The Emperor of Vegas

by Ryan Stygar

  Neither of the other Russians had to say what they were thinking; it was a deadly gamble. But they trusted Lukas’s leadership.

  “Lukas?” the helicopter pilot asked through the radio

  “I copy your last,” Lukas radioed back to the pilot. “Go get the others from the Venetian. We will radio you when we are clear of the Sumatra.”

  “Godspeed Lukas” the pilot replied before hovering away.

  We’re going to need it. Lukas thought. He then set a timer on his tactical wrist-watch.

  “In five minutes we are going down. Then we’ll have thirteen minutes to get out of the stairwell and away from the Sumatra. Start the timer on the detonator.”

  The Russian did as commanded. Three rapid beeps followed by a long warning tone signaled that the explosive timer was armed and activated. The Spetsnaz commando then held out the radio detonator for Lukas to see.

  “Police and firefighters won’t have enough time to locate and remove all the detonation pins. Their only hope to disable the explosives is to disarm this transmitter.” He then punched a hole in the drywall behind him and tossed the transmitter into the void space so it was well out of sight. He grinned, “But first they have to find it.”

  Lukas started the timer on his tactical watch.

  “This place is getting blown to Hell in less than eighteen minutes. Let’s move!”

  

  Watson Lafayette halted his descent at the fifty-third floor.

  “Duck!” he screamed to Jordan and Damian behind him. Six pairs of boots thundered around the corner as the black-clad DHS SWAT team stormed up with their MP5s ready for action.

  “Federal Police! On your knees! On your knees!”

  Damian reacted by sticking his MAC-10 submachine gun around the corner and spraying the DHS team with a wild stream of automatic fire.

  A furious swarm of bullets flew past him in response.

  “Through the door!” Jordan ordered.

  “There’s no way out that way!” Watson yelled over the bark of his pistol. His bullets sparked against the metal steps of the stairs and forced the DHS team back.

  Jordan gave him a sharp look. “Do you intend to fight a whole federal SWAT team?” He threw an elbow into the door, smashing right through the aluminum veneer and crushing the wooden members behind it.

  Watson fired another round of blind shots to keep the DHS SWAT team back. He then escaped through the broken door with Dimitri Jordan and Damien.

  The halls were dark except for the flickering white strobes of the fire alarm. Emergency lights glowed up from the floor to lead the way out via the north and south stairwells. Watson kept a wary eye on the smashed stairwell door behind them as he ran with Jordan to the center of the hallway.

  “If they have SWAT on one stairwell, then they’ll have more coming up from the other!” Watson called out to Jordan. “We can’t escape this way!”

  “We aren’t going to the stairs!” Jordan’s voice thundered back.

  “We aren’t…? Well where are we going?”

  Jordan’s answer was cut off by gunfire from the stairwell. Damian yelped in pain and dropped his MAC-10. “Gahhh!” the bodyguard screamed as red blotches bloomed red against his shirt. “Help me! Help me!” he coughed

  Watson scooped up the MAC-10 and gave Damien a cruel scowl. “It’s too late for you. You’ve served your purpose.”

  Jordan hooked left and disappeared into a housekeeping room. Watson squeezed the trigger of the MAC-10 and sprayed the mass of black uniforms with ammunition. Two bodies hit the ground before the weapon clicked empty. Throwing the gun aside, Watson spun on his heel right as four angry MP5’s spit out their vengeance. No fewer than twenty rounds slammed into the door to the housekeeping room as Watson dove inside after Jordan.

  “We’re trapped in here!” Watson cried out. Jordan grinned and shook his head. He waved Watson over and tapped on a metal slat in the wall that was about three feet wide and three feet tall.

  “Garbage chute?” Watson asked.

  Jordan grinned, “They may be watching the exits, but I doubt they’re watching the dumpsters.”

  65

  Grand Canal Shoppes, Venetian Hotel

  W hen the elevator doors whisked open, Adam and Lily were instantly transported to a Renaissance-era village. The Grand Canal Shoppes were built with such painstaking attention to detail that one could easily believe it was really high noon-in Venice rather than the middle of the night in Las Vegas. It would have been beautiful… if not for how eerily empty and quiet the streets and alleyways were. Only the trickle of the canals beneath the crisscrossing stone bridges made a sound.

