The Hostage: BookShots (Hotel Series) (2 page)

The hostage sat himself upright on the bed.

‘I can get you cash here today. Or I can put you on a plane to anywhere. Anywhere in the world. You hear me? I’ve more money than you could ever dream of!’

The captor tightened the noose.

‘I said, did you hear me?’ screamed the hostage. ‘I have more money than you could ever dream of.’

The captor walked to the bed and struck his hostage on the side of the head, throwing him back down.

The noose was tied.

‘Tell me what you want! You must want something? Make demands. Make them now. I can pay you. I’ll pay you anything!’

But the captor had slipped the noose over his head and was dragging him to his feet. The hostage cried for help but it was hopeless. With the exception of the invited guests gathering thirty-eight floors below, the hotel was empty.

Being pulled like a dog, with the noose choking his airway, the hostage followed his captor out onto the balcony of the Presidential Suite.

Thirty-eight floors below, standing on the carefully manicured lawns, the gathering luminaries were being served the finest caviar, flown in from Russia that morning. Savouring every mouthful, their enjoyment was suddenly interrupted by an ear-splitting crash. Looking skywards, they saw shards of glass falling like ice towards the ground.

Standing on the edge of the balcony was a masked man with a hostage tied in a noose. Slowly, the man raised his knife and ripped through the shirt of his captive. In the gardens below, guests began to scream.

Forcing his hostage to his knees, his arms above his head, the captor tied his wrists tightly to the iron frame – all that remained of the Presidential balcony.

He secured the noose.

Then, with one kick, he pushed his hostage off the edge of the balcony, leaving the man hanging thirty-eight floors above the ground.

ON THE HOTEL
lawns below, cameras and smartphones turned upwards as the man swung from side to side. Stripped to his waist, his overfed figure exposed to the watching audience, he had no defence. Any attempt to escape now seemed futile, as he screamed in desperation at the crowd below.

Not wanting to keep his audience waiting, the masked man stepped forward and knelt closely beside his suspended hostage.

He was ready to continue the performance.

He raised his knife, its sharp blade glittering in the spring sun. The crowd gasped as, slowly, he pressed the knife against the man’s face, letting it delicately cut his cheek as he edged it down towards his throat.

‘Don’t do this, don’t do this,’ gasped the hostage. ‘It isn’t too late. However much money you want I’ll get it for you. Anything, absolutely anything. You can have it all. Do you hear me? Anything.’

The captor let the cold knife press deeper into his hostage’s cheek before pushing his hidden mouth into his ear.

In a barely audible whisper, filled with hate, he spoke.

‘That’s a greedy gut, isn’t it?’

He twisted the knife, dropping it down, cutting into the tight skin covering his hostage’s obese stomach.

The hostage shrieked in pain as his captor rose up on his knees, reached skywards and showed the bloodied knife to the screaming crowd below.

It was time for the final act.

The captor pressed the knife against the rope that tied his hostage’s wrists to the balcony frame. One cut of that rope and the man would be left hanging by the noose, thirty-eight floors above the ground.

The crowd gasped in fear and anticipation as the captor pressed harder and harder against the rope.

Then suddenly, sweeping the knife down to the hostage’s stomach, he raced it back up through his torso, across his body, and spilt his entrails down towards the watching crowd below.

TWO FLOORS BENEATH
the main entrance to the new London Tribeca Luxury Hotel is situated the hotel’s security control room. From this underground office, Global Head of Security for Tribeca Luxury Hotels, Jon Roscoe, and his team view every public space inside the hotel, allowing them to control and limit access to any area and to retrieve information from any of the hotel’s high-definition video security systems.

For the grand opening of the new hotel, Roscoe had set up a standard launch protocol. While his assistant, Stanley Samson, would oversee the opening of the building from the inside, he would mix personally with the arriving guests while observing security checks at the front gate. Once all guests had arrived on site, he would head into the control room to observe the flow of dignitaries into the hotel. Access would then be granted to all public areas to allow visitors to explore the luxuries of the new hotel before official tours of some of the hotel’s finest suites followed later in the day.

