Almost all of the people in the room (the actress, the old banker, the busy socialite and the senior government officials), were shocked when the news came through. They had been taken hostage. Each one of them thought, <em>it cannot be happening to me.</em> The feeling did not sink in immediately. The shock was not that they had been taken hostage, but the fact that it was a party they had attended as a goodwill gesture to help a friend. Yet it proved to be the biggest setback of their lives. The actress started panicking. She paced the room up and down all the while murmuring to herself. This agitated the banker. <em>One of us will get killed if the woman does not check her emotions</em>, he thought.
