The Hotel.
Part One - Colonel Black
Within an hour, the hotel was filled with grubby tired looking but dangerous soldiers. They were all heavily armed and the Colonel leading them walked up to the counter. The Night manager tried to smile a greeting, but an icy hand took hold of his balls.
"I am Colonel Chernyy. We are commandeering this hotel. How many guests have you here?" His voice was rough as gravel and his eyes were soulless. It was clear he had seen too many campaigns and would brook no argument.
The night manager glanced at his small computer screen and punched the keyboard, "Twelve Sir but we have international press here and three government officials here overnight." His voice railed away as the Colonel set his rifle on the counter.
"Former government. I have just helped overthrow the Kovachev regime and our new President, President Milosevic is now running our country." The colonel looked at the manager hard, "Their room numbers?"
"Room 54 and 55" The manager stammered. The Colonel looked over to a second battle-stained lieutenant and nodded,
"Bring them to me now and have Sargeant Salarno, bring the press to the dining room in an hour." He ordered with a tired sigh. The manager, always able to find a way to ingratiate himself with his guests leaned forward,
"Perhaps I might have some refreshments for yourself and your men?" He found his smile again.
"Open up your kitchens and pantry and I will have my men see what you have." The Colonel retrieved his weapon and made his way to the dining room, "Bring coffee for three in the dining room."
Part Two - Sarah
With loud and furious banging on her door, Sarah Harding turned over and rolled off the bed. She was dressed in fatigued khaki pants and, a khaki shirt and slipped her feet into boots, placed on the floor. Through long months on assignment in the war zones of the region, she knew to sleep in her clothes. It was best to be ready to move in an instant, to avoid a firefight or evade a predatory section of soldiers who would view her with hungry eyes.
"Ein Moment!" She called out, tied off her boots, and opened the door after donning her PRESS bullet-resistant vest. Upon opening the door, a rough-looking corporal regarded her.
"You will come, Miss with me to see my Colonel." His voice was gravel and his eye had seen too much for a man barely into his twenties.
"Colonel Who?" Sarah turned and snatched her go-bag. She was escorted down the hall, where two other correspondents and a cameraman were also being roused from their rooms. The hallways were crammed with military personnel. The Corporal indicated that she should walk ahead of him,
"My Colonel will tell you all you need to know. Please no more questions." The Corporal nodded her to walk and he punctuated his words by hefting his Russian-made AK 47 rifle to a more comfortable position on his body.
Taking the stairs, Sarah walked down to find at least a brigade of soldiers in the foyer of the hotel. All grubby and tired looking but she noticed that their weapons were immaculate. Sarah had learned the military ranks and personnel deployment while in the region and immediately scanned for army recognition badges, cap pins or regimental colours.
To her dismay, these men wore few shoulder boards or regular army regimental badges. This was not good news. Armed men without discipline or leadership were too often bestial and would behave like armed thugs, especially to women in conflict zones.
Sarah tensed and felt the vulnerability of her sex. These men were either militia, soldiers gleaned from towns and villages given guns and allowed to operate with minimum army discipline or even worse, mercenaries who operated without restraint and were often the perpetrators of the worst kind of atrocities in a war zone. She followed the Corporal across the foyers, Sarah felt hungry eyes follow her across the the floor. Despite being in mannish army clothing, her body drew attention. Her slender, toned body gave the heavy cotton pants a pleasing shape and her small but pert bra-less breasts shifted within the shirt as she entered the dining room.
Inside, A table had been set up to one side, with coffee and pastries provided by the night manager and in the middle of the room, another table with a trio of men standing over a map. To one side, the men's weapons were stacked against a further chair. Every man was armed with a pistol and again their informs were dirty from marching and fighting. One man stood out, a tall man in black fatigues, stripped to the waist as he shaved his month-old beard off with a commandeered razor over a steaming bowl of water. Sarah regarded his lean and muscular torso, his pale skin was glistening from the water and as he turned, she glimpsed two long scars across his chest and one at his side. This man had seen a lot of war and bore the memories of it.
