One minute he’d been sipping the Pinot Noir and remembering the sound of Carrie Wilson’s laughter, the pills still firmly in their containers, the next he’d heard the commotion coming from the room next door, followed by people talking just outside his door. He’d tried to ignore it, determined not to be disturbed, but then he’d heard a woman with a Polish accent introducing herself as the Stanhope’s duty manager, her voice shaking as she spoke. She was saying that the hotel had been taken over by a group called the Pan-Arab Army of God, that they had master key cards to all the bedrooms, and that everyone had to come out of their rooms, otherwise they would be shot immediately.
The whole thing seemed so surreal that at first he’d thought it was some bizarre joke, but then he’d ventured over to the window and peered out, which was when he saw the flashing lights of dozens and dozens of emergency vehicles blocking the road in both directions. That was when he’d knelt down behind the bed.
‘Please, please,’ the manager kept saying, her voice fading then coming back into earshot as she paced up and down the corridor, ‘do as you’ve been told and you won’t be hurt.’ She sounded very scared.
Martin was scared too. Terrified. Irrationally so, really, given that within the next few hours he’d fully intended to kill himself anyway. But the thing was, he wanted to die at a time and by a method of his own choosing, with happy memories filling his consciousness. Not at the hands of terrorists.
He could hear the sound of doors opening further down the corridor, barked orders, and the nervous whispers of frightened people. A young child was crying, and Martin felt his stomach knot. God, what on earth was happening? He knew if he didn’t go out he risked being shot. Dying on his knees in a pool of his own blood. Even so, he didn’t move, maintaining his position behind the bed, hoping that the terrorists were lying about having key cards, or that they’d rounded up enough people and therefore wouldn’t bother searching all the rooms.
The noise in the corridor faded, and Martin felt his hopes rise. ‘You wouldn’t believe this, Carrie,’ he whispered to himself. ‘All this happening outside our room.’
He had a sudden urge to speak to her then. Just one last time. To reminisce with her about those two fantastic weeks all those years ago. To find out what she was up to now. Whether she had children or not. How her life had turned out. He wished he’d found her contact details so he could ask some of the questions he so desperately wanted answered before he went to his grave.
‘Please, this is your last chance to come out of the rooms.’ The manager’s voice was coming back down the corridor, loud and clear. And getting closer.
Martin remained absolutely still. There was no way he was going out. He suddenly felt brave. Braver than he’d felt in all his adult life. Even more so than on that day when he received the news about the spread of the cancer, when he’d held himself together so well.
He could hear muffled voices right outside the door.
And then it began to open, and he could hear movement.
God, they were inside his room.
He held his breath. But the wine, the stress and the ever-present cancer were making him feel nauseous.
With his eyes tightly shut, he felt rather than heard the man stop at the end of the bed, and he knew he’d been seen.
He heard the sound of a gun being cocked, loud in the silence of the room, and he gritted his teeth, waiting for it all to be over.
‘Open your eyes.’
The words were delivered calmly in an eastern European accent that, for some reason, didn’t sound quite right. Martin gasped and looked up into the eyes of a masked man in a balaclava and dark overalls, pointing a rifle down at him.
The man turned towards the door. ‘See, I told you there’d be more of them hiding.’
‘Kill him,’ ordered a voice in a foreign accent, its tone terrifyingly casual, as if he, Martin Dalston – a man who’d lived, loved, had children and fought against a terrible illness – was completely worthless. Someone – something – simply to be disposed of as quickly and efficiently as possible.
But the gunman didn’t fire. Instead, Martin could see him watching him beneath the mask.
‘We need more hostages,’ said the gunman. ‘And if we shoot too many guests, we’ll make the security forces jumpy.’
‘As you wish,’ grunted the other man dismissively.
The gunman flicked his gun upwards and Martin got to his feet unsteadily, unsure whether to feel relief, gloom or terror.
He could now see the other gunman. He was small and dark, heavily built, also dressed in black. Beside him was the hotel manager. She was tall and pretty, with blonde hair and a kind face. She was staring, horrified, at the noose hanging from the picture hook.
