12
Sam stepped from his room and was confronted by a small group of people gathered together in a cleared area, half way between the accommodation rooms and the hotel. He knew immediately who they were. He paused on the tiny, covered landing in front of his door, and almost turned and hurried back into his room. If it weren’t for his bladder insisting on urgent relief, he might have taken that very option, but chose instead to continue to the ablution block on the other side of the gathered throng.
By the very nature of his job, Sam often found himself in contact with the various arms of the media machine, either voluntarily or otherwise, and he had never been comfortable with the pushy, competitive, intrusive manner in which many of them went about pursuing a story.
When one of their n
