by C. Forsyth
"Outstanding," X whispered, turning paler by the minute.
The song - "Bad Influence" by Pink - abruptly ended.
"Want another?" Party asked.
"You bet." X dug into the policeman's wallet for another $20.
The redhead swiveled around in his lap so that her pert round buttocks were perched on his groin. The position, fortunately, put the TV out of her line of sight.
But his face was exposed again. X could see the broad-shouldered, square-jawed Agent No. 2 just feet away. To his alarm, the fugitive saw that the lawman was turning in his direction. X leaned forward and kissed the exotic dancer between the shoulder blades, so that his face disappeared from the agent's view.
"You're sweet," she giggled.
"I love your perfume," he whispered with all the enthusiasm he could muster.
She giggled again and, as a raunchy rap tune by 50 Cent poured out of the speakers, she began to gyrate her thong-clad rump vigorously in his lap. Despite himself, X found he was swiftly growing hard for the second time that day. He disliked the feeling of losing control over his own body. He tried to fight it off, but resistance was futile, as the Borg liked to say.
"Whoa, you've got a big dick for a guy with such small hands," Party cooed appreciatively.
"Thanks - I think," he whispered in her ear, keeping his face nestled in that red mane. "You've got a really ..." he groped for the appropriate adjective, "impressive little caboose on you."
"Oh, not so little," she giggled. "Not with all the pizza I eat."
* * *
At the command center, Normand stood in a sprawling room surrounded by walls of giant video monitors, with incoming data and images flashing up on the screen from all 360 degrees.
"I'm getting a headache," he groaned. "Who designed this display? I swear to God, I'm going to have an epileptic fit in a minute."
"The IT people based it on the Bourne movies," said an aide manning one of 12 consoles.
"Remind me to ask our friends at the CIA to terminate that producer."
Traci Kingsmith pointed to one of the giant screens, filled by the face of a fat, grinning Asian man.
"We're getting human and/or electronic intel from every building and street within a two-mile perimeter. That's coming in from a strip club a half mile from the hotel. We commandeered the club's surveillance cameras and the feed is being digitally enhanced and run through the facial recognition program."
Male faces, some leering, some blank, some with eyes fluttering in passion flashed on and off the screen.
A nearby screen displayed a feed from three mini-cameras built into the penlights borne by the three agents on site and also run through the automated video analysis software. The video was much shakier and more indistinct, as the cameras probed the dark recesses of the club. Murky (and somewhat disturbing) images of breasts, thongs and dollar bills emerged and vanished into the gloom.
"Do we have live mikes in there?" Normand asked.
"Coming from the agents' communicators," Traci replied. "The system is searching for key words now."
The program analyzed complex sounds by using advanced psychoacoustic modeling (the science behind how humans distinguish and understand the meaning of sound). Cutting through even levels of ambient noise, it would not only pick out key words like "bomb" or "Allah" but even subtle vocal changes that suggested anger or fear.
An agent wearing headphones yanked them off excitedly and pointed to the computer monitor at his station.
"Mr. Normand, look. On the screen the phrase "has great artillery" was flashing in big white letters.
Normand sighed. "That's '50s slang. It means boobs. The guy must be 80."
"Three cheers for Viagra!" said Malloy, coming up behind the boss. "We've identified the cell phone Nazeer used to contact New York. We'll have the point of origin pinpointed within four minutes."
"Now that's more like it. Any word on the New York cell?"
"A team raided it 12 minutes ago. Just missed them."
Normand buried his face in his hand.
"I guess I picked the wrong week to quit cocaine."
When he removed his hand he saw that Traci was staring at him.
"It's from Airplane," he assured her.
"Yes, I know, I'm just surprised that ... never mind, sir."
* * *
In the bowels of the Pink Panther, Party was squirming to the thumping beat.
"Damn," she moaned. "It feels like a broomstick back there. Hey, are you going commando, Steve?" X remembered that he indeed hadn't had time to don any underwear and grunted in the affirmative.
