Heidi Reads the Room
Heidi entered the hotel lobby, this time dressed as an inspector from Scotland Yard. She had picked up Ali’s trail about the same time the police at the airport had, and she had followed the police officers who had been following Ali. It was clear from the chaos and confusion, as well as from the blown-out second-floor window she had seen as she walked into the hotel, that Ali had known he was being followed, and he’d been ready to send the police from hot on his trail to cooling their heels in the blink of an eye. Now, Scotland Yard had an interest in this Ali guy, or so she would tell these local cops, and she needed to find out what they knew. Maybe it would be enough to move her from two steps behind him to one step ahead of him.
After the check-in clerk had finished giving his statement to one of the police officers, he started to walk away. Heidi caught up with him, introduced herself as she flashed her ID, and proved him for details. They spoke for a couple minutes, after which she took the stairs to the second floor.
It was not difficult for her to locate Room 24. The moment she reached the room, she displayed her ID and said in a very convincing British accent, “Good Lord, it seems a bloody bomb went off in here! Anyone injured?”
The investigators, upon seeing an inspector from Scotland Yard in the room, stopped all activity and stood still. One of them replied, “You’re definitely not that far off, Inspector. Whoever he was, he knew our people were on his trail. And please do not ask about the injured.”
Heidi wanted to know the reasons for his thinking that Ali was aware that the police were on his trail. “And how do you figure that, may I ask?”
She walked carefully across the room and reached the windows. She looked down through the shattered panes and saw the paramedics tending to the unconscious police officers lying on the front lawn of the hotel.
Too professional a job for one man and one smoke bomb, thought Heidi.
“It is surprising that not a single shot has been fired—it was just a smoke bomb—but the man had planned it so well that not only did he leave many people injured and unconscious but he was also successful in escaping without anyone stopping him or even slowing him down,” said Heidi. “He is definitely good at his work.”