by Ted Dekker
Seth smoothed his shirt and walked in, upright. “Your future awaits us. Are you ready?”
“I’m breathless with anticipation,” she said, stretching out her hand for him.
He took it, kissed it lightly, and then spun her around in a dance. She twirled so that her dress rose to a bell.
“Queen of dancers,” he said. He bowed, put one hand on her hip, and marched her across the room in a stiff dance. She was positive he was faking. When they reached the window, he spun around and marched her back.
“This is the way we dance in California,” he said in a British accent.
One end of his mustache had detached and fluttered over his lip. She couldn’t hold back a giggle.
“What?” he demanded, still in proper British character.
“It seems that the gentleman’s mustache is objecting.”
Seth felt his upper lip. “What? This?” He ripped off the mustache. “Nonsense! This isn’t a mustache at all. It’s a morsel left over from dinner last evening. I’ve been saving it for now.” He stuffed the strip of hair into his mouth, jerked his head back as if swallowing, and then promptly spit it out.
“Whew! Terribly stale, what.”
Miriam put both hands to her face and howled.
His clowning turned to embarrassment. She walked up to him. “You’ve ruined your disguise. Although I will say, with your hair combed you look quite different.”
Someday she would either be forced back to Saudi Arabia or delivered safely to Samir by this man. Her heart surged with gratitude. She would miss his company. Miriam looked into his eyes and placed a hand on his cheek. “I owe you my life, Seth. I want you to know that. There is nothing I can ever do to repay what you’ve done for me.”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
Seth turned beet-red. She could grow accustomed to the power that a woman held in this country, she thought.
“Well, then. Let’s go win us some money,” he said. “This should be like taking candy from a baby.”
He turned for the door, reached for the knob, then hesitated. He stared at the door. A bolt of fear killed the moment. Now what?
“Seth? What is it?”
He gazed ahead, frozen.
“Seth?”
He blinked once. Twice. Then he swallowed and cleared his throat.
“Nothing. It’s nothing,” he said.
“I’ve seen nothing with you, and nothing is always something. What’s going on?”
He forced a grin and faced her. “Really, it’s nothing. Nothing.”
“I won’t accept that!”
He stepped forward and kissed her on the forehead. She stiffened.
But he was only kissing her on the forehead, and it was a gentle kiss.
“That’s in case I don’t see you after today.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll understand later.”
He turned around and—just like that—shed the strange trance that had overcome him. “Ready? Let’s go.”
Clive Masters waited patiently in the Learjet as it taxied to the Las Vegas airport terminal. Now that he’d arrived, he couldn’t waste any time. Assuming his gamble worked at all.
He picked up his telephone and dialed the Las Vegas chief of police’s private number. Benson answered on the second ring.
“Send the car.”
Benson spoke off the phone and then returned. “It’s on the way.”
“Good. Now I need you to do me a favor—”
“Listen, Masters, NSA or not, I need to know what you’re trying to prove here. I’m not accustomed to working blind. I agreed to the car, but—”
“I’m trying to explain. Forgive me, but I honestly didn’t know myself until just a few minutes ago. I need you to launch crash surveillance on the casinos. In particular the larger ones with high-stakes tables. I can’t tell you who we’re looking for, or what they look like. Just check for anything unusual.”
“Do you know who you’re looking for?”
Clive hesitated. “Yes. But I can’t tell you. This will make sense later. And I don’t want any suspicious characters apprehended, just reported. Can you do that?”
The phone was silent for a moment. “I suppose. Why no word until now?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Just go with me on this. I need eyes. I’ll wager my pension you’ll find something, and if I’m right, we have only two or three hours.”
“Can’t you tell me anything?”
“No.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Another thing. I know this goes against every rule you’ve ever been taught, but law enforcement needs to stay out of this. No police, no nothing. This needs to come strictly from camera operators at the casinos.”
“Now you’re over my head, Masters. That’s not the way we find people in this town.”
“It is today. Just do it. I’ll explain when I get there.”
He hung up and sat back. The terminal building rose to his left.
The whole idea was simple, really. Everyone was in the dark. Clive was little more than a blind fool chasing a man who could see clearly in this world of futures. He could not see into the future himself, so he would blind Seth by taking the futures away. At least those futures that involved a pursuit.
He had barely convinced the teams to pull back from Las Vegas, rather than smother the city with every available law enforcement officer from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City.
If what Seth had told him in the alley was true, then Seth’s gift was characterized by two critical elements: One, he was seeing potential futures. Two, he was seeing futures only a brief time out. He was whipping them on the street because he knew their next move before they did to the tune of two or three hours.
So then, they wouldn’t give Seth their next move.
The only way not to give Seth their next move was to remove their next move from the universe of his futures. And the only way to remove their next move from any futures in Seth’s world was to remove those futures from their own worlds. Confusing, but true. He hoped.
In words that the politicians could understand, it went like this: If Clive didn’t know what he was going to do next—if he deliberately removed any plans for chasing Seth from his agenda—then his own future would be removed from any of Seth’s futures. Seth would suspect nothing until Clive formed a specific plan to apprehend him. And in fact, Clive had no plan to apprehend Seth. At least to the best of his knowledge. Neither did Benson. Benson was just looking without knowing what for or why.
