Light and Night: Across Two Worlds

Chapter 22: Bintang Hotel

At the moment, Bintang Hotel didn’t operate as usual. The entire building was specially ordered by Angkara Ufuk. Since noon, the hotel manager has ordered the room boy to clean and tidy up the president's suite area. Restaurants on the first floor continued to operate, as usual, to provide food. Angkara Ufuk and his team preferred ordering large quantities of food and asking to be delivered directly to their room area on the top floor on the 25th floor. For security reasons, Angkara Ufuk's bodyguard only allowed hotel staff to deliver food from the elevator. As soon as the elevator opened, a bunch of bodyguards would take over the food cart from the hotel staff.

Hotel staff who were on the night shift stayed as usual, but they were only allowed to access the hotel area until the 10th floor. Starting on the 11th floor, none of the hotel staff can be allowed to enter without permission from the Ufuk Angkara team. The atmosphere was tense and terrifying. David, the hotel manager on duty at the night shift, felt he was very unlucky. He had just been promoted to night shift hotel manager half a year ago. He was 23 years old. This kind of career promotion was his best achievement at a young age. However, only two months after David was promoted, the hotel was sold and changed hands. The old hotel owner did not tell the hotel staff anything, other than a brief announcement that the hotel had been sold. The old hotel owner disappeared and never gave any words since then. Angkara Ufuk and his team came as new hotel owners and ruled with a new management style.

Since the sudden change of ownership of the hotel, the hotel operational activities became a little disturbed. David wanted to change jobs, but he hasn't found a new suitable job for him. He couldn’t quit the job if not getting a new one because he needed money to survive. His mother just died last year because of cancer. Her medical expenses were spent all of David's savings. He also borrowed some money from his neighbor. The neighbor was kind and feel sorry for his situation.

This night, the activity in the hotel was really horrible. David saw a fainted lady came with the Angkara Ufuk team. They brought her upstairs. No one could touch or help her. All hotel staff was asked to kept secret and silent. Some hotel staff who were scared chose to go home. David allowed them to go home. Only a few staff from the restaurant and room service were still asked to stay to provide assistance. All staff that stayed tonight were men. David returned all-female staff as soon as he saw the poor woman being dragged in. He was eager to call the police, but David knew Angkara Ufuk was very powerful. It's easy to eliminate one life of a hotel manager like him. David decided this time it would be better to keep quiet about the situation. He didn't have much choice. Poor woman. He didn’t know what kind of bad thing happened to the woman upstairs. All men who were with Angkara Ufuk looked like cruel criminals.

David sat down wearily. On this horrible night, he sat at the reception desk in the hotel lobby. David tried to refuse some guests who came to stay with his sweet smile. Some backpacker guests seemed disappointed because their booking was canceled suddenly. However, David had anticipated this by ordering similar hotels not far from Bintang Hotels with similar types of rooms and prices. He also provided discount vouchers for the next booking, so the customers would come again. David also provided shuttle cars to take guests to the closest hotel and placed a hotel staff to assist the guest during the transfer process to another hotel. At least, by doing this, David had tried to maintain customer satisfaction and the good brand image of the hotel.

Angkara Ufuk received a report that Melati, the Angkasa family maid, had been captured, but until now the woman was still unconscious. Ara asked his team to wake up Melati and give her some warm food, so that woman had the energy to tell her story. Ara also asked his team to do a body scan of Melati. He wanted to record Melati's visual images in a hologram as soon as possible. Thus, Ara could ask the other team to go to Pullau Villa to investigate at the time being. They could enter Pullau Villa with Melati access.

Based on information obtained by Ara from his older brother, Eka Ufuk, who worked in the ministry of communication, there would be a fairly long meeting across ministries, and Alex was included in the invited participants. Based on the meeting agenda, this week Alex would not be able to leave the meeting room. All participants were required to take part in activities from morning to night, including gala dinner, and stayed at the same hotel for all meeting invitees. Based on this information, Ara launched the action. This was made easy because of Joni's stupid reaction that triggered Melati to voluntarily leave Pullau Villa. Ara laughed silently at Joni's stupidity. This person was indeed very easy to provoke. Joni ate the bait given by Ara easily.

