The Hostage: BookShots (Hotel Series) Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Also by James Patterson

  Copyright

  About the Book

  The grand opening of the world’s most exclusive hotel: forty floors of breathtaking luxury.

  VIPs gather in London for the ultimate preview. But one uninvited guest plans to make this a day the city will never forget.

  Global Head of Security, Jon Roscoe, confronts a killer with a deadly timetable.

  About the Author

  JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. His books have sold in excess of 300 million copies worldwide and he has been the most borrowed author in UK libraries for the past nine years in a row. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past two decades – the Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club, Detective Michael Bennett and Private novels – and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers.

  James is passionate about encouraging children to read. Inspired by his own son who was a reluctant reader, he also writes a range of books for young readers including the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, House of Robots, Confessions and Maximum Ride series. James is the proud sponsor of the World Book Day Award and has donated millions in grants to independent bookshops. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.

  STORIES AT THE SPEED OF LIFE

  What you are holding in your hands right now is no ordinary book, it’s a BookShot.

  BookShots are page-turning stories by James Patterson and other writers that can be read in one sitting.

  Each and every one is fast-paced, 100% story-driven; a shot of pure entertainment guaranteed to satisfy.

  Available as new, compact paperbacks, ebooks and audio, everywhere books are sold.

  BookShots – the ultimate form of storytelling. From the ultimate storyteller.

  PROLOGUE

  Kensington, London, 2000

  Everything was exactly as he’d said it would be.

  Silently, he climbed the grand staircase, turning to his right when he reached its elegant summit.

  He looked down the wide hallway.

  The night light was on outside the boy’s bedroom, as he’d been told it would be. He crept down the corridor and stood outside the dimly lit room. The door was decorated with the boy’s own colourful drawings.

  Inside, he could hear the child’s gentle breathing. His anticipation grew and his heart beat faster. For a moment he froze, until his adrenaline pumped again and he stepped forward into the room.

  There was no going back.

  In one rapid movement, he scooped up the boy along with his soft, warm comforter. A second later he was back in the hallway, holding the boy and walking quickly towards the stairs.

  Did he hear a noise? He quickened his pace.

  Three steps from the foot of the stairs, the boy stirred.

  He stopped. The boy stretched up an arm, turning his body, before almost immediately settling into a deep sleep once again.

  A voice at the foot of the stairs told him to hurry. A flashlight pointed the way, down the hall and into the kitchen. Both men walked quickly. He followed the light through the kitchen, out of the back door of the house and into the pitch black of the night.

  The late-winter cold hit him as he entered the garden and he instinctively wrapped the boy’s comforter more tightly around his small, vulnerable body. Exactly as he’d been promised, none of the security lights were activated.

  The flashlight pointed his way across the grass, through the shrubbery and onto the gravel track at the back of the house. As soon as he arrived, the waiting BMW opened its trunk and he stepped forward to lay the boy inside.

  The boy was awake.

  For the first time he panicked and clumsily bundled him into the dark space. He slammed the lid shut as the boy cried out for his mother.

  Both men jumped into the rear seat of the car. The driver fired the engine, hit the accelerator hard and the car disappeared into the dark London night.

  CHAPTER 1

  Mayfair, London, 2016

  Welcome, friends and honoured guests, to the brand-new Tribeca Luxury Hotel, here in the heart of the world-famous Mayfair district of London. Thirty years ago, in conjunction with my esteemed business partner, Oscar Miller, I opened the very first Tribeca Luxury Hotel in New York City. My aim today remains exactly as it was those thirty years ago – to deliver the ultimate in indulgence and service, set in the most opulent and tranquil surroundings.

  When we opened our very first hotel, we placed our guests and the service we provided them at the very heart of everything we did. I am proud to say across our twenty-seven luxury hotels in operation around the world today, and of course in this, our twenty-eighth, that personal service remains. Every guest is treated as an individual and welcomed every time they visit as if they are returning to their very own home – the most luxurious home in the world.

  In three days’ time I will fulfil a lifelong ambition of opening a luxury hotel in Mayfair. For the very first time, we are bringing our unparalleled levels of exclusive accommodation, opulence and pure indulgence to the people of London and its international visitors. We take delight in offering our guests incomparable levels of comfort, consideration and security and our brand-new forty floors of palatial rooms are our finest demonstration of this yet.