  Outside the relative peace of the abandoned Grand Canal Shoppes, police were evacuating the Venetian with all haste. In response to multiple reports of gunfire and an explosion in the building, an anti-terrorism task-force was preparing to clear the hotel.

  Adam ran through the Venetian streets with Lily cradled against him, flying by rows and rows of shops and boutiques as he did.

  Ty Marcus exploded out of one of the stone archways seconds after Adam ran past his position.

  “Shoot him!” Ty screamed. Six men emerged from behind the columns with their guns ready.

  “He’s got a kid with him!” one of the gangsters protested.

  Ty gave him a chilling look. “Then don’t miss.”

  Aiming his silver 1911, Ty fired off four rapid shots at Adam, forcing his unarmed prey to spin behind a column for cover as the decorative stone exploded into dust all around him.

  “Give up Adam!” Ty’s voice echoed. “It’s only you that we want. Give up now and I promise the kid won’t be hurt!”

  Adam tightly gripped Lily against his chest and sprinted out from behind the column to a brick archway which was several yards farther away from Ty. Bullets peppered the masonry as he dove for cover. Looking ahead, Adam saw that the row of shops came to a dead end at an Italian-style apartment with a restaurant at its ground floor. The building’s façade sealed off the Canal Shoppes. Beneath it, a wide arch allowed the water to flow to the canals outside the hotel. From there, Adam recalled, it was just a quick one hundred yard run to where he parked the Mercedes GT.

  “Lily, I need you to be a brave girl for Daddy, ok?”

  Lily trembled when a bullet slammed into the brick wall behind them. “Make them stop, Daddy!”

  “Baby, listen,” Adam said. “We’re gonna get away, but we have to swim. I need you to take a deep breath for me!”

  Lily was still shaking her head when a squad of three Russian commandos stormed onto the bridge ahead of them.

  Someone shouted an order in Russian, and at once the three men in red berets raised their weapons and fired down the canal.

  Adam gasped and fell to the ground to cover his little girl with his own body as the shots blasted across the shops. He expected to be killed, but when it didn’t happen, he looked up and realized that the Russians weren’t shooting at him.

  “Fuck!” Ty’s voice screamed from the other side.

  He immediately began ordering his men to attack. “Three of you go left and the other three go right. We’ll make a pincer and surround these assholes!”

  Ty Marcus and his squad of gangsters unleashed a hailstorm of covering fire as they made their move. In response, the Spetsnaz commandos each found a brick column along the bridge, took cover, and fired quick three-shot bursts to engage advancing gangsters. The Russians were excellent marksmen, and one of Ty’s men was killed instantly when a bullet burst through this skull.

  Adam and Lily were trapped in the crossfire.

  “Lily listen to me.” Adam said, getting to his feet, “I need you to be brave and hold your breath. Can you do that for me? Take a deep breath, okay?”

  Lily gasped a few times before getting her breathing under control. She looked up to Adam and puffed out her cheeks like a chipmunk as she sucked in all the air her little lungs could hold.

  Adam tightened his grip on her. “I
love you so much, Lily.”

  He took a deep breath and leaped over the wrought iron fence above the canal. He and Lily plunged into the water with a splash.

  The canals of the Venetian were shallow, with just enough depth to accommodate the small fleet of gondolas. Adam’s feet soon found the bottom of the waterway and, opening his eyes, he focused on the shadowy spot beneath the archway.

  Ty Marcus was soon reinforced by four other men, bringing his numbers up to nine against the three Spetsnaz ahead of him. The Sumatra gangsters, armed with silver 1911 pistols and MAC-10 submachine guns, charged at the outnumbered Russians with hate-fueled fury.