Matias landed the jet plane at Supraba Capital City Airport. He continued his journey by using the latest type of Blackghost motorwing that usually used by a professional racer. The Blackghost Motorwing equipped with turbo power five times faster than the previous series. This motorwing also had an autopilot system, with the latest upgrade software, so the driver just had to hold on tightly to get to his destination.

It only took 10 minutes in the air to arrive by jet. The total time used by Matias to arrive at the capital is 30 minutes. While if he used the Road, it took about 2 hours of high-speed driving to arrive at Supraba Capital City from Udang Merah City. It still took about 10 minutes to arrive at Bintang hotel by motorwing from the airport.

Joni pressed the gas pedal on his car fast. He drove like crazy. In his car, there was a warning blinking alarm. It warned that he had exceeded the speed limit. In each police car, there was a turbo button that could be used if officers were on duty and chasing criminals. Of course, it would become a serious violation for Joni if the turbo button was misused. By driving over the speed limit like the time being, he had endangered his own career. There was one way to make the warning alarm stopped blinking, which was turning on the police siren. Joni could be fired if using this siren for personal use. Ah, go to hell! Joni didn’t want to live in guilty feeling forever because put Melati in trouble. Joni turned on the police siren in his car. The alert alarm turned off instantly. Steadily, Joni pressed the turbo button. The cars in front of him automatically moved away, opened Joni’s way, and Joni drove smoothly like a racer.

Matias parked and hid the motorwing outside Bintang Hotel. Matias covered his combat suit in a business suit, pretending as an office employee who was on a business trip. He approached the reception desk. At first glance, the situation in the hotel lounge seemed quiet. The atmosphere in the hotel seemed abnormal.

"Excuse me. My meeting was delayed. I was forced to reschedule my plane until tomorrow. I have to stay tonight. Are there still rooms tonight? I want the top floor room if available. I like the night view of the city from above. If there is a restaurant on the rooftop, I also want to have dinner there," Matias said pretending to be a guest.

David smiled politely towards Matias. "Sorry, for tonight, all rooms have been specially booked by one of our guests. If you wish, we can help you to get a room at a nearby hotel. There is a shuttle car that can deliver you to another hotel if you are interested."

Matias pretended to be surprised. "Oh, what program is there? It looks quiet."

David smiled awkwardly, "Yes, there was a large group staying over. Please follow me, sir. I take you to the shuttle car."

Just when David wanted to take Matias out, a drunk man came out of the elevator. He threw an empty vodka bottle at David. Matias pushed David away to avoid it. The bottle broke to pieces on the floor.

"Hey, bring me more drinks! Bring a lot of steaks also! I can eat a whole cow. We are starving," said the man.

"Yes, Sir. The drinks and the steak are coming. Should we deliver to what floor, Sir?" David asked in fear.

"11th floor, stupid! Hurry up!" said the man snorted and then passed into the elevator.

David sighed, feeling a little relieved. "Thank you for helping me," he said to Matias.

"Ah, nothing. I recommend to clean the broken bottle first," Matias said while heading to the broken pieces that shattered on the floor. David hurried after Matias and pulled Matias’s hand.

"Let our staff take care of it, Sir. I’m so sorry for the inconvenience. You better leave immediately," David said in fear, hurrying and pulling Matias to the outside lobby.

"Wait. What did exactly happen?" asked Matias looking at David's eyes closely. Fear expression in David's eyes was clearly drawn.

"No, nothing, sir. For your own safety, you should leave quickly," David said nervously.

"Maybe I can help," Matias said again.

David looked at Matias, thinking, and tried to consider Matias offer. At a glance at Matias's appearance, he looked like an ordinary office employee. Was it possible for office workers to fight mafias and thugs who were assigned to guard the floor above? David wanted to save the kidnapped woman. Maybe, this man could help him at least to notify the police to come to this place.

"Do you really want to help?" David asked.

Matias nodded.

"Okay, but the risk will be yours," David said again.

"Okay, I understand," Matias answered.

"Can you contact the police to ambush this hotel? Don't say this information from me, but there was a woman kidnapped above. I'm afraid something bad happened to her," David whispered.

"Do you mean this woman?" asked Matias while showing Melati’s photo on his cellphone.

David was surprised. "How do you know? Who are you?"

"I'm her friend. I came to save her," Matias answered firmly.