At least that was the theory. A few mind-boggling possibilities turned Seth into an invincible foe, but Clive refused to accept any of them.
Thinking about it now, the whole plan—or the lack thereof—was a bit shaky. First, Clive had removed from Las Vegas anyone with any notion that there even was a hunt on for Seth. Second, he specifically did not decide to go to Las Vegas. He simply planned to make a decision at some point to fly into the city and set up immediate surveillance. If all went well, he would intercept Seth before any of their futures crossed.
The single greatest variable in this gamble was timing. His “unplanned” decision to go had to correspond with Seth’s presence at the casinos. Nailing this was pure guesswork, and he’d guessed that Seth was not only going to Las Vegas, but that he would take two days to arrive.
This chase would be won by the fastest mind rather than the fastest runner, and Clive had most definitely met his match.
It took them fifteen minutes to reach the station. Clive virtually crushed his walnut during the drive. Every second counted; every passing moment created a slew of new possible futures; at any time one of those futures could cross one of Seth’s and he would know Clive was in town.
Another five minutes passed before he found himself in Benson’s office, and by the time he closed the door he convinced himself he had failed already. This whole plan would never work. They were way too slow.
&n
bsp; “Well, well,” Benson said, dropping the phone in the cradle, “you wouldn’t believe your fortune. That was security at Caesars Palace. They have a man and a woman running hot on the roulette tables as we speak.”
Clive’s doubt fell away. “Pictures?”
The fax began to hum. “On the way now.”
Clive stepped over to the machine and wiped sweat from his eyebrows. Settle down, boy. You’re gonna have a heart attack on this man’s floor. He was as keyed up as he could remember being. He took a calming breath and ripped the first page from the fax machine.
A fuzzy black-and-white of a man and a woman sitting at a roulette table stared up at him, with a note scrawled along the bottom.
$32,000 in 30 min.
The man wore a mustache, and his hair was slicked back. The woman, short dark hair. Wrong.
“Not them,” Clive said. “Keep looking.”
Every second’s another thousand futures, Clive. One of them is going to tip him off. He grunted, crumpled up the sheet, and tossed it in the waste bin.
“That’s a lot of money,” the chief said. He picked up the phone and dialed. “Not them, Sam. Keep your eyes peeled.”
“Ask him how often someone wins like that,” Clive said.
Benson glanced at him. “How often does someone win like that?” he asked. He nodded. “He says never. First time he’s seen it.”
Clive blinked. He dipped into the wastebasket, pulled the crumpled fax out, and smoothed it flat.
It’s a mind game, Clive. Forget the hard evidence; go for the mind.
“How long will it take us to get to the casino?”
“Twenty minutes. To the tables, another ten.”
The fact was, Clive had no idea if these people were Seth and Miriam. If he apprehended the wrong couple, he might tip off Seth’s world of futures. But the longer he waited, the greater the chance Seth would figure Clive out on his own anyway.
Then again, winning thirty-two thousand dollars in half an hour at the roulette wheel would be like sleeping for a man like Seth.
Clive moved. “We go. Three cars, six men. Now.”
“Security can pick them up.”
He stopped and turned. “No. There’s a chance he doesn’t know we’re onto him yet. If he’s the one, the minute security makes a move, he’ll be gone.” He paused. “Tell them to seal the exits. Don’t say why.”
“And he won’t be gone if you go?”
“I’ve got a shot; they don’t.”
“Oh? And why would that be?”
“Because I’m smarter, Benson.”
chapter 28
black twenty-four,” Seth said, pointing to the spot on the roulette table. He stared into her eyes and stroked the mustache he’d reapplied in the elevator. “What do you think, honey? Twenty-four feel like a lucky number to you?”
“I don’t know. Is twenty-four in any of our birthdays or phone numbers?”
“No. But if you divide 327,115.2 by 13,629.8, you get exactly 24. I say we go for it.”
Miriam bit back a smile. The poor dealer had long ago given up his cute comebacks to Seth’s ramblings. He stared at them, mute.
“How much?” Miriam asked.
“All of it,” Seth said.
“I told you, there’s a thousand-dollar limit,” the dealer said. He tucked the steel ball under the lip of the wheel and sent it hurling around.
“That’s right, junior. I forgot. I’m not especially good with numbers. Ten thousand is a pretty big number.” Seth looked at her, eyes sparkling. He had purposefully lost many bets, as planned, but the pile of chips was growing steadily.
Seth raised an eyebrow. “A thousand, then?”
“That means if the ball lands on the black twenty-four we will win how much?” she asked, knowing full well.
“Thirty-five, I think.”
“Let’s do it.” She slid a thousand-dollar chip out on the space and winked at Seth.
A crowd of seven or eight onlookers gathered behind them, peering over their shoulders as the ball slowed to a crawl, dropped into the wheel, bounced around like a pogo stick, and then rattled into the small square. Twenty-four.
Someone gasped.
