Now that Hannah’s speech has got past the ‘do as we say or else’ part, I pay closer attention.

  ‘My colleagues will come round and ask your names. You are to reply truthfully. Once we have all of you identified, we’ll be speaking to each of you on a one-to-one basis. Again, I cannot stress enough how little harm you’ll come to if you cooperate. On the other hand, should you fail to do as I, or my colleagues request, we will not hesitate to harm you. I should imagine a lot of you are thinking about the cell phones in your pockets or purses. Don’t waste your time. We’ve been blocking the signal since we got here. You can’t call for help, either with your phone or via social media.’

  Hannah takes the knife from Debbie’s throat and slips it under the thin shoulder strap of her dress. A quick jerk severs the strap and the knife is moved to the other side.

  As Hannah is slicing through the other strap, two of her goons take hold of Debbie’s arms.

  One has a bald head and the other has tattoos that come up to the underside of his jawline like a multi-coloured beard.

  Debbie’s dress slips down her body, baring her breasts before catching on her hips. Hannah’s knife slides inside the folded dress and severs enough material to allow the gown to gather around Debbie’s feet.

  Debbie struggles and tries to free herself from Bald Man and Tattoo Neck without success. She’s now topless and is wearing what I assume are control pants beneath her nylons. Debbie is a good-looking woman, with the kind of figure many women aspire to, but I get no thrill from seeing her exposed like this.

  I steal a glance at Buzz Cut and see a lascivious grin on his face as he enjoys the floor show.

  Hannah grabs Debbie’s right nipple and pulls until her breast is drawn up and away from her body. I can hear Debbie pleading for Hannah to stop, but she doesn’t pay any attention.

  The blade of the knife is placed under Debbie’s breast and her nipple is released. As the breast sags down, a pained whimper escapes Debbie’s mouth and a thin line of blood runs down the knife’s serrated blade, dripping to the floor.

  I expect, like me, everyone else in the room is holding their breath and fearing the worst for Debbie.

  Hannah pulls her knife downwards, without cutting any more of Debbie’s breast, and stares into the singer’s face. Whether she’s making her point or feeding on the fear in her victim is irrelevant. She hasn’t gone ahead with her implied threat.

  The knife rises up and is held in front of Debbie’s face.

  The singer turns her head to one side and cranes her head back, but Hannah grips her hair again, and before ten seconds have passed she’s looking front and centre at the knife.

  Hannah twists and turns the knife before Debbie’s eyes then slashes it across her chin. Before the blood rushes to fill the wound, I see a flash of bone that shows just how deep the cut is. To my eyes, the cut has made Debbie look as if she has two mouths.

  Bald Man and Tattoo Neck release Debbie, who falls to the floor pressing blood-soaked hands to her ruined chin.

  When Debbie’s agonised screams subside into adrenaline-cushioned sobs, Hannah turns to face the room. ‘I always prefer showing to telling. Cooperate and you’ll be unharmed. Refuse and you’ll die screaming.’

  Beside me I hear a hissed intake of breath from Sharon. She doesn’t have to speak, there’s no need for anyone to give voice to their thoughts as all of us will be thinking the same thing.

  Debbie’s mutilation has had the desired effect of horrifying everyone into compliance.

  It isn’t just the brutality of the act, it’s the cold manner in which Hannah has gone about it.

  The way that she’d humiliated her victim by exposing her to the room was bad enough, but the way she’d cut Debbie had elevated her point to unnecessary levels. Had she just threatened her, we would have been compliant – the point would have been proven. Yet she’d chosen to do what she did, and had done it without hesitation. This tells me that Hannah is by far the most dangerous of the terrorists.

  Even now, she stands with droplets of Debbie’s blood splattered across her hands and is making no effort to wipe them away.

  When one of her minions steps forward with a clipboard, she nods at two others and starts walking down the hallway. She opens the door of what I know to be the manager’s office and leads her men inside.

  I’ve only been in there a couple of times, but I know, as well as being a working office, it has a table with six chairs in it for staff meetings.

  The guy with the clipboard is confirming names and using a black marker to write the name of every person he speaks to on their left forearm.

  His reason for identifying each person is a mystery to me, but I’m sure it will become evident as the night passes.

  A look at the staff and customers shows me a sea of nervous faces. A lot of the women are weeping, or cuddling into their partners for support, while the men are grim. I imagine some of the big hitters in the room are wondering if they can barter or buy their way out of danger.

  There’s a huge glass window behind me; I turn my head and look down the valley towards the cableway station at the bottom. I see no lights other than those leeching out from the resort.

  The snow falls thick and determined. Its presence the reason for ours.

  Whether or not someone at the bottom cableway station has noticed we’ve lost power is unknown.

  Perhaps they’ve tried to communicate with us and failed. Maybe they’ve called the cops, maybe they haven’t.

  Whatever they’ve done or not done is irrelevant. Unless someone has a platoon of marines hidden away in their room, we’re at the mercy of the terrorists.

  Chapter 4

  Leslie Trouseau gives the man his name when asked and offers his left arm forward so the guy with the marker pen can do his stuff.

