The Emperor of Vegas

by Ryan Stygar

“What the hell…?” an officer gasped. He yanked up his protective goggles to get a better look around. “We saw them run in here!”

  Four trash carts were lined up along one wall. Opposite the row of carts were several shelves full of cleaning supplies. Dirty laundry and trash was quickly thrown to the floor as the carts were overturned and searched, but Ramirez was most interested in the polished aluminum chute opposite the carts.

  “Quiet down, quiet down!” Ramirez hushed to the others. With caution he wrapped a hand around the latch to the garbage chute and cracked it open.

  Ramirez craned his neck into the chute to listen closely. “What is it?” someone asked, but Ramirez held up a finger to tell them to keep quiet.

  There was a far-off clunking sound, followed by another. Ignoring the awful stench of garbage wafting up from the uncomfortably humid chute, Ramirez leaned inside of it and clicked on his flashlight.

  The chute was tight enough for a man to fit snuggly inside. It was designed with subtle, zig-zagging angles to slow the descent of trash to a safe speed as it worked its way to the dumpsters fifty stories below. The chute was a rapid and relatively safe way for a pair of fleeing gangsters to evade the police.

  Ramirez unburdened himself of his tactical vest and heavy equipment – keeping only his flashlight, K-bar knife, and his nearly empty handgun.

  “I’m going after them!” Ramirez said. “Call the teams on the ground level and tell them to put a detail on the dumpsters, the rest of you should evacuate.”

  “You can’t just go in by yourself,” an agent protested.

  Ramirez cinched his Glock into his thigh holster. “I don’t want us to risk getting bunched up in there – it’s safer with just one man.” He then spat onto his gloves to improve their traction against the metal walls of the stinking garbage chute. Suppressing an urge to gag, he told the DHS team that he would be expecting backup at the bottom. “Radio your team to back me up down there and then get the hell out of this tower before it blows.”

  Ramirez received a flurry of pats on the back and encouraging words before the DHS team slung their equipment over their shoulders and filed out of the room to evacuate.

  Entering the chute feet first, Ramirez pressed the rubber soles of his boots against the metal walls and slid into the putrid space with his back and his elbows pressed firmly against the metal behind him. Clicking on his flashlight to guide his way down the square-shaped chute, he allowed his body to slip downward in a controlled fall. Clunking and rattling from the gangster’s movements far below him echoed as he shuffled down.

  67

  T he Mercedes AMG GT burst through the intersection like a bullet, forcing the other motorists to slam their brakes to avoid being struck. Seconds later, the pursuing Jaguar F-Type flew past the stunned bystanders in a blur of blue.

  Inside the Mercedes, Adam was putting years of experience driving the supercars of the Sumatra guests to good use. Working the paddle shifters to ensure peak torque and grip on the road, Adam weaved in and out of traffic while the tachometer danced right against the red line.

  The roar of the engine frightened Lily, making her even more hysterical as she was thrown back in her car seat from the g-forces pressing against her little body. Adam ignored her rapid-fire questions as he did his level-best to keep the blue Jaguar from closing in on him.

  “Why are you going so fast?”

  “I’m scared daddy, slow down!”

  Eventually she simply fell into a tearful fit. Her father cranked the steering wheel to a hard left ,barely maintaining traction on the road as he hooked off the boulevard and into a side street. Behind him, the Jaguar easily stayed on him.

  “Dammit!” he swore. J-shaped headlights closed in to ram him.

  Swerving right and then left to make a zig-zag, the Mercedes was able to dodge a series of attempts by the heavier Jaguar to force it off the road.

  Adam shifted gears again and exploded onto a southbound road with Viktoriya’s car screaming just a dozen yards behind him.

  He had to get to the airport.

  Vince was waiting for him in the terminal by now, and surely the Viktoriya wasn’t crazy enough to try killing him in public. Blowing through yet another crowded intersection, Adam missed another car by inches as he accelerated toward McCarren International Airport.

  A pair of headlights emerged from his right, followed by a long blast from an eighteen-wheeler’s horn.

  “Shit!” he screamed. Pulling the steering wheel hard to the left, he barely missed slamming into the side of the truck that was pulling onto the road. He avoided a deadly wreck, but the evasive maneuver and the consequential reduction in speed gave Viktoriya just the window of opportunity she needed.