As he saw her enter, The Colonel asked his men to leave, set down the razor and retrieved a fresh shirt from behind his chair. Sarah decided to adopt a forthright stance and hope this man was not who she feared he was.
"Colonel, I protest at the treatment I have received so far. I am Sarah Harding, Associated Press and I expect to be released from your custody immediately and conducted to a safe zone." She watched the man buttoning up the shirt, and he smiled nonchalantly at her.
"Miss Harding, it's a great pleasure to meet you. I am a great admirer of your work. Your reports are most colourful but usually factual, though not always as precise as you might be. Please be at your ease, I am Colonel Adam Chernyy, or Colonel Black if you prefer," He reached out an open hand for her to shake.
Sarah decided to take it and then found a seat next to the table.
"I trust, Colonel Black, that you know the rules regarding members of the press?" Sarah insisted.
"Of course and I shall be happy to have you escorted to a safe zone, once the situation here has become less....fluid." The Colonel smiled and sat across from her.
"Very well, I must insist that you have your men respect my privacy." Sarah sat forward, tense and alert.
"My men have been instructed to treat you with all due respect." His tone curt now and less amiable, as if she had insulted him and his men.
"To be frank Colonel, from your reputation, I am less than comforted by your words." Sarah stopped short, the colonel's demeanour had changed, and so she bit her tongue, unwilling to goad him any further but he wasn't willing to let her accusation hang in the air like a bad smell.
"Ah my reputation, how very disappointing you simply accept the rumours and gossip and the propaganda spread by my enemies." The Colonel sighed.
"Enemies, you?" Sarah was genuinely surprised, as he was renowned for his military accomplishments and success in being raised in rank in less than two years.
"Oh, I have many enemies, mainly within the government that I have been fighting for and against. I have been very easy to hate as I will not simply follow orders blindly or give in to those with powerful and wealthy patrons. Fighting a war is evil enough, and the taking of any life is not a noble thing."
Sarah was not suddenly captivated by the honesty and eloquence of the man before her, "Tell me what evil you have been accused of?"
"Oh, that story would take longer than I have, but if you would honour me by being my guest for dinner this evening, I would be willing to share a story or two. The Night Manager er has promised us the best food, he can manage from his kitchen."
Without hesitation, she agreed to the dinner date.
As she walked back to the room, she couldn't believe her good fortune. In an interview with the 'Black Colonel', she almost skipped down the hallway. Upon reaching her door, another member of the press emerged from his room, Klaus Donitz had been in the region a week or two after she had arrived. He was a younger, ambitious Austrian reporter with the Reuters agency and had tried to sweet-talk her into bed after a night in the capital, but she had simply pecked him on the cheek and closed the bedroom door, leaving him on the empty doorstep.
"Sarah, I thought you might be in trouble. I saw the Black Knights take you away!" The Black Knights, under Colonel Black's immediate command, is a playful euphemism for the brigade.
"Klaus, please don't worry about me. I have it all in hand. Sarah patted him on the shoulder and went into her room. In the remaining hours, Sarah was a whirlwind of activity, she broke out her laptop and contacted her editor, with the news of her interview and then tried to find out as much as she could about her host. After two hours, of sifting through the online material, she found a brief biography of the man, before he became the Black Colonel.
There was a lot of clear propaganda about the Colonel, and a lot of rumoured involvement in ethnic cleansing, civilian atrocities and utter ruthlessness in the face of his enemies. There seems to be a lot about the man, but remembering his barbed comments about her work being factual but not precise and the fact that he had enemies. She delved further into the man's rise to a colonelcy in the past two and half years. Staring at the screen, she uncovered a lot more than she expected,
"So you were a teacher before the invasion, that's a surprise. Did you simply neatly stack your books and go out and fight for your country?" The question was rhetorical, as there was no mention of him until he was awarded a gallantry medal by the former president, for holding off an armoured column with a squad of men, small arms and a few anti-tank rockets. She found a picture of him and whom she supposed was his wife in a national paper, the clipping translated to Mr and Mrs Adam Hannowitz, attacked upon his return home from school, in their home by invasion forces. This had been dated nearly three years ago.