Their eyes met briefly, and Martin experienced a deep sense of humiliation as his carefully made and deeply personal plans were exposed to the world.
And then he was being pushed into the corridor along with the manager and maybe a dozen guests of varying ages, including the crying child, who was no more than ten. There were four gunmen in all, all masked, and the leader – the man who’d ordered his killing – didn’t look happy at all.
‘There must be more people on this floor,’ he snapped, grabbing the manager and pointing his gun at her.
‘Most of the rooms are taken,’ she answered quickly, ‘but it doesn’t mean that they’re occupied. A lot of our guests will be out.’
‘There should be more.’ The leader turned to two of the other gunmen, one of whom was Armin. ‘You have your key cards. Clear the rooms one by one. Take people alive unless they resist. If they try to fight back, kill them.’
He turned away and, as the little girl’s sobs grew louder, began herding the rest of them towards the exit doors.
FOR MORE THAN
ten minutes after leaving the suite on the top floor of the Stanhope Scope had tried to get out of the building. The lifts were all out of order, and when he’d started down the fire exit stairs he’d run into one of the hotel staff, a room service waiter, coming the other way. The kid had hurriedly told him that there was some sort of terrorist attack going on. He didn’t have too many details, other than that he’d seen some dead bodies and at least two men with assault rifles.
Just my luck, Scope had thought. To get caught up in the middle of a major incident and trapped in a place I have no choice but to get the hell out of. But he’d learned long ago that there was no point complaining about the hand you’ve been dealt. You just had to play it.
The kid had said he was going up to the restaurant on the ninth floor, which was currently closed, where apparently there were some good hiding places. He’d suggested Scope join him, but Scope had declined, figuring he’d take his chances. But he’d only got a couple of floors down when he’d heard a burst of automatic gunfire coming from somewhere in the belly of the building, followed a few seconds later by people coming up the staircase far below. At that point he’d decided that, given that he was only armed with a knife, maybe discretion was the better part of valour. At least until he knew what he was up against.
He’d returned to the suite and put on the TV. Sure enough, Sky News was showing live footage of the front of the hotel, and the scrolling headline was reporting the presence of armed men inside and gunfire coming from the main lobby. There were also reports of bombs having gone off in two locations in London, and that a full-scale evacuation of the whole public transport system was under way. It sounded as if it had all been going on while Scope was up in the suite, but so far details were still pretty sketchy.
The point was, he was trapped. And the bodies in the suite were already beginning to smell. He thought about his options for a couple of minutes, before concluding that he only had two: stay where he was and sit it out until the cavalry arrived, or try to make a break for it.
Scope didn’t have much experience of how the police worked in scenarios like this. It was possible, of course, that they’d send in the SAS, but if the real-life cop shows were any indicator they preferred to adopt a softly-softly approach and negotiate, and this meant that there was no guarantee they’d enter the hotel before the gunmen torched the place, or shot the shit out of it.
Which meant he had only one option.
He drew the knife, kept it down by his side, and made his way back to the fire exit stairs, passing the next-door suite whose occupants were still playing loud music. He considered warning them about what was going on in the hotel, but knew that to do so would attract unwanted attention to himself. They probably knew about it by now anyway.
This time when he reached the staircase he couldn’t hear anything. He paused for a few moments, then started down the stairs, moving almost silently as he listened hard for any sound that might signal danger. The creak of a door; an intake of breath; the click of a hammer being cocked on a gun. He knew that it was unlikely anyone would be lying in wait for him, but he also knew from bitter experience that you can never be too careful.
And then, when he was between the sixth and fifth floors, he heard it. An exit door opening and a shouted command, delivered with the confidence that in a situation like this could only belong to someone holding a gun: ‘Move.’ This was immediately followed by the sound of people coming up the stairs in his direction. He could hear their frightened whispering, interspersed with angry shouts from more than one gunman.
