The click of the lock was a death sentence and a starting pistol all in one. Trapped. The word echoed in the opulent silence of the suite. The main door was impossible, guarded by men who were now looking for a missing waiter.
Neel's mind, honed by years of finding ways out of impossible situations, raced. He moved silently to the floor-to-ceiling window he had hidden behind. It was sealed, as expected in a modern luxury hotel. But this wasn't just a hotel; it was a palace. Its modern functions were built into an older, grander architecture. His eyes followed the window frame upward and saw a latch. It wasn't a window; it was a door leading to a small, private balcony, likely for the exclusive use of the suite's occupant.
He slid the bolt and stepped out into the cool night air. The view was dizzying. He was on the top floor of the wing, a sheer drop of at least sixty feet to the manicured palace lawns below. He was completely exposed.
He couldn't go down from here, but the balcony offered a path. A decorative marble ledge, no more than a foot wide, ran along the side of the building, connecting his balcony to the one attached to the adjacent suite. It was a terrifying, precarious bridge.
Without a moment's hesitation, he swung a leg over the railing. Keeping his body pressed flat against the cold sandstone of the palace wall, he began to edge his way along the ledge, the wind tugging at his waiter's jacket. Below him, the lights of the party were a distant, hazy glow.
He reached the next balcony and vaulted over the railing, landing in a silent crouch. This suite was dark; unoccupied. He slid the balcony door open—it was unlocked from the inside—and slipped into the darkness of an empty room. He was still on the top floor, but he was out of the primary line of sight.
He needed to descend. He moved into the suite's bedroom. The king-sized bed was adorned with heavy, high-thread-count cotton sheets. They were his lifeline. He stripped two of them from the bed, along with a thick blanket, and tore them into long, wide strips. His fingers, deft and sure, knotted them together, testing each knot with his full body weight. It was a crude, desperate rope, but it would hold.
He secured one end to the heavy, bolted-down frame of the bed and tossed the other end out the balcony door. It didn't reach the ground, but it dropped past the floor below. That was enough.
He holstered his pistol securely, pocketed the evidence, and climbed over the railing. Then, hand over hand, he began his descent, the rough fabric of the sheets burning his palms. He was a shadow against the grand palace wall, a ghost escaping a gilded cage. He landed silently on the balcony of the suite below and repeated the process, another set of sheets getting him the rest of the way down to the ground floor staff patio, hidden from the main lawns by a row of dense hedges.
He was out of the suite, but not out of the palace. He was still wearing the waiter's uniform of "Rahul," a man who was now officially missing. He slipped back into the service corridors, his heart pounding. He found the staff changing room and stripped off the waiter's waistcoat, replacing it with the maroon valet jacket he had hidden earlier. He clipped on the "Sanjay Sharma" ID. In less than a minute, he had shed his compromised identity and reclaimed his original cover.
He walked with a calm, deliberate pace out of the service wing and into the underground garage. He looked like any other valet on his break. None of the security guards gave him a second glance.
He walked past the Aston Martin, the Bentleys, and the Rolls-Royces, heading to the far corner where the staff was instructed to park their personal vehicles. He swung his leg over his Royal Enfield. The keys were already in the ignition.
The engine turned over with a low, reassuring roar.
He drove up the ramp and out of the service gate, giving a slight, deferential nod to the guard. He merged onto the main road, just another worker heading home after a long shift. He didn't look back. In his pocket, he could feel the sharp edges of the USB drive. He had the proof. He had escaped. And a war was about to begin.