CHAPTER TWO

9:17 A.M.

How did things end up like this? Seung-hwan wondered, his head aching. Barely moments ago, the masked gunman who had been in Jiwoo and Hyukjae’s room had whacked him in the head with his gun. Seung-hwan was sure a bump was already forming on his temple.

The gunman’s action had stunned the rest of the Super Junior members into submission; Ryeowook’s crying was now softening to sniffles as he tried to control his emotions.

Earlier that morning, after his alarm clock had gone off, Seung-hwan left Siwon in their room and headed next door to wake Hyukjae and Jiwoo up. He hadn’t been prepared to see his friends huddled together on the floor, both bound and gagged, with a gunman standing over them.

The moment the masked man had seen him, he’d ordered Seung-hwan to join the others on the floor. Seung-hwan had compiled out of fear. When he didn’t return to his room after fifteen minutes, Siwon had inadvertently stumbled into their room, and into the clutches of their captor as well.

Siwon, ever the calm hero, had tried talking to their captor, asking him what he wanted, only to be told in no uncertain terms to shut up. He’d remained silent ever since, eyeing the gunman cautiously.

Seung-hwan closed his eyes as another wave of pain washed over him. Ryeowook and Henry, the two innocent boys, had wandered to look for him when they woke up, and before they could sound the alarm, they’d been taken hostage too.

He had prayed fervently after that, hoping that the rest – Sungmin, Zhou Mi, Donghae and Kyuhyun – would not follow their usual practice and enter Jiwoo’s or his room before they headed for breakfast.

Unfortunately, his prayers weren’t answered, and one by one, the Super Junior members were herded like cattle into the room, where they were all crouched together.

Their captor was now pacing up and down the length of the room, muttering to himself. From his position, Seung-hwan exchanged looks with Siwon, who had cradled Jiwoo in his arms. Donghae did the same for Hyukjae. Their captor hadn’t allowed them to untie the two men, although Seung-hwan spied Siwon covertly trying to loosen Jiwoo’s bonds to make him more comfortable.

Seung-hwan decided to try talking to their captor. “Excuse me,” he called in Korean, stopping the other man in his tracks. “Could you at least tell us who you are, and what this is about?”

“Quiet!” he roared at them in English, not seeming to understand the question.

“Who are you?” Siwon asked him in the same language.

“You don’t need to know who I am!” He turned towards Siwon, the gun now level with the gesture man’s forehead. “I know who you are, that’s all that matters!”

“Whoa,” Donghae started to rise, moving in front of Siwon. “Calm down man.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” The gun was now pointed at Donghae’s head.

“Okay, okay,” Donghae held up his hands in surrender. He sank back down to the floor next to Eunhyuk again.

“Because of you, all of you, I’ve lost everything! So today,” their captor smiled menacingly, “You will all pay.”

Their captor uncocked the safety mechanism on the gun, the “click” a deafening sound echoing in the deathly silence of the room. He aimed the gun at Siwon’s temple again, finger ready on the trigger.

The Super Junior members and their managers held their breaths; some closed their eyes, not wanting to witness their friend’s demise.

And then the phone rang.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

9:32 A.M.

Tension was high in the control room, although the occupants did their best to quell their anxiety.

“Penny, get me flight details for our hostages, and everything you can find on them,” Phil instructed their technical analyst, who was on speakerphone.

“Everything, sir?” Penelope Clayton repeated. “Do you know how much information there is on these guys?”

“Everything, Penelope,” Phil’s tone brooked no argument, and Penny let out an audible sigh. “You’ll have it as soon as I do, sir.”

Hanging up, Phil looked around the room. “Do we have eyes yet?”

“Negative, boss,” came Mack’s reply over their comm sets. He sounded out of breath, as if he had been running.

“We’re running out of time, Mack,” Kaelyn said. “Get us in there ASAP.”

“Working on it, doc,” It was Ed this time, sounding just as breathless as Mack had.

After the team had established who their hostages were, they’d immediately fallen into their usual pattern. Mack and Ed were on tactical point, so they were in charge of getting “eyes in the room”, the team’s lingo for hooking up a video feed so they could watch what was happening.

Maumood had confirmed that there were no security cameras in the room, so Mack and Ed had decided to go into 1003, the room directly above 903, to dangle a portable camera from the window.

Phil, Kaelyn and Lance had stayed back at the control post, together with Tommy, who was monitoring camera feeds and giving directions to the tactical duo.

“Kae,” Phil called, distracting the psychologist from her research on the band.

“Yup?”

“You’re on point.”

Kaelyn met Phil’s eye. “I’m on point.”

