by Alan Lee
Chopping was her best hope. It meant the players reached an unofficial agreement beforehand to split the winnings. Without some hurricane of good fortune, she would finish in third place, not enough to buy the governor’s freedom. But if they chopped, she might have enough.
“Sure, sweetie, I’ll chop with you,” said Jen Harmon. “I’ll give you thirty percent. I just want this game to finish.”
Beck ran the math.
Harmon was saying that she would pool their total winnings and give Beck thirty percent, and Harmon would keep seventy. For Harmon, it was like insurance against bad luck.
If Harmon took first place she got fifteen million. If Beck got last—and she would—that brought their total pool to eighteen million. Thirty percent was only five and a half million. She needed more to buy the governor.
With a shaky voice, she countered. “Forty percent.”
Louis laughed and cursed at her in French, the knife twirling between his fingers.
Jen Harmon said, “No way. Thirty percent is being kind. You stink at this, babe. I’ll give you thirty-five percent, final offer, and that’s only because I like Sinatra.”
Thirty-five percent. Almost six and a half million. Cripes that was a lot of money. It might be enough to buy off the District Kings.
“I accept. And thank you.”
“You can thank me by taking out the French assassin,” said Jen with a shaky laugh.
They needed to take out Louis the butcher because if Jen Harmon didn’t get first, Benjamin Curtis was a dead man.
Beneath her feet, Beck felt the bump of a big bull shark raging against the glass, and she said a short prayer.
32
The Russians, terrible at everything, had tied Manny’s hands together in front of him, instead of behind. Providing him a slim opportunity to escape. Very slim.
The car reached the 695 bridge and accelerated into thin afternoon congestion.
Manny’s plan—reach across Varvara’s body to the driver, get his hands over the driver’s head and around his throat, and pull backwards. The plasticuffs between Manny’s wrists would act as a garrote, crushing the man’s windpipe. Done violently enough, the driver should swerve out of control instantaneously.
Manny was hoping the driver wouldn’t swerve into oncoming traffic. And hoping Anatoly couldn’t shoot him in the chest before they crashed. And hoping the guy in the front passenger seat couldn’t shoot him in the head.
A plan based on hope. Not great.
But he ran low on options. He couldn’t reach the pistol at his back.
Manny casually shifted position, situating his feet to thrust—
The driver said, “Za nami sledyat.”
We are being followed.
Anatoly pressed his pistol harder into the neck of his wife. “Daleye sleduyet? Kem?”
Followed? By who?
“YA ne znayu. Dve mashiny nazad. YA ne vizhu voditelya.”
I don’t know. Two cars back. I cannot see the driver.
“Nevozmozhno.”
Impossible.
The driver knew better than to reply.
Anatoly continued loudly, “Pozvoni v druguyu mashinu. Skazhi im—”
A roar broke the conversation, the revving of a titanic engine—a big black Ford F-150 Raptor overtook their two Jeep caravan. The truck was plated with armor, barely street legal, no tags, so massive it made their Wranglers look small. It sideswiped the rear Jeep. The smaller vehicle jostled and bucked between the guardrail and the Raptor.
Anatoly shouted and the driver swerved, watching the nightmare in the rearview.
The Raptor’s rear window lowered, revealing a gunman. Another attacker stood in the truck bed, both men wearing masks and holding M16A4 assault rifles. A haunting sight, death among the innocent.
“Oh…cripes.” Manny glared through the Raptor’s windshield. Frank the Tank drove the truck. If Black Jacket was about to open fire on the interstate, this was no rescue operation. They intended to destroy both Jeeps and disappear. “Aye, Russian! Hit the gas, hombre!”
The two M16A4s erupted, punching through windows and shredding tires in the rear Jeep. Awful noises—shattering glass, chattering gunfire, screaming rubber. The 5.56 NATO rounds met no resistance, the passenger side distorting like it was being chewed on, and the Wrangler turned hard into the guardrail. The front tire caught against a support post and the vehicle somersaulted forward. Two tons of metal, flipping violently end over end, bumper over bumper.