She giggled again. "Naughty, naughty!"
Unexpectedly, Party bent forward at the waist, arching backward into him. Under other circumstances, X would have no objection, but now his face was exposed again - and, he observed with some dismay, Agent No. 3 was approaching.
X knew from the prominently displayed warning sign at the entrance that touching a dancer with his hands was a no-no, but risking a screech was necessary. He gently touched Party's arms and pulled her back until her shoulder blades mashed against his chest.. He buried his face in her mass of curly hair, so deep he could smell shampoo. So it wasn't a wig.
Through the red locks, X could see first the pants leg and then the whole body of the third agent. The giant of a man - who looked as if he could easily hurl X through a plate-glass window - stood stock still, slowly turning his head to survey the crowd.
Meanwhile the redhead was enthusiastically clenching her buns together.
"You're making me so goddamn horny," she claimed.
"I'm glad you enjoy your work," he gasped.
"Seriously, you're exactly my type."
He wondered what type that was - a full wallet?
Out of the corner of his eye, X saw the third agent striding straight at him. The big man was no more than four feet away when he abruptly stopped, put his finger to his earpiece and nodded. He spoke into his lapel and then, much to the identity thief's relief, he and his fellow agents retreated from the club as stealthily as they'd entered it.
Nine blocks away, the taxi carrying the bachelor-party quartet was being pulled over and surrounded by dozens of lawmen. The four occupants howled in drunken protest as they were dragged out and tossed to the ground. One of the agents roughly frisked the groom-to-be and arose brandishing the stolen cell phone.
"Where did you just come from?" the agent demanded, rolling the guy over and, shoving the muzzle of a shotgun up to the guy's nostrils. The terrified bridegroom looked at him blankly for a moment, then sputtered, "The Pink Panther."
The agent barked into a walkie talkie: "Units five and six, get back to the club, immediately. I repeat, get back to the club."
The car bearing the agents from the club, who were speeding toward the scene and had traveled four blocks, made a screeching U-turn.
Meanwhile, the dancer bounced up and down on X with gusto, like a teenybopper testing out a new pogo stick. X was biting his lower lip and fighting back the urge to climax. Fortuitously, at that moment the song wound down and the redhead looked over her shoulder expectantly. "Another dance?" she murmured.
X had held $100 in reserve.
"I want you to do something for me," he whispered.
"If you want any extras, you need to take me into a VIP room," she said with a lascivious grin. "Oh, Steve, baby, I'm really gonna rock your world."
What exactly comprised an "extra" X would never know. He waved one of the Ben Franklins in front of her greedy lime-green eyes.
"Is there another way out of here?" he asked. She hesitated, but the easy money was irresistible and she snatched it from his fingers.
"Sometimes a girl will get stalked by one of the ATMs. Y'know some loser who blows all his money on you - no offense meant - "
"None taken."
"And who falls in 'love' and wants to date you. There's a back exit in the dressing room so we can sneak out without getting hassled."
; Before surrendering his last C note - leaving the stolen wallet empty - he whispered: "And there's one more thing."
Two minutes later, just as the agents burst into the club, Party bolted to her feet and screamed at the top of her lungs, "Raid!"
Pandemonium erupted in the den of inequity, with panicked half-naked girls darting in all directions like cockroaches surprised by a kitchen light. Plastered customers stumbled to their feet, knocking over chairs. Perhaps few of them knew what a "raid" might constitute in the post-burlesque-show era - but obviously, it couldn't be a good thing.
X had already snuck into the dressing room, where a skinny blonde sat with a pair of jeans around her ankles, attempting to pull them off. She hadn't applied her makeup yet and had the despondent demeanor of a teenage runaway.
"What the hell are you doing in here?' the girl demanded, covering her bra-clad bosom with surprising modesty and showing a mouthful of braces. "You're not allowed back here, dude."
"All hell has broken loose out there," he informed her. "The place is crawling with cops. I don't know about you, but I'm getting the hell out of here."
The girl cocked her head and listened to the shouts emanating from the club, then hurriedly yanked up her jeans and began buttoning them. Maybe she was 16, maybe 17, but there was no doubt she was underage.
X charged past the dancer, flung open the door and slipped out. He looked left and right and then - resisting the urge to run - hurried down the narrow alleyway. In about 30 seconds, he knew, a dozen scantily clad babes were about to spill out of the secret exit. That might certainly tend to draw attention to the egress.
As he burned the corner, he spied a roadblock up ahead. At least 15 agents, some in suits and others in flak jackets, were sprinting full throttle in the direction of the club.
Oh darn it all, X thought, ducking back.
There was a truck parked next to a dingy pawn shop. X dropped to his belly and rolled underneath it. He could hear the clippity clop of heavy government-issue brogans headed his way. Well, end of the road, X thought. He'd had a nice run of it, but they'd ferret him out in short order.
Then he noticed it: A manhole cover. It would be only a matter of seconds before the agents reached the corner. X lurched for the manhole cover. It was heavy as lead, but an adrenaline rush gave him the strength to pry it off. He descended into the sewer and hauled the cover back over his head.
The fumes - so potent they were almost visible - were overpowering. X nearly passed out on the way down the ladder. But to retreat would mean a prison cell if not a bullet in the brain. So he pressed on, deeper and deeper into the abyss. His claustrophobia kicked in as he climbed, rung after rung, down the narrow shaft into Stygian darkness. He was perspiring profusely - unusual for a man of whom his colleagues often joked, "He's not human enough to sweat." Finally, he splashed down into a waist-deep pool of fetid, bacteria-laden wastewater.
God knows what diseases I'm going to pick up, thought X, who was normally the type to wash his hands eight to 10 times a day.
Chapter 9
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND
FBI special agent Traci Kingsmith, AKA Stacy the masseuse, sat at the conference table in the makeshift command center set up at the Giza Hotel as her superior Mark Normand pounded the conference table in fury.
"You're telling me we have satellites that can read the label on a Coke bottle, but we can't locate one man we had in our sights three hours ago," the potbellied, graying Bureau man grumbled.
"Let me explain," said an NSA specialist. He punched a button and a satellite photo showing the roof of the Pink Panther appeared on a screen at the front of the room. "When the subject exited the back entrance, he passed through a dark alley. There wasn't enough light for a good image. We're having the image enhanced as we speak.
"Las Vegas is more than 84,000 square miles - that's a lot of ground to cover, even with the manpower at our disposal."
The multiagency taskforce working on the manhunt also included the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, in addition to at least four outfits Traci had never heard of. "Swimming in alphabet soup" is how one of her colleagues termed such sessions.
"Un-fucking believable," fumed Normand, who headed the task force.
Traci saw an opening and took it.
"Maybe that's our problem. Maybe he's not above ground."
"Are you suggesting that he's in the sewer?" said the CIA man dubiously. "Like in The Fugitive?"
"I didn't kill my wife," joked red-haired FBI agent Malloy, quoting Harrison Ford.
"I don't care," the Defense Intelligence Agency rep quoted Tommy Lee Jones.
Everyone laughed.
The female agent pulled out a chart from her carrying case and expanded on her theory.
"It's technically a storm drain system," she said. "There are more than 350 miles of flood channels under the city. And it's largely habitable, although I wouldn't want to build a summer house down there. According to some estimates, as many as 700 'tunnel people' call it home."
A tall woman, close to six feet, with a rapid, clipped manner of speaking, Traci was a graduate of Rutgers, cum laude, and her research skills had been among the attributes that had impressed Bureau recruiters. Traci was fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Arabic and Pashto. The first four of these she had actually learned before she entered college.
Her parents were of modest means. Her father was an Episcopal minister who'd served 20 years as a missionary in China and her mom was a school librarian. They were firm believers in education as a means to climb the social ladder. From the age of five, her father introduced her to foreign languages through books and audio tapes. And beginning with Spanish, she learned one every two years.
She was brilliant enough that the burdensome Rutgers tuition was paid for by a basketball scholarship. Traci was a gifted athlete and continued to maintain a state of fitness through running, weight training and kickboxing. Traci was a black belt in kung fu - one of the reasons she was so furious she'd allowed herself to be overcome by the relatively shrimpy Ali Nazeer. She was justly proud of her figure, her long, lean legs and high, taut buttocks.
Yet, truth be told, the agent had not had a date in eight months nor sex in a year. She was, as her friends put it, "very, very picky." To be considered boyfriend material, the suitor had to be African-American, a church-goer, exceed her height (5 feet 10 1/2 inches to be exact) and have an income exceeding her own.
Some potential boyfriends were intimidated. Though some would, in a gentlemanly manner, retreat from the field saying, "You're too good for me," the fact was men tended to find her brittle and high-strung.
Traci pointed to the map. "If he's down there, he could go beneath our perimeter and reach Lake Mead in a matter of hours."
An agent appeared in the doorway. "The computer-enhanced image of the alley is back, sir. It shows the subject approaching this dark truck, and going under it."
"The truck was searched, wasn't it?"
"Our men went through it with a fine-toothed comb," confirmed the representative from Homeland Security.
"Call up the image of the alley as it looks now," said Traci. Normand nodded and up popped an enlarged image of the alley on the conference room screen.
"Here is the alley with the truck gone," she said.
Where the truck had been, only a manhole and a flattened soda can remained.
Normand swiveled his chair slowly until he faced Mr. Homeland Security.
"No one noticed that there was a goddamned MANHOLE COVER at the scene?" he growled. "Did it need a big orange 'Down here' arrow on it?"
The Homeland Security man looked as if he wanted to pull a vanishing act himself. Traci gave herself the pleasure of flashing a quick, smug smile. Then she came to his rescue.
"There was a lot of confusion at the scene," Traci said. "In that kind of pandemonium ... "
"That's nice. Bring me the heads of the clowns who searched the truck," snap
ped Normand. He addressed Traci, to her delight. "So we send a party down there."
"I would suggest 10 eight-man teams,' Traci said.
At the far end of the table, a white-bearded man who'd been introduced only as Mr. Jones puffed thoughtfully on a pipe. Exactly what organization he worked for was something of a mystery. Traci had been told "That information is strictly need to know."
"It's vital that he be taken alive," Mr. Jones declared. "The information he has about terrorist networks - the Jihadist Brotherhood and the Warriors of Allah in particular - is invaluable."
Normand nodded. "Understood."
Traci cleared her throat. "Sir, I want to lead the search team."
Her boss hesitated.
"After what happened I think I'm owed a little payback," she said.
Traci was certain she heard a low snicker from her colleague Malloy but ignored it.
Normand pounded the table. "It's your show. Let's roll."
Traci shot out of her seat. As the crowd poured out of the room, Agent Malloy whispered to her, "Your feminine wiles came through again. This is going to be a real feather in your cap - if you catch the guy."
Traci usually ignored the redhead but couldn't resist saying, "By the way, Malloy, I thought you told me your sister was an ophthalmologist. Don't forget to get her out of lockup when her interrogation is over. She'll get cold in that G-string."
Malloy stood there, trying to think of a comeback, but by the time he did the room was clear.
* * *
X hadn't the vaguest clue where he was. The tunnel, about eight feet high and five feet wide, was as dark as the inside of a womb. His hands groped the sides of the tunnel and found them slick with slimy algae. He recoiled in disgust but he forced himself to slide along them for support, for to fall into that foul water was unthinkable.
He sloshed through the now knee-deep water, through which floated plastic bags, Styrofoam cups and crushed beer cans. It was like wading through the digestive tract of some garbage-eating sci-fi monstrosity.