The Moscow Deception--An International Spy Thriller

by Karen Robards

  “What do you think? They got out, too. No idea where they are now.”

  A waiter was offering drinks to a nearby table. Mason signaled him. To cut short the conversation that he no longer felt like having, she knew.

  “So who burned? There had to have been bodies in the truck.”

  “There was a special on unclaimed corpses at the local morgue. I acquired some.”

  There was something beneath the flipness of his tone that made her certain that she wasn’t being told the whole story. Probably, she decided, she didn’t want to know. At least not right now.

  “And the real money? How’d you work that? And where is it?”

  He smiled.

  The waiter arrived, right on (from Mason’s perspective, she was sure) cue. With a word of thanks, Mason removed a champagne flute from the tray, saluted her with it and took an appreciative sip. Maybe half of that glass would be all he’d allow himself. Any more would be bad tradecraft.

  As for Bianca, he didn’t bother getting her a glass because he knew she wouldn’t touch it.

  The whole episode had been a delaying tactic as, she guessed, he calculated exactly how much he wanted to tell her.

  “Yes?” Bianca prompted as the waiter moved on. Before Mason could resume explaining exactly how he’d been able to get away with the money and where he was keeping what was left of it, two middle-aged couples sat down at the other end of their table. They wore formal wear, but of the rent-a-tux variety. Both women had bouffant updos, one streaked blond, one black, and their long dresses were black chiffon. The difference was that one had kimono sleeves and the other a halter neck and matching stole. One of the men, a burly gray-haired forty-something, Australian from the accent, immediately called for a dealer, with an aside to Mason.

  “The tables are chockers, mate. You here to play?”

  A dealer was already on the way over.

  Mason made a sweeping gesture welcoming them to the table. “I am.” The plummy accent was back.

  Bianca’s reply was a thin smile. For the sake of her and Mason’s cover, she would play. But she had no intention of letting the conversation about the money drop; in a little while she would signal him that she was ready to leave the table—their code for we need to talk privately had always been I’m getting hungry—and then they would continue.

  The floor boss came over to unlock the lid—the cover over the chips that kept them safe—and the dealer sat down, signed the tally sheet and picked up the shoe.

  “My name is Delia,” she said. “Are you enjoying your evening?”

  She nodded and smiled at their answers, and then the game was on. Five decks, HK five hundred dollars or US one hundred dollars per hand.

  The Australians, for so they indeed proved to be, talked (loudly) among themselves. The dealer focused on the game. Bianca exchanged a few desultory, topic neutral, suitable for public consumption remarks with Mason and, to a lesser extent, the Australians. Cards were dealt, bets placed. Neat stacks of chips waxed and waned in front of each player. The dealer, a thirty-something Macanese woman, did her job with businesslike efficiency. The spicy scent of her perfume, her bright red nails as she dealt the cards, the dark flash of her eyes as she darted looks at each of them in turn, formed the backdrop of the game.

  Blackjack was a favorite of Mason’s, and like everything else Bianca had learned at his behest, he’d drummed the rules into her.

  “Hit me,” she said, tapping the felt on a soft seventeen, which consisted of an ace and a six. The next card she was dealt was a three, giving her a twenty. Mason got twenty-one and won.

  “Stand,” with a negative head shake was her response a few hands later to a hard seventeen, a queen and a seven. The dealer took that round, raking in the chips.

  Those were the rules for seventeen: hit on a soft, stand on a hard. She knew all the rules. Always split—which meant separate into two bets—aces and eights. Never split fives or tens. Never stand on twelve through sixteen. Insurance is a sucker’s bet. Followed consistently, you’d win more than you lost. Probably, although she’d never played enough blackjack to be 100 percent sure.

  Bianca was doubling down on an eleven when a soft chiming sound from inside her purse caused her to blink with surprise.

  It was her burner phone, signaling that she’d received a text message.

  The only person in the world with the ability to contact her on that phone was Doc. She shot a quick look up at the gallery, where she’d last seen him leaning against the rail.

  He was nowhere in sight.

  She frowned.

  Most casinos forbade cell phones at the table, under the theory that they could be used to help patrons cheat. She had no idea if the Wynn adhered to that rule. At the moment, she didn’t particularly care.

  If Doc was texting her, something was up.

  Bianca’s purse was in her lap. As the dealer won again and raked in the chips she snuck a hand inside, grabbed the phone, flipped the flimsy, cheap thing open and looked.

  Adrenaline flooded her veins. She was instantly juiced, wired, aquiver with alarm.

  “Ma’am, I apologize, no cell phones at the table,” the dealer chided. Her English was flawless. Her accent, a soft mix of Cantonese and Portuguese.

  “Sorry.” Bianca closed her phone and pulled her hand back out of her purse, her game face—she hoped—firmly in place.

  She’d seen everything she needed to see.

  The message was from Doc, all right. It said, Cop from San Jose on your nine.

  17

  The cop from San Jose—it couldn’t be. It was almost impossible. Maybe—please God—Doc was mistaken. After all, he’d seen him only once.

