.The Eraser.

quatorze

                                                                -14-

The night outside Eastern Belle Hotel was a chaotic mixture of police car lights blaring in the street as nervous news reporters and anxious onlookers stood at a distance away from the scene. 

Officer Kowalski was anxious and nervous- a strange combination of emotions he rarely felt. The police team had been in this cold night for over an hour and to make matters worse there were in the dark as to what was happening to the mayor and the civilians inside the hotel.  

This situation was worse than the consecutive bank heists this past two months. He pictured the news reporters asking his boss about how his police force could have let the ZED get to the mayor and then hold him hostage. 

He honestly did not have a clue as to how the ZED just popped out of nowhere without raising any red flags and managed to get inside a prestigious and highly protected hotel. It was too accurate; those terrorists probably planned the hostage situation for a long time.

They must have passed through the security system of the hotel with ease. Well it was not really surprising that they had done that, they were a world class terror group that was always one step ahead of everyone else. 

Kowalski tightly held onto the white megaphone and after ten minutes of silence, he decided to try again. 

''YOU ARE SURROUNDED! COME OUT NOW AND SURRENDER!'' 

No response. 

''I REPEAT- YOU ARE SURROUNDED!'' 

There was more silence on the other end. 

His head was beginning to throb really badly due to the stress and worry of the night. There was no sign of movement inside the lobby of the hotel. Many police officers surrounding the street wanted to storm in there with their guns and force the ZED to surrender, but that would be a foolish action. Everyone in there, especially the mayor of the city would be in great danger if they did that. 

He heard some loud cursing to his right and saw the Chief of Police, Alexander Boyd coming out of one of the cars and heading towards him. As always he was wearing a suit, but since it had begun to drizzle a bit, the grey haired man chose to put a black coat over his attire.  

''What do they even want with our mayor? ''The boss asked in frustration as he stood next to his subordinate. 

'' I don't know sir.'' 

''Kowalski I think am going insane'' he said in a small voice as he wiped his forehead with a white handkerchief and continued to ramble on in panic '' Am clueless on ways to get those bastards to comply. I have no idea as to what game they are playing. If we don't manage to rescue the mayor and the citizens inside, we will be the laughing stock of the whole world forever.'' 

The tall and dark haired officer was lost for words. If the fearless Chief of Police had confessed to his subordinate that he was scared out of his mind then it meant that there really was nothing they could do as police officers to help those people. He could only imagine what cruel things were being done to them at the moment.

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In the meantime Larry waited patiently for Atara who was on the other end of the phone line, to get out of the ball room through a hidden exit door. 

''Am out'' she said. He punched in a few codes into his laptop and he had visual access of the corridor that Atara had entered. He watched her on his screen as she began to take off her golden heels. 

''Good, wait for Louisse and Jean'' he said as he glanced at the other monitoring screen beside him which had a technician just like him keeping an eye on the situation in the ballroom.