Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 299

This week's picture prompt is by Jim Campbell over on twitter, taken at a hotel in Melbourne in 2016. He said: “The outside of hotel room windows taken through the window from the inside of a hotel room. Perspective." Jim also said: "I had just returned to my hotel room after a walk around Melbourne CBD and I looked out the window and all the lights were off and I thought, 'Well that's dull.' Within seconds that one light came on and I got the shot."

This one took a while to unravel, but I like it.

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Exposed

When he saw the light go on, Jack felt his heart rate increase. They were back. It was time.

He shifted his position on the window ledge and leant behind him for the binoculars, altering the focus so he could get a better look.

A lot of people in hotel rooms on high floors didn’t bother with curtains – especially when it had a view of the city below – and these two were no exception. Jack was glad, otherwise this operation would fail.

He could see the two of them on the sofa, getting fresh with each other. He could have stayed and watched the whole thing, but that would screw up the plan, and he didn’t want to do that. Others were depending on him.

He left the room he was in and hurried down, taking the stairs rather than the lift so he was less likely to be spotted. He ran across the courtyard between the two buildings, pulling his black hoodie up tight so no one could see his face in the night light, and ascended the other side using the stairs too, waiting at the top to catch his breath before taking the next step.

He heard a sound along the corridor as he came out of the stairwell, and froze, listening keenly. There was whispering and a lot of shushing. He knew who it was, so remained in the corridor, and waited.

They appeared round the corner and when they spotted him, he put his finger to his lips. They immediately quieted. There were four of them and, like him, all decked out in black with black hoodies.

They moved together as one along the corridor until they came to the room with the light showing under the door.

Even though they knew there weren’t any other occupied rooms in the hotel, they checked up and down the corridor to make sure they weren’t interrupted. There was no way of knowing if someone had discovered their plan and were going to sabotage them.

Jack put his hand up and counted down from five on his fingers. On one, he put the master keycard into the lock and heard the click as it opened. He carefully opened the door, hoping that they were still so busy with each other they wouldn’t hear anything.

Once all five of them were through in the hallway of this particular suite, he carefully closed the door, guiding the automatic closing mechanism to make sure it remained silent.

They stood and looked at each other, each pulling a different object out of their pocket. Then they moved into the room swiftly, flicking the light switch off as they went.

There were screams and shouts, strobe lighting, and the sound of a camera shutter. Then they exited as quickly and quietly as they’d entered, this time leaving in different directions.

Jack returned to the stairs he had come up and ran down them, his soft shoes almost soundless. He heard doors opening and a few shouts – security no doubt – but they were too slow and he was out of there and out of the courtyard of the hotel before they had even reached the bottom.

He returned to his flat and processed the information he’d gathered straight away, sending it out to the relevant people, working in co-ordination with the other four. Then he relaxed, took a shower and read his book until he fell asleep.

The following morning, he turned on the news to find it buzzing with footage of a top government official caught with a hooker in one of the rooms in a new hotel complex that hadn’t yet opened. No one seemed to know where the footage had come from, but it was a scandal he wouldn’t come back from. Jack smiled. Job well done.