  Bianca’s chest felt tight, making it harder to breathe. She turned her head to her left, directing a sweeping gaze over the players at the blackjack tables and the five-card-stud tables beyond them, over the people milling around the tables, over—

  The dealer flipped her an ace to go with her eight.

  “Stand,” Bianca said, her attention of necessity recalled to the table. One thing about the rules: they made it possible for her to continue playing while (fatally? She really hoped not) distracted.

  She looked again toward her nine o’clock. Carefully, casually, she scanned the Pai Gow area and the wide, crowded aisle that ran through it, looked toward the eastern entrance and over the busy casino floor on the other side of the aisle.

  It wasn’t a mistake, she realized a moment later: there he was, standing over by the cashier window.

  The cop from San Jose: Mickey.

  Not his real name, but it was the best name Bianca had for him.

  As it turned out, he was on her nine, much closer than she’d expected. He was less than a hundred feet away.

  Her heart leaped. Her pulse shot into overdrive. She barely managed to stay in her seat as the impact of his presence hit her.

  And that would be because her first impulse was to run.

  No way was the fact that he was here a coincidence.

  Be cool. You’re Kangana, remember? He won’t recognize you.

  Groans all around as the dealer took the hand. Bianca forced her gaze back to the table as the chips were raked in and the cards collected.

  All the while she was battling the urge to stand up, to walk away from the table. To slowly, casually, unobtrusively flee.

  She couldn’t leave Mason. Or Doc. And any such move might attract the very attention she was trying to avoid.

  Keep your game face on. She placed her bet, was dealt a nine.

  The dealer continued on around the table. Unable to control the urge, Bianca snuck another look at Mickey.

  He stood with his hands in his pockets, a still figure in a classic black tux amid the colorful ebb and flow of tourists moving past him. His eyes were on the players around the roulett
e wheels, moving from face-to-face. He was a good-looking guy, tall, broad-shouldered, leanly muscular, with wavy raven hair that could use a trim and a deep tan that spoke of quite a bit of time spent in a really hot (no, probably not that one) place. His forehead was wide, his cheekbones broad, his chin square and clean-shaven. His nose was aquiline, a small bump on the bridge. His mouth was long, a little thin, a little cruel looking. She happened to know that he was a really good kisser.

  He worked for Mason’s nemesis, Laurent Durand of Interpol, and there was absolutely no doubt in her mind that he was there in his official capacity as some kind of international cop. (She was still a little hazy on precisely what kind of international cop that would be. Their previous meetings hadn’t exactly included heart-to-hearts.)

  He was there because he was looking for someone, she knew. She didn’t think it was her. In fact, the last time he’d seen her she’d been falling to her death into a Grand Canyon–like abyss just outside Heiligenblut, so it was likely that he thought she was dead.

  He had to be there for Mason.

  She recognized the probability of that with an icy little thrill of dismay.

  Somehow he must have known that Mason would be here tonight.

  It was the only thing that made sense.

  How? She had no answer.

  Didn’t mean that he wouldn’t detain her too if he recognized her.

  Or, oh, God, was it possible that he knew the truth? About the whole super-soldier thing? The dreadful thought shook her. The last time they’d spoken, he’d had no clue, although to be fair neither had she.

  What a difference a day (or a couple of weeks) makes.

  He’d been there at the black site in Heiligenblut. He might know—there was no other less dehumanizing way to put it, or if there was she couldn’t think of it at the moment—what she was.

  He might know about the contract.

  Her stomach clenched. Her heart thumped. Her mouth went dry.

  Had the contract brought him? Was it possible that he was there for her? To kill her?

  No. She instantly, instinctively, rejected the idea. He might detain her, might have her arrested, but that was it.

  He wouldn’t kill her. She was almost sure.

  It was that almost that sent cold prickles slithering down her spine.

  She’d kissed him twice, fought with him, successfully bested and eluded him. Truth was, she kind of liked him.

  Didn’t mean she knew him.

  It was entirely possible to be handsome, charming, likable—and a stone-cold killer.

  Mason being a case in point.

  She remembered the sensation she’d had earlier of being watched. But even if there had been surveillance out there in the square, it couldn’t have brought Mickey to Macau. There hadn’t been time.

  He must already have been in the city. He’d tracked her, or Mason, or both of them, some other way.

  Not that the how of it mattered, not right now. What mattered was that she and Mason were in acute danger.

  We have to get out of here.

  The thing was, Mason had no idea who Mickey was. If Doc hadn’t spotted Mickey, if she hadn’t had previous run-ins with him so that she and consequently Doc recognized him, he could have taken Mason unaware.

  She wrenched her eyes away from Mickey, afraid that he would look her way, attracted by the force of her gaze. If he saw her, recognized her—

  Whatever his purpose in being there, it wouldn’t end well.

  We’re screwed, was the thought that flashed like a neon sign through her head. Because Mickey wouldn’t be in the casino alone. He had to have a team—

  “Ma’am. What do you want to do?” the dealer asked. With an inner start Bianca realized that the dealer was speaking to her and that she’d been holding up play. She glanced at the cards in front of her. Without her even registering it, a three had been added to her facedown ace.

  She tapped the table.

