The hotel loses its phone service. However, the office has a fax machine Paul uses to send out information. He stays up at night sending messages to the Belgian Foreign Ministry, the White House, and other foreign entities asking for assistance. His calls and requests are ignored.

Others are also reaching out. Thomas Kamilindi, a reporter sheltering at Hotel Mille Collines, speaks with Radio France International, explaining to their listeners what is has been like to hide in the hotel, and the violence of the genocide and civil war. Half an hour after the interview, Thomas is under a government death order. Friends in the military ask him to leave the hotel, but Paul urges him to stay, having him switch rooms in order to fool any spies who may be searching for him.

Nevertheless, an Army colonel comes to the hotel to assassinate Thomas. Paul wheedles him to refrain, in one of dozens such conversations he will have during the genocide, where he has to sit across from a man committed to killing people. He is able to save lives by making these people feel important, knowing that “even the best of us can be slaves to our self regard” (123).

Paul locates a few UN soldiers at the hotel who help him to go out in the streets and save people who are targets of militia groups. 

Paul knows that as time passes, it will become increasingly difficult to keep the killers away from the hotel. The Interahamwe—the government-backed Hutu paramilitary group—are extremely cruel in how they kill people. They cut tendons so people cannot run away, and then slowly remove their limbs while raping wives and children in front of the victims’ faces. The genocide in Rwanda goes beyond politics and friendships, and even hate itself: “it had become killing for killing’s sake, killing for sport, killing for nothing” (134).

The United States callously ignores the situation in Rwanda; indeed, the US government never admits that genocide is even occurring. Instead, the US determines that the killings are a dramatic, unpredictable overreaction to the president’s assassination rather than a highly organized military action. Paul cites Harvard University scholar Samantha Power, who states that America never acts to stop a race of people from being exterminated, even when it is confronted with evidence.

The hotel becomes a prize for militia groups, a place many can’t wait to invade. He is sure that it will be overrun at any moment. When Paul receives the order to evacuate, he calls several Rwandan army generals until one revokes the order. Later, Paul tells the colonel staying at the Hotel Diplomates that the Ministry of Defense has asked Paul to close the Mille Collines and the Diplomates. The colonel is infuriated to hear this, and Paul takes advantage of the situation, asking the colonel to send water in return for not shutting down the Diplomates.

On May 3, the United Nations tries to evacuate those sheltering at Hotel Mille Collines after the Army and the Tutsi rebels agree to trade captives. The rebels will let some Hutu prisoners free inside Amahoro Stadium, if the Rwandan army will allow Tutsi rebels to escort the same number of people from the hotel to the airport to flee the country.

Paul sends his wife and kids with the group of refugees flying out of the country after using his Sabena Corporation contacts to secure arrangements for his family to leave. He decides to stay back as he knows that if he goes, he will be “removing one of the only remaining barriers in between the militias and the guests” (146). His family and other guests are loaded into the UN trucks and Paul gives them a tearful farewell. However, he soon hears the names of the people escaping the hotel read over the radio and realizes that someone has leaked this information.

The Interahamwe stops the refugees, who are badly beaten and abused. They target Tatiana in particular, both for being a Tutsi and for being Paul’s wife. Her arm is twisted, and she is thrown into the back of a militia truck. However, a bitter argument between the Hutu army and the Tutsi militia gives a chance for UN soldiers to pick up the refugees, including Tatiana, and take them back to the Mille Collines.

One day, while Paul is meeting with General Bizimungu at the Hotel Diplomates, they get a call that the militia has entered Mille Collines. They rush back to the hotel and save the refugees in the nick of time. Bizimungu threatens the soldiers with dire consequences if they kill any of the refugees, and they leave without killing anyone. After the attempted slaughter, the United Nations, Tutsi rebels, and the Rwandan Army again plan to evacuate the hotel. Paul leaves the building with a heavy heart, saying, “I am not a particularly sentimental man, but I felt the odd urge to stroke [the hotel] like a pet dog” (164).