“The Chevelle is appraised at two million dollars, the full ticket price you promised to pay for it earlier today,” Morgan said. “Cover me for that amount, and the car will serve as our collateral.”
“Ah,” said Gunther. Finally, something had surprised him. His interest was piqued. “I like that idea. At last, Mr. Morgan, you are letting loose a little bit. Allowing yourself to have a bit of fun.”
“Gunther,” said Lena in an admonishing tone.
“Oh, Lena, stop it,” he said. “When is the last time you enjoyed yourself this much?”
“Two million, Gunther.”
“Precisely, my dear Lena. Two million.”
“Cobra, what the hell are you doing?” asked Shepard through the communicator in Morgan’s ear. Pretending to scratch his neck, Morgan pressed the tiny device through the cartilage of his ear and turned it off.
“I am not enjoying myself at all,” said Lena. “And you are enjoying this altogether too much.”
“You’re right, I am enjoying myself.” Weinberg cackled. “Mr. Morgan, I accept your offer. We will set the limit for this game at two million dollars. Croupier, would you make the arrangements with the casino? Permit a line of credit to be extended to Mr. Morgan from my account.”
“Let’s do this,” said Morgan.
“I like you, Mr. Morgan. You have the—what do you Americans say? Stomach? Entrails? Balls. You have the balls, Mr. Morgan.” Weinberg downed what was left of his drink and motioned to a waiter for another.
“You’re not the first man to say that,” he said.
“Nor the last, I’m sure. Are we ready, croupier?” Then, to Morgan, “What do you say? Ten thousand minimum bet, same for the big blind?”
“Sounds good to me,” said Morgan, maintaining eye contact.
The game was a high-wire act for the both of them. Weinberg had no tell, and Morgan knew he had none, either. Morgan lost two hundred thousand on the first hand, then won three hundred on the second. Bets continued to climb for five more hands, and the game remained even.
The cards were dealt, and he looked at his. Pocket aces. The croupier then dealt the flop—another ace. There was a round of betting, an inconsequential turn, and then the river: the last ace. Morgan had four of a kind.
“All in,” said Weinberg, pushing his chips to the center of the table. The croupier deftly counted the chips.
“Two million, one hundred and sixty thousand from Mr. Weinberg.”
Morgan had to finish the game, and he couldn’t win. Weinberg had to end up on top, had to be left drunk on the victory. If he turned this bet down, he might not get a second chance any time soon.
“All in,” said Morgan.
“That is one million, eight hundred forty thousand for Mr. Morgan,” said the croupier. “All in.”
Lily Harper visibly thrilled, a broad smile of perfect white teeth brightening her face.
Weinberg laughed out loud, attracting the attention of nearby tables. “Yes! Yes! Excellent!”
Weinberg showed his cards.
“Straight,” said the croupier. “Ace high.”
Less than a four of a kind. But Morgan had to lose. He placed his cards facedown on the table.
“Fold,” he said in a dazed whisper, feigning the despair and sudden realization of a man who could not afford to lose two million dollars.
Weinberg broke out in uproarious laughter. “Brilliant! Ha ha!”
“Herr Weinberg wins,” announced the croupier.
“Ah, mein freund,” said Weinberg, laughing, “you were foiled by American impulsivity. It did not serve you well this time.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” said Morgan, looking grim.
“But if you don’t go big, you never win big, right? Just not this time! Ha ha!”
“I’m sure that smarts, Mr. Morgan,” said Lily.
“A drink to celebrate my new car?” asked Weinberg. “Ah yes, of course, you don’t drink. But you won’t mind if I do, certainly? Waiter! A Bollinger ninety-five, if you please!”
“Right away, sir.”
“This is all awfully exciting, but I’m afraid I’m feeling none too well,” said Harper. “The atmosphere might be a little too rich for my blood. If you’d please excuse me, I think I shall retire to my hotel.”
“Seeing as I have no money left to play with, I think I’ll escort Ms. Harper,” said Morgan. He extended his hand to the German. “Gunther, well played.”
“I’ll be expecting you to bring my new car around the hotel in the morning, Mr. Morgan!” he said. “I am exhilarated by my victory. I believe my sister and I shall stay behind and work some of that out on the craps tables.”
“Shall we, Mr. Morgan?” asked Lily, extending her arm. He took it, and they walked together toward the exit. “That must have hurt. Two million dollars? You are not a billionaire, from what I have gathered.”
“And you’re not embarrassed of walking out of the casino with a loser, Ms. Harper?”
“Well, Mr. Morgan, there are losers, and then there are losers. I get the feeling you are not of the type to be a loser for very long.”
They walked past fancily dressed people and waiters in black and red.
“You know,” she said, “someone might get the wrong idea, the two of us leaving together like this.”
“Wrong idea? What could you be talking about, Ms. Harper?”
“Mr. Morgan, do be careful. A girl could fall for a man like you.”
“One already has,” he said. “I’m married.”
“And still,” she said, flashing him those vibrant green eyes, “I can’t quite seem to care.” He caught a whiff of her perfume, a scent, appropriately enough, of lilies. They were at the door to the casino now. She handed her ticket to the valet, and he handed his.
“Very flattering. A guy has to wonder why the feedback is so overwhelmingly positive from a girl like you.”
“Are you concerned that I might be interested in you, Mr. Morgan?” she said, looking pointedly at his wedding ring.
“No, Ms. Harper. The problem with flattery is exactly when it’s not the other person you’re interested in.”
“You’ve detected my stratagem then!” she said with a giggle.
By admitting it, she was still flattering him, but he didn’t want to play the game to its ultimate level. “Home wrecker,” was all he said, with a half-smirk.
“You don’t know the half of it,” she said with a lighthearted laugh. “So, big boy, how about it?”
“What do you think?” he said, holding up his left hand and offering an expression that said that he was not a man who could be seduced.
She looked at him with fake seriousness, then an exaggerated pouty frown. “Oh, all right. This is me, anyway.” The valet had brought around a compact Aston Martin sports car. “Ta-ta, Mr. Morgan. Perhaps one day we shall meet again.”
Morgan watched as she got into her car and sped away. His Mercedes was brought around next. He tipped the valet and got into the driver’s seat. It was a few minutes before he made it back to the hotel. Once there, Morgan walked up to his room and turned on his communicator.
“Bishop, come in,” Morgan said as he shed his tuxedo.
“This is Shepard,” came the hacker’s voice. “You know Bloch is flipping out over this million-dollar shenanigan.”
“I made him feel like a winner,” said Morgan. “He’ll be riding that high all night on the casino floor while I do what I came to do. I know what these ops cost. I made a judgment call, and believe me, this was worth it. Speaking of,” he said, taking a small electronic device and inserting it into the pocket of his khakis, “Time to disable those cameras for me.”
“Stand by,” said Shepard, with an almost audible shrug. Shepard was going to use his back door into the security system to loop old video on the security cameras as Morgan made his way to Weinberg’s suite, so that there would be no record of the break-in, or even of Morgan leaving his room.
“All right,”
said Shepard. “Coast is clear and the camera feed’s been overridden. Out you go.”
Morgan walked out of his room and shut the door behind him. He made straight for the stairwell, then walked two flights up.
“Stop,” said Shepard as Morgan reached the door to the top floor. “People in the hall.” Morgan stood flat against the wall. He heard footsteps come closer, then recede. “Wait for it.... Go, now.”
Morgan opened the door to the hallway and walked down to Weinberg’s door. He inserted the key card he had made, and then placed his finger on the scanner. The LED light on the door flashed green, and the lock on the door opened. He wiped the scanner with the sleeve of his suit jacket and pulled out medical latex gloves from his inside breast pocket. He slipped them on and pulled the door open.
“All right,” said Morgan, “going in.”
“I see you, Cobra,” said Shepard.
Once in the darkened room, Morgan pulled the door behind him, closing it with a light click.
“Restoring video feed,” said Shepard. “In three . . . two . . . one . . . and we’re back. Get to it, Cobra.”
Morgan looked about the suite in the half light filtering in from the wide French doors to the balcony. It consisted of three spacious rooms. The living room was clean and neat, furnished in some sort of modern Louis XV fusion style, and to his right, wide-open French doors led to a dining area. He scanned these two rooms room for any computers, checking under furniture and in cabinets, finding none. Not that he thought it was going to be that easy. He turned a solid gilded doorknob to open heavy wooden doors that led into the bedroom, which held a wide four-poster bed of carved wood, sheer fabric draped from its canopy. Somewhere, there’d be a safe, and it would be close to Weinberg, near where he slept. He opened the closet, and found the black rectangular metal box with a keypad on its door.
“Shepard, what’s the override code on the hotel safe?”
“Hold on,” said Shepard, dragging the second word. “Four oh three nine.”
He input the code and opened the safe. It was empty. He looked through the closet, then under the bed, then in the fireplace that adorned the wall next to the doors to the balcony. “Is there any other safe in this room? Any other hiding place?”
“Let me take a look,” said Shepard. Morgan went to the desk in the other room, examining it for any hidden compartments. Then he went to the luggage, careful not to rumple any shirts, and checked for a false bottom. Nothing.
“Maybe you were wrong about the device,” said Morgan.
“I wasn’t wrong,” said Shepard. “He needs to have somewhere to keep his data.”
“Well, maybe you goddamn were wrong, Shepard,” said Morgan as he checked every inch of the bed frame, running his hands underneath it for a latch of some sort. “Maybe it’s all on his phone, or maybe—”
“Got it!” said Shepard. “The closet on the left side, farthest from the regular safe.”
“Yeah?” said Morgan. “All I see is solid wood.”
“Open the top drawer,” he said. “Feel underneath. You’ll find a latch.”
He felt the smooth wood until his fingers grazed something small and metal. “Got it!” He clicked it, and the shelf above the top drawer opened upward, revealing a hidden compartment that jutted down, unseen, into the drawer’s space, only about two feet across, one foot long, with a steel door and another keypad. The best safes weren’t the ones that were hardest to crack, but the ones nobody ever knew existed.
“Tell me you have the override code for this one too,” said Morgan.
“Of course! Can you imagine if some clown can’t get his wife’s jewels out because he forgot the combination?”
“Anytime tonight would be fine, Shepard,” Morgan insisted.
“All right, all right, hold your horses,” he said. “Okay, here goes. Five seven five three.”
Morgan punched in the numbers as Shepard spoke. On pressing the three, he heard the mechanism whirring inside, and a green light flashed.
“Bingo,” said Morgan. He pulled open the safe door. Laid out carefully inside were a number of paper documents, a pile of cashier’s checks, and a small corrugated aluminum briefcase, about the size of a tablet computer. That was what he was after. He stood the briefcase up on the compartment and examined the four-digit lock, all wheels set to zero. Morgan closed his eyes and set to work.
He pulled the latch, as if to open the suitcase, and felt the tightness of the wheels. The first from the right was tight, and the rest loose. He turned the first wheel from zero to one, and felt the others again. Still tight. He continued turning the first wheel, one number at a time, until he felt that the next wheel over had grown tight. This meant that he had found the correct number for the first. He went on to apply the same process to the second wheel, then the third. With the fourth, he tried each number one at a time until he hit the right one, and the lock swung open with a heavy click.
Morgan opened his eyes, set the briefcase on its side, and pulled it open. Inside, tucked into a neat foam frame, was a black rectangular box, just slightly bigger than a paperback, with a keypad on it. This was the external hard drive, encrypted with a code, impossible for Morgan to guess. But luckily, he had help.
Morgan drew another device, a special thumb drive that was actually about twice the size of his thumb, from his inside pocket, which he connected to the hard drive via its USB port.
The thumb drive, specially prepared by Shepard, began downloading everything on the drive. The data would still be encrypted, but encryptions could be cracked with a powerful enough computer, which would be no problem at all, as long as they had enough time to run the program. The issue was getting access to the data in the first place. And by doing it this way, they could steal it without Weinberg ever knowing it was gone.