The traffic on the 695 bridge accelerated, fleeing carnage. Anatoly’s driver punched the gas and their Jeep jumped ahead.
Varvara screaming.
Anatoly shouting. The man in front of Manny had his gun out and buzzed down the window. Air and noise rushing in.
The Raptor in hot pursuit.
Anataoly cursed at Manny. Over Varvara, Manny called back, “These aren’t the police, Russia! You pissed off the American mob and now you got a war.” He twisted to expose his back to Varvara. “A gun in my belt. Grab it.”
“No I do not shoot!”
“Get my gun, or you and I are dead, Varvara.”
Manny felt the pressure of the pistol disappear from his spine. He risked a glance out the window, saw the men with assault rifles reloaded and aiming.
“Down!” He grabbed Varvara and pulled her head into his lap, then bent over her.
Guy in the front seat rattled off shots with his pistol, bullets ricocheting harmlessly off Frank’s window.
The men with M16s fired. Sounded like the world breaking. The Jeep’s windows disintegrated, doors thudding, metal groaning. The man in front of Manny, shooting his pistol—he was destroyed, his face fragmenting, then the rest of his skull, Manny’s window splashed with crimson. The Raptor swiped at them but the Jeep still had four tires and their driver accelerated and Tank missed.
Manny pushed Varvara up. Held out his wrists. “Shoot my cuffs with the pistol. Between my hands.”
“I cannot!” she screamed.
“You must.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Like this. Hold it here. Push against the plastic. Now squeeze the—”
She squeezed and the pistol fired, further damaging their ears. The fumes and powder scalded Manny’s wrists but the plastic broke—Manny was free.
“Kill them!” Anatoly screamed at him. “Kill them all!”
The Raptor caught them and the M16s launched another salvo. Manny held Varvara down. The hail of 5.56 NATO bullets ripped through the Jeep, demolishing plastic, hammering the steel cage. The front windshield splintered, partially caving in. Anatoly took a round through the fleshy part of his left arm, and another nicked his shoulder.
The Jeep had a detachable hardtop, and the M16s broke the fasteners. The oncoming rush of air through the broken windshield and windows filled the hardtop and it lifted off like a parachute. The canopy raised and twirled and disappeared over the bridge.
“What do we do?” screamed Varvara.
“Jump for the truck.”
“No!”
“They aren’t trying to kill us, they’re trying to kill the Russians. We land on their truck, we’re safe.”
“No, American bastard! Coward!” Anatoly tried to shoot Manny but he was injured, bleeding, moving slow, and Manny took his gun away. Simple. Manny also snatched his phone from Anatoly. Shoved it into his pants.
“I’m jumping,” he told Varvara over the howling rush of air and engine. “Coming?”
“Look!”
She pointed. Manny turned.
Tank’s men had run out of assault rifle ammunition. The man in the back lofted a rocket launcher instead. A small tube on his shoulder. The truck bounced and he took a moment to steady himself against the cab’s roof.
“American bastards,” mumbled Manny. “Up, up, we gotta jump!”
“Jump where?”
He stood and grabbed at Varvara. She resisted. He got arms around her chest and hauled her to her feet; she balanced
uneasily in her heels on the seat in the wind.
“We jump! For the truck!” he shouted into her ear. Probably wouldn’t make it. Landing on the blacktop going seventy would kill them or put them in the hospital. But better than the alternative. Maybe.
“No! I can’t!”
The Raptor’s driver side window rolled down. Frank the Tank laughed and called, “Told them not to shoot you, boy! But now you better get out of there.”
The man with the rocket fired. Manny guessed it was a Mk 153, launching an anti-tank RPG. The rocket detonated under the Jeep’s front tires. An eruption of heat and light. Fire spilled across the bridge. The noise was more sonic pain than sound. The nose of the Jeep shattered, the vehicle’s frame bucking upward.
Manny wanted to jump sideways onto the truck bed.