  “Hit me,” she said. As the dealer complied and moved on Bianca’s eyes met Mason’s. He was looking at her, frowning a little, clearly aware that something was wrong.

  She never lost concentration in the middle of a game.

  “Headache,” she said, their code word for trouble, and looked back toward Mickey with the intention of having Mason follow her gaze.

  Mickey wasn’t there. Nowhere in sight. Alarm shot through her veins.

  She looked quickly back at Mason, her glance skimming everyone else at the table on the way. No one was paying the least attention to her.

  Cop, she mouthed, and indicated with a gesture that she didn’t know where he’d gone.

  Mason’s expression never changed. His posture never changed. But she could feel the change in his energy, the sharpening of his senses, the readying of his body.

  Which was currently broken and confined to a wheelchair.

  At the moment, Bruce Lee he wasn’t.

  “House wins,” the dealer said, to the accompaniment of groans from the Australians, and scooped up cards and chips.

  As another hand started, Bianca searched the crowd for any sight of Mickey. She couldn’t find him. Her chest felt tight. Her heart felt like it was trying to beat while caught in a vice.

  There were half a dozen legitimate places he could have gone.

  Or he could have spotted them and gone to direct his men to surround them. He could even now be springing the trap. Once she was in custody, what were the chances that word would leak out and somebody would come along and kill her for the reward?

  She was guessing about 99 percent.

  A card landed facedown in front of her. Distracted, Bianca spared a second to check: a queen.

  Then she immediately went back to searching for Mickey.

  The irony was, even if Mickey walked right past them, he might very well not spot Mason in his current disguise. He’d never met Mason, never spoken to him, had had no real-life interaction with him. It was remotely possible that he’d seen him in Heiligenblut, but if so it could have been no more than a glimpse at a distance, when Mason had been all bundled up against the cold, dodging bullets, and then escaping. At best, all Mickey had to recognize him by were a few pictures, and the wheelchair-bound old man next to her would bear no resemblance to any of them.

  “Hit me,” she said when the dealer came around to her again. An eight. “Hold.”

  Despite her excellent disguise, Mickey was far more likely to recognize her.

  She knew him, he knew her, and that wasn’t good. This whole situation was a catastrophe in the making. The only thing to do was disappear, fast. But would attempting to leave at this point draw the very attention she was hoping to avoid?

  Should she just sit tight and hope?

  A roar went up from the Australians, refocusing her attention on the table. The man—Bix, his name was—who’d first summoned the dealer had won.

  “Good on ya, Bix!”

  “There’s a quick quid for you! Better than a scratchie!”

  The Australians were jubilant as Bix gathered in the chips, his friend high-fiving him in congratulations, his wife hugging his arm and his friend’s wife beaming at him.

  Under the cover of the general hubbub, Bianca whispered to Mason, “One of Durand’s men is here. We need to go.”

  Mason had an impeccable poker face, but the flicker in his eyes gave him away. He knew as well as she did that this wasn’t a coincidence, that the hunt was closing in.

  The casino was probably crawling with law enforcement.

  Stay calm. Think the problem through before you make a move.

  She cast an assessing glance around. Mickey’s team shouldn’t be that hard to spot. To begin with, they were almost certain to be standing—

  “Ah!” Mason bumped his champagne flute with a careless gesture. It went sailing off t
he table, hitting the carpet between him and Bianca with a dull thud.

  “Dash it!” he said, looking down.

  They both leaned over at the same time, supposedly to retrieve the glass.

  “Roof of the parking garage next door. There’s a helicopter on standby,” Mason murmured as he picked up the unbroken glass.

  “You go first. I’ll follow after a couple of hands.”

  “I’ll wait for you. Don’t be long.”

  “Take this.” Unwilling to lose contact, Bianca grabbed her burner phone from her purse and thrust it at him. He stowed it away under the blanket covering his legs even as he straightened with the now empty flute, which he placed on the table.

  “Frightfully sorry about that,” he said to the dealer, who nodded acknowledgment. He then passed some folded bills to the waiter who was already blotting up the spill.

  Bianca placed her bet, shoving two stacks of chips into the betting circle.

  The dealer distributed the first round of cards. Bianca checked hers—an ace. To her right, Mason did the same thing. At the other end of the table, so did the Australians.

  She guessed that Mason would excuse himself and make his way out of the casino after one or two more hands.

  Furtive glances around located casino security—at least six men within easy reach of their table. Coincidence? Who knew? Those same glances also turned up at least two others who might be part of Mickey’s team—something about the way they moved through the crowd put them on her radar. Like they knew how to handle themselves. Like they were expecting trouble. Like they were looking for someone—

  Swish. Her second card landed in front of her.

  She looked down at it—a seven. Which gave her an eighteen.

  “Hold,” she said.

  A tingly sensation made her look up.

  Mickey had just emerged from between rows of flashing, chattering slot machines. He was much farther away than he had been before—maybe a quarter of the way across the casino. There was a sea of people between them, moving in all kinds of different directions, intent on all kinds of different things.

  He was looking straight at her.

  That tingly sensation had been the weight of his gaze.