  Viktoriya’s Jaguar rammed into the back of Adam’s car. Adam lost control as the Mercedes fishtailed into the middle of the street.

  Seizing the chance to deliver a killer blow, Viktoriya mashed her accelerator and turned the nose of her car harder into the Mercedes, causing Adam to spin out and into oncoming traffic. Dozens of tires screeched as brakes struggled to prevent a deadly pile-up. Adam’s airbag deployed during the collision, socking him in the face and leaving him dazed as the Mercedes slid to a stop in the middle of the opposite lane. He was still shaking off the dizziness when Viktoriya emerged from her Jaguar with a snub-nosed revolver and fired three rapid shots into his car.

  Spider-web shaped holes clustered around the rear-window behind Adam’s head. The computer on his dashboard exploded in a shower of sparks as it was struck. Despite the damage, the engine was still idling with a mighty rumble. Adam rapidly put the Mercedes back in gear as another volley of bullets punched through the lightweight body of the coupe. Cranking his steering wheel and punching the accelerator with all he had, Adam sent the wide racing tires into a furious, rubber-burning spin and sped away from Viktoriya Petrov and her barking snub-nosed revolver.

  She screamed as the wounded Mercedes roared away from her. “You fucking coward!”

  Throwing her empty gun in the direction of the fleeing Mercedes, she considered going after him again, but thought better of it when her fury cleared just enough for her to realize that almost forty people had just watched her ram and then open fire on another vehicle. Sirens wailed from just over a mile down the road as a dozen cellphones were held up to record her. Letting loose of a string of curses in her native Russian, the beautiful but enraged Viktoriya Petrov jumped back into her Jaguar and sped off toward Red Star Tower.

  68

  D imitri Jordan saw the light coming up from below the mouth of the stinking tunnel and let his body slide down the chute in an unrestricted freefall. Plunging into the massive heap of trash like a meteor, Jordan was neck deep in old food scraps and fly-ridden cups and bottles when he came to a stop. Coughing from the stench, the Emperor of Vegas kicked his body upward as if he was escaping from a vat of thick fluid. He paddled his arms like a swimmer as he waded through the garbage to the other side of the massive dumpster. Behind him there was a sound like a potato being shot from a pneumatic cannon as Watson Lafayette flew out of the mouth of the garbage chute and plummeted into the dumpster with a splash of debris.

  “I didn’t think the smell could get any worse!” Watson gagged as he quickly paddled toward the edge of the industrial sized-dumpster. The entrance to Dimitri Jordan’s private garage was only a few hundred feet from where they landed and the billionaire-gangster was already climbing over the side of the dumpster.

  “Hurry up!” Jordan called. He leaped down and landed on the concrete below with a quiet thud. Wiping pieces of rotting meat and coffee-grounds from his clothes, Jordan dug into his pockets to ensure he still had the key to his private garage.

  Watson was fighting his way through a bundle of noxious-smelling goop (which had once been about three gallons of spoiled Greek yogurt but was now basically toxic waste) when he heard a one hundred and eighty pound body crash into the pile of trash behind him.

  Watson looked back and glared w
hen he saw the unmissable scar on the man’s face behind him.

  “You don’t know when to fucking quit, do you?” Watson barked. He yanked out his Sig Sauer. Ramirez reacted instantly, ducking low so he was shoulder-deep in trash as he held up his Glock and fired two quick shots at Watson’s head.

  Instinct caused Watson to throw himself downward to stay alive, but the move forced his face right into the giant puddle of rancid yogurt with a sloppy splash. The awful stench made him gag until he eventually vomited.

  Watson decided that bullets weren’t much worse than the horrors that were lurking in the trash and, with all the speed he could muster, he leaped up onto the side of the dumpster to haul himself out.

  Wading after him as fast as he could, Ramirez held up his Glock with a single hand and fired the last of his ammunition, missing high as Watson flung himself to the ground.

  “You’ll have to do better than that!” Watson laughed. He managed to run about fifteen feet before Ramirez, jumping from the top of the ten-foot high dumpster, landed with a perfect roll on the concrete and sprinted after him.