“We won!” Miriam exclaimed, throwing her hands up. She wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“Yes, will you look at that. We did win. I’ll be a toad on a stool at the bottom of a pool.” He reached out and pulled back a tall stack of black chips, each etched with $1,000 in gold. Seth tossed the dealer one of them. “That’s for you, junior. It’s our lucky day.”
Chips were as good as cash in Vegas. The thin dealer blinked, looked over at the pit boss, and palmed the tip. “Thanks.”
Seth dipped his head and smiled coyly. “Which number, honey?”
Miriam had never felt so bold and thrilled in all her life, pretending to be his starry-eyed lover, staring into his bright green eyes. They were sitting under the cameras Seth said were planted in all the black domes above them, winning at their will and doing so without breaking a single rule. They could win millions and millions if they placed the right bets. A man like Seth could never be poor.
This game of roulette was basic. Seth had another plan up his sleeve. Initially he’d calculated that they would need over a million dollars, but he told her in the elevator that they now needed less. Something had changed, but he refused to tell her what. It would be a surprise.
“I don’t know,” she said with a sigh, feigning reluctance. “Perhaps we should stop while we’re ahead.”
“We’re on a roll,” he said. “I say we go again.”
“Okay then. Again.”
“I say eleven,” he said.
“Is eleven part of our birthdays?”
“No. But if you divide 24, which was a pretty lucky number, by 2.18181818 ad infinitum, you get 11.”
She paused. His way with numbers was not a part of his ability to see into the future, she knew. He simply had that kind of mind. “Then eleven it should be.”
He reached for the chips, and his hand stopped just short of them. It trembled.
Miriam glanced up and saw alarm cross his face. She was growing accustomed to his morphing moods, and this time she took it in stride. “No? Maybe eleven is not the best choice.”
“No. I think our luck has just run out.”
Seth scooped up the thousand-dollar chips—over fifty of them—and stood. “The rest are yours, junior.” He turned to Miriam. “Let’s go.”
They walked from the table, leaving a stunned group of spectators.
“What is it?” Miriam asked as nonchalantly as possible.
“Clive has arrived.”
“Clive?” Her heart bolted. “Then we have to go! You didn’t see him coming?”
“No. No, it seems Clive has pulled a fast one.” A grin crept onto his face. “Pretty smart.”
“Where will we go? We have to get out! I can’t be taken into—”
“We can’t leave. Not yet. Besides, the exits have been blocked for over ten minutes now.”
“But you see a way out.”
“Yes and no.”
“What is that supposed to mean, yes and no? You are making me nervous. We should leave immediately!”
“We can’t. Not yet. What we can do is finish what we started here. It’s time to rock and roll.”
Omar took a room in the Tropicana, because that’s where Hilal had taken his room. Three doors down the hall, in fact. Like clockwork, Hilal made his calls to the general, growing more frustrated by the hour. He still received updates from Clive, but they were filled with meaningless drivel. Hilal was sure that Clive was withholding information, and he was just as sure the agent’s reticence had to do with this clairvoyance Seth evidently possessed.
Either way, everybody was coming to Las Vegas; Hilal had staked his reputation on it.
Omar knew Hilal’s every move, which meant he knew Clive’s moves and at least what Clive knew of Seth’s moves. The wait
in this box high above the strip had been maddening, but that all changed an hour ago when Clive landed.
“I don’t like this,” Assir said.
Omar leaned back in his chair, one hand on the scanner that sat on the table. They’d been listening to police traffic for two days. The city was a sewer filled with lowlifes and prostitutes. One day, under better circumstances, he would have to return.
Hilal lived because Omar needed his information. But the chase was dragging out; he couldn’t risk Hilal’s interference any longer. Omar’s life would probably be easier if Clive just took the girl into custody. Without Hilal to whisk her back to Saudi Arabia, the State Department would have to make other arrangements. Even a short delay would give Omar all the time he needed. If he had to, he would kill Clive and take her then. Either way, Omar was where he wanted to be.
“Sit down, Assir,” he said.
Assir walked into the kitchen.
The radio crackled with endless police jargon. Americans were bent on crime. A few good laws could change that. Islam could change—
“Roger. We have Clive Masters with the”—Omar glanced at the radio—“NSA now. ETA Caesars Palace, fifteen minutes. We got a man and a woman, possible fugitives. I’ll call back in twenty. Out.”
Assir ran in from the kitchen. “It’s them!”
“Yes.” Omar stood. “It’s them.” He grabbed his bag. “Hilal first.” Caesars Palace lay only one block to the north, but getting in and out of these monstrous hotels quickly was a challenge.
Assir ran past him and entered the empty hall, silenced pistol cocked in his hand. They walked toward Hilal’s room, but the door flew open before they reached it.
Hilal had only just stepped into the hall when Assir’s first slug took him in the head and knocked him against the doorpost. He stared wide for a brief moment, then slid slowly to the ground. One less hassle for Omar.
Without speaking, Sa’id and Assir pulled the body back into the hotel room, quickly wiped the blood from the doorframe, and closed the door.
“Caesars Palace,” Omar said. “We have to hurry.”
They practically ran among the tables, dodging the gamblers as if running an obstacle course. Miriam lost her sense of direction, but Seth seemed to know exactly where he was headed.