  In the water beneath the raging battle, Adam frog-kicked with his legs and stroked hard with one arm while he held Lily with the other. White spears of bubbles shot through the water as stray bullets fell from the battle above the surface. Lily squealed as her tiny lungs burned. Adam’s limbs went numb as he pumped and kicked and stroked away from the warzone above him. If it was just his life he was fighting for, then perhaps the fiery effects of the lactic acid in his muscles and the unbearable sting in his lungs would have been enough to make him surface for air.

  But it wasn’t for him; it was for her.

  Lily counted on him to be strong. She depended on him for every need and every comfort she had in life. Maybe Adam wasn’t all that special to the rest of the world, but to Lily, he was a knight in shining armor. If she couldn’t count on her dad, then who could she count on?

  Adam silently willed for her to hold her breathe just a little longer as he swam past the shadow of the arch and toward the canals on the Strip.

  Light trickled down from the other side. Then through the blurred surface Adam could see the shape of the Venetian’s stone balustrades over the canal. With a final kick, Adam erupted out of the water outside like a submarine bursting forth from the depths. He made a deep, ghoulish gasp as he breathed in and out for the first time in almost a whole minute. Lily spit out a mouthful of water and breathed deep. Adam kept her close as he swam toward a wooden landing at the edge of the canal. Two empty gondolas rocked in the water as the Las Vegas Strip glittered behind them.

  Swarms of red and blue lights were streaming up the Strip and toward the Sumatra, which now had massive flames leaping up from its top five floors. To his left, Adam saw at least twenty or thirty Las Vegas Metro Police cruisers parked along the entrance to the Venetian as the anti-terrorism task-force charged inside to restore order.

  “We’re almost out Lily!” Adam said. He pushed her onto the wooden pier and crawled from the water to join her. “Come on baby.”

  True to his word, the valet kept Adam’s stolen Mercedes ready for a quick escape. As Adam sloshed up the long driveway to the grand entrance, leaving a trail of foot-sized puddles behind him, the iridium-silver racing machine was still idling with a deep, throaty rumble.

  “It’s ready to go sir!” the valet said. “Whoa! Why are you all wet?”

  Adam ignored him as he jumped into the car with Lily. Noting with a bit of surprise that the kid managed to find a car-seat like he asked, Adam dug into his pocket and pulled out a sopping-wet hundred dollar bill for the valet.

  “If anyone asks about this car…”

  “What car?” the kid answered smartly. He tucked the cash into his vest pocket with a wink.

  The valet was very curious about the mysterious stranger, but in less than half an hour he’d just earned eight hundred bucks by just doing what he was told without asking questions. The kid wished Adam a safe trip and waved him off as the silver Mercedes roared down the driveway.

  The valet was counting his massive haul of cash when a deep V8 engine revved in the garage behind him.

  “What the…?”

  A late-model Jaguar F-Type rocketed past him so close that he had to dive into a planter to avoid being killed by the cobalt-blue coupe. Inside the Jaguar, Viktoriya Petrov mashed her accelerator and cranked her steering wheel to spin onto the Strip, then burned rubber as she raced after Adam Friend.

  66

  T hree LVMPD uniforms were stripped from the bodies of their former owners. It was enough to disguise the Russians in a pinch, but anything more than a passing glance would have them exposed.

  One uniform had maroon-red blood spattered around its front collar like a morbid necklace. Another had a bullet hole through the chest. They would have to move quickly to avoid being discovered as imposters.

  Escaping the flames of the Sumatra Hotel via the lobby was not Lukas Petrov’s first or second or even third choice, but after suffering such heavy casualties and being surrounded by highly trained police forces, it was the best play he had left.

  They were passing the fifty third floor when automatic gunfire rattled violently behind the damaged stairwell door.

  “Fighting in the hallway,” one of the men said in his native Russian.

  “No time to get bogged down,” Lukas quickly replied. He was going down the stairs two-steps at a time when he checked his tactical watch. “We are already twenty seconds behind schedule! No stopping for any reason!”

  

  Sergeant Ramirez was escaping through the opposite stairwell when heard the gun blasts. The initial gunshots cracked loudly from behind the stairwell doors and echoed in the steel and concrete hall where Adrian Ramirez was making a rapid descent from the growing heat and smoke.