  Watson kept pumping his legs in a fast run as he aimed the Sig Sauer behind his back and fired blindly at the pursuing police officer. Ramirez noticed right away that the fleeing gangster was just taking wild shots to keep him back; every shot was missing wide to the left and right. The inaccuracy of Watson’s shots left a wide, unprotected path leading right up to his body. Ducking his head, Ramirez sprinted into it with the speed of a football player running into the end zone.

  Sergeant Ramirez leaped forward and slammed into Watson’s back in a perfect tackle, sending them both flying into the ground and tumbling across the concrete. Watson’s gun skittered several arm’s lengths away, but he was still determined to kill his hated nemesis.

  Watson threw an elbow back into Ramirez’s ribs. Ramirez grunted from the pain but never lost his grip on Watson. He pinned a knee against the gangster’s back and then wrapped an arm around Watson’s neck.

  “I’m not gonna arrest you…” Ramirez hissed with pure hate seething from his teeth. “You murdered one of my closest friends on the force. Now I’m gonna kill you.”

  Ramirez growled as he squeezed tight against Watson’s windpipe. Arms flailed back and forth against Adrian’s body as he held the death-grip on Watson’s neck. He didn’t know that Watson had a switch blade tucked into his front pocket.

  Blinded by hate and drunk with the taste of imminent revenge, Ramirez failed to notice when Watson’s hand found the handle and clicked the knife open.

  Razor-sharp metal ripped into the meat of Adrian’s thigh A bloody geyser spurted from his leg. Watson yanked the blade from Ramirez’s flesh, causing him to cry out in pain. Without mercy, Watson then slashed wildly as Adrian tumbled backward.

  “I’m gonna cut you apart one piece at a time you fucking pig!” He slashed a bloody, six inch long laceration across Adrian’s chest.

  Adrian reeled in agony. Right away he realized that he couldn’t stand on his wounded leg. When he threw his body forward to catch Watson’s knife hand, Ramirez was immediately punished with stings of pain from his chest as the slash in his skin was pulled wider apart during the struggle. The pain was enough to cause him to lose his grip for the briefest of moments, but it was plenty of time for Watson to wriggle his arm free and stab the knife into Adrian’s shoulder – cutting into the bone beneath his flesh.

  Adrian collapsed, his mind and body overwhelmed with unimaginable pain from his multiple injuries. Watson climbed on top of him and threw a fist into his chest, grinding his knuckles into the wound to open it up even more.

  “Not so tough now, are you?” Watson cackled. With a sadistic twinkle in his dark eyes, he yanked the knife out of the policeman’s shoulder. Watson laughed when Adrian tried unsuccessfully to roll away – his bloody leg failing to produce enough power to escape. Watson snickered and pressed the sharp blade into the top of Adrian’s forehead. “How about we open up that old scar, eh?”

  Blood trickled down from Adrian’s scalp even as he latched onto Watson’s wrist and fought like hell to push the blade away.

  “Yes…” Watson sneered as he sliced into the old scar. “Just like that!”

  Adrian couldn’t fight Watson off any longer – his strength was too heavily sapped from his injuries. His only hope was to be smarter than his opponent, but he was in so much pain that he could hardly form a coherent thought beyond getting that knife off his face.

  Watson pressed the blade against Adrian’s face a little harder, easily pushing down against the police sergeant’s weakening grip.

  “How does it feel? I want to know how it feels to get sliced apart like this…” Watson hissed.

  Adrian was in a dire situation, but he wasn’t done fighting yet. With the last ounce of his strength, he prepared for his final gamble to survive. Ramirez wriggled to adjust his position under Watson. Rage flared in his eyes.

  “You… Tell… Meeee!!”

  Relaxing his grip for an instant, Ramirez allowed the knife to sink deeper into his face – causing Watson to fall forward as the resistance against his hands disappeared. With a thrust from his hips Adrian managed to rock Watson’s body forward so that the gangster flopped over him and landed face first into the concrete. Ramirez didn’t hesitate. Pushing hard against Watson’s knife hand, he stuck the entire three inch blade into the soft tissue below Watson’s sternum as he fell forward. Watson screeched as bright red blood gushed out from his chest. Ramirez wriggled the blade while it was deep inside his victim’s chest cavity – slicing past muscle and lung tissue until he nicked Watson’s aorta.