This was the fourth grand opening Jon Roscoe had overseen since he’d joined Tribeca Luxury Hotels two years ago. Before joining the hotel group he had served as a member of London’s Metropolitan Police for fifteen years, yet he didn’t have a single day when he regretted resigning from the force.

Travelling the world to oversee security at the world’s twenty-seven most luxurious hotels, while mixing with billionaire businessmen and superstar performers, was a whole lot more fun than chasing down criminals in the rainy backstreets of London on a cold November evening.

His new job came with its pressures, and Tribeca guests could be some of the most demanding in the world, but Jon was adept at handling any situation and never let the luxurious locations he worked in put him off his guard. He could go from dealing with the most powerful and high-profile government security forces in the world, when Tribeca hosted political leaders or members of royal families from across the globe, through to aggressive private security firms employed to shelter some of the new Eastern European mafia powerbrokers. All of them were challenging, but Roscoe knew he was an equal to them all and was happy to be part of the team delivering the ultimate in Tribeca Luxury Hotels’ personal service.

The VIP arrival process had passed without incident. Roscoe grabbed a coffee as he headed from the gardens, through the lobby and down to the control room, taking his seat in front of the bank of video screens.

Something was wrong.

From the cameras positioned in the lobby and other key public areas, he could see all inside the hotel was calm. But outside he saw the gathered dignitaries had all turned to look up. Many appeared to be shading their eyes from the sun as they looked up at the roof of the building.

Fixed camera angles gave Roscoe a direct view of the front of the hotel as well as its grand entrance and glass windows, but he could see nothing out of the ordinary. He quickly turned to the cameras on the fortieth floor that gave a close-up view of the rooftop and its infinity pool. The whole area was deserted. Rapidly he flicked through the cameras pointing at all the public areas. None of them showed him what was causing the crowd outside to behave in such a way.

Then he thought of the private guest areas.

He knew Tribeca policy was never to have any camera access to guest areas, as Jackson Harlington and Oscar Miller had made it clear that this space was sacrosanct. Guests at Tribeca Luxury Hotels were returning home to the ultimate in luxury. That meant they were free from the direct prying eyes of any security cameras.

Roscoe reached for the schedule giving him a minute-by-minute breakdown of the day’s timetable. Had he forgotten about a rooftop event to kick off the day’s proceedings? No – he knew the timetable back to front. He had written it. The day ended with fireworks on the fortieth floor but nothing was to take place outside the building before then.

He looked again at the crowd standing on the front lawns. Some were turning away, some now covered their eyes – but all seemed transfixed by events in the sky. Knowing something was wrong, Roscoe sprang to his feet, ran to the door and, grabbing his phone, headed up the two flights of stairs back into the lobby.

Sprinting across the hotel’s marble lobby, Roscoe’s ripped six-foot frame cut an imposing figure. He looked towards the elevator bank for his assistant Stanley, but Stanley was gone.

At the front entrance, the lobby manager of the new hotel, Anna Conquest, called across to him.

‘Jon, what’s happening?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ said Roscoe as he keyed the security pad to open the front entrance.

‘We heard screaming outside. Somebody must be hurt.’

‘Have you seen Stanley?’

‘He was waiting by the elevator for Jackson Harlington. Then the screaming started. I didn’t see where he went.’

The front entrance opened and, seeing the chaos outside, Roscoe shouted to Anna to get the police to the hotel. ‘Now!’

But it was too late.

As the watching crowd screamed again, then scattered, Roscoe looked up in horror to see a blood-covered body falling from the sky.

Roscoe ran across the lawn as the body crashed to earth, blood splattering the dispersing crowd. The garden and flowers that had been tended and trimmed to perfection were now sprayed with red. As he reached the obliterated body, he could see, even in its devastated state, that it was the remains of billionaire investor and Tribeca Luxury Hotels major shareholder Jackson Harlington.

STANDING NEXT TO
the body of Jackson Harlington, Jon Roscoe turned to face the crowd. He held up his hands as he made a direct appeal.