Despite being on her day off, Kaelyn was just given the most important role – that of a negotiator. While everyone on the team was trained in crisis negotiator, the role usually fell to Kaelyn because of her specialized expertise in the area, and also because most perpetrators, who were men, responded much more positively to a woman. She gave the team an advantage in many situations, and her uncanny ability to read and accurately predict behavior while in the field was unparalled.

Tommy was their technical whiz, and he usually monitored communications from a central command. Today however, he’d been picked to run back-up with Phil, so that left Lance holding down the fort.

“And… we have eyes in the sky!” Tommy punched his fist in the air in jubilation as the feed from the camera Mack and Ed set up showed up on their screens.

“There’s our guy” Lance pointed out, indicating a man in jeans and a black shirt pacing around.

“He’s agitated,” Kaelyn said.

Tommy paused the video where the gunman had his face turned toward the camera. He quickly took a screenshot, and sent it to their technical analyst. “Penny love, run this pretty boy’s face through the system and see what you get, okay?”

“You got it, sugar,” was the quick answer.

“And there’s our hostages,” Phil gestured towards the ten men sitting in a row on the floor, their backs to a wall. The camera was at the perfect angle, allowing them a glimpse into the entire area, except the bathroom.

“Siwon, Donghae, Eunhyuk, Kyuhyun, Zhou Mi, Ryeowook, Sungmin and Henry,” Kaelyn identified each man. “The men in between Siwon and Donghae, and to Henry’s left, must be Jiwoo and Seung-hwan.”

“Wait,” Phil instructed. “Can you enlarge this screen?” he asked Tommy.

Tommy did as requested. “Do you see that?” Phil asked the others.

“Two of them are tied up,” Lance replied in astonishment. “The rest aren’t.”

“Who was rooming with Eunhyuk?” Tommy asked Sam. The detective consulted his notes, then responded: “Shin Jiwoo.”

“So only Shin Jiwoo and Eunhyuk are bound. Why?”

“Maybe they presented the biggest threat to our guy, so he ordered them tied up to gain the upper hand,” Ed speculated. He and Mack had returned to the control post as soon as their task was complete.

“Not possible,” Kaelyn said.

“Why not?” Mack challenged.

“The biggest threat to our perp should be Siwon,” she pointed to him on the screen, “Seung-hwan,” she indicated again, “and Sungmin. They’re our biggest guys, and both Siwon and Sungmin have martial arts training.”  

For a moment, she was glad for Wikipedia and fan sites – she’d gleaned more information about the band in ten minutes from the internet than she could possibly could by running a search through the police database. Every single trivia about each man, from the way he parted his hair, right down to the color of his underwear, was listed and examined in precise detail by their fans. It was a little freaky to know that the public paid so much attention to these men, but the incessive stalking was turning out to be a blessing in disguise.

“So if you want to neutralize your biggest threats, why go for Jiwoo and Eunhyuk, who are relatively harmless compared to these three?”

It was a question no one had the answer to, and everyone was silent as they thought about the possible rationale for the oddity.

“Seung-hwan looks like he’s bleeding from the temple,” Ed pointed out. “See?”

His team mates brought their faces closer to the screen, studying it even more intently.

“He definitely took a hit to the head,” Lance confirmed. “Think he tried to fight our guy?”

“Possibly,” Phil and Ed agreed, but Kaelyn shook her head. “Why not, doc?”

“Assuming Jiwoo and Eunhyuk were already hostages when Seung-hwan discovered them, it’s unlikely that he would directly engage the perp for fear of antagonizing him,” Kaelyn reasoned. “This is the team manager, guys. He’s trained to watch out for his boys, ensure their safety from overzealous fans. He won’t put any of them in danger.”

Her teammates nodded their acceptance of her explanation. “But it doesn’t explain why he got whacked,” Sam the detective pressed on.

“He probably tried to reason with the perp, and got smacked for his effort,” Lance said.

“Do we have anything on him yet?” Kaelyn suddenly asked, wondering if their technical analyst had managed to identify the gunman.

“No hits yet,” Tommy told her. “She’s still running his mug through the database.”

“,” Phil swore. “They’re engaging him.”

The six of them, together with Sam, watched the monitor. They saw Seung-hwan speak to the gunman, although they couldn’t hear anything because it was just a visual feed. Then the gunman’s attention turned to Siwon, who also said something to him. Donghae entered the fray, rising to his feet before being ordered back to the floor.

“Damn it,” Phil swore again. “Someone tell them to shut up and not engage him!”

“He’s bothered by something,” Kaelyn hadn’t been paying too much attention to the hostages, but was studying the gunman’s body language closely. “But I can’t tell whether it’s his hostages or the situation. I need to talk to him. Can you get me a line in?”

“One line in, coming right up,” Tommy promised her.

Kaelyn picked up the phone, waiting as Tommy connected it. The phone rang for a while, and then it was picked up.

“Hello?”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *