The Protectors

by Dowell, Trey

  Security Guard #1 went down in a heap at Nathan’s feet, knocked out cold from a single punch. A woman at a slot machine screamed in surprise, and from across the casino, another security guard heard and came running. Nathan stood his ground like I told him, bobbing from side to side, looking like a miniature Golden Gloves contender shadowboxing before a bout. Security Guard #2 slid to a halt right in front of him, drew the metal baton from his belt, and gave the hooligan a final chance to calm down. This gave Nathan just enough time to fire a straight left jab into the larger man’s nose, which again put the guard down in one shot.

  The hooligan let out a short cry of victory, then stared at his own fists with equal measures surprise and elation. He yelled, “Who’s next, ya cunts?!” at full volume, which I felt earned him a few knocks to the face. I made sure the next guard did not go down on the first punch and let Security Guard #3 tag Nathan in the mouth at least twice before dropping him on the hooligan’s first decent hook. The maintenance door opened soon after, and I messed up a little on Guard #4, the first man through the doorway. He went down even though Nathan’s wild right uppercut missed the guy’s jaw by at least six inches.

  In my defense, it’s tough to judge punches from forty feet.

  By the time I dropped Guard #5 on a weak body blow from Nathan, I was feeling a little guilty. Three more guys through the door swarmed my remote-control Muhammad Ali in a rush, and I let Nathan fend for himself as I turned my attention back to the table.

  As expected, nearly everyone—patrons and dealers alike—was enjoying the show. With one exception. The goddamn pit boss was doing exactly what he was supposed to do: keeping his back to the fight, and staring like a wary eagle at all five tables under his watch. He was even muttering, “. . . the tables . . . the tables . . . ,” to his dealers, reminding them to tend to their racks. Lucky for me, he was being quiet; not a good idea to let the customers know you think they’re a bunch of potential thieves. None of his dealers heard him, and a couple even started moving out of the blackjack pit, trying to get a better look at the festivities. The pit boss’s gaze never wavered. He kept rotating his head, looking at every table, every gambler, which was bad. Putting him down would risk another scene, and most likely lead to every gambler in the pit taking advantage like I was planning. If the blackjack area turned into a free-for-all, the casino would simply close the cashier window and not allow anyone to cash in chips until the security tapes could be viewed and logged to determine who stole what.

  I heard another yell from behind and turned to see how Nathan was faring without my assistance. Surprisingly, he was not in custody and was still conscious. I caught a glimpse of him firing a kick into a guard’s crotch just as two more rammed him into a slot machine. I realized that at the rate the fight was developing, a lockdown might be inevitable, so it was either act now or abort, and I’d put far too much effort into the operation to bail with my hands inches from the money.

  I put a gentle “tap” on the pit boss’s mental button, just enough to make him woozy. He staggered in place and angled away from my table as he tried to find his bearings. The dealer nearest to him said, “Frank? You all right?” and then had to step close and prop the man up before he fell.

  I shot up out of my chair, put a hand on the table to steady myself, and pointed with my other, saying, “Is he okay?” Every head in the pit twisted in the direction of Frank and the dealer.

  Commit.

  My table hand floated the last six inches, plucked a few orange chips, and slid them to my jeans.

  Frank took no more than three seconds, shook his head, then yelled “I’m fine! Mind your racks!” Within five seconds, he was back on sentry duty, totally focused. My plan worked perfectly. No scene, no run on the tables, and I was on my way to the cashier window.

  You’d think nothing on earth could distract me from going directly to the cashier, but amazingly, you’d be wrong. When I noticed the force of nature moving along the far side of the casino, taking a direct route toward the brawl, all I could do was stand and marvel.

  I immediately dropped the two guards rolling around on the floor with Nathan, who struggled free from the bottom of the pile. He sloughed the guards off like a layer of dead skin and stared in wonder at the surroundings once he gained his feet.

  The area by the maintenance door resembled an eight-year-old girl’s bedroom floor, except instead of Barbies, the carpet was strewn with Security Guard Ken dolls. Nathan went about methodically counting each unconscious body, no doubt so he could brag on his glorious victory to his buddies. Or at least, he tried to count them, until he saw the monster rising up out of the sunken gaming floor toward him. To be honest, I’m surprised I couldn’t feel impact tremors every time the guy took a step. He reminded me of Carsten—had to be at least six and a half feet tall, weighed on the far side of three hundred pounds, and none of those pounds were wasted. He was squeezed into the biggest security uniform they probably made, and it simply didn’t have enough fabric to cover all the muscle. People scattered as he approached, but even this security hulk, with his size and power, took pause when he saw Nathan in the middle of literally piles of unconscious bodies.

  The hooligan, empowered by his stellar performance against a horde of opponents, didn’t seem too worried.

  “Oi! You wanna go, big boy? Think you’ll do better than your mates here?”

  The hulk seemed to mull it over while Nathan did his shadowboxing routine, totally confident he could handle any man who stood against him.

  “C’mon!” Nathan dared. “Gimme all ya got!”

  Not wanting my little hooligan to be disappointed, I picked that precise moment to wake up the ten security guards lying all around him.

  And lemme tell ya, they were pissed.

  Nathan’s eyes got huge and his hands dropped lower as the crowd of security guards stood and advanced on him in a semicircle, the hulk in lead position. Just before they lunged as one, I heard Nathan whimper, “Hold on now . . . just a minute . . .” It didn’t help.

  The beating commenced while I was in line at the cashier, and was still technically going on when I walked past on my way to the exit, although by then, the guards’ hearts weren’t really in it anymore. Sirens approached, and Nathan was a crying mess curled in the fetal position. When I got to the doors, Lyla was waiting just inside the entrance with a look of utter glee on her face.

  I snapped at her, “What did I tell you about coming in?”

  “I wanted to see this,” she said. “It appears Nathan doesn’t take punishment as well as he dishes it out.”

  “Does anyone? C’mon . . . I got the money, let’s put some distance between us and those sirens.” She didn’t move right away . . . I had to physically pull her away to take her gaze off Nathan’s broken body.

  As we walked briskly toward a taxi stand down at the end of the next block, I said to no one in particular, “His girlfriend, what was her name? Charlotte? Bet she’ll be the one who bails him out. Pathetic.”

  Lyla cackled under her breath. Head down and hands stuffed in jacket pockets, she said, “We had a talk while you boys were gambling. Charlotte now believes any man who lays hands on her needs to be reported to the police immediately.”

  “Damn, you’d make an excellent therapist.”

  “Not really. If anyone beats her again, she now believes the appropriate response is to wait until he’s asleep and superglue his hands to his penis.”

  She hailed a cab and slipped inside. I followed, saying, “Not very Goddess-of-Love-ish, y’know.”

  “As my favorite cynic likes to say . . . sue me.”

  You’d think requoting my own best lines would make me proud of her, but I wasn’t listening.

  Later, when I had quiet time to think, I understood why I had trouble concentrating in the aftermath of the Rocky Balboa robbery. I kept focusing on the image of Lyla’s face when she saw
the results of our operation. Yeah, Nathan got a well-deserved dose of street-level justice, and I’m not ashamed to admit I was satisfied. Aphrodite, though? Entranced, eyes wide, wet lips parted, and a predatory smile scary enough to frighten children . . . made me shudder.

  She liked it a little too much.

  CHAPTER 18

  After currency exchange, our take from the casino was almost four thousand dollars, more than enough travel money if contact with the CIA went south. I didn’t plan on things not going well, but it still felt good having the money as backup. We made a brief stop on Princes Street at an electronics store where I snatched up three prepaid cell phones and some battery packs.

  We then headed to the Waverley rail station and bought two tickets to London, but not on the express. I wanted to make sure there were several stops along the way. After we tucked into a couple of seats in the emptiest car, I popped a battery pack into one of the burner phones. Once the train rumbled out of the station I started dialing the only number I remembered from my days on the reservation. Lyla’s hand rested on mine before I could complete the call.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “What? Of course I am . . . I have to tell them you’re not the threat they imagine. Why wouldn’t I?”

  She twisted and leaned in. Her dark eyes searched mine and her hand grasped my forearm with reassuring pressure. No swirling eyes or mesmerizing voice, but my stomach’s reaction was an immediate attempt to fight its way up the esophagus and out of my mouth. It was a one-two gut punch to realize she could still have that effect on me.

  “We don’t have to call them, you know.”

  Her expression was hopeful, almost pleading . . . like in Mrs. Barstow’s hallway, but without all the crazy. My initial impulse was to say whatever I needed to make her stay hopeful, but delusions wouldn’t help either one of us.

  “Lyla, we have to. You weren’t there . . . they were considering sanctioning you. If I don’t call, you can guarantee that hit order will get signed off as a double feature, including yours truly,” and I thumbed in my own direction. “And I’m too pretty to die.”

  She fired off a final salvo. “I no longer feel like a paranoid wreck. And with your help, I will finally be able to sleep, every night. We’re together, we have enough money to travel . . . we can find a place for ourselves. We don’t need the CIA’s permission, or anyone else’s for that matter.”

  “Lyla, it’s not that simple. They won’t just forget about us. And yes, being with me would make running easier—resting, too—but we’d still be fugitives. You want to feel hunted, real or imagined, every single day of your life?”

  And of course, the other tiny problem that hadn’t stopped playing Whac-A-Mole on my optimism since she’d woken up at the Lairg.

  “Besides, up until two days ago, we hadn’t spoken in almost five years. Not to mention when we finally did see each other, you turned St. Moritz into a shooting gallery. Now you’re ready to run off with me forever? I gave up thinking about forever with you a long time ago.”

  The moment the words blurted out, I regretted them. But now they were out there, raw and exposed, floating between us. Lyla jerked to face the seatback in front of her, stunned. I stared, waiting for a response. Instead, her hand pulled away.

  “Make your call,” she said.

  “Lyla, I’m sorry, I didn’t . . .”

  She bolted into the aisle without looking back. “I need to use the restroom.”

  I watched her zip through the door and out of the passenger car, much faster than necessary.

  “Asshole,” I grumbled, and I sure as hell wasn’t talking to her.

  The only beneficial part of our conversation was it put me in the perfect mood to talk to the CIA.

  —

  “Central Intelligence Agency, how may I direct your call?”

  “Hi, I need remote authentication, access to—”

  “Sir, this is the main switchboard, I have no idea what that means.”

  “Okay, then just transfer me to Special Projects, please.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, there is no department by that name.”

  “Well, there was five years ago.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Is there a different department you’d like me to direct you to?”

  “Ah, how about a specific name? Last name, Tucker.”

  “That’s all you have?”

  “Yup.”

  “Sir, my directory shows twenty-seven different listings for that name.”

  “Arrgh. How about Reyes?”

  “Twelve listings.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “No listings.”

  “Funny. Gimme whatever division General Barrington runs.”

  “Sir, I’m not familiar with that name. The CIA is not part of the military, it’s a civilian agency that reports to the director of intelli—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, don’t read me the fucking mission statement. How much stuff can change in five years?”

  “Well, I was in high school five years ago, sir, so I wouldn’t know—”

  “Holy shit, please stop. My name is Scott McAlister. I’m better known as Knockout and I was a field operative in Special Projects. They made comic books and TV shows about me. Look it up on Wikipedia. I need to talk to someone other than a smart-ass operator.”

  (five second pause)

  “Please hold.”

  —

  It takes roughly forty-five seconds to identify the location of a cell phone in the United States. To triangulate a cell phone without GPS, more like three minutes. A non-GPS phone in a foreign country? Roughly eight minutes. I was on hold for eight and a half. A different operator finally picked up the line, and this one was a little more on the ball.

  “Authenticate.”

  “Holy crap, finally! This is Sierra Mike, one-one-four. Need routing to Tucker in Special Projects.”

  “Special Projects no longer exists, but I’ll get you to Tucker. Hold the line.”

  After a series of electronic clicks and clatters, and thinking I’d been disconnected twice, his voice finally came on the line.

  “Mr. McAlister. How nice of you to call.” Sounded like he was talking to a telemarketer.

  “Hello, Tucker. You’re a difficult man to reach.”

  “Would have been easier to reach me if you hadn’t ditched surveillance in Switzerland.”

  I laughed. “How is my buddy Rodney? Hopefully his boss wasn’t too hard on him.”

  Tucker sighed. “Agent Templeton has been suspended, but I’m sure he’ll recover.”

  “Good to hear. So . . . how are things?” I made my voice as infuriatingly upbeat as I could.

  “Things are simply grand, Mr. McAlister. I’m enjoying the unseasonably warm English summer as we speak.”

  “And what are you doing in Merry Olde England?”

  “I’m currently in between shouting sessions at Thames House in London.”

  “Aha, and how is MI5 headquarters? Are they angry?”

  “I think it’s safe to say they are . . . peeved.” I could hear jostling of his phone. “Just a second, trying to find a quiet place.”

  After he had, his tone got 50 percent more serious. “I don’t appreciate when my field operatives ditch surveillance, take out entire tactical squads, then vanish.”

  “Which pisses you off more, my vanishing act, or that MI5 found Lyla all by themselves?”

  “They’re both high on my list. It’s taken three hours of demeaning ass-kissing to talk the director of MI5 down off the cliff. He’s a tad miffed, not to mention surprised the U.K.’s biggest ally didn’t bother to tell them we had rogue operatives running around his country. Speaking of Ms. Ravzi, what’s her status?”

  “Alive and well. And substantially less maniacal.”

&nbs
p; “What?”

  “She was suffering from pathological sleep deprivation. Paranoia, high stress, panic. I’m working with her on it.”

  I heard him breathe a sigh of relief. “So she thinks North Korea was a mistake?”

  “Oh, God, no. She still wants to change the world, but she knows there are better ways to do it. In short, she’s not the threat the CIA thought she was.”

  Tucker’s voice changed to a whisper.

  “We have to meet. The prevailing winds are blowing in a different direction now . . . I need to brief you both.”

  “Just because Lyla is thinking clearly doesn’t mean she’s rushing back into the CIA’s arms. Consider this a polite ‘thanks for the memories’ call. She’ll leave the global intrigue and parlor games to you guys from now on—and so will I. I just need you to call off the dogs.”

  Tucker’s voice morphed into a hiss. “That is not going to happen, Mr. McAlister. You don’t get to run off into the sunset with the girl . . .” He paused for a moment, and when he continued, the voice lost some of its edge. “I’m serious, I need to brief you and Ms. Ravzi as soon as possible. Trust me, she’ll be thrilled when she hears what I have to say.”

  “I doubt it.” As I said the words, the door at the far end of the compartment slid open and Lyla appeared. By the time she got back to the seat, her composure was fully restored.

  “Look, I’m not going to argue with you,” Tucker continued. “People are listening. I’m not on an encrypted phone and I damn well know your line isn’t secure. If we don’t meet, I won’t be able to guarantee anything. Least of all your safety.”

  “And if we do meet?” Lyla immediately started shaking her head. I covered the mouthpiece and gave her a hard look that radiated a mixture of calm down and back off.

  “If you listen to what I have to say and you still want out, I’ll support it. No pursuit,” Tucker said. God, I wished I could tunnel through the phone and probe the truth behind his bullshit. I could only read him if I stood in front of the man one more time. I took a single look at Lyla, then turned to the window.