Morgan looked around the room once more. It was still dark, the only light coming from the pool area outside, wispy curtains flying in the breeze. In about a minute, the thumb drive blinked red to indicate that the download was complete. He removed it from the USB slot, then set the drive back exactly as he had found it in the briefcase. He then set all the wheels back to zero, closed the safe and locked it with the override code.
He heard the metallic whir of the lock resetting.
“Okay, now it’s time to get the hell out of here,” he said to Shepard through his comm.
Just as he was about to turn around, he heard the click of a gun being cocked behind him. He turned, holding up his arms, the thumb drive in his right hand.
Behind him, across the bed, was a figure dressed all in black with a black hood over its face and a ski mask covering everything but the eyes. From the outline, he could see that it was a woman, lithe like a cat. She was holding a snub-nosed Ruger LCR double-action revolver in her right hand. It was a tiny gun, almost comically small. But, even if it didn’t have the stopping power of a Desert Eagle, she could stop him well enough by plugging a couple of these bullets in his chest, and she seemed to be well aware of that. With her left hand, she pointed at the thumb drive, then motioned for him to give it to her.
“You don’t want this, sweetheart,” he said. “I can get you money. However much you want. This here isn’t worth anything to you.”
“Cobra?” asked Shepard. “What the hell is going on in there?”
Morgan couldn’t answer directly, so he said to the woman, “Are you in Weinberg’s room for his money? I can give you the combination to his safe.”
She made a show of taking aim at his heart, and motioned once more for him to give her the thumb drive.
“Cobra, is someone in there with you? I’m paging Bishop as we speak, he’ll come and get you.”
Damn it, thought Morgan. All he needed was a tactical team barging into this situation. “I don’t think you’ll shoot me,” he said. “It would be a damn shame if we attracted a lot of attention to ourselves and the owner of this room found out we were here.” He hoped Shepard would take a hint.
“Do you
want me to call it off?” asked Shepard. “Use the word ‘bad’ if you do.”
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves in a bad situation here,” said Morgan.
“Okay,” said Shepard, “calling them off. They’ll be circling the hotel. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
The woman made an emphatic gesture for him to give her the thumb drive.
The bed was between them. He couldn’t rush her, not without taking three bullets to the chest. Running away was equally out of the question. Call her bluff? Dodge her bullets? Or live to fight another day?
“All right,” Morgan said. He tossed it to her, too hard, trying to get her to fumble, but she caught it like a pro, and put it into a pocket in her pants. She then took a bow and started walking backward, to the balcony door.
“Shit!” cried Shepard. “Cobra! It’s Fleischer! He’s on your floor!”
Goddamn it. Well, there was no saving this op now. “Fleischer is coming,” said Morgan to the woman. “He’s going to be in through that door any second now. Let’s get out of here, you and me, before he catches us.”
The woman stopped moving, as if startled, and trying to figure out what to do.
“It’s true,” said Morgan. “We’ve got to get out of here.” He inched closer to her. He had to get that thumb drive.
“Cobra, I’m going to deauthorize his card, but that’ll only hold him so long.”
The figure continued her inching walk toward the door to the balcony, gun trained on his chest. He inched along with her, keeping a constant distance between them. He cleared the bed, so that nothing blocked his way to her.
They both heard the sound of a card being inserted into the reader at the door, and a fumbling at the knob. The thief turned her head to look. Morgan took advantage of the distraction by dodging to the left and then rushing her. He knocked the gun out of her hand, but she avoided his tackle. The gun hit the hardwood floor with a heavy thunk and went sliding to the corner of the room.
Morgan swung a punch, and she ducked out of the way. She grabbed a poker from the fireplace and swung at him. It connected painfully with his side, strong enough to crack a rib. She swung again, this time at his head, but he grabbed it and pulled it out of her hand. She staggered forward as he did, and he got her into a half nelson. At the door, Fleischer was rattling the doorknob.
Black Skies Page 15