grays. Both of them wore the same gold crest pin on their clothes as the attendant did.
“Hello,” Niall rumbled, as grumpy as ever.
“The hotel’s logo is Panacea’s?” Winter asked, his eyes still on the pins.
“What do you mean?” Sauda said with a smile. “We’re just hotel staff.”