But he and Varvara were launched backward, away from the truck. Arms cartwheeling. World spinning.
A long fall in horrible slow motion frames. But his life didn’t flash before his eyes. No philosophical musings on a wasted life. No regrets.
Only accumulating rage.
They impacted at the same time, both on their backs, Manny right side up, Varvara upside down, landing on and partially caving in the windshield of Manny’s trailing Tesla.
Stunned disbelief.
Battered and bruised, but not broken, they stared at the driver’s seat—empty.
The car immediately began to decelerate.
“What is car? Magic car?” shouted Varvara. She groaned and rubbed at her spine.
Manny laughed and patted the roof. “No! It’s my car, following orders. Shadowing my phone. I’d forgotten. Gracias a Dios!”
Ahead of them, the ruined Jeep smoldered and the corpse of Varvara’s husband melted. The Raptor was gone, mission accomplished, and the police would never find them.
The Tesla came to a stop, the strange silence ringing like a bell. Manny climbed down and stretched. If his kidney hadn’t been busted before, it was now. Everything hurt. Somehow he’d held onto the pistol and he pushed it into his shoulder rig, the barrel slightly too large.
“Black Jacket guys are thorough, sí?” He helped Varvara down. She nearly fell on quaking legs. She kicked off the one shoe she had left.
“Now what?” she said and her teeth chattered.
“Back to the boat."
“No. You make joke.”
“Not a joke.” His jaw was set, eyes glaring over the bridge at the white yacht visible to the east in the coming evening. “I’m not finished yet.”
33
Louis the French butcher cackled as he pulled another pile of chips his way. The man refused to lose. Jen Harmon—the better player—and Beck watched helplessly. Both had less than half their stacks remaining.
Harmon didn’t mind the loss. She wanted the game done, she wanted to get far away from the maniacs.
Beck needed a victory.
But how? He knew when to fold, knew when Jen Harmon was bluffing, he knew when Beck was strong, he knew when to…
He knew everything. Almost as if he could see the cards.
…almost as if he could see the cards!
Behind her, Benjamin Curtis sat sweating between two armed men, henchman for the Kings. Rocky Rickard paced the room, chatting politely with the crowd. And where the devil was Oliver Wright?
She turned her attention back to Louis.
Maybe. Just maybe.
She leaned back to yawn as the dealer shuffled. Took off her glasses to rub her eyes. Slipped the glasses into her purse and nimbly removed her second pair. With the special lenses. They looked exactly the same and no one would spot any difference.
Cards slid across the table.
Beck pushed the glasses onto her nose. And nearly gasped. Orange markings sprang into her vision, glowing on the back of each card.
He was cheating!
She couldn’t make immediate sense of the orange fingerprint dots. She glanced at her cards with shaking fingers and folded. Jen Harmon’s cards had many markings; she raised and Louis immediately folded.
What could she do? How could she use this information? How was he cheating? The man wore no special glasses. And how had the markings got there? No way Rocky would be providing corrupt dealers to Louis the butcher.
Two more cards arrived. Quickly she covered them with her hands. Peeked. King Jack.
Strong cards, especially with only three players. Careful to keep them hidden, she raised.
Louis watched her, plainly irritated. He growled, “You raise me? How much?”
“You can see.”
“How much?”
“Half a million,” she said.
He shifted in his chair, glaring at her and at her hidden cards. He tried goading her into moving her hands. “How much money do you have left, American?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Count your chips. You must answer, American bitch.”
“Hey, easy,” Harmon complained.
Carefully, Beck slid her cards behind her chips so Louis couldn’t see, and she counted her stacks. “I have four million left. Four point two, actually.”
“Fine, little girl. You win this one,” he said and he tossed his cards away.
Relief flooded Beck, so strong she nearly laughed. Harmon folded too. Before surrendering her cards, Beck counted the spots on the back of each.
She slid the cards to the dealer and Louis quickly scrutinized them, nodding to himself.
The man could see the markings, even without glasses. He wore special contacts, that had to be it. But how could she prove that?