  As soon as Leslie had realised they were being over-run by gunmen, he’d loosened his bow tie and unfastened his top button. At sixty years of age, with a history of ulcers and heart problems, he knows it’s imperative for him to remain calm. Beside him, his wife, Lily, is bearing the situation with her usual fortitude.

  Lily is the rock that grounds him, and without her support he’d never have risen to the heights he has. Throughout his life, Lily has given him many reasons to be grateful to her, and very few to make him love her.

  He only found out when he married her that Lily was a cold woman, who believed sex was for procreation alone. Once she’d had the three children she wanted she moved herself to the spare bedroom, from where she issued threats that were designed to prevent him from having affairs. If only she knew: all the times he’d told her he was working late at the office, he’d been at his desk, alone with a bunch of numbers and a glass of iced tea.

  He’d stuck by her out of duty, and this ski holiday was his way of keeping her happy over the holidays while he worked. She would take to the slopes and he’d stay in their suite and hunch over his laptop.

  After their children, banking was his life.

  The problem was, it may also be his death.

  As vice principal of foreign investment, on a daily basis he dealt with sums of money that could bankrupt a small country. The smallest transaction he’d done in the last year was eight figures.

  If these terrorists are after money, he has access to the kind of funds that would make their wildest dreams come true. To counter this, he keeps his head down and avoids looking their way – lest they decide to pay him special attention.

  The attack on the singer was gruesome. The female terrorist who’d disfigured the singer was beyond evil as far as he was concerned. How one woman could debase and torture another in such a fashion was beyond his comprehension.

  As the macabre scene had played out, he’d felt Lily’s grip on his arm tighten. She’d not cried once when she’d had her left breast removed last year, but he caught her muffled sobs as she’d cowered behind him while the singer was being mutilated.

  With his and Lily’s arms branded with marker pen, he follows orders from one of the terrorists and takes a seat in the same area the staff are occupying.

  A millionaire several times over in his own right, he wonders just what the night will bring. Will he be alive to see the sun rise? If he is, will he be penniless, or will he be the man who’d financed terrorists with other people’s money?

  He offers up a silent prayer to Saint Matthew the Apostle, the patron saint of money. Leslie’s belief in religion is a fleeting thing, wheeled out in times of need and ignored when the sun shines and life is good.

  The man with the clipboard repeats a name. His voice shows exasperation as he glances at the fifty or so remaining people who’ve yet to be identified.

  A twist of the man’s mouth precedes him moving on to the next name on his list.

  Celeste Powell is a name Leslie is familiar with. She has been in his office on more than one occasion and he knows her story. Her blood is bluer than a summer sky and her ancestors had no doubt owned shares in the Mayflower when they’d travelled to America.

  She’d had a significant family fortune handed to her at an early age due to her parents’ fondness for too much whisky and fast cars. To cap it off, she married the only son of one of the few families that were richer than her own. Her in-laws had poor health and had both died within two years of Celeste saying her marriage vows. Their son had joined them in the family plot when an aneurism had burst inside his head. He was dead before his body had hit the carpet of the apartment where he housed his mistress.

  Leslie watches as Celeste stands and walks across to the man with the clipboard. She is trailed by her two children: a boy of around twelve and a sullen girl a year or two older.

  Tragedy may have struck Celeste Powell’s life with the force of a wrecking ball, but she carries herself with poise, as if her deportment matters at all times, regardless of circumstances or threat.

  As she walks over to join the staff and those already identified, she gives Leslie a tiny nod and ushers her daughter into the space behind a table that was upturned in the panic of the terrorists’ arrival.

  The boy, Leslie can’t remember his name – isn’t even sure he’d ever known it – wears an expression that is part fear and part fascination. For him, this will be the best kind of adventure to experience – horrifying and thrilling in equal measure. So long as he makes it out alive, and his family all survive, the boy will dine out on tonight’s events for the rest of his life.

  Leslie hears the man with the clipboard raise his voice again, as another person refuses to step forward when their name is called.

  He doesn’t see any reason not to comply with such a basic instruction; after all, once there are only a few people left to match with the names on his list, the man with the clipboard will only have to harm one or two people to make the others fall into line.

  Chapter 5

  The whole room has descended into a hushed silence with the exception of the odd sob coming from one of the women, and the occasional rustle of clothing as a man rubs a soothing hand over his wife or girlfriend’s back.

  Clipboard has whittled down the remaining unidentified to three couples and a single man. When none of them answer he gives an exasperated sigh and nods at a squat colleague.

  Squat takes his cue with indifference as he points his gun at the nearest man and drags his partner away from him.

  He removes the knife from his hip and uses it to slice through the woman’s halter-neck top. A second later the top is pulled down to expose the woman’s breasts.

  ‘I’m Frederick Houston.’ The man steps in front of Clipboard, his voice betraying his fear. ‘Let her go, you’ve made your point.’

  Clipboard doesn’t even look at the man. ‘You may think that. I don’t. If I were you, I’d concentrate very hard on not being uncooperative again.’ He gives a nod to Squat then looks at the distraught man. ‘I think she ought to be naked from now on. I trust you have no issue with that? Or perhaps you’d like to be uncooperative?’