  It was a death blow.

  Watson writhed on the ground like a worm on a hook. Convulsing and screaming in the final painful seconds of his life, he died in a puddle of his own blood while the Sumatra burned above him.

  Adrian’s heart was fluttering in his chest as he heaved the corpse off of him. Struggling up to a knee, he looked down on Watson Lafayette’s body, yanked the knife from his chest, and then stabbed the dead man in the back for good measure.

  “Rot in Hell.” Adrian spat.

  The roar of a W12 engine revving to life just forty yards ahead of him made Adrian look up. Bright white beams broke through the night, illuminating the concrete alley where Ramirez was kneeling beside Watson Lafayette. The Bentley Mulsanne made a sharp ninety degree turn as it screeched out of Dimitri Jordan’s private garage. Adrian saw the headlights bounce upward as the heavy car was hurled forward by its mighty engine. Scurrying as fast as he could while his leg hung behind him like a dead rudder, Adrian escaped to the side of the alley a fraction of a second before Dimitri Jordan’s pearl-white Bentley blew past him. Inches separated Sergeant Ramirez’s body from being smashed by the charging Mulsanne. Jordan stomped the accelerator to drive up a concrete ramp to the streets, then fishtailed to the right as he raced away from his burning tower and the army of police inside it.

  69

  Sumatra Hotel, 4th Floor, One Minute to Detonation

  L ukas cursed himself for his inaccurate estimation of the time needed to escape. Ignoring the awful pain from his stitches, he leaped down the final three steps of the fourth floor. Gripping the stainless-steel handrail with one hand, he swung himself around the corner like a sling shot as he flew down the steps of the third floor.

  “We’re running out of time!” he yelled to the two men behind him.

  Even when they reached ground level, they still needed to get far away from the tower to avoid the shower of fiery debris that was sure to follow. Lukas chanced a quick look at his watch.

  Fifteen seconds… Fourteen …

  “Come on!” Lukas yelled to his men. They were just past the second floor when the timer ticked down to zero.

  Four steady beeps on Lukas’s watch signaled that time was up.

  “Son of a bitch!” Lukas gasped.

  Nothing happened right away. After a moment of ominous silence, a mighty BOOM! reverberated down
the stairs, followed by another, and then another. A series of blasts rumbled like a row of drummers pounding against deep bass drums. The explosions barreled across the top floor, blasting through the walls and devastating the load-bearing steel members behind them.

  “We have to get out now!” Lukas screamed over the thunder rolls. Everything around them rattled violently. Like a whale struck by a harpoon, the building let out a deep, woeful groan as the upper floor collapsed on itself and sent a shockwave of sudden, titanic forces against the Sumatra’s steel and concrete frame.

  The casino floor, with its red carpet and gilded walls, appeared eerily empty in the weak glow of the emergency lights. Lukas weaved in and out of the rows of slot machines, leaped over the gaming tables, and hurried to the exits with his two surviving men struggling to keep up. The DHS teams were long gone – having placed all their efforts into evacuating civilians and then coordinating a retreat of their own forces after Adrian Ramirez had alerted them that the already burning tower was about to be dealt yet another explosive blow.

  Something about the size of a large refrigerator fell from the massive dome above the casino and crashed just a couple dozen yards ahead of the Russians – sending a shower of broken glass and splinters up in the air. Lukas’s eyes nearly popped from their sockets when he realized it was a fractured piece of the dome that had fallen.

  “She’s going to cave in!”

  Chunks of stone ranging in size from as small as a baseball to as large as a pickup truck crumbled away from the growing fissure in the dome, plummeting down upon the casino floor like an artillery barrage. The Russians were like infantry charging across no-man’s land as the heavy debris cratered into the ground all around them.

  Red and blue lights were flashing against the polished stone hallways of the Sumatra Hotel’s grand lobby. “I see the exit!” Lukas called back to his team. Something behind him cracked like a branch snapping from a tree. Looking back he could see the lumber above the hallway was cracking; the collapsing top floors were causing sheering and torsional forces against the structure below to tear the building apart.