The next five hands, she cracked the code. Remarkably easy. The more dots on the card, the stronger it was. Two dots meant a two, three dots meant a three, and so forth. Not all cards had dots, but most did. He marked any card that came to him.
Okay, she told herself. So now what? Jen Harmon would still lose to him. They needed Louis gone.
She kept her cards covered and Louis grew irate as the game progressed. His knife spun so quickly he nicked himself and he slammed his hand in frustration. Beck read the back of his cards, using the information to bet or fold.
Still Harmon lost, and Beck knew no secret method to communicate with her. If a way existed, she was too new to poker to comprehend it.
The blinds increased again. Jen would be broke soon. Beck was out of time.
The dealer threw out more cards.
Beck peeked.
8 2.
Horrible, but she kept them covered.
She looked at Louis’s cards. His were even worse.
7 2.
From some forsaken reservoir of insight and trickery, a plan sprang into her mind. Sinister and high-risk. It was her turn to act. She should fold this hand, obviously. But she didn’t.
She took her hands off the cards, so Louis could read the markings, and she announced, “I call.”
Louis had been ready to fold but he inspected her cards and realized how weak she was. Even though he was weaker, he could use her weakness against her.
Or so he presumed.
He also announced, “I call.” And he winked at Beck.
Jen Harmon folded.
The flop came. Ace Queen 10.
Beck said, “I check.”
“You check,” said Louis and he chuckled. Exactly like a good villain should, thought Beck. “You check. You check check check. I do not check, American. I bet. Half a million.”
He pushed chips into the middle. Betting with bupkis.
Beck took a deep breath. She asked, “You have an Ace?”
“Maybe.”
“I have an Ace,” she lied.
Louis knew it was a lie. “You do? Good for you, bitch.”
“I call.” She pushed chips toward his and her fingers shook and it wasn’t an act.
The next card. 4.
She still had nothing. Neither did Louis.
She checked.
Louis, nearly delirious with glee, bet. He knew she had nothing, and knew
she would fold. “One million, Mademoiselle. You and your Ace should call me.”
Beck did. She called him, and now her remaining chips totaled only three million. And her cards were nothing.
But her nothing was slightly better than his.
Louis shifted slightly in his chair, an air of intensity building. This was for a significant portion of their stacks. And the American girl wouldn’t fold.
The final card. Another Ace.
Beck’s cards—Ace Ace Queen Ten Eight.
Louis’s cards—Ace Ace Queen Ten Seven.
She had won. She knew it.
Louis knew it too. But any competent player in the world should be able to get Beck to fold an 8 and a 2. Yet…she just wouldn’t. It made no sense.
It was her turn to act. She could bet or check. If she bet a lot, he’d have to fold, bewildered. If she checked, he might bet big and she’d call and win a fat pot.
But she didn’t want to win a fat pot.
She wanted to end this tournament. Right now.
She lied again. “I have an Ace.”
“Then bet with it or shut up, woman.”
“Wouldn’t it be funny if we were both bluffing?” said Beck.
“Marrant. But I am not bluffing, vous femme stupide.”
“Wouldn’t it be funny,” she said again. She began tapping her cards. “If my cards were horrible. But yours were worse?”
Louis’s eyes shifted. To Beck’s hand. To her finger. She was pressing her finger firmly into each dot. The dots only he could see…
He sucked in air.
She said, “I’m all-in, Louis.”
He erupted upward, banging against the table hard enough to topple the higher stacks of chips, shouting in French.
Smoothly she took off the glasses, dropped them into her purse, and took out the other pair. The pair without special lenses.
Rocky called for quiet. “For Christ’s sake, Louis, use English. What’s the matter?”
“The bitch cheats! La chienne triche! She sees marked cards!”
“You lost, Louis. Be an adult about it,” Beck said, using an air of infuriating calm.
“Seriously, this is ridiculous,” added Jen Harmon.
“She cheats! She sees markings!”
“Markings?” said Rocky. “You think she’s marking cards?”