by Wesley Lewis
Crocker lowered his inoperable nine-millimeter. “Who are you?”
The man kept the .40-caliber raised. “Set your gun on the ground, place your hands on your head, and take a step back.”
“If you’re so sure my gun is deactivated, why—”
“Because I hear you’re a resourceful guy. Now do it.”
Crocker set the gun on the tile floor and took a step back.
“Hands,” said the man.
Crocker placed his hands on his head and interlaced his fingers.
The man relaxed his posture, removed his left hand from the pistol, and pulled a black ID wallet from inside his La Condamine blazer. “Catch.”
Crocker barely had time to reach for the wallet as it soared toward him. He trapped it between his hands and pulled it in for inspection. There were no markings on the outside. He flipped it open.
Inside were a gold badge and two ID cards:
Bruce Eastland
Special Agent
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Crocker stared at the credentials and searched his memory for the missing piece of the puzzle.
“Mr. Crocker.”
He looked up.
Special Agent Eastland continued, “Acknowledge that you understand I’m on your side.”
Crocker nodded.
“Okay.” Eastland slipped his gun into a holster concealed beneath his jacket and pulled a white business card from one of the jacket pockets. “What kind of time frame are we looking at? When and where are you supposed to deliver the money?”
“I have maybe five minutes to get the cash to the employee parking lot. How did you . . . I mean, who—”
“Trade me.” Eastland held out the card.
Crocker exchanged the FBI credentials for the card. It was one of Sheriff Cargill’s business cards. “How did he—”
“Other side.”
Crocker looked at the back of the card and smiled. It was the card he’d handed Jennifer on the observation deck of the Stratosphere. Above where the sheriff had written SA Bruce Eastland was a line of smeared text scrawled in what looked like eyeliner:
Dudka has us
Below Eastland’s phone number, the message continued:
Forcing Matt to rob tourn
Crocker looked up at the FBI agent. “Where did you get this?”
“A young woman by the name of Megan Burnett.”
“Vegas? How?”
“As she tells it, she put on a pair of underwear and felt something that didn’t belong. Someone had tucked that into the lining of the crotch.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Jesse threw the Hustler magazine hard enough to sting Jennifer’s cheek.
“What the hell?” she screamed. She grabbed the magazine and tossed it back.
He batted it away. “Knock it off already!”
“Knock what off?”
The fat American stood and pointed a sausage link of a finger at her. “You know exactly what. Cross your fucking legs, and quit flapping your fucking dress. I don’t want to look at your underwear, and I’m not going to let you get me into trouble.”
“I’m just trying to stay cool,” she said in her best pouty voice.
“Well, find some other way to do it because if you lift your dress one more time, I’m going to chain your fucking hands to the headboard. Understand?”
“Fine.” She crossed her arms and pursed her lips like a petulant child.
Jesse scooped up his magazine and dropped his heavy frame back onto the love seat. He flipped through the tattered copy of Hustler but kept his gaze fixed a couple of inches above the pages, on the bed.
Jennifer arched her hips ever so slightly and slipped her hands behind her backside. They slid up under her dress, then back down. They emerged from beneath the hem, dragging her silk bikini-cut panties over her thighs and past her knees.
“Oh, what the fuck?” Jesse jumped to his feet.
“What?” She used her free foot to slide the underwear past the shackled ankle and dropped them so that they hung from the handcuff chain. “You said to find some other way to stay cool, so I did.”
Jesse opened his mouth to say something, but Jennifer cut him off. “I’m not sure you understand how steamed up us ladies get down there. You don’t want me all hot and sweaty, do you?”
Jesse crumpled the magazine between his hands and dropped onto the love seat, veins bulging from his shiny red face.
♦ ♦ ♦
Special Agent Eastland finished dumping the contents of the trash can onto the restroom floor and righted the can beside the cash cart.
Crocker checked the can and saw some sort of pink liquid, possibly a discarded soft drink, congealed in the bottom of the trash bag. “Let’s hope Dudka doesn’t mind his money a little sticky.”
“He won’t have it long enough to notice.” Eastland produced the other copy of the cart key—the one that wasn’t supposed to leave the vault—and unlocked the cash cart.
“What if they spot the tracking device?”
“Not likely.” Eastland reached into his jacket, which seemed to hold no end of surprises, and pulled out a stack of hundred-dollar bills bundled in a paper La Condamine band like the rest. He tossed the bundle to Crocker and knelt beside the cart.
Crocker examined the bundle. “This is it?”
“Same thing we use to catch bank robbers.” Eastland began transferring the real bundles of cash from the cart to the trash can. “The center of that stack is hollowed out, and a transmitter is hidden inside. It’s not as flexible as a real stack of bills, but other than that, it’s a perfect decoy.”
“I hope you’re right.” Crocker tossed the fake bundle into the trash bag with the real ones. “But I wouldn’t put it past this guy to thumb through each stack on the drive back.”