‘I need everybody to step back away from the body and away from the hotel, right now,’ he commanded. ‘I want everybody to move back into the gardens and I need everybody to stop filming.’ Roscoe was unsure if his last request would be heeded but he pressed on. ‘And I need to know specific information about what people saw.’

A woman screamed out, ‘He cut open his body. Ripped open his stomach!’

‘Did anyone see the attacker?’ said Roscoe, trying to make himself heard above the panic coming from the crowd. ‘Can you tell me, was there more than one person involved?’

‘He was wearing a mask,’ a voice called out.

‘I’ve got a video here,’ called another. ‘It looked to me like he was on his own.’

‘I could only see him. I don’t think there was anyone else with him.’

Roscoe knew trying to get information in this way was hopeless. From the blood and entrails scattered across the garden, along with the state of Jackson Harlington’s body, he knew a ferocious attack had taken place. He needed to get back inside the hotel to track the killer. He started to push his way through the assembled journalists and dignitaries, who were beginning to react with a mix of shock, morbid fascination and a desire to scoop the story. Even journalists and writers who spent their time reporting on the latest advances in luxury travel and on the world’s most extravagant destinations realised they were suddenly part of a far bigger story. As Roscoe tried to make his way back into the hotel lobby, he found his route blocked by journalists peppering him with questions.

‘Is that Jackson Harlington?’ cried one.

‘Who would want to kill Jackson Harlington, and in such a ferocious way?’ asked another.

He felt one journalist grab his arm. ‘Do you think the killer is still in the hotel? Maybe we can help you track him down. He’d have no chance against all of us.’

Roscoe wanted to lash out. This wasn’t a game. He needed to get back inside the hotel. He needed to start the hunt for a killer.

‘Is Mrs Harlington in the hotel? Is the Harlington family safe?’

The questions kept coming as he made his way through the crowd.

‘Is Oscar Miller in danger? Do you think this is an attack on Tribeca Luxury Hotels?’

‘I heard somebody’s room service was delivered cold,’ quipped one of the journalists, and a number in the crowd started to laugh.

‘Yeah, I’d heard he hadn’t got clean towels this morning,’ called out another and the laughter continued.

Roscoe wanted to shout that a man lay dead a few feet away from them, a man they had all seen brutally murdered. How could they stand at the front of the hotel joking about Jackson Harlington’s death? Human nature never failed to surprise Roscoe. Shock played its part, along with the madness of crowds, but it never ceased to amaze him how people could react to tragedy.

Ignoring all those around him, he pushed forward, through the crowd and into the lobby of the hotel, where confusion was taking hold. Anna Conquest was standing by the elevators, preventing anyone making their way further inside the building.

‘Police are on their way,’ she called as he hurried across the vast marble lobby.

‘I’m locking down the elevators,’ he shouted. ‘Nobody goes beyond this point. I don’t want people running round the hotel trying to be heroes. Anna, I’ve never seen anything quite so brutal.’

‘Is it Jackson Harlington?’

‘Afraid so.’

‘He’s dead?’

‘He’s dead all right. Cut open and his guts spilled out all over the front lawn.’

‘My God. Who on earth would do that?’

‘I’ve no idea, but I’m pretty sure whoever it was is still inside the hotel.’

Roscoe opened the elevator control pad, entered the emergency code, locking each of the hotel elevators in their current position. Stepping forward, he called out to the crowd gathering in the lobby.

‘The hotel is in lockdown. No one should attempt to access any other part of the building. Do not go beyond the lobby. When the police arrive they will need to take witness statements from each of you. The killer is still at large and there is every reason to believe he’s still inside the hotel. He is clearly an armed and incredibly dangerous individual. No one here should attempt to apprehend him.’

His heart pounding, he turned to Anna. ‘The police will be here within minutes. If anything happens, call me.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To catch a killer.’

‘You’ve just told everybody how dangerous this man is,’ said Anna, her voice trembling. ‘Shouldn’t you wait until the police get here?’

‘I’ll be okay.’

‘Why? Because you’re a little bit crazy?’

Roscoe smiled. ‘Maybe a little bit.’

As he opened the door to the stairway beside the bank of elevators, Anna reached out, gently touching his arm. ‘Be careful, Jon.’