DECEPTIO (Excerpt

A week after his encounter with George in Lafayette Park, Morton walked into of the lobby of the Grand Hyatt Washington on 1000 H Street Northwest. He walked toward the bank of lifts and waited with a group of people for one of the cars to come down. As one of the doors opened, he moved with the people into the elevator to be taken up to the third floor. He tried to keep from bumping into the others in the car as his arm still hurt where George had shot him.

Stepping out on the third floor corridor, he looked to his left and his right to see if there was anyone watching else there. He looked at the numbers on the door trying to make out in which direction he needed to go. Turning to his left, he walked down the corridor looking for Room 316. For a moment, he wondered whether the room was still unoccupied. Standing in front of the door, he pulled out the electronic key card he had removed from George’s pocket. He inserted the card in the slot and swiped it. For a moment, he wondered whether the card would work. A moment later, the light on the lock turned from red to green and the door opened. He walked into the door and shut it behind him.

He stood there looking around the room and letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. The room looked unoccupied and the curtains were still drawn over the window. He searched for and found the light switch and flipped it. Light from recessed bulbs flooded the room. The bed was made and there were fresh flowers on the table next to the chair by the window. He walked to the wardrobe and opened it. It was empty. He stepped back from the wardrobe to search the room. He didn’t find anything.

For a moment, he wondered whether George had come all the way to Washington without any luggage but he immediately dismissed the idea. He would have come with at least a change of clothing but there was nothing like that to be found in the room. It was a week since Gorge had come into the room. The most likely thing was that the hotel staff had since come in to clean the room they had taken away whatever luggage was there because another guest wanted to use the room. If that was the case, then the luggage was with the hotel staff, waiting for him to come back and claim it. That meant he was going to have to go down and claim the bag by himself. All he needed was a good story.

Two hours later, Morton walked back into the lobby of the hotel with the intention of claiming George’s luggage, if he had any. He hoped that none of the staff, especially those working in the lobby, would recognize him as someone who had been in the hotel earlier that day. He walked up to one of the receptionists and introduced himself.

“Good afternoon,” he said to the woman standing behind the table, a bright smile on his face.

“Good afternoon sir, how may I help you?” She had an even brighter smile.

“I have a small problem and I was wondering if you could help me in sorting it out.” She nodded encouragingly and he continued. “My name is Sergeant Todd Morton of the 1^st Marine Division. One of my superior officers, Major George Kowolski was in your hotel like a week ago but he was called away unexpectedly on a matter of national security. He was unable to settle his bill or pack his things before he left. It was all hush-hush and required the utmost haste. Now my commanding officer has instructed me to come here and retrieve his things and settle his bill. How do I go about doing that?”

The woman nodded. “What room was he in and when did he check in?”

“He was in Room 316. I’m not exactly sure of the day but it was probably Monday or Tuesday last week.”

‘Let me see.” The woman typed on the keyboard in front of her and then read the words on the screen. “There was a George Kowolski in Room 316 and he checked in on Monday evening,” she said. “He was supposed to stay the night and check out Tuesday afternoon but as you said, he didn’t check out.”

“Thank you so much,” he said smiling. He retrieved his wallet from his pocket and extracted a credit card. “Could you please charge the hotel bill to this card?”

“Certainly sir,” the woman said as she collected the card. She went to a corner and a few minutes later came back with the card and a form. “If you could just sign here sir,” she said pointing to a spot on the form. Morton took the pen she offered and signed on the line. After he had finished, he smiled at her again. “Thank you so much for your help. Then suddenly, he frowned. “I’m sorry for taking up your time, but if he had any luggage, would it still be in the room?”

“No. It would have been taken down to the lost baggage section since the occupant was supposed to have checked out.”

“Can you give me directions on how to get there?”

Five minutes later, he was seated on a leather settee in the lost items section of the hotel, waiting for them to retrieve George’s luggage. He had presented to them his copy of the credit card form to show that he had settled the bill. He only hoped no one would come along asking for more identification before it was released. He didn’t know if the people George worked for had also thought about retrieving his things. If they hadn’t, he wanted to be gone from the hotel before they got round to it.

“Sergeant Morton?”

Morton stood up. “Yes?”

“Here’s what we could find for Major Kowolski.” The man held out a hold-all of intermediate size.

Morton took it from him, weighing it in his hands. “Thank you so much,” he said. “I’m very grateful.” Carrying the hold-all, he walked back to the lobby and out of the hotel where he hailed a taxi to take him to the motel on 31^st Street Northwest where he was staying. Throughout the journey, he kept staring at the rear-view mirror to see if he was being followed.