Hotel Security Read online

  “I understand,” said the butler. “I shall connect you."

  “Hotel Reservations,” came a new voice. “How can I help you?” The accent was vaguely foreign.

  “Reservations? Geez,” said Roger, throwing a glance to the ceiling. “Oh wait. You'll do. I'm in room 2217. Could you send someone up? I seem to be locked in."

  “I'm sorry, sir. But so early in your morning, reservations are handled off site."

  “My morning? Where are you?"

  “Bangalore, sir."

  “Bangalore? Bangalore, India? A call center in India?"

  “Yes, sir."

  Roger thumped his head a few times against the wall. “Look,” he said. “This is an emergency. Could you please connect me to the front desk?"

  “It would be difficult,” said the call center operator. “Perhaps you might just press the ‘front desk’ button on your phone?"

  “What?” Roger felt like an idiot. “Yes, of course. Thank you. Goodbye."

  He hit the hang-up bar and then pushed the ‘front desk’ button—and waited. After about fifteen seconds, a woman's voice came on the line. “Please, hold the line,” it said. “Your call is important to us. A representative will be on the line with you shortly."

  Roger made a fist. Then, holding the handset, he plopped down on the bed.

  “Good morning, sir,” said the bed.

  “Shut up!"

  “As you wish, sir."

  Several minutes later, a voice issued from the handset. “Front desk,” it said, breathlessly. “Sorry for the delay. We're a little understaffed so early in the morning. How can I be of assist.... Oh."

  “What's wrong?” said Roger.

  “I'm afraid I won't be able to assist you,” said the clerk.

  “What?” Roger swung off the bed and onto his feet. “You don't even know what I need?"

  “I'm afraid,” said the clerk, sounding actually somewhat afraid, “that room 2217 is in a security lockdown."

  “Lockdown! What are you talking about?"

  “The ‘Freedom through Vigilance Act',” said the clerk. “It says that if someone checks in using fraudulent credentials, we must detain that individual if we can. And it says here, you used a bogus photo ID."

  “That's ridiculous—a mistake.” Roger tried for a laugh, but it came out more like a plaint.

  “Mistakes do happen,” said the clerk. “If there has been a mistake, our policy is to offer you a free, one week stay at our hotel, meals and gratuities included."

  “Are you nuts!” Roger grasped the phone as if he were trying to strangle it. “That's like Leavenworth Prison offering a complimentary one week incarceration. No, thank you!"

  “Well, if that's the way you feel about it,” said the clerk, “then you can simply—"

  “No, please,” said Roger. “Stay on the line. Look. I'm a security consultant. I was simply testing your procedures."

  “Are you saying you were hired to do that?"

  “Well, no,” said Roger. “I was only trying to—."

  “Then I'm afraid you'll just have to wait for our security officer. He gets on duty at eight a.m. Good bye, sir.” Roger heard the phone disconnect.

  Roger blew out a breath. He needed some outside help, and decided that, early as it was, he'd call the president of his company. He stabbed at the ‘outside line’ button, but he didn't hear a dial tone. After a few more attempts, he realized that they weren't going to let him make any outside calls.

  “Damn them!” he said, slamming the receiver to its cradle.

  He reached for his cell phone and flipped it open. The display indicated, ‘No Service'. And damn these metal frame buildings. Then came the understanding that they were probably jamming the cell phone frequencies. They really mean it. He slipped the phone back into his pocket. And that explains why there's no wireless—and why the bear didn't wake me up.

  Roger stood there, trembling. With a twinge of claustrophobia, he remembered being confined to his room as a kid—his parents’ punishment of choice.

  Annoyance turned to resentment and then to anger. He wasn't about to just wait like a brain-dead bovine to be freed. Property damage or not, he'd try like hell to break out. He had his pride—his professional pride.

  He took off his jacket then rushed to the window and looked out. It was a non-opening window, but that didn't matter. There was no outside ledge. And from a sheer twenty-two story height, he was hardly going to shimmy to the ground on tied-together bed sheets.

  Glancing over at the locked door, he got an idea. He went to the door and put his ear against the lock. He heard a faint electrical hum, presumably of a solenoid, and that confirmed his theory; for safety reasons, the inside handle locking function was powered. If there were a fire there might also be a power interruption. And for people to get out, the door would have to function normally if the power were cut. Roger stood up. All he had to do was somehow cause a power failure.

  But how?

  Roger darted to his overnight bag and rummaged for his Swiss Army Knife. Carrying a knife. One of the advantages of driving rather than flying. He then unplugged the floor lamp and cut its power cord at the base. He stripped off a couple of inches of insulation from the two power wires, then twisted the bare wires together. Finding the closest power outlet to the door, he plugged in the cord. He heard a satisfying electrical zapping sound, and the hall light flickered and went dark. He sprang to the door, and pulled down the handle. But it didn't engage. He was still held captive. He listened at the door and heard the solenoid. With a sigh, he unplugged his shorting cable. All he'd done was blow an unimportant breaker. To make sure, he flipped the switch on the bed table lamp. The light indeed came on.

  Straining for inspiration, he rubbed his temples and craned his neck, forcing his gaze to the ceiling. He smiled for there above, he saw a fire detector. All he had to do was light a fire and hold it under the detector. The hotel's system would have to release the solenoids so no one burned to death.

  Again, but how? If only I had matches.

  He scanned the room and caught sight of the coffeemaker.

