The Hostage: BookShots (Hotel Series) by James Patterson Page A

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 butlers 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