Scope carried on down to the fifth floor and slipped through the exit door into the empty corridor, closing it behind him. Leaning back against the wall, he watched through the frosted glass as a masked man carrying an AK-47 came into view. The man had his back to Scope and was barking orders at a procession of stunned-looking hotel guests of all ages who were following him up the stairs. Another masked man, also carrying an AK, brought up the rear.
Scope pressed himself up against the wall, clutching his knife tightly, just in case one of the gunmen decided to come through the door looking for more hostages. But neither of them did, and their voices faded away as they continued towards the upper floors.
Scope gave them two minutes, then slipped back into the stairwell and continued his descent.
‘WE OUGHT TO LEAVE,’
whispered Abby Levinson, squeezing her son’s hand and holding him close.
Her dad shook his head emphatically. ‘No. We stay where we are.’
‘But you heard what the manager was saying. They’ll shoot us if we stay in our rooms.’
‘They’ll shoot us if we leave.’ He looked at her imploringly. ‘We’re Jewish, and they’re Arab extremists with guns. We’re the enemy. At least if we stay in here, we have a chance.’
‘Why do they want to kill us?’ asked Ethan quietly, his voice barely a whisper.
‘Because they’re bad men,’ said his grandpa, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder, before turning back to Abby. ‘There are hundreds of rooms in this hotel. They won’t be able to search all of them.’ He leaned forward and cupped her face in his hands. ‘Have I ever lied to you? Have I ever given you reason not to trust me?’
‘No.’ And he hadn’t. Dad had always been there for her, right from as far back as she could remember. He was the hard-working businessman who’d provided such a happy home for her and her three sisters while they were growing up; the rock that had held the whole family together when her mother died; and now the man whose love, and words of wisdom, had done so much to help her get over the sudden and brutal break-up of her marriage.
‘Then please,’ he continued, ‘do as I say.’
He might have been getting more frail these past few years, but right then he exuded strength and purpose.
‘OK,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll do as you say.’ She squeezed Ethan that bit harder. ‘It’s going to be all right, baby. Mom and Grandpa are here for you.’
Breaking away from them, her father picked up the tub chair in the corner of the room and manoeuvred it towards the door. Abby helped him and they tried to prop it under the handle so it wouldn’t open from the outside, but the back of the chair fell a good couple of inches short.
Abby froze. She could hear footfalls outside in the corridor coming closer. Her father heard them too and he mouthed at her to take Ethan and go into the bathroom. Picking up a glass vase from the desk, he stood behind the door. Abby motioned for him to come with her, and took hold of his arm, but he shooed her away. ‘Go,’ he mouthed, pulling the same stern expression he’d pulled when she was a child and had done something wrong. It was a look that brooked no dissent.
The footfalls had stopped.
Slowly, silently, Abby crept away from the door, putting a finger to her mouth to warn Ethan to stay quiet, and led him into the bathroom.
Ethan looked up at her with wide, frightened eyes as she closed the bathroom door, and she gave him as reassuring a look as she could muster. She looked round, taking in the bath and the walk-in shower area, and caught her breath. There was nowhere to hide.
Then she heard a key card being inserted in the door to their room and the handle turning. Her heart pounding, she put a hand over Ethan’s mouth.
The door was opening now, and she could hear the tub chair scuffing against the carpet as it was pushed out of the way. Unable to resist, she peeked round the bathroom door and saw her father holding the vase in both hands above his head. Suddenly, for all the aura of strength he projected, he looked so damned small and vulnerable – an old man fighting the battles of far younger men. She knew she had to help him.
And yet she didn’t move.
The door continued to open.
And that was when she noticed it: the narrow gap between the door and the doorframe widening at the hinges. Whoever was on the other side would be able to see her father standing inside. She opened her mouth to say something, willing her father to turn round so she could warn him somehow, knowing that as soon as she spoke she’d give them all away—
The shots exploded in the room – two of them, one after the other – and her dad fell back, dropping the vase and crashing into the bedside table. He managed to turn her way, a look of surprise crossing his face, and then his legs went from under him and he collapsed to the carpet with a dull thud, exposing the two holes in the woodwork behind him where the bullets had come tearing through.