“Thumbing is fine as long as he doesn’t remove the band or try to fold the bundle in half. Who do they have escorting you?”
“British guy. Goes by Ilya.”
Eastland stopped transferring the money and turned toward Crocker. “Ilya Boystov?”
“I don’t know. We weren’t formally introduced.”
Eastland shook his head and resumed transferring the money. “Boystov isn’t British. He has that accent because the KGB trained him to blend into English society. The Soviets trained a lot of spies like him. Some had English accents; some had Boston accents; some sounded like they grew up on a Louisiana bayou. The KGB turned out some damned fine operatives, and Vladimir Dudka trained the best of them.”
“Trained them?”
Eastland dropped four more cash bundles into the trash can. “Dudka was a senior instructor at the Andropov Institute, the KGB’s top intelligence school. That’s where he and Boystov met and became romantically involved.”
“They’re a couple?”
“Straight out of a Shakespearean tragedy.” Eastland dropped a handful of cash into the trash can. “By the time the Soviet Union fell, Dudka and Boystov’s relationship was an open secret among the higher-ups in the Russian intelligence community. The other intelligence officers probably would have gone on guarding that secret if Dudka hadn’t stirred up trouble between the president and the parliament.”
“Wait, didn’t Yeltsin send in the military to dissolve the Russian parliament?”
“Yeah, and he never would have gotten away with it if Dudka hadn’t been forced into exile months before.” Eastland grabbed the last four bundles from the cash cart. “At the time, Dudka’s relationship with Boystov was still a crime under Russian law. Yeltsin’s allies in the intelligence community used that fact to push Dudka out of the picture.” He dropped the remaining cash into the trash can and stood.
Crocker had a dozen questi
ons, but they would have to wait.
Eastland bent and picked up the disabled Glock 19. He studied it, then pulled his own Glock 23 from its holster. He held the two guns side by side. “Do you think they’d notice if we traded?”
“Unfortunately,” said Crocker, “I do.”
Eastland handed over the nine-millimeter. “Blunted firing pin?”
“Yeah.” Crocker holstered the weapon.
“Want mine?”
“Your firing pin?”
“We could change them out in a couple of minutes.”
Crocker shook his head. “We don’t have a couple of minutes. Besides, Ilya will take the gun first chance he gets. If he realizes I changed out the firing pin, he’s going to get real curious about where I got the replacement.”
Eastland reholstered his .40-caliber. “I guess you’re just going to have to trust the Bureau to do its job.”
Crocker pulled the half-full trash bag from the can. “Just make sure your people keep their distance. You might want to let them know they’re tailing a fucking KGB agent.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Jesse glanced up from his reading material, stared for a moment, then ripped the magazine in two, tossing the halves in opposite directions as he leapt to his feet.
“Enough!” he screamed.
“What?” Jennifer continued rubbing her inner thighs through the thin material of her dress.
Jesse took a step toward her. “Stop touching yourself!”
“You mean this?” She exaggerated the rubbing motion. “I’m just wiping away the moisture.”
“I swear to God I’m going to . . .”
“Going to what? Keep whining like a little bitch?”
“I’m going to teach you what happens to teases around here, you fucking—”
Jennifer laughed. “Teach me with what? Even if you could find your tiny cock under that giant gut, you and I both know Dudka has your balls in his pocket.”
In a clumsy flurry of hands, the fat American undid his belt and dropped both his pants and boxers to the floor.
Jennifer swallowed hard.
Moment of truth. Play it through.
Jesse shuffled toward the bed, his pants still around his ankles.
Jennifer laughed again. “At least take off your pants, you fat fuck. You look like a little boy trying to make it to the potty.”
Jesse kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his pants and underwear. He climbed onto the foot of the bed and crawled toward her, wearing nothing but a shirt.
“Is it down there?” She tried to keep her voice from shaking. “I can’t see it from here, but maybe if you get a hand mirror and some binoculars, I can talk you in.”
She was only half joking—she knew there must be a penis somewhere between his legs, but it was obscured by rolls of fat and the tail of his tent-size shirt.
“Don’t worry,” he replied as he positioned himself over her, “you’re going to know exactly where it is in about five seconds.” His left hand held on to the headboard, supporting his weight. His right hand searched for the hem of her dress.
The smell of his unwashed body was almost too much. Jennifer caught her breath and said, “Just to be on the safe side, tell me when it’s in so that I know to start moaning.”
He looked down, trying to locate the target under his massive belly. “Don’t worry, bitch. You’ll—”
The snap of the handcuff sounded like a clap of thunder. Jesse looked at the headboard. His face barely had time to register that his left hand was cuffed to the wrought iron bed frame before Jennifer’s right hook connected with his nose, sending a spray of blood across the sheets. His meaty jowls were still quivering when her right knee found his testicles, which were still located between his legs after all. He rolled to the side, and Jennifer found herself no longer trapped beneath him. She scrambled toward the foot of the bed and dove over the edge.