  I am honoured you are able to join us today at the exclusive preview of what I believe is the finest hotel in the world. Each one of you is my personal guest and I could not be more thrilled to welcome you to the new home of luxury in London, the Tribeca Hotel.

  Jackson Harlington

  Chairman, Tribeca Luxury Hotels

  Stanley Samson stood in the marbled lobby and watched as each VIP guest was handed a branded magazine with a welcome letter from Jackson Harlington. This wasn’t an event for ordinary travel writers. This wasn’t even an event for the bosses of travel writers. This was an event for their bosses’ bosses. When it came to the grand opening of a Tribeca Luxury Hotel, Stanley knew that everyone wanted to attend and no one wanted to be overlooked.

  Browsing through the magazine, guests would find a feature on each of the group’s luxury hotels located around the world, from New York to Paris, Singapore to Beijing. But it went without saying the greatest prominence was given to this brand-new London hotel. Gatefold photographs captured the beauty of the interior and the amazing accommodation available to the richest and most famous in the world.

  Stanley was aware years of preparation had gone into this day. Every exclusive suite individually styled, every room its own unique furniture, selected and purchased by the world’s most renowned interior designers. Flowers adorned the hotel, with fresh bouquets in every room. Private chefs had been appointed to every suite and individual b
utlers would serve every treasured guest. On the fortieth floor an oasis of calm had been created with an infinity pool offering commanding views across London and into the neighbouring royal palace gardens. No expense had been spared in preparation for the opening of the new hotel. Everyone in London was talking about it and nobody wanted to miss out.

  Before it even opened its doors, the hotel was fully booked for the next two years. Fully booked – unless you were the President of the United States, a member of the royal family or a superstar of international fame. For them, Tribeca Luxury Hotels prided itself on always having a suite available.

  As the assistant to the Global Head of Security for the luxury hotel group, Stanley was waiting by the express glass elevator to accompany Jackson Harlington, his family and his business partner, Oscar Miller, across the marbled lobby of the hotel to its majestic new front entrance. There, Harlington and Miller would throw open the doors and invite inside the world’s press, as they had at the grand opening of every single Tribeca Luxury Hotel for the past thirty years.

  Stanley never failed to be amazed by each Tribeca hotel he visited around the world. Every one of them offered a higher level of luxury than the last. For Stanley, the hotels were beyond his wildest dreams and he appreciated every night he got to stay in one of the rooms – even if it was in a room reserved for staff guests.

  Being present at the opening of a hotel in his home town made him feel particularly proud. He knew the London hotel was certain to be an enormous success and was delighted to be playing his small part in it. He looked out across the lobby, through its vast glass frontage, at the gathering crowd standing on the front lawns. Hearing the string quartet play, he watched as guests reached for their glasses of vintage champagne and foie gras canapés. For a moment he felt a slight pang of jealousy but contented himself with the thought of the freshly baked chocolate muffins being delivered to the kitchen later in the morning.

  But as he closely watched events on the front lawn, Stanley had failed to notice that the express elevator had journeyed from the twenty-fifth to the thirty-eighth floor.

  With a ski mask pulled tightly down across his face, an uninvited guest was dragging his petrified hostage down the hall on the thirty-eighth floor towards the Presidential Suite. The hostage had been pistol-whipped by his captor and was drifting in and out of consciousness. As the captor clicked open the door to the lavish suite, his hostage began to stir and became aware of his surroundings.

  The captor didn’t care.

  His hostage’s arms were tied at his wrists and his legs bound at his ankles. He threw the man face down onto the suite’s super king bed, made up with the world’s finest Egyptian cotton sheets. The hostage struggled to try to turn himself over. But as he rolled himself breathlessly onto his side, he was greeted by the sight of his captor standing over him. Picking up a heavy-duty rope from beside the bed, he was tying a hangman’s noose.

  Panic flooded across his body. Trapped and tied, he was physically defenceless. He knew his only hope was to talk to his captor.

  ‘Tell me what you want. If it’s money I will get whatever you ask for. I’m a wealthy man. I can get you anything. Absolutely anything. Just tell me what it is you want.’

  In silence the captor continued to tie the noose.

  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.

  CHAPTER 2

  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.

  CHAPTER 3

  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.