CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #2
“I’m afraid that whoever gained access to your suite slashed everything in the room, from your belongings to the décor and fixings.
They pulled out the electrical switches and the air vents, slashed the mattress, the divan base, all of it.
They even tried to pull up the carpet. I’ve never seen such destruction of a hotel suite.
The entire suite will need to be refurbished,” Vogel explained.
“A guest in the room next door called to report a disturbance, but those responsible somehow knew that security was on its way and they were gone when our men arrived.”
Jack and I shared a look. The men had gone to a lot of effort in their search for the chips. What the hell did I have hidden beneath the insole of my trainer?
“I…I don’t know what to say. What were they looking for?” I stuttered, dismayed.
“We would like to know this also. The only thing they could not access was the safe because of the fingerprint biometrics. Did you have anything valuable in your room?”
“The most valuable thing I have is this,” I said, lifting my left arm to show my Rolex. “We left our phones, passports and a little cash in the safe. I can’t think what else they could have been looking for.”
“We’re on a city break, I travel light, and didn’t bring anything valuable with me,” Jack revealed. “You have security camera footage of who did this, right?”
“Well. We do and we don’t,” Frau Bruker said cryptically.
“What does that mean?” Jack asked with growing petulance.
“According to Herr Abdullah, the doorman on duty at the time, and Frau Beringer, who was on the front desk, two men entered the hotel and used a guest keycard to access the elevator,” Frau Bruker informed.
Vogel spoke up then, his voice urgent. “Do you know how they got a hold of the keycard? This is very important. We need to understand if someone is cloning our keycards or if it was stolen.”
Jack turned to me, our eyes meeting in silent communication, an intimacy we appeared to have become fluent in.
I gave a slight nod, then Jack’s expression became sheepish, embarrassed and he admitted, “I eh…think mine was eh, stolen from my back pocket at a club. It was really crowded. I didn’t feel a thing! ”
“The theft does not sound random,” Bruker stated.
“Two movie stars out on the town, robbed, and involved in an altercation. It sounds like you were targeted. Pickpockets are known to work in teams, one person distracts, and the other carries out the theft. You said that a fan forced the altercation. Do you think this man could have been a distraction?”
“Maybe, yeah, I dunno?” Jack said, biting at his lower lip and shrugging. “Can we take a look at the security footage and tell you if we recognize them.”
Bruker ignored the request pressing her own agenda. “What I do not understand is how they knew your room number?”
“I don’t know!” Jack exclaimed again; this time mad at the insinuation he knew something he wasn’t telling.
“Look I didn’t even realize the card was gone until we were on our way back here,” he pouted.
It was another little lie. We had no idea who we were dealing with.
It could be a criminal gang, a private organisation, or agents from any of the countries involved in the tech arms race.
We didn’t know if they’d tap out or come after us again.
The one thing I was sure of was that we’d been tracked as soon as we’d arrived in the country.
They’d sent Hugh Jorgen to plant the chips, so they knew about our early arrival.
Someone else had followed us from the club to abduct us, so they were watching us, or watching Hugh to locate us.
“Very well, I will show you the video,” Frau Bruker relented as a she rose and strode out of her office to the bank of screens. Nate, Vogel, and I traipsed after her. At that moment the office door opened and a waiter came in with a tray, a blue cloth ice pack on it.
“Thanks,” Jack said as he took the ice pack and gingerly held it against his bruised cheek.
When the waiter left Bruker spoke up. “Amit, pull up the footage from last night,” she directed.
One of the techies ran light fingers over his keyboard tapping in commands, and on the large central screen a video appeared and played. The timestamp was 11:48pm.
The CCTV was shown in a split screen view of two cameras, one outside the hotel and the other a view of the lobby interior.
Outside, the doorman stepped up to the glass door and opened it…
for no one. The lobby camera displayed that nobody entered the hotel.
An alternative camera above the entrance to the elevator shows a keycard appearing from thin air.
It’s inserted into the key pad to open the doors.
The doors open, the elevator camera shows that the car appears empty yet the keycard materializes again and the button for the fourth floor depresses.
The elevator travels up, the doors open and no one steps out on the fourth floor.
Next the feed switches to a hallway camera where the door for suite 265 opens and closes.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Jack exclaimed in confusion. I was pretty stunned myself. “How is this…even… possible? Is the hotel haunted?”