continued towards the upper floors.
Scope gave them two minutes, then slipped back into the stairwell and continued his descent.
Twenty-eight
‘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.
‘Grandpa!’ cried Ethan, struggling out of his mother’s grip.
‘No, Ethan, stop!’
Abby tried to pull him back into the bathroom, desperate for him not to give them away. But it was too late. He broke away from her and ran towards his grandpa, just as the door was flung open and a man in a balaclava, dressed in what looked like a hotel waiter’s uniform, came into the room. He was carrying a powerful-looking pistol. Behind him the door clicked shut, trapping them inside.
‘You hurt my grandpa!’ Ethan shouted, moving towards him.
The man raised his gun. ‘Stop him or I’ll shoot the little bastard.’
Abby grabbed Ethan and pulled him to her, with all the strength she could muster. ‘I’ve got him. Don’t shoot. Please.’
‘Shut the boy in the toilet,’ he said. ‘Or I’ll kill him now.’ His pistol was pointed at Ethan’s head.
Ethan had stopped struggling but she could tell he was sobbing behind the hand she’d placed over his mouth. Her father lay in front of them, his head almost at her feet. He’d been hit in the upper body, and blood was soaking through his shirt, but he still seemed to be breathing.
‘Come on, Ethan,’ she whispered. ‘We’ve got to go into the bathroom.’
‘Not you. Just him. Get him in there now.’
Something had changed in the gunman’s voice. It took her a moment to realize what it was.
Whatever was going to happen to her, she didn’t want her son to see it, so she pulled him inside the bathroom, then bent down and whispered in his ear. ‘I want you to stay in here until I call you, OK? Please. Otherwise he’ll hurt me.’
It was emotional blackmail of the worst kind, but what choice did she have? She shut the door and turned to face the gunman.
He stood in the middle of the room, his pistol aimed at her chest. ‘Turn round and lift up your dress, or you and the brat die together.’
Twenty-nine
IN THE STAIRWELL, Scope was level with the third floor when he heard two gunshots, followed by a woman’s scream. He stopped and listened. He knew he ought to keep going. He only had a knife, but he’d never been one to walk away from someone in obvious danger. It just wasn’t in his DNA.
Trying not to think too hard about what he was doing, he opened the stairwell door and stepped into the corridor, looking both ways. To his left, he could hear voices coming from behind one of the doors. It sounded like a man was barking orders and a woman was pleading with him.
Scope strode over to the door, and put his ear to it. The man had a foreign accent, the woman sounded agitated, and there was another noise – a kid, quite young by the sound of him, crying.
Sliding the homemade lock-picking device he’d brought with him – a credit card with an angled divot cut in its bottom edge – out of his pocket, Scope pushed it into the narrow gap between the door and the frame and lowered it carefully on to the lock. He’d been practising opening doors this way for the past month, but it was hard to do it without making a noise, and he tensed as he gave the door a firm shove, the click of the bolt being released sounding loud in his ears.
Scope pushed the door open, holding his knife by the blade in case he needed to throw it fast.