She landed on the floor, her shackled leg dangling from the footboard. The bed shook violently as Jesse lunged for her. With his hand cuffed to the headboard, his reach came up a good foot short of the footboard. He kicked but only succeeded in striking the end of her shackle.
Jennifer found his pants lying next to her and searched the pockets and waistband.
Where is it?
She found herself in the grips of panic, thinking that perhaps his giant handgun was hidden somewhere beneath his shirt. Then she remembered his brief departure after Scarlett’s dramatic exit. Apparently, he was smart enough not to keep a gun within reach of a prisoner.
She found the key ring and searched it for anything that might be a handcuff key.
“Help!” screamed the pantsless goon. “I need some help in here!”
Jennifer found a key that looked like a small antique door key. It fit into the hole on the handcuff. She turned it, and the cuff sprang open. Her foot fell free.
She pulled the keys from the open cuff, jumped to her feet, and ran toward the door. Halfway there, she felt something trailing from her left foot and stopped. She looked down and found her underwear wrapped around her ankle.
She contemplated leaving them behind but decided she was vulnerable enough without going commando. She stepped through the free leg hole and pulled them up as she resumed her run.
“Somebody come shoot this bitch!” screamed Jesse.
Jennifer tried the bedroom door. As expected, it was locked.
Jesse tugged at the handcuff, rattling the bed frame. “She’s trying to escape!”
The key ring held three house keys. Jennifer tried the first one. It didn’t fit.
“Hurry!” shouted Jesse, his voice shrill from the strain.
She tried the second key. It fit but did not turn. She tried the third one. Nothing.
No! It has to be one of these!
She jiggled the third key, but it still didn’t budge. She heard footsteps in the hallway.
“Just shoot through the damned door!” screamed Jesse.
Jennifer tried the second key again. This time, she jiggled it as she had the third. The lock turned.
The footsteps stopped on the other side of the door.
She hesitated with her hand on the knob.
Stay or go?
If she opened the door, she might step into a hail of bullets. If she stayed, she would face the fat goon’s wrath.
She opened the door and bolted, head down, arms up.
When she saw the deer-in-the-headlights expression on Scarlett’s face, she knew she’d made the right call.
The young redhead was alone and unarmed. She tried to get her hands up but didn’t react quickly enough. Jennifer dipped a shoulder and caught her square in the chest. Scarlett tumbled backward, landing hard on the expensive Mexican tile.
Jennifer continued into the living room and spied daylight to her left. She surveyed the room, saw nobody else, and turned toward the source of the light, a large sliding glass door on the other side of the room.
She skidded to a stop in front of the door, grabbed the handle, and pulled with all her strength. It didn’t budge. She flipped the small lever on the door handle and tried again. It still didn’t budge. Then she saw the metal rod bolted into the door track. There was no way to make the door slide.
She looked back across the living room and saw the front door. It was blocked from the inside by the type of steel security gate used on the outside of doors in bad neighborhoods.
She glanced down at the ring of keys still clutched in her right hand. One of those keys might open the security gate, but she was running out of time.
She turned back toward the inoperable sliding glass door and saw the plastic houseplant sitting a couple of feet to the right, in a heavy ceramic pot.
The discarded key
ring clattered across the tile floor. Jennifer grabbed the pot, took a step back, and tossed it, plant and all, through the glass door. The door exploded, sending shards of glass crashing onto the patio.
She took a running start and hurdled the debris field. Her bare feet cleared the shards by little more than an inch. As she emerged into the sunlight, she heard Scarlett shouting something from inside the house but didn’t stop to listen. The desert heat had never felt so good.
When her feet hit the dead grass, she veered left toward the swing set that peeked over the high privacy fence.
“Help!” she screamed. “Nine-one-one! Fire!”
She reached the fence and glanced back long enough to confirm that nobody was behind her.
She climbed the fence rails like ladder rungs. At the top, she crouched on the flat, narrow ridge and inspected her prospective landing area. A hedge of cacti and yuccas lined the base of the fence. Dropping straight down didn’t look like the best option.
The nearest leg of the A-frame swing set was maybe four feet from the fence line. She glanced back over her shoulder again. The yard behind her was still empty.
She spread her feet wide and stood uneasily, balancing atop the fence. When she thought she had sufficient height, she leaned forward toward the swing set.
Her left foot slipped. A splinter of wood dug into the heel. She resisted the urge to lift the foot, but her balance was already lost.
Using what little grip her right foot still had on the narrow fence top, she pistoned her leg as hard as she could, launching herself toward the swing set.
She grabbed the leg of the swing set just as both of her feet came free of the fence and dropped below her. Her grip held for only a fraction of a second, but it was long enough to swing her clear of the cactus hedge and break her fall onto the hard-packed earth.