  Squat takes his knife, points it at the woman’s trousers and gives the knife’s tip a couple of bounces. ‘You heard the man.’

  The look the woman gives Houston, as she peels down her trousers and underwear, is one of pure hatred. I can imagine what she’s thinking about the man and know none of it will be charitable or forgiving. He’s tried to hold out and it’s her who has to suffer the consequences.

  Granted she got off lightly compared to the singer, but she’s still had to endure the humiliation of stripping.

  Clipboard’s loud threat that anyone who offers the woman a jacket will suffer, makes her lips twist into a snarl as she struggles to cover herself with her hands.

  True to form, Buzz Cut waves her over and instructs her to wait near him.

  The remaining hostages offer up their names with only the briefest of hesitation.

  Beside me, I hear a hissed whisper from Sharon.

  ‘We’re gonnae have to do something about this. These bawbags are no’ getting away wi’ this.’

  The Scottish terminology would bring a smile to my lips were it not for the fact that, as much as I might agree with her, there is little an un-armed couple can do against up to a dozen heavily armed terrorists.

  I keep my own voice low. ‘I agree that something needs to be done, but the question is what? And how?’

  I let the reality sink in for a moment. Other than a couple of steak knives I’ve managed to filch from a table, we don’t have any weapons.

  If all the men in the room charged the terrorists we’d be able to overpower them and snatch their weapons. The problem with that is the complete lack of communication we’re able to have with the other men and the way the terrorists are guarding us.

  At all times they keep five yards away from the throng of frightened bodies. The losses we’d incur crossing those five yards would be horrific. At least half of us would die.

  I’m not averse to risking my life, but at the same time I have no desire to throw it away in a foolish gesture.

  There’s also the possibility that our plan would be thwarted before it even got started. Should that happen, it would take Hannah less than a minute to get someone to point a finger at the ringleader.

  I’ve never liked the idea of becoming a martyr. It’s bad enough that I’ve had to remove myself from the lives of my friends and family, without throwing my life away for a bunch of people I hardly know.

  There’s also the fact that if I’m to make any moves against the terrorists, I’ll have to use extreme force. I don’t want to do that. Too many people have died, either by my hands or because of decisions I’ve made. I don’t want any more deaths on my conscience. Not even those of terrorists.

  Another point to consider is the time. It’s still early and we’ve only been held for a half hour or so. There haven’t been any demands as yet and this whole thing may well play out without any loss of life.

  If it comes to it and I’m forced to act, I will, but for now I plan to observe, to scheme, and to find a way to stop thinking that the terrorists will kill us all because we’ve seen their faces.

  There’s also the question of what the terrorists’ goal is. The idea that each of the customers are to be taken for a one-to-one meeting with Hannah both intrigues and worries me.

  What happens in that office will dictate whether or not the terrorists achieve their aims, and I’m already convinced Hannah is ruthless enough to do whatever is needed to ensure her hostages do as they’re told.

  Chapter 6

  Sharon Bairden flexes her fingers and leans on the floor with her right hand. Or to be more accurate, she leans on a steak knife. When she lifts her hand off the floor the knife is hidden inside her sleeve for use at a later date.

  The brutal attack on the singer disgusted her; she’d wanted to act, to take on the guys, but as Boulder had pointed out, how could she without a decent weapon?

  She might manage to get the jump on the nearest guard and get his gun, but the odds are stacked against her and she knows it.

  Even if she does make such a move, and it is successful, what then? It will still be one against many, and the only cover available is a sea of seated bodies.

  She’d be cut down in seconds. One or two if she turned the gun at the other terrorists; five or six, maybe seven or eight if she dived for cover behind innocent people and used them as a shield.

  Her death would, at best, achieve one or two dead terrorists.

  If Boulder were to help her she’d have more chance of success, but, in her mind, he seems reluctant.

  When she’d chatted to him a couple of weeks ago, she had learned little about his life – except that he liked reading and was filled with a sadness he didn’t express but couldn’t hide. His laughs were polite, but his smile never got close to touching his eyes and, on the night she’d had a long talk to him, it became clear he was haunted by something that had happened in his past.

  As conversations go, it was the gentlest, most sincere she’d ever endured. Part of her was glad she had got to meet the real Jake Boulder, another part told her he was a dangerous man. He was well-mannered at all times, but she’d caught the flashes of anger he displayed when a customer was rude or arrogant. That he’d taken on a job like this, with a temper like his, was unusual if not rare.

  Any job where you deal with customers face to face requires an even temper. When they are rich, and are paying through the proverbial nose for what you’re serving them, they can be a lot more difficult than someone who is down to their last.

  Since starting work at RidgeTop Resort at the beginning of the skiing season, Sharon had been insulted, threatened, or belittled at least twice a week.

  When you added in the sexual harassment and groping, from those who thought they could do as they pleased, or make you do whatever they wanted, just because of the size of their bank balances, it was little wonder the resort’s owner had to pay thrice the going rate for bar and waiting staff.