  The sounds came from Watson killing two DHS agents with his MAC-10. The furious response from the DHS agents’ MP5s was even louder. Ramirez had to jump back to avoid becoming collateral damage as a cluster of nickel-sized holes stitched across the door to the fifty third floor hallway.

  A voice called into a radio from down the hall. “Agents down! I repeat we have contact with the suspects and two agents are down!” A tinny-sounding response from the DHS agent’s radio was indistinguishable from where Ramirez stood. He probably should have just kept running downstairs to save himself, but the Marine Corps spirit in him wouldn’t allow it.

  Kicking open the door, Ramirez immediately spotted two black-clad DHS agent’s lying dead in the middle of the S-curved hallway.

  “I’m friendly! Don’t shoot” Ramirez called out. He kept his hands raised high as the four surviving DHS agent’s trained their weapons on him.

  “Identify yourself!”

  “Zebra One – Las Vegas Metro SWAT!”

  Recognizing the call sign for Sergeant Adrian Ramirez, the DHS team pulled their muzzles away from him and then aimed at the housekeeping room where Watson and Dimitri Jordan were hiding.

  “I copy Zebra One!” one of the DHS agents called down with a wave. “We heard the radio transmission and feared the worst. I’m glad to see you’re alright.” The lead agent then lowered his MP5 and jabbed a finger at where Watson had last been spotted. “Advance with caution, we have two hostiles fortified in the housekeeping room. Dimitri Jordan is in there with a guard and they’re both armed. We have two fatalities already.”

  Ramirez nodded to acknowledge the information. Quickly rechecking the ammunition in his sidearm, Ramirez decided that four rounds plus his tactical knife were all the weaponry he needed to settle this score with the Sumatras before the Russians blew the place apart. Drawing up his weapon in a two-handed grip, Ramirez closed the gap between him and the DHS team with a sharp eye on the doorway.

  “I’m the only Zebra left alive in this building,” Ramirez said when he was just twenty paces away from the Feds. “You all need to evacuate ASAP; explosives were planted upstairs and they’re gonna go off any minute.”

  “Jesus,” one of the agents gasped. From behind his identity-concealing facemask the DHS SWAT officer looked up and around the hallway, noting with discomfort that a dark gray haze was forming on the ceiling as the fires grew steadily larger.

  Ramirez tapped the lead agent’s shoulder to get his attention. “You’re running out of time. The stairs behind me are hot and filling with smoke fast, but they should be safe for the rest of the way down if you leave
now.”

  The lead DHS agent readjusted his grip on his MP5. “We have time to finish this,” he said stubbornly. Looking back at his team and then to Ramirez, he suggested that they close in fast and work together to catch Jordan. “We’ll drag him kicking and screaming out of this building. He just killed two of my friends, I’m not letting him get away with it.”

  “Whatever you want to do, it has to be fast,” Ramirez warned.

  “He’s already cornered,” the DHS officer said. “Let’s bust into that room with overwhelming power and take him down.”

  “Alright,” Ramirez said. He was just as thirsty for some payback as the DHS agents were. He shuffled to one side of the hallway to get a better shot at the door. “I’ll help cover you. Two flashbangs and a dozen bean-bag rounds should pummel them into submission. Once we arrest them we’re all gonna have to haul ass outta here.”

  “On it!” the lead DHS officer replied, slinging his MP5 behind his back and drawing his shotgun. Another agent did the same while the other two moved into position to toss their flashbang grenades.

  “On my count” the lead DHS agent said. He counted down from three, then made a fist and swung it down to his thigh to send the team into action.

  Ramirez kicked open the door. From each side of the doorway, two flashbangs were tossed into the black room. The grenades clinked against the floor for a second before a blinding flash lit up the room like a pair of lightning bolts followed by two mind-numbing, one hundred and eighty decibel blasts in rapid sequence.

  Uncovering their ears and then quickly storming into the housekeeping room, the DHS officers pumped off several bean-bag rounds each to overwhelm the gangsters after the debilitating flashes and bangs. The police came crashing into the room with so much aggressive power that Jordan and Watson would have been immediately overwhelmed.

  If they were in the room.