  Using the screwdriver blade on his knife, he removed the coffeemaker's plastic housing, exposing the nichrome heating coil. Since the coffeemaker's cord wasn't long enough to let him hold the unit under the fire detector, he cut off the plug and appended his shorting cord. Then, after forcing a crumpled up business card into the heating coil and plugging in the coffeemaker, he stood on a chair and positioned the heating element directly under the detector. The device smelled like burning coffee. After a few seconds, the business card began to smolder.

  “Smoking is prohibited in this room,” came a loud and officious voice from the dressing table.

  “Yes!” Roger held the coffeemaker yet closer to the fire detector.

  Suddenly, he heard the clang of a fire alarm out in the hall. He smiled in satisfaction. But then, from little holes that he'd thought were simply patterns in the ceiling tiles, a heavy blanket of spray rained down. Roger, out of surprise and fear of electrocution, dropped the coffeemaker, where it sizzled as the water droplets hit it.

  Roger sprung from the chair, unplugged the coffeemaker and rushed for the door. Just as he got to it, the alarm went silent and the rain stopped. And the door was still locked.

  “Damn it to hell!” Roger glowered at the door and wished for a good, old-fashioned crowbar. He stalked off to the easy chair and, despite the soggy upholstery, flopped down in it.

  “Wait a minute!” he said, aloud, his nose wrinkled in puzzlement. He flipped the chair's switch to on.

  “Good morning, sir,” said the chair. “Would you care for a back massage?"

  “Maybe later,” said Roger, rushing to get to his question. “Tell me. Are you able to communicate with the bed?"

  “Yes."

  “How?"

  “I use the hotel's LAN."

  “Excellent. Exactly what I'd hoped.” Roger jumped from the chair and dropped to his knees. H
e found the LAN cable coming from the back of the chair and followed it to where it was plugged in to the wall. “I'm sorry to do this to you, chair,” he said as he unplugged the thick, Uniwire, LAN cable. If I'm lucky, the hotel's entire control system runs over this.

  He took his speech from the side pocket of his laptop case. It was soggy, but Roger didn't care. He needed the paper clip holding the pages. He straightened the clip and inserted an end into the center of the wall's LAN socket. He retrieved his power cord from the coffeemaker and wrapped the exposed ‘hot’ wire around the protruding end of the paper clip. He plugged the cord into a power socket and then, very gingerly, held the other bare wire against the socket's ground. 120 Volts into the hotel's LAN might just do it.

  Nothing.

  Roger leaned his head against the wall. He was almost out of ideas. Maybe there's a surge protector, or a high-impedance series resistor. He thunked his head lightly against the wall a few times. That must be it—an isolation interface. He unplugged the a.c. then using his knife, removed the LAN cover plate screws. Pulling the LAN socket away from the wall, he saw the interface assembly. It was the work of only a minute to bypass the isolation circuit. Again, he plugged in his power cable.

  There came a soft buzz and then silence.

  Roger, as if savoring a fine wine, inhaled an acrid smell of burning insulation, and he saw whiffs of smoke wafting up from his handiwork. Then, against the silence, he heard a distinct click from the door. He raced to it, pulled down the handle, felt the mechanism engage, and yanked the door open. “Yes!"

  He flipped the night latch and slowly closed the door onto it, making sure the door couldn't completely close. Then, choosing speed over organization, he rushed through room and bathroom, gathering up his belongings and shoving them into his travel bag. Soggy though it was, he put on his suit jacket and, with bag in one hand and laptop in its shoulder bag, he headed for the door. There, he paused.

  Looking back, he surveyed the carnage. The room, save for the droplets of water still trickling down the walls, looked less a hotel room and more like his workshop at home. And for some reason, he felt almost reluctant to leave it. Softly, he pounded a fist against the wall. Compensation!

  He was certainly not going to accept the hotel's free week's stay—even in the unlikely event it was still on offer. But he did feel he deserved some recompense for his ordeal. A towel. Maybe I should make off with a hotel towel. Then he chuckled. He darted to his spoil of battle, his trophy. He grabbed it, stuffed it into his overnight bag, then flew out the door, wincing as he heard the door snap closed behind him.

  Padding toward the elevators in shoes squeaking from wet socks, he speculated that he'd probably just blown a local node and the elevators were probably fine. Even though he didn't much like the idea of enclosed spaces at the moment, he pushed the down button. The light didn't come on. Apparently he'd done more damage than he'd thought. He shook his head and bit his lower lip. It was very poor security not having a redundant data system. And security was his job. He chuckled. Was his job, at any rate.

  An Emergency Exit sign pointed him to the stairwell and he started down the twenty-one flights to the lobby. As he descended, his spirits rose, his anger slowly changing to amusement. He'd had fun—a release of years of pent up geekiness.

  At about the fifteenth floor, he grew serious. He had a speech to give but his written words didn't seem appropriate anymore. He gave a mental shrug; perhaps, after a battle with a hotel room and an encounter with a teddy bear, he'd rediscovered his values—including the notion that maybe security shouldn't automatically trump liberty or privacy. As he neared the lobby level he nodded, his lips stretched in a tight smile. He'd come to a decision; this morning, he'd deliver a very different kind of speech—and then start looking for a new job.

  At the door to the lobby, he stopped, hand on the door handle. Perhaps for the sake of his own personal security, it might be better not to give any speech at all.

  He turned and walked the additional flights down to the parking garage. As he drew close to his car, Roger cast a sideways glance to the overnight bag he carried. “Come on, Theodore,” he said in a soft, conspiratorial voice. “Let's quit this joint and go home."

  END

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