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.

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

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

He shifted his position on the window ledgeand leant behind him for the binoculars, altering the focus so he could get abetter look.

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

He could see the two of them on the sofa,getting fresh with each other. He could have stayed and watched the wholething, but that would screw up the plan, and he didn’t want to do that. Otherswere 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. Heran across the courtyard between the two buildings, pulling his black hoodie uptight so no one could see his face in the night light, and ascended the otherside using the stairs too, waiting at the top to catch his breath before takingthe next step.

He heard a sound along the corridor as hecame out of the stairwell, and froze, listening keenly. There was whisperingand a lot of shushing. He knew who it was, so remained in the corridor, andwaited.

They appeared round the corner and whenthey 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 thecorridor until they came to the room with the light showing under the door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following morning, he turned on thenews to find it buzzing with footage of a top government official caught with ahooker in one of the rooms in a new hotel complex that hadn’t yet opened. Noone seemed to know where the footage had come from, but it was a scandal he wouldn’tcome back from. Jack smiled. Job well done.